Brexit live: Boris Johnson says lack of government leave plan led to ‘hysteria’

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8.41am BST

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Claire.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is on the Today programme now.

8.31am BST

While in the UK legal moves and opinion columns ponder the possibility of not triggering article 50, EU officials are wondering the same thing.

Politico reports:

What if the UK never withdraws?

The EU cannot force to the UK to notify its withdrawal, but it could try to invoke sanctions under Article 7 using the rationale that the political and economic uncertainty created by the delay is undermining the union. But that’s unlikely. Tusk’s top aide [Piotr] Serafin urged national diplomats at their meeting last week to remember that the UK is going through a crisis and they should avoid escalating it by threatening sanctions.

8.25am BST

This afternoon, Jeremy Corbyn will appear in front of the home affairs select committee to answer questions from MPs about Labour’s antisemitism review, published last week.

Keith Vaz, the committee’s chairman, said:

We have seen a deeply troubling upsurge in anti-Semitic incidents and speech across Britain and Europe in recent times, including within our political discourse …

We are grateful to Jeremy Corbyn for coming to give evidence on his and the Labour party’s position following the publication of the independent report on anti-Semitism in the party on Thursday.

8.11am BST

Boris Johnson has found unlikely agreement on his claim that the vote to leave the EU has been met with hysteria – from shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

McDonnell has told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:

Now is the time to sort of calm down, everyone calm down.

Since the referendum there’s sort of been mass hysteria in virtually all our political parties and I can’t completely understand it.

That has never been discussed. Last week I was accused of a coup against Jeremy myself. This week I was accused of forcing him to stay in. It gets ridiculous.

8.03am BST

Hammond said voters had made it clear that they wanted restrictions on freedom of movement, but that this came at a cost:

We need to be realistic – we need to accept that the terms of trade must change.

Simply doing our ‘stubborn best’ by demanding access to the market while offering nothing in return may sound brave, but would be foolhardy.

8.00am BST

Foreign secretary Philip Hammond – who has declared his backing for Theresa May today – has been speaking on the Today programme.

He was questioned about May’s reluctance to guarantee that EU nationals already living in the UK will be allowed to stay post-Brexit.

7.50am BST

Alain Juppé, former prime minister of France and a candidate for the centre-right presidential nomination, says in the Financial Times today that the remaining EU states shouldn’t give the UK a hard time:

[Brexit] does not mean we are going to punish the UK. We need to find ways to co-operate, to find a solution to have the UK in the European market, one way or another – whether that is part of the European Economic Area or something else.

They can’t say yes, no, maybe. Now they must draw the conclusions of the vote. When you get divorced, you don’t stay in the same house. It’s not a question of days, but it has to be fast.

7.40am BST

The decision to leave the EU has cast the future of the so-called Osborne Doctrine – by which Britain positioned itself as China’s best friend in the west – into doubt.

Many observers believe that as a result of Brexit, the “golden” relationship between London and Beijing, whose main architects were David Cameron and George Osborne, is now on life support.

We’ve got to get on a plane and sell Britain to the world. And for me that means putting more effort still into our relationship with China.

I am going to buy a Louis Vuitton handbag as soon as possible in case the exchange rate changes again.

7.28am BST

Today’s secretary of state for closing the stable door after the horse has bolted is John Whittingdale:

“I don’t want it to descend into a dispute over personality.” @JWhittingdale on newspaper h/lines abt Gove.@NickyAACampbell @bbc5live

When I was a government whip and Michael was the chief whip, the office leaked like a sieve. Important policy and personnel details made their way to the papers. Michael seems to have an emotional need to gossip, particularly when drink is taken, as it all too often seemed to be …

UK citizens deserve to know that when they go to sleep at night their secrets and their nation’s secrets aren’t shared in the newspaper column of the prime minister’s wife the next day, or traded away with newspaper proprietors over fine wine.

7.18am BST

Tory MPs vote tomorrow in the first round of leadership culling that will see the five candidates reduced to four.

John Redwood – previously a Boris Johnson backer – announces today that he’s opting instead for Andrea Leadsom:

She has a fresh and determined mind, with the qualities necessary to get us out of the EU quickly and with the minimum of disruption.

I know that Theresa has the qualities and the character to take our country forward and, with her quietly determined, down-to-earth style, to reunite us after the referendum.

