Tory leadership debate: Boris Johnson brandishes kipper on stage as he declares May's Brexit deal ‘defunct' at final hustings
The final Conservative Party leadership hustings with Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, as it happened
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Your support makes all the difference.Tory leadership contenders Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt both stood by their stated approaches to handling Brexit at the final hustings before the polls close for Conservative members to vote for their party’s new leader and the country’s next prime minister.
Mr Johnson repeatedly refused to rule out suspending Parliament as PM to force through Brexit and said the UK would leave the European Union by 31 October with or without a deal.
Mr Hunt meanwhile said he could delay Brexit beyond that point if a deal was in reach, but he has also not ruled out walking away from negotiations without an agreement.
See below for live updates
One of the talking points from PMQs was the clash between May and Corbyn over racism in their respective parties.
Watch a clip here:
Another eye-catching moment was Ian Blackford's attack on Theresa May over the 'go home' vans, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson's columns.
The pound has slipped further from a 27-month low against the dollar reached earlier and slid to a new six-month low against the euro.
The embattled currency tumbled on Tuesday after the two contenders to be Britain's next prime minister promised to scrap the Irish backstop – a key part of Theresa May’s Brexit agreement – amplifying fears of a no-deal Brexit.
Stronger dollar pressured the exchange rate further on Wednesday, with the pound last trading at $1.2407. Sterling is nearing parity with the euro, with one pound now buying 1.1056 euro.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has committed the next Labour government to ending the “modern-day scourge” of in-work poverty within its first term in office, as new figures showed Britons are having to work harder and longer to maintain their incomes.
Typical household incomes fell by 0.5 per cent in real terms over the past two years, despite the UK population working more and curtailing their leisure time, found a report by the Resolution Foundation.
The squeeze on incomes between 2016/17 and 2018/19 was the worst experienced outside a recession since records began - and worse than during the recession of the early 1990s, the think tank found.
Labour has said Islamophobia is "completely rampant" among Conservative Party membership as it sought to defend itself against claims of an antisemitisim crisis.
Mr Corbyn's spokesman told journalist after PMQs: "I think the polling shows it is completely rampant among members of the Conservative Party, who are currently choosing Britain's next prime minister, on a scale far, far, far bigger than the incidents of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
"And I think as a matter of anti-racist commitment it's essential that that is properly dealt with and at the moment there is no sign of that taking place."
Commons speaker John Bercow has said it was "an hour" to visit Richard Ratcliffe - the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who remains imprisoned in Iran - during his hunger strike last month.
Addressing Mr Ratcliffe, who was watching from the Commons public gallery, Mr Bercow said: "I was struck by your quite extraordinary stoicism and forbearance.
"A stand to which, in such circumstances, any of us could aspire but I suspect none of us would attain. It really was a very humbling experience."
He added: "I want you and all of your family and your precious daughter to know that you will never be forgotten."
Mr Bercow's voice faltered as he said: "This matter, the Iranians need to know, will not go away until mother and daughter, wife and husband are reconciled so that they can live as one."
The Brexit vote coupled with austerity has hurt household incomes more than anything other than recessions in the past 60 years and has done even more damage than the economic slump of the early 1990s, research has found.
Typical household incomes have fallen by 0.5 per cent over the past two years compared with a rise of 0.3 per cent between 1991 and 1993, when the economy was going through and then recovering from recession, according to the annual Living Standards Audit by the Resolution Foundation.
The report dubs the latest period “Article 50 (so far)” in reference to the start of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU in March 2017.
Theresa May is about to make a speech on the "state of politics" domestically and internationally. We expect it to be quite long but unusually, it has not been briefed in advance.
Theresa May is on her feet at Chatham House, where she says she will use this last opportunity to make some personal reflections about a life in politics.
She says there is a lot to be optimistic about, citing changes to extreme poverty and child mortality, the environment, equality in the workplace and an end to "casual bigotry".
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