Brexit news - live: Government postpones key no-deal bill vote to avoid humiliating tax havens defeat
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Your support makes all the difference.Prime Minister Theresa May postponed a vote on key bit of Brexit legislation to avoid a humiliating Commons defeat over rules governing tax havens.
Labour grandee Dame Margaret Hodge had tabled a cross-party amendment to the Financial Services Bill, which would have compelled UK overseas territories to be more transparent about business ownership.
It came as Labour MPs from Leave-backing areas dismissed Theresa May's "Brexit bribe" of £1.6bn for run down towns, saying their "vote is not for sale".
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said it “smacks of desperation from a government reduced to bribing MPs to vote for their damaging flagship Brexit legislation”.
Beleaguered transport secretary Chris Grayling also came under fire on Monday for failing to personally answer questions from MPs about the botched Brexit ferry contracts.
Labour’s shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said: “He leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, causing chaos and wasting billions of pounds yet he shows no contrition… the transport secretary has become an international embarrassment.”
Here's how the day unfolded:
Interesting (and odd) story in The Times newspaper this morning - it carries the claim that the chief secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss refers to herself in the third person as "the Truss".
She is yet to address the claim, but it comes after reports the home secretary Sajid Javid referred to himself as "the Saj" - a charge he later denied.
One year on from the Salisbury novichok poisoning, Theresa May has hailed today as an "important milestone" for the city as it emerges from the "shadow" cast by the chemical attack that led to international condemnation and the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the UK.
Unfortunately for the prime minister, Downing Street's official Twitter feed has paid tribute to the "beautiful, welcoming English city" of Salisbury with a picture of a Bath. The tweet now appears to have been deleted.
Our Europe correspondent Jon Stone has heard from Brussels that Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, is meeting Stephen Barclay and Geoffrey Cox tomorrow.
All eyes are on Cox at the moment, who is engaged in crucial behind-the-scenes talks to try to break the Brexit impasse. He is trying to find a way to solve the impasse over the divisive Irish backstop. If he can get some kind of concession, Tory Brexiteers have indicated they may back Theresa May's deal next week.
Our chief political commentator John Rentoul has written a column on why Cox is central to the outcome of Brexit.
An interesting new row is developing over the Financial Services Bill, which the government has to pass by March 29 to prepare for a no-deal Brexit.
It was due in the Commons this afternoon, but it appears to have been pulled, as ministers were afraid of an embarrassing defeat led by Labour grandee Dame Margaret Hodge and Tory ex-minister Andrew Mitchell, which would create transparency in British tax havens.
From Dame Margaret:
Under-fire transport secretary Chris Grayling has gone global - with a rather critical piece in the New York Times, accusing him of "becoming a byword for haplessness in a golden age of political blundering in Britain".
Downing Street confirmed that attorney general Geoffrey Cox and Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay will return to Brussels on Tuesday to continue their efforts to secure legally-binding changes to backstop arrangements designed to keep the Irish border open.
But Ms May's spokesman declined to discuss reports that Mr Cox has dropped attempts to secure a time limit for the backstop or a unilateral exit mechanism, telling reporters: "We are now at a particularly critical stage in these negotiations. I'm not going to get into specifics."
The spokesman said the UK was "definitely making progress" after discussions spanning the past two weeks with the European Commission, he said.
But he added: "There definitely remains more work to be done."
Ministers are under fire for postponing a bid to bring transparency to tax havens over fears the government faced a Commons defeat.
At the eleventh-hour, the Financial Services Bill was pulled from debate in the Commons before a vote, after backbench MPs tabled a bid to force areas under UK jurisdiction to be more open about who owns assets held there.
Here's our write-up of the growing row:
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