Brexit: Labour accuses government of failure to compromise in talks - as it happened

After Labour said Downing Street had refused to consider meaningful changes to the deal during talks between the government and the opposition this week (see: 5.37pm), a spokesman for the prime minister has said:

We have made serious proposals in talks this week and are prepared to pursue changes to the political declaration in order to deliver a deal that is acceptable to both sides.

We are ready to hold further detailed discussions this weekend in order to seek any such changes in the run up to European Council on Wednesday. The government is determined to work constructively to deliver the Brexit people voted for, and avoid participation in the European Parliamentary elections.

That seems to contradict indications from Labour sources, who had suggested that material changes to the political declaration – a key component of any deal Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, might be persuaded to back – had not been forthcoming.

As talks over a unified approach to Brexit come to a close, Labour are accusing the government of having refused to engage in meaningful negotiation over the terms of the exit deal. A party spokeswoman has said:

We are disappointed that the government has not offered real change or compromise.

We urge the prime minister to come forward with genuine changes to her deal in an effort to find an alternative that can win support in Parliament and bring the country together.

A source suggests that Labour do not see this as the end of the talks; rather that the ball is now firmly in the government’s court.

Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, has also said that Theresa May needs to explain more about how she will get a Brexit plan through parliament before the EU can justify another article 50 extension. Echoing what the Dutch PM Mark Rutte said (see 3.43pm), Maas told reporters at the meeting of G7 foreign minsters in Dinard in France:

It is a difficult situation. There are, I think, many questions still to clarify in London ...

We will come together with our European colleagues at the next council meeting and come to an opinion over the question of an extension and how long such an extension should be.

Maas said protecting the legitimacy of the European elections would be a priority. He said:

The European elections are an important point in time and it is very important that they proceed in an orderly fashion. Therefore, we need great legal security and we should not endanger the legitimacy of the EU elections.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, told journalists at a press conference in the Netherlands today that Theresa May’s letter to Donald Tusk “doesn’t answer” the EU’s key questions. He explained:

The plan was that the British would explain what they wanted from the EU. A letter was sent today which, as far as I am concerned, doesn’t answer this request [from the EU for more information]. I hope it will be possible to give the answers to these questions.

Rutte said the letter had “no full plan, there was only part of a plan”. He went on:

We hope London will provide more clarity before Wednesday ...

The ball is not here in the Netherlands, or in Paris or Berlin. The ball really is in London.

For the record, this is what the EU said in its summit conclusions in March about what would need to happen for the UK to get another extension beyond 12 April.

If the withdrawal agreement is not approved by the House of Commons next week [ie, 29 March], the European council agrees to an extension until 12 April 2019 and expects the United Kingdom to indicate a way forward before this date for consideration by the European council.

Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, has criticised Theresa May’s decision to request a further article 50 extension until 30 June. In a statement, Foster said it was a mistake to rule out no-deal and that the government should not be “subcontracting the UK’s future to Jeremy Corbyn”.

Here is the statement in full.

The prime minister’s latest plea to Brussels for an extension to article 50 is unsurprising but unsatisfactory. It should not have been like this. Exiting the EU has become chaotic because of intransigence in Brussels and ineffectiveness in London.

The United Kingdom fighting European elections almost three years after a clear majority voted to leave the EU sums up the disorganised and slapdash approach taken to negotiations by the prime minister.

We want a sensible deal which protects the union and respects the referendum result but it was foolish strategically in the negotiations to limit the UK’s leverage by removing ‘no deal’ from the table.

The prime minister should not waste any extension by subcontracting the UK’s future to Jeremy Corbyn. This time should be used to get a better deal which works for every part of the United Kingdom so the entire nation can leave the European Union together.

Although Foster says “subcontracting the UK’s future to Jeremy Corbyn” (ie, the talks with Labour aimed at finding a Brexit compromise) is a waste of time, today’s statement from the French Europe minister (see 2.52pm) implies it is essential. The French government wants to know that there is “credible political backing” for any plan presented by Theresa May at the summit on Wednesday. That clearly implies cross-party support. Any strategy solely reliant on Conservative votes would be viewed by the EU as likely to fail.

