Brexit: Theresa May urges MPs to 'take a second look' at her deal – as it happened

In an article for the Guardian, Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, says that historical precedent dictates that, if Theresa May loses the Brexit vote tomorrow, she should call a general election.

Here is an extract.

In this week in 1910, the British electorate went to the polls. They did so because Herbert Asquith’s Liberal government had been unable to get Lloyd George’s famous People’s Budget through the House of Lords. Liberal posters defined the election as a choice between the peers and the people. They finally got their way after a second election that December.

So twice that year, and a number of other times, governments who could not get their flagship legislation through parliament, or who otherwise found their authority in the House of Commons exhausted, have been obliged to go to the country to seek a new mandate.

For Earl Grey in 1832, it was electoral reform. For Gladstone in 1886, it was Irish Home Rule. And for Clement Attlee in 1951 and Ted Heath in 1974, it was a last throw of the dice when facing parliamentary stagnation and national crisis ...

Theresa May said last week that our country would be in “unchartered territory” when MPs vote down her deal tomorrow. She is wrong. This is territory numerous previous prime ministers have walked through before.

She has a constitutional obligation to follow the only course of action titans like Gladstone and Attlee felt was practically and honourably open to them when their parliamentary authority fell away.

The prime minister must call an election. Anything else would not be stoicism or stubbornness, or whatever other qualities her admirers claim; it would just be sheer cowardice.

And here is the full article.

Conservative MPs have been told that Theresa May will address the party’s backbench 1922 committee at 7pm, after her statement to the Commons. And Jeremy Corbyn will be addressing the parliamentary Labour party meeting tonight too.

As Kate Proctor reports in today’s Evening Standard, the Labour MP Tulip Siddiq is planning to delay the birth of her baby by caesarean section so that she can be in the chamber tomorrow to vote on Brexit. According to the Standard, Siddiq expects to be the lobby in a wheelchair by her husband Chris.

In the Commons just now Harriet Harman, the former Labour deputy leader, raised this as a point of order. And, in response, John Bercow, the speaker, condemned the government for delaying the introduction of proxy voting for female MPs on maternity leave. He said that it was “uncivilised” for someone like Siddiq to have to be pushed through the lobby in a wheelchair and that the Commons had already twice in principle agreed in principle that proxy voting should be introduce. The first debate was around year ago, he said. But still nothing has happened, he said. He said this was “frankly lamentable” and “very disadvantageous and injurious to the reputation of this House”. If the government wanted to change Commons procedures to allow proxy voting, it could do so, he said. He implied that “reactionary forces” within government were dragging their feet because they were opposed to reform and he said he very much regretted this.

Bercow said he would like the situation resolved before tomorrow and that he would do what he could to help.

Anyone who thought that, after last week’s row about Bercow effectively rewriting Commons procedural rules, he might lose his appetite for taking on the parliamentary establishment will be disappointed. Instead his appetite for confrontation seems to be growing ...

Remember the days when the government used to say that it never revealed the legal advice it received from the attorney general? Well, now ministers seem to be publishing it proactively, before the opposition has even had time to say “humble address”. The Department for Exiting the European Union has published on its website the text of a letter (pdf), written today, from Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, to Theresa May assessing the significance of the Tusk/Juncker related about the Brexit deal sent earlier today.

Here is an extract. Cox said:

I agree that in the light of [the Tusk/Juncker letter], the council’s conclusions of 13 December would have legal force in international law and thus be relevant and cognisable in the interpretation of the withdrawal agreement, and in particular the Northern Ireland protocol [ie, the backstop], albeit they do not alter the fundamental meanings of its provisions as I advised them to be on 13 November 2018 ...

It is my opinion, based on the factors set out in my letter of 13 November 2018, reinforced by the joint response [the Tusk/Juncker letter], that the balance of risks favours the conclusion that it is unlikely that the EU will wish to rely on the implementation of the backstop provisions. It is therefore my judgment that the current draft withdrawal agreement now represents the only politically practicable and available means of securing our exit from the European Union.

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This is from ITV’s Paul Brand.

Mel Stride, the Treasury minister, has been photographed coming out of a cabinet committee meeting with a note saying, in large handwriting, “No food” and “No channel tunnel”.

The Twitter consensus is that he’s winding us up ...

Theresa May will neither back nor reject the Andrew Murrison amendment to her Brexit motion (see 9.33am) saying the deal should be agreed “subject to a legal codicil being added to the withdrawal agreement treaty which specifies that the backstop solution shall expire on 31 December 2022”, my colleague Heather Stewart reports.

The Times’ Sam Coates says some government aides are encouraging Tory MPs to support it.

On the World at One Sir Edward Leigh, the Conservative Brexiter, said he would be backing Theresa May’s Brexit deal because he was worried about what might happen if she lost. He explained:

What worries me is that if she (the PM) loses by over 100 the EU might offer her nothing and the remainers might take control completely.

He also denied that his decision to vote for the deal had anything to do with the fact that he was recently appointed a privy counsellor. He said the honour was awarded in recognition of his service as chair of the public accounts committee (between 2001 and 2010) and that it was originally proposed some time ago.

In his LBC phone-in this morning Boris Johnson, the Brexiter foreign secretary, suggested that he knows more about car manufacturing that the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) chief executive Ralf Speth.

Johnson dismissed claims that recent job losses at JLR were related to Brexit. When it was put to him that Speth said otherwise, and that Speth knew more about the car industry than he did, Johnson replied:

Well actually, it’s an interesting point. I’m not certain he does, by the way.

Johnson then cited a conversation he had with Speth when he was London mayor on the future of electric vehicles (EVs). He went on:

I mean, I do not claim superior knowledge of every aspect of car manufacturing, okay.

But, I simply said that I thought that EVs, electric vehicles, did represent the future, that we should be going down that road.

And he said, ‘no, no, no, diesel is great, and we will stick with this’. And I’m afraid, I hesitate to say this, but I think events have vindicated me on that point rather than him.

According to my colleague Heather Stewart, the Labour MP Hilary Benn is coming under pressure to withdraw his amendment to the Brexit motion.

On the Today programme this morning John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, made it clear that he did not like the amendment because it could stop MPs having a “straight vote” on Theresa May’s deal. (See 9.33am.)