UK politics - as it happened: Theresa May's Brexit plan 'substantially worse' than status quo, says Boris Johnson
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Your support makes all the difference.Boris Johnson has branded Theresa May’s Brexit blueprint “substantially worse to the status quo” during an event designed to highlight benefits of a no-deal Brexit.
Asked whether he was confident the prime minister’s plan, which he resigned over, was “equivalent to the status quo”, the former foreign secretary said: “That seems to me to be a particular economic risk in Chequers that makes it substantially worse to the status quo.”
His remarks came after the former Conservative leader William Hague warned Britain faces the “most serious constitutional crisis” for a least a century if Ms May’s deal is eventually blocked in the Commons.
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The prime minister’s spokesman has been talking about Theresa May’s hopes for her crucial meeting with other EU leaders in Salzburg next week, calling it a “staging post” towards a Brexit deal.
It comes amid reports the EU is considering plans to redraw the Commission’s chief Brexit negotiator’s guidelines, in what is now being dubbed a “save Theresa” operation.
Ms May’s spokesman said the EU leaders would be “taking stock of the progress” made on securing a withdrawal agreement and the outlines of a future trading relationship
He said she would be “underlying the importance to both parties of the UK remaining the EU’s closest ally” after the UK leaves the bloc.
This is from the Press Association on an exchange between Philip Hammond and the well-known Labour MP Dennis Skinner.
Philip Hammond risked incurring the wrath of a Labour grandee nicknamed "the beast" after suggesting he needed a hearing test.
The Chancellor ignored calls to apologise for aiming the jibe at veteran MP Dennis Skinner following a question about library closures at Treasury questions.
Speaker John Bercow said the remark "probably wasn't the best chosen".
Mr Skinner, 86, dubbed the "Beast of Bolsover" due to his fiery rhetoric and the name of his Derbyshire constituency, told the Commons: "For the past hour, we've heard the whole of the Treasury spouting about this wonderful situation that they have with money to burn."
He asked why, if this was the case, Tory-led Derbyshire County Council was proposing changes to library services.
Mr Hammond replied: "I'd suggest [Mr Skinner] either goes to have a hearing test or relies on reading Hansard after the session because he has misheard what we've been saying today."
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, raising a point of order, later said: "Whether people agree or disagree with [Mr Skinner], he is actually respected across the House and I invite the Chancellor now to apologise for his personal remarks made."
Mr Bercow added: "I've never found anything wrong with [Mr Skinner's] hearing.
"I think it was an off-the-cuff remark, it probably wasn't the best chosen but it's a matter for the Chancellor to judge whether he wants to say anything - and he's shaking his head."
Mr Skinner rose again to ask Mr Hammond "why doesn't he answer the question?", before claiming the council has been "throwing people out of work".
After Treasury questions in the Commons, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, told journalists he'd had a meeting with Goldman Sachs bankers on Monday and they shared his concerns on Brexit.
He said: "I met Goldman Sachs yesterday. We had an interesting conversation. And, again what they were saying, they were expressing the same concerns as us about what's happening on Brexit and how they need security for the future."
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