Boris Johnson news: PM abandons claim no-deal Brexit is ‘one-in-a-million’ risk, amid barrage of abuse on Facebook Q&A
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Your support makes all the difference.Speaker John Bercow has vowed to block Boris Johnson from suspending parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit “with every breath in my body”.
Mr Johnson also faced other attacks from more liberal Conservatives on Wednesday.
In a thinly-veiled attack on the Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings, former chancellor Philip Hammond accused the PM of listening to “unelected” saboteurs “who pull the strings” of his government.
Despite the internal party schism, Mr Johnson held his very first “People’s PMQs” event on Facebook, answering questions from the comments section – where he faced a barrage of abuse
The PM admitted a no-deal exit had become “more likely”.
He also failed to rule out a general election in order to thwart attempts to block a crash-out from the EU.
And he accused MPs fighting a no-deal – led by Philip Hammond, the former chancellor – of “a terrible collaboration” with Brussels in order to stop Brexit altogether.
“The awful thing is that the longer that goes on, the more likely it is of course that we will be forced to leave with a no-deal Brexit,” Mr Johnson said.
“That’s not what I want, that’s not what we’re aiming for, but we need our European friends to compromise.
The Scottish government has urged the UK government not to pull out of EU committees and working groups.
In a letter to Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay, Scotland’s external affairs secretary Fiona Hyslop said leaving them would “surrender any ability to influence EU business” despite still currently being a member.
Hyslop wrote: “It is clear beyond any doubt that the UK government should not take a decision on this possible step without proper involvement of the Scottish government or other devolved administrations.
“To take such an approach would be to surrender any ability by the UK to influence EU business - despite the UK still being an EU member state.”
As our deputy political editor Rob Merrick notes, Boris Johnson admitted during his “People’s PMQs” that a no-deal Brexit is becoming “more likely”, just weeks after dismissing it as a “million to one” risk.
Here’s more on what the PM has to say on Brexit.
The European Commission said Britain needs to explain its ideas on the way forward for Brexit if talks are to progress.
Vanessa Mock, a European Commission spokeswoman, told a regular media briefing in Brussels: “President (Jean-Claude Juncker) told prime minister Johnson on 25 July that we're available should the United Kingdom wish to hold talks and clarify its position in more detail.
“We’re ready to analyse any concrete proposals that are compatible with the Withdrawal Agreement, and also ready to rework the future relationship as outlined in the Political Declaration.
“The UK knows well that our doors remain open to that effect. But for the talks to progress the UK government needs to explain its ideas on how it sees the way forward, respecting the commitments it took earlier in these negotiations."
Asked if the refusal to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement also holds for any future British government, such as a Labour administration, Mock replied: “Our doors are open to discuss with the UK authorities, I never said anything about refusal, but I won't go beyond what I said.”
Rebel Tory MP Dominic Grieve, who supports the People’s Vote campaign for a second referendum, said: “Philip Hammond is absolutely right to say there’s no mandate for a disastrous no deal, and that for a government to try and force such an outcome on the country without the public's consent would be an outrage against democracy.
“It is encouraging to see more and more Conservative MPs, including many former ministers, reaching this view.
“We live in a representative democracy and Parliament will have its say – MPs elected by the people will not allow an out-of-control government to impose no deal against the wishes of the majority of the public and of parliament. Philip Hammond’s intervention makes that perfectly clear.”
In answer to the question on his political hero earlier today, Boris Johnson told Facebook Live viewers: “Obviously Winston Churchill is one, but I am going to mention Pericles of Athens who believed in all sorts of wonderful things.
“He certainly believed in great infrastructure projects, he believed in the importance of the many, not the few, but above all Pericles will go down as one of the most powerful articulators of the idea of democracy – which is that the people are in charge of their own destiny.
“Because the people took that decision to leave the European Union, we’re going to come out on October 31 whatever happens.”
Our commentator Andrew Grice has been talking to officials in both London and Brussels. He thinks in the vent of a no-deal Brexit, Boris Johnson would soon come calling for a free trade agreement – and be presented with May’s deal once again.
As 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg sets sail across the Atlantic, British school pupils have hit out at proposals to limit climate change protests to just one day a year.
Thousands of children descended on the Scottish Parliament building in March and May as part of a wider movement in which action was planned in more than 100 towns and cities across the UK.
Edinburgh City Council’s education committee is to discuss the issue on Friday, with more action planned by the Scottish Youth Climate Strike (SYCS) group on September 20 and 27 as part of more global action.
Despite the local authority being one of the first to allow pupils to miss school with parental permission so they could protest, pupils have reacted angrily to any suggestion of restricting the number of strikes allowed.
One SYCS organiser, 15-year-old Dylan Hamilton, said: “Allowing us to protest once a year is simply not acceptable and will not let us get across how serious this is to the people in power.
“Instead of marking us as truants, we should be praised and given help to catch up for adhering to values our schools promote such as celebrating citizenship and being an effective contributor.”
Unite boss and Corbyn ally Len McCluskey has been sharing his thoughts on Brexit. “It’s an inconvenient truth to some people, but we lost,” he told The BBC’s World at One programme.
“We lost the referendum and therefore having lost that referendum, it’s why Labour is just a year later, in 2017, adopted a manifesto that Tom Watson and other Remainers embraced and said, “Yes, we will fight on this platform”.
“And the platform they fought on was that we would take Britain out of the European Union. Now they seem to have forgotten all that.”
Asked what it is believes he thinks should happen now, McCluskey said: “I believe that if we haven’t left by the 31 October that we should respect the 2016 referendum, which means leaving Europe but on a deal.”
We now have the full statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Brexit, Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement.
“Whatever form it takes, Brexit cannot be allowed to imperil the Good Friday Agreement, including the seamless border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, especially now, as the first generation born into the hope of Good Friday 21 years ago comes into adulthood. We cannot go back.
“If Brexit undermines the Good Friday accord, there will be no chance of a US-UK trade agreement passing the Congress. The peace of the Good Friday Agreement is treasured by the American people and will be fiercely defended on the bicameral and bipartisan basis in the United States Congress.”
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