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”.
Richard Tice – the chairman of the Brexit Party – has called the opposition MPs trying to stop a no-deal exit “cowards”.
“MPs twice, when they voted to serve Article 50 back in 2017 and when they voted the Withdrawal Act to be given Royal Assent, they voted to leave on 29th March with or without a deal,” Tice told LBC.
“Twice MPs have voted for it and then for some inexplicable reason, when it came near to the date, they then bottled it like a bunch of cowards.”
Our correspondent Benjamin Kentish has more on the legal advice put together by the shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti on the proroguing of parliament.
She believes any attempt by the prime minister to shut down parliament next month would be open to legal challenges.
The culture secretary Nicky Morgan has she did not think the suspension of parliament to pursue a no-deal Brexit was “on the cards”.
“I don’t think it will be necessary because I think, as the prime minister rightly has said, actually the role for parliamentarians now is to support the vote from 2016,” she said.
“Downing Street have made it very clear that claims of any sort of prorogation in September are utterly false and we are working very hard as a government to prepare for no-deal ... The prime minister has said he’s not attracted to these sorts of archaic conventions.”
Asked if she would resign in such an event, she added: “I’m not planning the ending of my cabinet career at this moment in time, because I like the rest of the cabinet am working very hard, both to support the government in its efforts to find a deal, but also to prepare for a no-deal if that is what ultimately has to happen.”
Tory MP Rory Stewart is back from his summer holidays.
The former leadership contender has not ruled out any future bid to head his party, but he has said his intention to vote against a no-deal Brexit will mark him as a “traitor” in the eyes of some members.
“What I’m about to do, which is to go back and vote against a no-deal Brexit, will mark me in the eyes of many of my colleagues and many party members as a traitor who has been trying to undermine the whole project. That will probably damage me for five or 10 years.
“So the question is one I have to think about very seriously. I’m 46 now and I have to think about the next 25 years of my life - how can I be most useful, what can I actually do for this country - and it may be that certainly the next 15, 20 years of my life trying to be prime minister may not be the most useful contribution I can make.”
The MP said the idea of leadership had become about “fairy tales” and the leader “the person that can produce the most absurd and extravagant fairy tale”.
Parliament is not the only place of bitter divides. The latest YouGov poll has found that 11 per cent of Remainers would describe themselves as “very upset” if their offspring tied the knot with a Brexiteer, while another 28 per cent said they would be “somewhat upset”.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford – expected to attend today’s strategy session of opposition MPs – has been talking bullishly about the next steps forward in parliament.
“You might remember there was a vote in parliament just before the summer recess, a majority of 41 against prorogation. That in a sense … is the kind of majority, at least the kind of majority that we can have to stop no deal.”
Ministers have known for years that the HS2 high-speed rail project was over budget and behind schedule, new documents have revealed.
According to the BBC, a 2016 letter from then transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin to then chancellor George Osborne showed costs had spiralled £1bn over budget.
Only last month the current transport secretary Nusrat Ghani claimed: “There is only one budget for HS2 and it is £55.7bn.”
Boris Johnson has said he is “marginally more optimistic” of a new Brexit deal after his G7 appearance and meetings with European leaders.
He will sent his “sherpa” David Frost, No 10’s chief Brexit to Brussels tomorrow to begin negotiating an alternative to the Irish backstop, according to The Daily Telegraph.
“Against our first impressions, [Johnson] wants a deal. He has personally moved the dial,” a senior European diplomat told The Times.
The problem? The EU wants “operational, realistic and acceptable” alternative to the backstop from the UK.
Jo Swinson is heading off to meet Jeremy Corbyn very soon. But the Lib Dem leader doesn’t sound like she’s becoming any more keen to have him as caretaker PM.
“Jeremy Corbyn is not going to be that person who can command that support right across the House of Commons – and I think in his heart of hearts he probably knows that.”
The independent MP Nick Boles is not expected to attend today’s strategy session of opposition parliamentarians. The former Tory MP said he will vote for a new Brexit deal – if Boris Johnson can get one.
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