UK politics - as it happened: Theresa May told to put Brexit plan 'out of its misery' as government forced on to defensive
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Theresa May‘s main Brexit adviser has been told to put the Chequers plan “out of its misery”.
Olly Robbins was answering questions from the Commons EU Liaison Committee alongside Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary.
Earlier, Ms May and Jeremy Corbyn clashed over Brexit and antisemitism as MPs returned to the Commons for the first Prime Minister’s Questions since the summer recess.
The prime minister was ribbed by the Labour leader over her well-documented dancing during a trip to Africa last week, as Mr Corbyn sought to highlight the government’s preparations for Brexit and divisions within the cabinet.
Ms May, meanwhile, said the opposition leader should apologise for a speech – footage of which emerged last week – in which he suggested Zionists in the UK “don’t understand English irony”. She also criticised Labour’s handling of its antisemitism crisis, after the party adopted the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definitions.
Afterwards, she updated MPs on the Salisbury novichok investigation, announcing that the two suspects are believed to be part of Russia’s GRU military intelligence.
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Welcome to The Independent's live coverage from Westminster as MPs return for the first full day of Parliament after the summer break.
Sir Mervyn King, the former governor of the Bank of England, has criticised the government's "incompetent" Brexit preparations.
Lord King said a no-deal Brexit could produce "catastrophic outcomes".
"Frankly, if a government cannot take action to prevent some of these catastrophic outcomes, whatever position you take on the EU, it illustrates a whole lack of preparation."
"It doesn't tell us anything about whether the policy of staying in the EU is good or bad, it tells us everything about the incompetence of the preparation for it.
Asked if he was suggesting the government had been incompetent, he said:
"The group of people tasked with trying to make decisions on all of this is Parliament as a whole, not just the government, and the civil service, who have brought us to a position where we are now being told that we have to accept a certain course of action otherwise it would be catastrophic.
"Now, it beggars belief that the sixth biggest economy in the world should get itself into that position."
Labour's antisemitism row is rumbling on, despite the party's ruling executive agreeing to adopt the full version of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.
Jeremy Corbyn has been criticised after it emerged that he told the National Executive Committee (NEC) it should not be considered antisemitic to describe the creation of Israel as "racist".
But Shami Chakrabarti, the shadow attorney general and previously the author of a report on antisemitism in Labour, defended her party leader.
Asked if she agreed that it was legitimate to describe Israel as racist, she told the Today programme:
"It depends how you do it. People have called Britain racist....There has to be a space for disagreement in a reasonable way, otherwise we cannot move forward around one of the biggest geopolitical problems of my lifetime. There has to be space for debate in a non-racist way."
Chakrabarti also said Corbyn's claims that British Zionists "don't understand British irony" had been "misquoted, misrepresented and spun". She dismissed comments made by Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi, that compared Corbyn to Enoc Powell.
The government has confirmed that Theresa May's statement today is on the Salisbury novichok attack, as many suspected it would be.
It seems likely that the prime minister will deliver an update on the investigation into who was responsible for poisoning Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Could she name the individuals investigators believe were responsible? We'll find out at 12.45pm.
BREAKING: As we suspected they might, British authorities have decided to name the people they believe were behind the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. They are two Russian nationals who used the alises Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. More as we get it...
The first session of PMQs after the summer break will get underway at midday. Here's the list of MPs who have been drawn to put questions to Theresa May...
A new poll suggests Labour has opened up a four-point lead over the Conservatives, despite concerns over antisemitism in the party
PMQs will get underway very shortly, ahead of Theresa May's statement on the Salisbury poisoning.
First up, Labour's Tulip Siddiq asks about the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, urging May to raise the issue when she next speakers to President Rouhani or Iran.
May says she "regularly" raises it with Rouhani whenever she speaks to him and that Foreign Office ministers are also discussing the matter with their Iranian counterparts.
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