Brexit news: Conservatives plotting to change rules to stop Johnson being toppled by own party as soon as he becomes PM
As it happened
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Your support makes all the difference.Senior Tories are considering changing party rules to stop Boris Johnson facing a no-confidence vote within the first year of being prime minister, by preventing a vote of no-confidence in the leader being called until they had been in office for at least 12 months.
It came after Philip Hammond suggested he would be willing to vote against the next Conservative government in a vote of no confidence if it pursued a no-deal Brexit.
The chancellor’s latest comments followed a claim by leading Tory Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg, a supporter of Mr Johnson, that suspending parliament so that MPs cannot stop the next prime minister forcing through a no-deal Brexit “may have to happen”. The leading Tory Eurosceptic said he did not support a lengthy prorogation but that parliament could have to be closed for one or two days.
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MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have lambasted the former top executives at Crossrail for their “staggering” over-optimism about when the troubled project would be completed, writes Simon Calder.
The Elizabeth Line, as it will be known once services begin, will link Reading and Heathrow airport, west of the capital, with Shenfield in Essex and Abbey Wood in southeast London.
Kim McGuinness has been elected as Northumbria's new police and crime commissioner after less than 15 per cent of possible voters turned out to the polls.
The Labour representative won more than a third of the vote in the first round.
Ms McGuinness is Newcastle city council's cabinet member for culture, sport and public health.
Turnout was just 14.78 per cent.
By day, I’m a comedian. It’s my job to make gags and clownish blunders that sometimes offend people in the name of also making them laugh. But that’s okay because I’m not foreign secretary – and I’m certainly not lining up to be the next prime minister, writes Sandi Toksvig in our Voices opinion section.
Other things that set me apart from a certain prime ministerial candidate are obvious: I’m a pro-European feminist. So that's why I’m supporting the "No to Boris, Yes to Europe" demonstration on Saturday.
The government has been urged to stop keeping severely disabled benefits claimants "completely in the dark" over delayed back payments.
The SNP's Neil Gray has called on Amber Rudd to outline when former claimants of the Severe Disability Premium (SDP) will receive the money they are owed.
Mr Gray's letter on Friday branding the situation "unacceptable" came after it was ruled the way the government had moved SDP welfare payments onto Universal Credit was unlawful.
The SNP fears the migration of thousands of claimants onto the new system will not happen until August at the earliest because no parliamentary time has been set aside amid an overwhelming focus on Brexit.
In his letter Mr Gray, the SNP work and pensions spokesman, said: "Your department's total lack of preparedness and transparency leaves recipients, MPs, charities, local authorities and other stakeholders completely in the dark about what is likely to be the most challenging phase of the roll-out of Universal Credit so far."
The Government has said that claimants get on average an extra £100 monthly on Universal Credit than on the old system.
Additional reporting by PA
↵Universal credit claimants are being blocked from challenging erroneous decisions by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), leaving vulnerable people without the support they need, according to a new report, writes May Bulman.
Error and failures in the benefits system, as well as poor advice by universal credit staff, means many people were “getting lost in the quagmire” of the appeals process, the research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) found.
Charity workers told The Independent that some vulnerable claimants had been left unable to eat and been relying on sleeping pills to curb their hunger after their benefits were refused or left unpaid.
Some breaking news.
UK 'yellow vest' protester James Goddard has admitted harassing pro-Remain MP Anna Soubry after following her and calling her a 'Nazi' during London protests, writes Lizzie Dearden.
He also admitted the racially-aggravated harassment of a police officer.
During 23 years in the RAF, Bernard Rumbold was on the frontline of the fight against Khrushchev and Pinochet. Now he has his sights set on Boris Johnson, writes Benjamin Kentish.
The air force veteran is one of several hundred former military personnel joining forces as part of the Veterans for Europe group to warn about the impact of Brexit.
Along with his fellow former servicemen and women, he will travel to London on Saturday to take part in a mass demonstration in favour of remaining in the EU.
Police forces must stop using facial recognition technology until a legal framework for its use is set up, MPs have said, writes Jon Sharman.
A lack of legislation governing deployment of the technology calls into question the legal basis of police trials, the Commons Science and Technology Committee said in a new report.
It branded the government’s failure to implement the Forensic Science Regulator Bill “unacceptable”, and urged the Home Office to push for it to go before parliament in the next session.
Darren Grimes, the founder of the pro-Brexit BeLeave campaign group, has won his appeal against a £20,000 fine levied by the Electoral Commission.
He was was accused of breaching spending rules during the referendum campaign.
But the 25-year-old said he was "completely innocent" of making false declarations in relation to a £680,000 donation to his youth-focused group from the main Vote Leave campaign.
Mr Grimes hit out at the watchdog in a statement on Twitter.
He said: "The Electoral Commission's case was based on an incorrectly ticked box on an application form -something that it had been aware of for over two years and had not been raised in two previous investigations.
"Yet the Commission still saw fit to issue an excessive fine and to spend almost half a million in taxpayer cash pursuing me through the courts. This raises serious questions about its conduct both during and after the referendum."
Additional reporting by PA
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