France has reiterated its opposition to Britain being granted any further Brexit extension if it does not have a concrete plan with clear support in the Commons, saying that without one Britain must be deemed to have chosen to leave the EU without a deal.

France’s minister for European affairs, Amélie de Montchalin, said in a statement: “The European council took a clear decision on 21 March … Another extension requires the UK to put forward a plan with clear and credible political backing.” The council would then define the necessary conditions attached to that extension, she said.

“[I]n the absence of such a plan, we would have to acknowledge that the UK chose to leave the EU in a disorderly manner.”

De Montchalin said Paris had “read with interest Theresa May’s letter to President Tusk. As the prime minister rightly wrote, the current impasse is not in the best interest of either the UK nor the EU. It cannot be allowed to continue.”

Angela Merkel gave the clear impression that the EU would continue to support Ireland when she met cross-border communities in private yesterday before her meeting with Leo Varadkar, according to one of those present.

The German chancellor met representatives from the farming and health sectors as well as family members of victims of the Troubles.

“It was a very powerful and passionate presentation being made about the anxiety over the potential consequences of a hard Brexit. She said she understood the concerns over the Good Friday agreement because of her own experiences,” said the guest, who is not involved in politics.

Merkel also mentioned “the importance of the British identity” in Northern Ireland. “I thought that was very notable,” the guest added. “It showed she understands the issue about identity … and that the conundrum over the border isn’t just about tariffs.”

Merkel, who was born in Hamburg but brought up in east Germany, told reporters after her summit with the Irish taoiseach of the “moving” stories of those she had met, including those who had lived through the Troubles. Among those she met was Patricia McBride, the former victims commissioner.

At the news conference after her meeting with Varadkar, Merkel said:

For 34 years I lived behind the Iron Curtain so I know only too well what it means once borders vanish, once walls fall.

One of those chosen to meet the chancellor said: “It sounds really cliched, but she listened, she took notes and she engaged with what people were telling her. She reiterated very clearly the EU support for Ireland. You didn’t get the impression that they were going to hang Ireland out to dry.

“She was very reassuring. She mentioned the need for patience” in the context of not rushing into an arrangement for the sake of ending the Brexit crisis. But she told guests “she could not make any promises because so much depended on what the UK government asked for”.

Here is a roundup of some of the best commentary I’ve seen on the Newport West byelection result. (See 11.27am.)

This is from Prof Sir John Curtice, the psephologist who masterminds the exit polls used by broadcasters at general election. It is what he told the BBC’s Politics Live programme earlier.

No byelection should be interpreted too closely on its own. What’s interesting about the pattern in Newport West is that it is consistent with the expectations one might have had, given what the national opinion polls have been saying recently, which is a decline in the combined level of support for Conservative and Labour, with Ukip back to roughly the level that they were before the 2017 elections.

[The swing from Labour to the Tories] frankly ... is irrelevant. Both parties are down, and both parties are losing ground in the wake of the Brexit saga. The Conservatives are particularly clearly losing their support amongst their leave voters, and it is going towards Ukip. Newport West is consistent with that story in the polls.

Equally, the Labour party is losing ground, probably more amongst its remain supporters. There were four parties in Newport West fighting on a pro-second-referendum, reverse-the-result position: the Liberal Democrats, Plaid, the so-called Renew party and the Greens. Collectively their vote was up by 11 percentage points.

I don’t think it tells us anything about whether or not people want a referendum, but certainly it indicates how potentially parties on that side of the spectrum are also beginning to be able to gain ground.

This from David Cowling, the former head of political research at the BBC (sent in an email to the Guardian).

I’m afraid I am unable to subscribe to the view that the Newport West byelection was a matter of little consequence, was “a good hold” for Labour; and in the words of Jeremy Corbyn “sends a clear message that the people of Newport and Wales are fed up of austerity ... and shows support for Labour’s alternative”.

Words do and should matter.

If you have a moment, pause and reflect on the political apocalypse that has engulfed the Conservative party during this byelection campaign and then contemplate with me the fact that the result of the vote was a 2.4% swing from Labour to the Conservatives.

