Brexit news: Anger as government admits it will fail to strike Japan or Turkey trade pacts by exit day in event of no-deal
Updates from Westminster as they happened
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The government has been accused of breaking its promises after it emerged that key trade deals would not be ready by Brexit day in a no-deal scenario.
Whitehall documents reveal agreements with Japan, Algeria and Turkey will not be rubber-stamped by March 29 – despite Liam Fox’s assurance that deals would be ready at “one second after midnight”.
Labour MP Stephen Doughty said: “Brexiters promised that voting Leave would mean a bonanza of new international trade deals that would make up for lost trade with the EU.
“Instead, Brexit is costing us the global trade deals we already have as EU members.”
The news emerged as European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said he was “not very optimistic” that a no-deal Brexit can be avoided after meeting Theresa May.
Top politicians' Brexit tweets haven't aged well
Show all 18Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay travelled to Brussels with attorney general Geoffrey Cox as the government scrambles to secure a deal, while Jeremy Corbyn and his top team were also in the Belgian capital for crunch talks.
Meanwhile, Labour and the Conservatives were both braced for fresh walkouts after 11 MPs formed a breakaway group in protest at the direction of their parties.
See below for our coverage of events as they happened
Welcome to The Independent's politics liveblog, where we will be bringing you the latest updates throughout the day.
The big story of the day - and the week - is the dramatic defections of 8 Labour MPs on Monday and Tuesday, followed by 3 Tory MPs on Wednesday.
Westminster is absolutely fizzing with gossip about who could be next to join the Independent Group (TIG), with plenty of MPs on 'resignation watch'.
Ex-Tory MP Sarah Wollaston suggested that the Conservative party was "destroying itself".
"I know that there are many colleagues on my side who will be watching carefully and expecting Theresa May to be certain that she is not going to take us out on a no-deal Brexit," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"Certainly I think that a third of the cabinet, I'm pretty clear, would walk if they were looking at a no-deal Brexit."
Two Conservatives have signalled they could quit their party over unless it changes tack on Brexit.
Former education secretary Justine Greening said she was staying in the Conservative Party "for the moment" but warned that the Tories would no longer be credible if they simply became "a Brexit party".
She said: "Right now, I have to say, I don't think I see enough ambition in the party that matches mine on this agenda."
Asked if she would quit, she told Today: "It is something that I have considered, but I have reached a different conclusion for the moment."
She added: "I don't think I would be able to stay part of a party that was simply a Brexit party that had crashed us out of the European Union."
Speaking on Wednesday, ex-attorney general Dominic Grieve also said: “The government which I am supporting implementing a no-deal Brexit – what would I do?
"I would not be able to maintain my support of the government. I would have to leave the party.”
Chancellor Philip Hammond said the Conservative Party "must remain a very broad church" and that he would like the three defectors to eventually rejoin.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I hope that, over time, they will feel able to rejoin the party and help to maintain it as that broad church, that coalition of views that has been so successful over so many decades."
Mr Hammond said the European Research Group consisted of a "relatively small hardcore" within the parliamentary party and a "wider group of MPs who are sympathetic to some of the objectives of ERG but who recognise that, in this broad church that is the Conservative Party, compromises are necessary".
He said that while he respected the views of the breakaway three, "I don't think all of what they have said is justified".
Jeremy Corbyn released this video last night, where he expressed his disappointment at the decision of the Labour splitters and said they should submit to by-elections.
He argues: "These MPs now want to abandon the policies on which they were elected. So the decent and democratic thing is to resign and put themselves up for election."
He says Labour is greater than the sum of its party, and it can only deliver change if it is united.
Chancellor Philip Hammond has rebuked his cabinet colleague Gavin Williamson over his plans to send the Royal Navy's aircraft carrier to the Pacific.
In a thinly-veiled criticism of the Defence Secretary, Mr Hammond said decisions about HMS Queen Elizabeth's deployment should be a matter for the National Security Council, which would also consider the economic considerations.
Beijing reportedly pulled out of trade talks with Mr Hammond following Mr Williamson's announcement that the carrier, laden with F-35 Lightning stealth jets, would deploy to the region on its maiden operational voyage.
Mr Hammond said he was "disappointed" by China's reaction and insisted that no decision had actually been taken on the carrier's deployment.
Asked if the relationship with Beijing had been damaged by Mr Williamson's actions, the Chancellor said: "It's a complex relationship and it hasn't been made simpler by Chinese concerns about Royal Navy deployments in the South China Sea."
Mr Hammond said he was "disappointed that the Chinese have reacted in the way that they have".
MPs could be given a second vote on Theresa May's Brexit deal as early as next week, Philip Hammond has said.
In comments likely to fuel speculation that a revised agreement with the EU is close, the chancellor said another "meaningful vote" could take place before the end of February if progress is made in talks this week.
Theresa May has promised to give MPs some form of vote on Brexit by 27 February but is under heavy pressure from pro-EU ministers to put a revised deal before the Commons and rule out a no-deal Brexit.
Conservative MP Jonathan Djanogly has said he is "not considering resigning" and "nor has anyone approached me to do so" after media speculation suggested he could quit to join the Independent Group.
Lost on what's going on with The Independent Group? Here's our rolling piece on who's in, who's out and what they stand for.
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has said he is "not very optimistic" that a no-deal Brexit can be avoided.
Mr Juncker, who held talks with Theresa May on Wednesday in Brussels, said he had "Brexit fatigue" and regarded the issue as a "disaster".
Speaking to the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels, Mr Juncker said: "Brexit is deconstruction, it is not construction. Brexit is the past, it is not the future.
"We are trying to deliver our best efforts in order to have this Brexit being organised in a proper, civilised, well-thought-out way.
"But we are not there, because in the British Parliament there is, every time they are voting, a majority against something, there is never a majority in favour of something.
"If a no-deal would happen - and I can't exclude this - this would have terrible economic and social consequences, both in Britain and on the continent, and so my efforts orient in a way that the worst can be avoided.
"But I am not very optimistic when it comes to this issue."
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