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

0:35

Jeremy Corbyn is responding to May.

He says May has failed to get the legal assurances she promised. The Tusk/Juncker letter contains nothing more than warm words.

He says the attorney general’s advice showed the UK could be locked into the backstop.

By the end of 2020, under May’s plan the UK will have to extend the transition, or enter a backstop that could last indefinitely.

He says Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, has said that today’s Tusk/Juncker letter dos not alter his earlier assessment. (See 3.41pm.)

He says May must no longer run down the clock. She should stop trying to scare people into voting for the deal.

What MPs are voting on this week is the same deal MPs should have voted on in December.

May should be reaching out to MPs, he says.

But May is claiming that MPs who don’t support her are undermining faith in democracy. The person who is undermining democracy is May herself, he says.

He says May is facing a “humiliating defeat”. She will only have herself to blame, he says.

He says there is a deal that could command support in the Commons - staying in the customs union, and maintaining EU standards.

He says the government’s handling of the talks has been “shambolic”. We are now on our third Brexit secretary, and they have all been sidelined, he says.

He says the government is in disarray. If the government’s deal is rejected tomorrow, it is time for a general election and a new government.

May says MPs should “give this deal a second look”, whatever they have previously concluded. “Yes, it is a compromise,” he says.

When the history books are written, people will ask if MPs delivered on the will of the British people, and if they secured the country’s economy, security and union.

May admits the EU would not agree to put a time limit on the backstop. Any attempt to reopen the negotiation would lead to other EU states seeking changes that would favour them, she says.

May says the backstop would involve the EU relying on the UK to police its own market. This would be unprecedented, she says. She says that is why the EU does not want it.

May says the EU has said that the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration come together. Although the political declaration is not legally binding in the way the withdrawal agreement is, the EU has insisted they come “as a package”.

May says the EU has said that it does not see the backstop as the only mechanism that would avoid a hard border in Ireland.

May says, if MPs agree the deal tomorrow, the UK and the EU will have almost two years to negotiate the final trade deal (because the EU has offered to open talks before 29 March).

May says she has been clear that the UK would never allow any return to a hard border in Ireland.

But it is not enough to say this, she says. She says the government must ensure that happens. That is why the backstop is in place.

Theresa May is now making a statement to MPs about the assurances received today from Donald Tusk, the European council president, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president.

Their letter to her is here.

Here is a summary of the speech she gave this morning, where she explained what she thought the significant new elements in the letter were.

And here is the attorney general’s assessment of its significance.

It has been rather overshadowed by everything else, but in his Today programme interview this morning John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, welcomed the fact that parliament is now flexing its muscles and trying to take control of the Brexit process. He explained:

I actually think this is most probably parliament at its best.

Individual MPs are behaving properly. They are listening to their constituents, they are exercising their own judgement about the interest of their constituency and the interests of the country. And they are coming to decisions based upon, not party advantage, not individual career moves, but actually on what is best for the people they represent.

I think, far from parliament being at its worst, as some people have accused it, I actually think this is parliament at its best.

It is forcing the executive, it is forcing the government, to actually not take parliament for granted anymore. It is redressing some of the imbalance between the executive and Parliament that has built up over decades.

Many parliamentarians would agree, although whether McDonnell will feel the same way if Labour wins an election and at that point the legislature starts defying the executive remains to be seen ...