Brexit news - live: Theresa May to stage fourth meaningful vote on deal as Corbyn launches Labour's EU elections campaign
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Good morning and welcome to The Independent's live coverage of events in Westminster, as Theresa May reportedly prepares to put her Brexit deal before MPs for the fourth time.
The prime minister is said to be planning to hold a further vote on the withdrawal agreement ahead of European elections, in which the Conservatives are expected to suffer humiliation in two weeks time.
Theresa May is planning one last push to get her Brexit deal through parliament before the European elections in two weeks time, according to Sir Graham Brady, who chairs the influential 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers.
Sir Graham, who met the PM privately on Tuesday night, told Press Association: "It's my understanding it's the government's intention to bring a second reading of the Bill forward in the near future, certainly the intention is before the European election takes place.
"Personally I hope the Bill will be brought forward in a form which contains elements of the Political Declaration brought forward that would obviate the need ever for the Irish backstop to apply."
He indicated the Withdrawal Agreement Bill could be brought back next week as early as next week, saying he said he expected it to be "hopefully in the much nearer future" than the elections on 23 May.
Theresa May has rebuffed demands to set out a timetable for her departure from Downing Street amid growing pressure from Tory MPs to make way for a new leader.
The chairman of the Conservative 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady, who met the prime minister privately on Tuesday, made clear she had not offered any further clarity about her future.
He said she would meet the committee's 18-strong executive next week amid grass roots fury over the party's worst local elections performance in 24 years.
Leaving a 1922 last night, Brexiteer MP Nadine Dorries expressed impatience. She said: "She's not given any decision, there's no timetable and they need to get on with it.
"We need to make sure we get that final decision soon because everybody needs it."
But other backbenchers acknowledged May's departure would not pave the way for a smoother Brexit process.
Tory MP Simon Hart said: "This would be all very well as a temporary pain relief measure.
"But if it doesn't actually change the prospects of delivering an orderly Brexit, then we could be about to go through quite an agonising process to replace the prime minister with a keen and enthusiastic new person who is then going to come up against exactly the same problem as the current one.
"It would be much better if the current prime minister finishes this horrible stage of the process and then they can do the easy bit."
Pro-EU parties are in talks over forming a Remain alliance to support an independent candidate in the upcoming Peterborough by-election.
Voters will go to the polls in the Cambridgeshire city in June to replace former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya, who lost her seat after being jailed for perverting the course of justice.
The Liberal Democrats, the Greens and newly-formed party Change UK were "holding conversations about supporting a candidate" last night, a source close to the talks confirmed.
My colleague Lizzy Buchan has the full story:
The compromise Brexit deal being discussed by Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn would deliver an £80bn hit to the economy after 10 years, economists have warned.
People would be an average of £800 worse off, GDP would shrink by three per cent and there would be £13bn less a year to spend on public services, compared with EU membership, found the National Institute of Economic and Social Research analysis.
The study – the first into the impact of the mooted cross-party deal – was seized on by supporters of a fresh Brexit referendum as proof that a customs union must not be seen as a “soft option”.
The Independent's deputy political editor, Rob Merrick, reports:
Former cabinet minister Esther McVey announced that she will stand for the Conservative leadership when there is a contest.
McVey, who quit as work and pensions secretary in November in protest at Theresa May's Brexit deal, told TalkRadio: "I have always said quite clearly if I got enough support from my colleagues, yes I would.
"Now people have come forward and I have got that support, so I will be going forward."
The Tatton MP said the Conservative Party needed a leader who "believes in Brexit" and had "belief in the opportunities" it could bring.
McVey said that May's departure should be handled in a "dignified and graceful" way.
"We all know Theresa May is dutiful," she added. "She has worked for public service for many years."
The government was warned it could be sued for up to £20m over the sourcing of no-deal Brexit ferry services, the National Audit Office (NAO) has revealed.
Transport secretary Chris Grayling awarded contracts worth a total of more than £100m last December to three firms - Brittany Ferries, DFDS and Seaborne Freight - to run extra services in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
Eurotunnel launched legal action, claiming it was unfairly overlooked for the work, and in March the Department for Transport (DfT) paid £33m to the company in an out-of-court settlement.
It has now emerged the DfT's accounting officer warned that Eurotunnel, the firm that operates Channel Tunnel services, could sue over the controversial procurement exercise.
An NAO report said the DfT was advised that a procurement challenge was probable and "likely to be successful".
It was announced earlier this month all the contracts Mr Grayling had awarded were being scrapped at a cost to the taxpayer estimated at around £50m.
The DfT said the usual procurement process was not followed due to "reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseen by the contracting authority".
Conservative MP Johnny Mercer says he has withdrawn his support for the government over the historical prosecution of British servicemen.
Mercer, a former Army officer, wrote to Theresa May calling on her to end the “macabre spectacle of elderly veterans being dragged back to Northern Ireland” to face possible prosecution.
In his letter to the prime minister, the Plymouth Moor View MP said he found investigations into historic allegations surrounding ex-services personnel “personally offensive”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today this morning, he also claimed party whips had tried to blackmail him into voting for the prime minister's Brexit deal by trying to dig dirt on him from former military colleagues.
"My ethos and values are separated from this government, he added.
Labour "backs the option of a public vote" on Theresa May's Brexit deal if "we can't get a sensible deal along the lines of our alternative plan or a general election", Jeremy Corbyn has said.
At the launch his party's manifesto for the European elections, the Labour leader said: "It is in the country's interests to try to get this sorted one way or another, but we can never accept the government's bad deal or a disastrous no deal."
He said it was "the right thing to do" to seek a compromise in talks with May but "so far there's been no big offer and the red lines remain in place".
Labour's position on second Brexit referendum caused fresh tension within the party in the run-up to the manifesto launch, with some MPs and MEP candidates threatening to revolt after leaked draft campaign material made no mention of a new public vote.
The Liberal Democrats are also to launch their European elections campaign manifesto today, under the blunt slogan: "Bollocks to Brexit".
In an unequivocally anti-Brexit document, the party calls for the "failed project" of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union to be disbanded.
It sets out a "blueprint for what the UK could achieve if Brexit was stopped" according to the Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable, who will formally unveil the manifesto this evening in east London.
A special edition of the manifesto has the words "Bollocks to Brexit" – a familiar message of enthusiastic Remain campaigners – emblazoned across the front cover while a second edition offers "stop Brexit" as its slogan for activists after a less crude message to deliver to voters on the doorstep.
My colleague Ashley Cowburn has more:
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