Related: The Conservative leadership contest: who’s backing who

7.09am BST

Mishcon de Reya, the law firm taking action on behalf of an anonymous group of clients against the triggering of article 50, has published this explainer on the move:

The referendum held on 23 June was an exercise to obtain the views of UK citizens, the majority of whom expressed a desire to leave the EU. But the decision to trigger article 50 of the Treaty of European Union, the legal process for withdrawal from the EU, rests with the representatives of the people under the UK constitution.

The government, however, has suggested that it has sufficient legal authority. Mishcon de Reya has been in correspondence with the government lawyers since 27 June 2016 on behalf of its clients to seek assurances that the government will uphold the UK constitution and protect the sovereignty of parliament in invoking article 50.

Related: UK government faces pre-emptive legal action over Brexit decision

6.46am BST

Welcome back to a fresh week of Brexit live blogs, a week in which we will find out the first two Tory leader wannabes to be kicked off the list; we might find out if a Labour MP (or two) is going to launch a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn; and we certainly won’t find out what’s going on with the whole leaving-the-EU thing.

Here’s the morning briefing to set you up for the day ahead, then stay glued to the live blog with me and (later) Andrew Sparrow through the day. Do come and chat in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps.

It was wrong of the government to offer the public a binary choice on the EU without being willing – in the event that people voted leave – to explain how this can be made to work in the interests of the UK and Europe. We cannot wait until mid-September, and a new PM.

The future is very bright indeed.

There is, among a section of the population, a kind of hysteria, a contagious mourning of the kind that I remember in 1997 after the death of the Princess of Wales.

There is no doubt that elements of Ukip are intending to try to steal a Conservative leadership election.

One option could be a collective leadership with a ‘kitchen cabinet’ representing different wings of the party … Under such a plan being discussed by some left-leaning MPs, Corbyn could become chairman rather than ‘supreme leader’.

Another alternative is for him to assume a more presidential role, with a consensual leader of the PLP being appointed who would satisfy MPs.

The notion that it should be left to Conservative members to handpick a new prime minister for what in effect will be a new government pursuing new priorities is absurd. This election would also give all parties the opportunity to set out their stalls on what our new relationship with Europe should be.

We just need to get on with it.

I would allow EU citizens already in UK to continue their lives here, and expect same for Brits in EU. People are not bargaining chips

On Friday I heard a new dawn chorus outside my house. There was a rustling and twittering, as though of starlings assembling on a branch. Then I heard a collective clearing of the throat, and they started yodelling my name – followed by various expletives. ‘Oi Boris – c—!’ they shouted. Or ‘Boris – w—–!’ I looked out to see some otherwise charming-looking young people, the sort who might fast to raise money for a Third World leprosy project.

He knows from experience that pushing change through the system can be like trudging through a swimming pool filled with sand – so he hits the task with uncompromising velocity. He gets things done …

To set this aside in light of last week would be a profound shame. If Gove is Machiavelli then Ant and Dec are the Kray twins. His concern for the national interest simply trumped etiquette. That is the long and short of it.

Anticipating the possibility of victory for the leave camp, the National Front had posters on hand proclaiming, ‘And now, France?’ In the current tense domestic and global situation, with a presidential election only 10 months away, Ms Le Pen’s party, which got 28% of the vote in the regional poll held last December, couldn’t have dreamed of such a godsend.

But France doesn’t seem to be ready for Ms Le Pen’s Frexit dream. A TNS Sofres poll taken in the immediate aftermath of the British vote … showed that less than half of the electorate, 45%, would favour holding such a referendum. If it were held, 45% of French voters would have chosen remain and 33% would have voted leave. Three days later, after giving it cooler thought, 55% of French voters rejected the idea of a referendum … and the remain camp had grown to 61%.

Lot of tweets saying we should do a Brexit Thick Of It – a) too bleak, b) TTOI found comedy in chaos behind the facade. No facade any more.

I’m at a garden party. Hope I’m not sitting next to Voldemort or Fromage. I might be sick http://pic.twitter.com/ILsuu6kDPM

-exit is the new -gate http://pic.twitter.com/Yt6HTtbWwr

Things are going great, and they’re only getting better.

Continue reading…

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