Boris Johnson news: PM confident 'our friends in the EU' will change Brexit position as No 10 refuses to recall parliament
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No 10 has rejected Labour’s call for Boris Johnson to recall parliament to debate Brexit, as Jeremy Corbyn vowed to block a no-deal exit and called the prime minister “Britain’s Trump”.
The PM claimed he was “confident” that “our friends and partners” in the EU would change their stance on the backstop and come up with a negotiated deal.
It comes as Downing Street reacts with fury to the publication of the “Operation Yellowhammer” dossier setting out the negative impacts of a crash-out departure. The Home Office, meanwhile, plans to end the free movement of EU citizens on day one of no deal.
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The Home Office has drawn up plans to end the free movement of EU citizens on day one of a no-deal Brexit, The Independent as been told.
Here’s our deputy political editor Rob Merrick with all the details.
Labour wants to see parliament reconvened “in the next few days” to work to avoid a no-deal Brexit.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think it is a good initiative by this group of MPs to say that we need to get back into Parliament. We are facing a critical issue here and should be debating it in parliament.”
McDonnell said he believes the Commons needs to be reconvened “in the next few days”.
He added: “There is a need now to bring MPs back together again because we need time now to really have a proper debate and discussion about this matter.”
McDonnell added: “I think the big issue now is how do we prevent it, and the no confidence motion is one mechanism.
“But, as Jeremy has said today, there’s other mechanisms people are looking at, other parliamentary mechanisms, and we want to have a proper discussion and dialogue on a cross-party basis on what those mechanisms are."
He said it is “annoying” that Michael Gove and Boris Johnson say there is “no risk”.
The shadow chancellor said: “They are wealthy people, they won’t be bearing the risk. I'm worried about, if there are food prices (rises), there are people out there, it's bad enough, they're just struggling to get through.”
Jeremy Corbyn is visiting the marginal Tory seat of Corby today and will say that a general election triggered by the Brexit crisis will provide a “once-in-a-generation chance” for a change of direction in politics on the scale of 1945 or 1979.
He is also expected to make his strongest his attack on the PM yet by claiming the Tories “have lurched to the hard right under Boris Johnson, Britain’s Trump, the fake populist and phoney outsider”.
Here’s Rob Merrick with more on his speech.
Here’s our political correspondent Lizzy Buchan with more on John McDonnell’s demand parliament reconvenes.
A No 10 source has responded to the release of the Operation Yellowhammer dossier by stating: “This document is from when ministers were blocking what needed to be done to get ready to leave and the funds were not available.
“It has been deliberately leaked by a former minister in an attempt to influence discussions with EU leaders.
“Those obstructing preparation are no longer in government, £2bn of extra funding (has been) already made available, and Whitehall has been stood up to actually do the work through the daily ministerial meetings.
“The entire posture of government has changed.”
It follows claims made by Michael Gove, the Cabinet minister responsible for no-deal planning, who insisted Yellowhammer represented a “worst-case scenario” and said “significant” steps have been taken in the last three weeks to accelerate Brexit planning.
More responses to Operation Yellowhammer. The grim forecast means avoiding no-deal should be the “number one priority” for the government, according to Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
“I think that what Yellowhammer does show is just how incredibly serious for our economy a no-deal outcome would be,” she told the Today programme.
“It is difficult to predict exactly what the outcome could be but in terms of our conversations with businesses over the years, these feel like plausible outcomes."
She added: “We would also totally agree with Michael Gove in terms of the importance of preparation. Business does have to prepare but I think, above all else, what this shows is that we must be trying to get a deal. And that must be the number-one priority of government.”
Fairbairn said that, while the UK has made some preparations, there are things “we can’t be prepared for” if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
She said: “I think we have become more prepared for the short-run disruption, not fully prepared, I don't think that can be done, you know. If you have any delays at borders that will be significant. I think what we can’t be prepared for, though, is the long-run impact of a fundamental change in our competitiveness.”
More than 100 MPs from all sides of the House of the Commons have written to Boris Johnson urging him to recall parliament immediately.
The signatories – including some Tory rebels – also warned the prime minister about his “creeping and disturbing populism”.
Zamira Rahim has the details.
Caroline Lucas, one of the signatories of that letter to the Boris Johnson, has said parliament needed to hold an “increasingly reckless” PM to account as soon as possible.
“I think there is ever more evidence of the, frankly, impending national emergency that we are facing. MPs should be in parliament holding an increasingly reckless prime minister to account,” the Green MP told the Today programme.
“Since his election as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has been subject to, I think, about three hours of scrutiny, and yet he is putting his foot on the accelerator, driving the country off the cliff-edge as if he had a huge mandate and overwhelming support. Well he has no mandate for this. The government has a majority of precisely one.”
She added: “I think at a time of such emergency, the public are rightly saying ‘Where are MPs? Where are they when it comes to holding this prime minister to account?’.”
“MPs need to reaffirm the principle of democracy in which the legislature can and must reign in an executive that is, quite frankly, lurching out of control.”
She said the problems the UK could face as a result of a no-deal Brexit are more than just “bumps in the road”, and are more like “cavernous sink holes”.
She added: “Unless MPs get back into parliament and hold this prime minister to account, we are going to go into those sink holes and it's going to spell a disaster for this country.”
Everton FC legend Peter Reid thinks a no-deal Brexit would amount to a class war.
“We have to get back our democracy and demand a people’s vote,” he writes in his piece for our Voices section.
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