Brexit news - Live: EU chief says David Cameron stopped him getting involved in referendum, as Theresa May faces fresh pressure to resign ahead of Tory meeting
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Jean-Claude Juncker has said he made a "mistake" in not intervening to challenge the "lies" told by anti-EU campaigners during the 2016 Brexit referendum.
The president of the European Commission said he had agreed to a request by then UK prime minister David Cameron not to get involved in the debate.
His admission came as Theresa May met with Sir Graham Brady, the leader of the influential 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs, amid growing calls for the prime minister to resign.
Sir Graham was expected to warn Ms May that she must lay out a timetable for her departure or face further efforts to oust her.
As it happened...
Elsewhere, talks between the government and Labour to break the Brexit stalemate resumed this afternoon, with shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer saying they had reached "crunch time". Some Tory MPs have warned Ms May that any move towards Labour’s demand for a post-Brexit customs union with the EU would spur the Conservative Party to force her out “very quickly”.
However, foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt called on the prime minister and the Labour Party to reach a compromise after both main parties lost ground in the local elections in England.
The Tories lost over 1,300 seats, while Labour lost 82. Jeremy Corbyn’s party had expected to make gains but voters turned to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens in an apparent backlash against the Tories and Labour over Brexit.
Good morning and welcome to The Independent's live blog.
This morning Theresa May is meeting the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady. Thee meeting comes as Tory MPs have expressed their frustration with Ms May's cross party talks with Labour over Brexit.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that all sides in the cross-party Brexit talks between the Government and Labour need to be willing to compromise.
Mr Hunt said that after both main parties lost ground in the local elections in England, it was a "crucial week" coming up for the Brexit negotiations.
However, he said that he did not believe a permanent customs union with the EU - supported by Labour - offered a "sustainable, long-term solution" to the current impasse.
"I think this is a time when we have to be willing to make compromises on all sides because the message of last week was that voters for both main parties are very, very angry about the fact that Brexit hasn't been delivered," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"I personally think that any kind of permanent customs union wouldn't work in the long run because our economy is too big, but let's see what the parties come up with."
Theresa May’s meeting with Sir Graham Brady today comes after the 1922 Committee requested "clarity" about the Prime Minister's timetable for standing down and triggering a leadership contest.
Meanwhile, senior Tory activists will consider the question of Ms May's leadership at an emergency meeting of association chairmen next month.
A revolt against Ms May could become more likely if talks with Labour result in a Brexit compromise which would be unacceptable to Tory Eurosceptics.
Chancellor Philip Hammond, who is in Paris for a meeting of finance ministers, has spoken of the importance of enabling easy trade with the European Union after Brexit.
He said: "The most important thing is that we put in place arrangements which allow us to have as low-friction trade as possible between the UK and the European Union after we have left the EU.
"Of course we should talk to the Labour Party about how to do that."
He played down talks of the Tories splitting over Brexit.
"The Conservative Party is a very broad church. Let's be honest, Europe has been a fractious issue within the party for 45 years but there are many other things that unite us and I am sure we will get through this, we will get beyond it and I'm sure we will go on presenting a broad, right-of-centre offer to the British people that will be attractive to them."
But he acknowledged that the European elections could prove tough for the party.
"The European elections are going to be difficult in the circumstances; the British people have voted to leave the European Union, it's obviously challenging to them go and ask them to vote in a European election.
"But we have to do this, we are legally obliged to do it and we will get on with it."
We're expecting further talks between the government and Labour later today as the cross-party negotiations reach crunch point.
The talks have now been going on for a month but, despite positive noises from both sides, there has been no obvious breakthrough.
Today's discussions are designed to change that. It is expected that Ms May's deputy, David Lidington, will present Jeremy Corbyn's team with a proposed government compromise on a customs union. It is expected to suggest that the UK maintain the main benefits of the customs union but will likely fall short of Labour's demands for a full customs union with the EU after Brexit.
Whether it will be enough to convince the Labour leadership to agree to a compromise deal remains to be seen, but either way there will be MPs in both main parties who will reject the offer: anti-Brexit Labour MPs who are demanding another referendum, and Brexiteer Tories who are vehemently opposed to a customs union because it would stop the UK signing new trade deals with other countries.
Opinion: Jeremy Corbyn should commit to a second Brexit referendum - with one crucial condition, writes former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis
Government sources are still insisting that a deal with Labour is possible but that it is unlikely to happen this week, according to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg.
The recent rise in knife crime is linked to funding cuts for youth services, according to a new report by a group of MPs
Ukip leader Gerard Batten has said he will step down on 2 June in order to trigger a leadership contest.
Mr Batten, who has been accused of taking his party too far to the right, said he had not decided whether he would stand again in the contest.
A UKIP spokesman said: "Mr Batten is fulfilling a promise to step down and call a leadership election approximately one year after becoming full party leader."
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