This swing was hardly a rally of support for the Conservatives: it was the product of the fall in Conservative support since the 2017 general election (-8%) being smaller than the fall in Labour support (-12.7%). The decline in Conservative support I understand (as I also understand the Conservative candidate’s relief after the count that his party had not been entirely wiped out); but what am I, or anyone else, to make of the greater drop in Labour’s support? Surely Mr Corbyn cannot be correct: the result cannot “show support for Labour’s alternative” if it represents a 24% loss in Labour’s share of the vote since the 2017 general election?

Low turnout is no real explanation of Labour’s performance this time: the Manchester Central byelection [in November 2012] saw Labour’s share increase by 16.4% on a turnout of 18.2%; the Middlesbrough byelection [also in November 2012] saw an increase of 14.6% in Labour’s share with a turnout of 25.9%; and on that same day in the Croydon North byelection on a turnout of 26.4%, Labour’s share went up 8.7%.

Either we are living through some of the most extraordinary events in British politics in a lifetime, or we are not. If we are, then surely the events must have some impact on elections (unless we feel that only Westminster is consumed by the firestorm and everywhere outside London exists in a blissful state of bucolic ignorance)? Newport West was a two-horse race in the midst of all these extraordinary events (with no history of past strength for either Plaid or the Lib Dems). That the Conservatives took a drubbing surprises no one; but why did Labour take a bigger one?

This is an extract from Stephen Bush’s analysis for the New Statesman.

So a comfortable hold for Labour, but the interesting story is what has happened to the vote share of both of the big two: they’re both down at the expense of the smaller parties ...

It could be a sign that the two-party polarisation of the 2017 election is not the new reality of British politics but a brief detour along the United Kingdom’s long journey to multi-party politics.

And these are from Sky’s Lewis Goodall. He posted a Twitter thread on Newport West starting here.

And here are his conclusions.

Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, has said that the UK may end up having “no choice” but to accept a long article 50 extension. Speaking to the BBC, he said:

It’s obviously not optimal to have any extension at all and we have a plan to leave the EU and deliver on the referendum result which we put before parliament a number of times.

We still hope to leave the EU in the next couple of months, that’s our ambition, we don’t have a majority in parliament, and that means that we have to have these discussions with Jeremy Corbyn to see if there is enough common ground to do that.

Asked if he could accept a long extension, Hunt said:

If we can’t find a way through with parliament, then we have no choice.

Labour has held on to the Newport West parliamentary seat in a byelection fought against the backdrop of Brexit chaos during which all parties said they had heard anger, frustration and mistrust on the doorstep, my colleague Steven Morris reports.

Here are the results in full, from the Press Association

Ruth Jones (Lab) 9,308 (39.58%, -12.73%)
Matthew Evans (C) 7,357 (31.29%, -8.00%)
Neil Hamilton (UKIP) 2,023 (8.60%, +6.07%)
Jonathan T Clark (PC) 1,185 (5.04%, +2.56%)
Ryan Jones (LD) 1,088 (4.63%, +2.38%)
Amelia Womack (Green) 924 (3.93%, +2.79%)
June Davies (Renew) 879 (3.74%)
Richard Suchorzewski (Assembly) 205 (0.87%)
Ian McLean (Soc Dem) 202 (0.86%)
Phillip Taylor (DVP) 185 (0.79%)
Hugh Nicklin (FBM) 159 (0.68%)

Lab maj 1,951 (8.30%)
2.36% swing Lab to C

And this is from the Scottish National party’s Europe spokesman, Stephen Gethins, on Theresa May’s letter to Donald Tusk. He said:

More than three years on from the EU referendum and the prime minister’s approach is still dictated by can-kicking and chaos.

Theresa May continues to ignore Scotland and her proposal to seek a further short extension to June 30th 2019 - which the EU has already previously rejected – demonstrates beyond doubt she is putting the interests of her fractured Tory party above all else.

It is clear that with the UK parliament unable to reach a consensus – coupled with everything we now know on the damaging impact Brexit will have on the UK economy, jobs and living standards – it must now be the priority that the issue is brought back to the people in a fresh second EU referendum, with the option to remain [in the EU] on the ballot paper.

