Brexit news - live: Tory MP quits in disgust after Commons votes to reject every single suggested way forward
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Your support makes all the difference.MPs have rejected all alternative Brexit options put forward in indicative votes as one Tory MP quit seconds after results were announced claiming the party “refuses to compromise”.
The Commons turned down options to pursue a Common Market solution, a second referendum and the revocation of Article 50. A Customs Union proposed by Ken Clarke was rejected by just three votes.
Moments after the vote took place, Tory MP Nick Boles resigned the party whip claiming his colleagues “refuse to compromise”. His Common Market 2.0 proposal had been defeated 261 votes to 282, with 228 Conservatives voting against.
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Public splits between rival cabinet ministers had deepened earlier in the day ahead of the key votes.
Tory chief whip Julian Smith said the government should have accepted earlier that it would “inevitably” need to settle on a softer Brexit, but Liz Truss, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said such an outcome would be “incredibly problematic”.
Mr Smith also hit out at his cabinet colleagues, saying they were the “worst example of ill-discipline in cabinet in British political history”.
Jacob Rees-Mogg said that the indicative vote process shows the House of Commons “no longer has confidence in Her Majesty’s Government”. And he said he was sympathetic to comments by Labour MP Chris Bryant, who said the “historic precedent is that when the government loses its major policy ... the government resigns”.
With a customs union looking like an increasingly likely scenario, some Conservatives reportedly attended a “training” event on the option on Monday.
Liam Fox has said that staying in a customs union with the EU would not be "a proper Brexit".
Asked about growing parliamentary support for a customs union, the international trade secretary told the BBC:
"Voters chose to take back control and now MPs are wanting to give more away.
[If there is a customs union], the EU would be able to make the rules and we would have to follow them.
None of this make sense. It's time we went back to a proper Brexit."
A group of nearly naked “climate justice” environmental protesters have just interrupted the Brexit debate from the public gallery. By the looks of it, they are naked except for underwear.
The dozen or so naked protesters stood in a line with their backsides pressed against the security glass of the public gallery. On their bodies were written the words “Climate justice act now” and “eco collapse”.
They’re thought to be part of the Extinction Rebellion protest movement, as several had the group’s logo painted onto their bodies.
Speaker John Bercow has tried to direct the attention of MPs back to the Brexit debate: “I ask colleagues to show some respect for the member who has the floor.”
Police and security staff have removed all the naked protesters from the public gallery of the Commons.
One the activists, an English lit student from Ladbroke Grove called Savannah, said: “Everyone stripped and two people were elephants and had climate crisis written on them. We were pointing at them as the elephants in the room of the Brexit debate.”
Anti-abortion supporters accosted Savannah as she stood naked, wrapped only in a coat, outside the Chamber. They said they were upset about the protesting disrupting an important discussion on abortion.
You can now watch moment the Brexit debate was briefly usurped by naked environmentalists.
The Home Office has said more than 50,000 EU nationals submitted applications for settled status following Brexit in the first weekend the scheme went live.
The scheme went into operation on Saturday, with more than three million EU citizens thought to be eligible to apply by December 2020.
Some 230,000 applications were submitted during a test period, bringing the total so far to more than 280,000, of which 210,000 have been concluded.
More than 1,500 staff are working on processing applications, but there were a number of complaints on social media over the weekend from people struggling to access or operate the online system.
Children’s minister Nadhim Zahawi has said that any Brexit proposal which gains a majority tonight should be put up against Theresa May’s deal in a head-to-head contest.
“I am confident that the prime minister’s deal would win the day,” Mr Zahawi told the BBC.
“I’m not sure they will agree on anything tonight but if they do and we put it up against the prime minister’s deal, the prime minister’s deal would be infinitely better. The alternative is soft, softer or no Brexit and political meltdown. That is what will happen.”
The Metropolitan Police has said that twelve climate change protesters have been arrested for “outraging public decency” after the naked protest in the Commons.
Incidentally, it was Tory MP Nick Boles who made the most fitting remark in the aftermath of the protest. “It has long been a thoroughly British trait to be able to ignore pointless nakedness, and I trust the House will be able to return to the issue that we are discussing,” he said.
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