As it happenedended1525802973

Westminster – as it happened: Government defeated over plan to enshrine date of Brexit in law

All the latest updates from Westminster, as they happened

Ashley Cowburn
Political Correspondent
,Lizzy Buchan
Tuesday 08 May 2018 18:06 BST
Comments
The House of Lords defeats the government voting to remove the Brexit date from the bill

Peers have dealt a fresh blow to Theresa May’s Brexit strategy by voting to remove the official exit date from her flagship EU legislation.

The government suffered two defeats on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill in the Lords - taking its tally to 12 losses - and it faced a further threat on Tuesday night as cross-party peers were due to push a vote to effectively keep Britain in the single market.

It comes as the prime minister was forced to insist she had full confidence in Boris Johnson, after the foreign secretary launched a public assault on her proposals for a customs partnership after Brexit.

In a major intervention, Mr Johnson said the proposals favoured by the Prime Minister were "crazy" and would create a “whole new web of bureaucracy”.

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In remarks following Boris Johnson's intervention, a leading Conservative Brexiteer, Bernard Jenkin, has said the PM will be forced to abandon plans for a "customs partnership" with the EU.

"I think the Prime Minister is very anxious to try to bring the whole party together around some kind of compromise proposal and the argument is going on about this. I think in the end she will have to drop it because it will prove unworkable," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"I think it is a bit of an act of self-deception to say that we are leaving the customs union but we are still going to apply the common external tariff to all the imports coming in from the EU."

Ashley Cowburn8 May 2018 09:08
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This is from the Press Association on the looming announcement from the US President on the Iranian nuclear deal:

Former Conservative leader William Hague has urged US president Donald Trump not to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal - saying it would "broadcast a message that Washington does not honour its word".

Mr Trump has branded the deal - agreed by his predecessor Barack Obama - as the "worst" ever backed by the US and will announce his decision on whether to back out of the plans on Tuesday.

But Mr Hague, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said that ripping up the deal would be a "very great error".

He wrote: "If he is wavering, he should picture himself sitting across from Kim (Jong-Un) in the near future."

He said Mr Kim is less interested in Mr Trump keeping his word than whether the United States does.

He said: "Ending the Iran deal would mean that what the US signs up to in one year, it can abrogate three years later.

"And that in turn would not bode well for an agreement with North Korea or the stability of the Middle East - and thereby for the peace of the world."

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