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Brexit: Boris Johnson to address MPs as minister brands parliament 'dead' with 'no moral right to sit' – live news Brexit: defiant Boris Johnson challenges Labour to table vote of no confidence – live news
(32 minutes later)
Corbyn says he has some questions for Johnson.
Does Johnson think the government got it wrong, or does he agree with Jacob Rees-Mogg that the supreme court committed a “constitutional coup”.
Can Johnson confirm that he will abide by the terms of the Benn Act?
Jeremy Corbyn is responding to Johnson now.
He says Johnson’s statement was similar to what the supreme court said about prorogation - “null, of no effect, and should be quashed”.
He says this is an extraordinary and precarious moment in this country’s history.
The highest court in the land found that the PM broke the law, he says.
He says the judges concluded there was no reason, let alone a good reason, for the PM to have shut down parliament.
He says Johnson should have done the right thing and resigned afterwards.
But instead he is here, with no shred of humility and no substance either.
Johnson says Labour has until the house rises today to table a motion of no confidence. If it does that, it can have the vote tomorrow.
And he uses the line flagged up earlier about being willing to make the time for a confidence vote if the other opposition parties want to table a no confidence motion.
Johnson ends by saying it is time to get Brexit done.
He wants to deal with the people’s priorities, like the NHS.
He says parliament decided to hold this referendum. It should either get this done or face the voters.
Johnson says the opposition parties had a remedy at their disposal.
He says the opposition parties could have voted for an election.
In Brighton Labour members demanded one - even though they twice voted against it.
He says Jeremy Corbyn keeps changing his mind. He does not know whether John McDonnell has forced him to change his mind.
He asks if Corbyn will vote no confidence in Johnson as PM.
He asks if Corbyn even wants to be PM.
He says Corbyn wants him to go to Brussels on 17 October to negotiate a delay. But Corbyn won’t go himself. And even if he did want to go, his colleagues would not let him, because they don’t want him negotiating for Britain with people like Vladimir Putin.
Johnson says some MPs have been going to the courts to block Brexit.
He says it is no disrespect to say that while he respects the supreme court, he thinks its decision was wrong.
He says decisions about prorogation are political matters.
He says the Labour party is determined to say it knows best, and to thumb its noses at the people.
Jeremy Corbyn and his party do not trust the people, he says.
He says they do not care about the extra cost of staying in.
And they do not care about Brexit being delayed for months, he says.
He says he wants to move up a gear. But Labour wants to put on the handbrake.
He says he will not betray the people.
Johnson says he wants to show the public there is “life after Brexit”.
That is why he wants a Queen’s speech, so he can show his domestic programme.
Johnson says the opposition parties are promising a second referendum.
But the idea that there could be a second referendum, with people respecting the result, is a fantasy, he says.
He says the public do not want a second referendum. They want the first one honoured, he says.
Boris Johnson is making his statement now.
He says the British people just want Brexit done.
He says he has been making progress in the Brexit talks with the EU.
In his speech to the Labour conference yesterday Jeremy Corbyn accused Boris Johnson of planning to send troops to Saudia Arabia. He told delegates:
It really beggars belief that this week Boris Johnson is openly talking about sending troops to Saudi Arabia as part of the increasingly dangerous confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in an apparent bid to appease Donald Trump. Have we learned nothing?
In the Commons a few minutes ago, in a statement on Iran, Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, repeated the same point, saying that Johnson was “openly talking about sending troops to Saudia Arabia in an apparent bid to please Donald Trump”. She asked for an assurance that, if troops were going to be sent to the Gulf for military action, that the Commons would get a vote.
Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, claimed that there were no such plans. Responding to Thornberry, he said:
[Thornberry] talked whether the UK would be sending troops to Saudia Arabia. There has been no suggestion of that at all. It is simply wrong for her to say it. What has been said is that the US is sending troops to Saudi Arabia to make sure that Saudi can protect itself from further attacks, or repeats of the attacks Aramco.
We have said that we would consider a request that we’ve received for support in relation to air defences. That is something that we will consider. But we are absolutely clear that our over-arching strategic objective is deescalation, reducing tensions. And we want to see Iran come in from out of the international cold. But we need to be absolutely unwavering and clear in our resolve that the only way that will happen is if Iran steps up and starts to meet its responsibilities.
The suggestion that the UK was considering sending troops to Saudia Arabia, emerged from what Boris Johnson said when he spoke to reporters on his flight to New York recently, although the headlines about troops being despatched (see here and here) did not necessarily match what was actually being proposed.
