Theresa May threatens 'no Brexit at all' as senior Tories put new referendum on table
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Theresa May has urged MPs to back her plans or face the prospect of "no Brexit at all" before heading to Brussels for talks with Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission.
Tory MPs lined up to demand the prime minister renegotiate parts of her Brexit deal during a fiery prime minister's questions session, where Ms May sought to sell the plan to her divided party.
Earlier, senior Tories including Amber Rudd and Damian Collins opened the door to a new referendum, as the prime ministers hopes of securing a parliamentary majority appeared to fade.
It also comes amid suggestions from Brussels that a summit to sign off on the draft withdrawal agreement on Sunday could be called off unless progress is made on finalising a political declaration on future relations.
If you want to follow events as they happened, see our live coverage below
Michael Gove, the environment secretary, has attracted much mockery on social media for apparently taking part in a quiz to find his Game of Thrones 'soulmate'.
Spain’s prime minister has doubled down and warned his country will reject the Brexit agreement negotiated by Theresa May, unless it is given concessions on Gibraltar.
Pedro Sanchez said his government needed assurances that the deal does not apply to the British Iberian territory, which Spain claims sovereignty over.
More here:
A Labour frontbencher has set himself at odds with the party's official position by calling for a fresh EU referendum as he dismissed a general election as "not possible" without Conservative MPs' support.
The comments from Steve Reed - a shadow culture minister - come just days after Jeremy Corbyn resisted calls to throw his party's weight behind a second vote, saying a referendum could be an option "for the future" but "not an option for today".
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Registrars need greater training and powers to spot signs if a person does not have the mental capacity to marry, MPs heard.
Labour MP Fabian Hamilton called on ministers to close the "marriage loopholes" which saw one of his constituents, who suffered with dementia, able to marry a man 20 years her junior without her family's knowledge.
The Leeds North East MP said more "robust procedures" were needed to protect the vulnerable and said "smiling at the time" of the marriage did not always mean consent had been given.
Mr Hamilton told MPs he was moved to bring in his bill, via a 10 minute rule motion, after hearing a story he could "hardly believe was possible in modern Britain" from constituent Daphne Franks.
Ms Franks told him her 91-year-old mother Joan Blass had married a man more than 20 years her junior, despite having advanced vascular dementia, just a year before her death.
Her will was therefore void and her husband automatically inherited her assets.
Mr Hamilton said: "When her daughter saw her shortly after her death she was still wearing her first husband's wedding ring, but it was three days after her mother's death that Daphne discovered that she had been married in a civil ceremony at Leeds Town Hall.
"Members of this House may imagine what a shock this discovery was to Daphne, her brother and to the rest of Joan's family."
Mr Hamilton told how the family spent £200,000 on legal fees trying to annul the marriage, but the "sadly deficient" marriage laws in this area prevented any success, he said.
He said: "It's not good enough for a registrar simply to say that because one of the participants in the marriage ceremony was smiling at the time, that meant consent was happily given."
The bill will have its second reading on January 25 but is unlikely to become law in its current form without government support.
An emergency summit in Brussels may not go ahead if the final part of the Brexit deal isn’t completed by Thursday morning, according to reports.
Bloomberg has set hares running by raising doubts over the prospect of a "seal the deal summit" pencilled in for Sunday, where EU leaders were expected to rubberstamp Theresa May's plan.
If MPs really want a Final Say referendum on Brexit they need to stop calling for one – and this is why, according to Andrew Grice.
Read his column here:
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has some stern words for the UAE on the case of Matthew Hedges, the 31-year-old Briton who has been sentenced to life in prison on spying charges.
Negotiators have just 24 hours left to resolve outstanding issues with the Brexit deal if a summit on Sunday is to go ahead, Brussels has warned.
A senior EU official said on Wednesday that time was running out to produce a final text in time for the planned summit, with last-minute concerns around fishing rights and Gibraltar threatening to sink the plan.
More here from our Europe correspondent Jon Stone:
That's it for the politics liveblog for the day. Thanks for following!
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