Boris Johnson news: Corbyn urges Tory MPs to help block no-deal Brexit after opposition leaders agree plan at crunch meeting
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Jeremy Corbyn and other opposition leaders have agreed to try to stop a no-deal Brexit through legislation after efforts to install a caretaker prime minister floundered.
Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer has said it was time to “put aside fantasy politics” and find a strategy to enact “straight away” when parliament returns.
It comes as Boris Johnson prepares to create half a dozen new pro-Brexit peers to redress perceived Remain bias in the House of Lords.
The PM is sending his “sherpa” David Frost to Brussels this week to try to negotiate an alternative to the backstop with the EU.
Mr Johnson also told Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, that Britain will leave without a deal unless the backstop is “abolished”.
This is the full text of Jeremy Corbyn's letter to MPs, urging them to work with Labour to stop the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal:
Here's Tom Peck's sketch on Nigel Farage's return into the Brexit fray:
Good morning and welcome to The Independent's live coverage of events at Westminster and beyond, as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn prepares to host opposition leaders at a strategy session to discuss ways to stop a no-deal Brexit.
Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer has said it was time to “put aside fantasy politics” and find a strategy to enact “straight away” when parliament returns next week.
“Let’s put aside the fantasy politics,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“We need something with bite, we need something effective, and we need to act straight away when parliament comes back. I want to see the most effective action.”
Starmer also claimed Labour would campaign for Remain in any second Brexit referendum – despite Jeremy Corbyn’s equivocal remarks about a referendum in which he would want to a “credible” Brexit option on the ballot paper.
“Jeremy Corbyn has very clearly said there must be a referendum and we would campaign for Remain,” Starmer claimed.
Boris Johnson wants to create a swathe of new pro-Brexit peers to redress what he sees as an anti-Leave imbalance in the House of Lords.
Here’s more on the so-called “Brexit heroes”.
Green MP Caroline Lucas – attending Jeremy Corbyn’s tactics session later this morning – has said opposition MPs “will not be bullied”.
Writing exclusively for The Independent, Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to do “everything necessary” to stop no deal and called on other opposition parties to establish a “good working arrangement” at this morning’s strategy meeting.
Read his piece here:
Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson said she is “not precious” about who a caretaker prime minister would be following a successful vote of no confidence. But she has also reiterated that she does not believe Jeremy Corbyn is the right choice.
“If there are others, I am open to hearing others,” she told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme. “Anybody that could command a majority in the House of Commons to avoid us crashing out without a deal if the legislative approach, which I think is the strongest and best way forward, if that doesn’t work.”
She added: “(Jeremy Corbyn) knows he doesn’t have the numbers, he says he’s serious about wanting to stop no-deal, and, taking him at his word, I presume that means that he would be prepared to put forward that vote of no confidence and then, if we are in that scenario of having an emergency government, unite behind somebody who can command support right across the House.
“He might have suggestions for who that person could be and it could be a senior Labour politician at the end of their career who doesn’t have that long-term ambition of being prime minister because I think the House if more likely to support someone in that emergency scenario than somebody who actually wants to be prime minister and is currently leading a political party.”
Asked on Radio 4’s Today programme if she would back Jeremy Corbyn as caretaker PM if he committed to backing Remain in a second referendum, the Lib Dem leader said: “I don’t see that happening.”
Shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti has prepared legal advice prepared for the Labour leadership on the suspension of parliament.
It claims that Boris Johnson would be committing the “gravest abuse of power and attack on UK constitutional principle in living memory” if he shut down parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit.
The party’s shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer was asked about the legality of proroguing parliament earlier this morning.
“It’s completely unacceptable - I think it would be unlawful ... You are not supposed to use the power to prorogue to suspend parliament.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury has been criticised after it was reported he would chair a series of public meetings aimed at avoiding a no-deal Brexit.
The Most Rev Justin Welby is in talks to chair citizens’ assemblies at Coventry Cathedral next month, according to The Times.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith isn’t happy about the idea. “I generally don’t criticise the archbishop but he shouldn’t allow himself to be tempted into what is essentially a very political issue right now,” he told the newspaper.
Mark Francois, the vice-chairman of the European Research Group (ERG), doesn’t like it either and says people who voted to Leave will be upset.
The staunch Brexiteer said: “I suspect they will not be overjoyed by having it rubbed in by the Archbishop of Canterbury to boot.”
Lambeth Palace has not responded.
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