According to a leak of what Boris Johnson is due to say in his statement to MPs shortly, he will challenge the opposition parties to table a motion of no confidence in the government. This is from the Press & Journal’s Dan O’Donoghue.
NEW: Boris Johnson will tonight allow opposition MPs to table a confidence vote in his Government...excerpt from his Commons statement due shortly pic.twitter.com/QjTnrgAEJ2
Under current parliamentary rules only a motion of no confidence tabled by the leader of the opposition has to be debated. Jeremy Corbyn says he will only do that when he is sure he can win, and when he has absolutely guaranteed that there will not be a no-deal Brexit on 31 October.
Johnson seems to be planning to say that, if the Lib Dems or the SNP tabled a no confidence motion, he would make time for it to be debated. But all the opposition parties are agreed at the moment that they want an absolute guarantee that there will not be a no-deal Brexit first.
My colleague Heather Stewart has more on the plans for a vote tomorrow on a mini-recess to allow Tory MPs to attend their party conference in Manchester.My colleague Heather Stewart has more on the plans for a vote tomorrow on a mini-recess to allow Tory MPs to attend their party conference in Manchester.
NEW: Labour now expecting government to table a motion tomorrow morning seeking a three-day conference recess.Government rejected Labour's offer to debate uncontentious bills next week, so that conference could proceed without a recess being called.NEW: Labour now expecting government to table a motion tomorrow morning seeking a three-day conference recess.Government rejected Labour's offer to debate uncontentious bills next week, so that conference could proceed without a recess being called.
From the BBC’s Nick Eardley
Understand some senior opposition MPs are considering backing general election bill conditional on Brexit extension happening in the coming days.They hope PM might bite. Sounds like a long shot but oppo figures actively discussing ways to make election happen soon.
John Bercow, the Speaker, has just confirmed that he wants Boris Johnson’s statement to MPs to start at 6.30pm.
This is from Sky’s Aubrey Allegretti. He says Labour MPs have been told to expect a vote on a conference recess tomorrow.
Labour whips text all MPs telling them they expect government tomorrow to try and put parliament into recess. pic.twitter.com/NdQbMNzPY3
The Tories want to go ahead with a recess so that they can hold their party conference in Manchester. Jeremy Corbyn said this morning that Labour was not in favour of agreeing a recess motion, although Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, suggested the party might offer some flexibility. See 9.46am. According to the FT’s Jim Pickard, Labour suggested that one compromise might be for the Commons to sit next week, but with no contentious legislation scheduled for early in the week. The government does not seem to have accepted the offer.
My colleague Gwyn Topham has a wonderful story on the Grant Shapps Thomas Cook statement earlier. This is how it starts.
If there was a previous transport secretary that the incumbent, Grant Shapps, might hope not to imitate, it would surely be his notoriously calamity-stricken predecessor Chris Grayling.
But just a few months after his return to cabinet after several years out in the cold, Shapps appears to have followed Grayling’s example rather too closely – lifting sections of his speech to the House of Commons on the collapse of Thomas Cook from Grayling’s equivalent statement when Monarch Airlines went bust in 2017.
At the beginning of his statement, Shapps appears to have followed Grayling’s text almost to the letter, simply substituting Thomas Cook for Monarch and adjusting numbers. “With your permission, I would like to make a statement about the steps the government have been taking to support those affected by the collapse of
Monarch Airlines,
Thomas Cook, in particular the
110,000
150,000 passengers left abroad without a flight back to the UK and the almost
2,000
9,000 people who have lost their jobs.”
And here is the full story.
Grant Shapps lifts sections of speech from Chris Grayling
From the Daily Mirror’s Pippa Crerar
NEW: Boris Johnson has just arrived at the House of Commons. His motorcade came in an alternative entrance to avoid protesters at the main gates.
In the Commons Labour’s Justin Madders asks Gove if he has any plans to use the Civil Contingencies Act in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Gove says he has no plans to use it.
His statement is now over. John Bercow, the Speaker, says 87 backbenchers were able to ask questions.
The Gove statement is still going on – although the length of the statement is in inverse proportion to the quantity of information being revealed. Gove is doing a very professional job of sidestepping the awkward questions.
We have got a statement on Iran from the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to come next. All this means that it will probably be 6.30pm at the earliest before Boris Johnson starts his statement.
In response to a question from the independent MP John Woodcock, Gove says it is impossible to tell if the food bill for an average low-income family will go up or down after Brexit.
Antoinette Sandbach, the former Tory now sitting as an independent, asks Gove if the government will now publish all version of the Operation Yellowhammer documents, as it is supposed to under the terms of the “humble address” motion.
Gove does not give that commitment. He just says the government is publishing a lot of detail about its no-deal planning.