Theresa May struggles to maintain authority as cabinet ministers speculate over failure of deal in Commons
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Your support makes all the difference.Theresa May is struggling to maintain authority after two of her cabinet ministers publicly speculated about the government's next steps should the Brexit deal fall in the Commons.
It came as Downing Street was forced to dismiss comments from cabinet ministers Andrea Leadsom and Amber Rudd after their remarks on a fresh referendum and a "managed no-deal" scenario.
Asked if a second referendum was plausible if Parliament remains gridlocked, the prime minister's official spokesman said: "No."
On Thursday, it also emerged that Tory and Labour MPs joined forces to stop Ms May crashing the UK out of the EU without a deal, starting with a showdown vote early in the New Year.
The move is intended to be the first of many planned ambushes to put parliament in control.
The group of MPs includes fellow Tories Oliver Letwin and Nick Boles, as well as Labour big-hitters Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn, Rachel Reeves and Harriet Harman.
They have tabled an amendment to the finance bill, to be debated on 8 January, that would prevent any new taxes earmarked for no-deal preparations without the consent of the Commons.
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Speaking on Radio 4 Today's programme, Diane Abbott, a close ally of the Labour leader, saying Conservative MPs had "put on a display yesterday which Hackney primary school children would have been ashamed of".
She told Today that Mr Corbyn was an honest man and "if he has something to say sorry for he will always say sorry".
She added: "Nobody really knows what he said, certainly they (MPs) did not know what he said at the time.
"To me it was contrived, staged behaviour and the British people might wonder why the Tories will stage a mini-riot in Parliament over that but are not staging a mini-riot over the tens of thousands of people who are newly on Universal Credit and are facing Christmas with no money."
John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, has granted an urgent question in the Commons to Labour's Melanie Onn to ask Housing secretary James Brokenshire to make a statement on statistics relating to the deaths of homeless people. The figures are due out in the next half hour.
The urgent question is expected to take place at around 10.30am.
New: Office for National Statistics says there were an estimated 597 death of homeless people in England and Wales during 2017 - a figure that has increased by 24% over the last five years.
Homeless men died on average at the age of 44 and women at 42 in that period, compared to 76 and 81 for the general population respectively, the figures suggested.
London and the North West of England had the highest mortality rates.
In 2017 in England and Wales, more than half of all homeless deaths were due to drug poisoning, liver disease or suicide.
On the homeless statistics, Labour deputy leader Tom Watson tweeted: "Two days after Gyula Remes, 43, died - literally - on MPs' doorstep, new figures show 587 rough sleepers lost their lives in England and Wales in 2017. That's an abhorrent 24% increase over last 5 years. And the Tories want to squabble about lip-readers."
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