This is from the Green MP Caroline Lucas.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, who chairs the European Research Group, which represents hardline Brexiter Tory MPs, says if the UK does have to accept a long article 50 extension, the UK should become obstructive.

That has prompted this response from Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minster.

And Sky’s Faisal Islam suggests Rees-Mogg may be trying to encourage Emmanuel Macron, the French president, who is seen as the EU leader most sceptical about granting another extension, to veto the “flextension” proposal.

One of Theresa May’s defining characteristics is stubbornness. She does not give up easily. After her Brexit deal was rejected by parliament by a record number of votes, instead of adopting a new approach, she just tried a second and third time to get substantially the same deal through parliament (failing decisively both times). And last month, when it was obvious that the UK would not be able to leave the EU on 29 March as planned, she wrote to Donald Tusk, the European council president, requesting an extension of article 50 until 30 June. That request was rejected, but today, despite the UK being in an even weaker negotiating position than it was three weeks ago, she has made exactly the same request again.

So, one thing today’s letter confirms is that flexibility is not one of May’s virtues. But there is more to the letter than that. Here is what it tells us.

• May is not willingly going to embrace a year-long flexible extension to article 50, with the UK having the right to leave the EU earlier if parliament approves the withdrawal agreement. As my colleague Daniel Boffey was reporting overnight, this option - dubbed a “flextension” - is currently Tusk’s preferred option. In an interview with the BBC for the Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast, Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, said that if MPs could not agree on a deal soon, the PM would have to accept an extension that was “likely to be a long one, by which I mean longer than just a few weeks or months”. So No 10 knows a year-long extension is becoming inevitable. But, instead of accepting that, May has tabled an alternative offer that she must know is extremely likely to be rejected. That will be because she needs cover with Brexiter Tories; if she does end up having to agree to a long extension, she cannot be seen to agree to that without having put up a fight.

• May does not try to address the EU’s concerns about a 30 June extension, suggesting that her offer may not be a serious one. May does not want the UK to take part in the European elections on 23 May, and there is an argument that it would be acceptable for the UK not to take part provided it was out of the EU before the new parliament convened on 2 July. That would make an extension until 30 June acceptable. However, some senior EU figures were worried the UK might not take part in the elections, but then revoke article 50 in June - plunging the EU institutions into legal chaos (because the UK would be a member without representation in the parliament). If May really wanted the EU to agree to 30 June, she would have addressed this point in her letter. She doesn’t.

• May explains the process she is engaged in with Labour to try to find a compromise - but with a few new clues as to her thinking. Part of what is in the letter repeats what May said in her statement from No 10 on Tuesday after the seven-hour cabinet meeting about what to do next. May said if she and Corbyn could not agree on a compromise solution, the government and Labour would agree “a number of options for the future relationship that we could put to the house in a series of votes to determine which course to pursue”. In today’s letter that has become “a small number of clear options” (my italics), suggesting indicative votes on perhaps just three choices?

• May insists the government will only sign up to this sort of binding indicative votes process if Labour agrees to be bound by it too. May also made this point in her speech on Tuesday, but today she is more explicit. She says:

The government stands ready to abide by the decision of the house, if the opposition will commit to doing the same.

In saying this, May is using her letter to put pressure on the opposition, implying Corbyn will be partly to blame if there is no agreement. This marks a departure from May’s letter to Tusk last month, which barely mentioned the opposition.

• May stresses her willingness to “compromise” and her determination to resolve this crisis quickly. She also explains in some detail how she has been holding talks with Labour. This will be welcome by EU leaders, some of whom have been urging the UK to adopt a cross-party approach for some time, but they may legitimately wonder why May has left it so late.

• May confirms the UK will now prepare for European elections - while hoping to agree a Brexit deal before 22 May that would allow them to be cancelled. This marks a change from her letter three weeks ago, in which she implied that the UK would not contest those elections, without making a firm commitment. Today she says:

The United Kingdom accepts the European council’s view that if the United Kingdom were still a member state of the European Union on 23 May 2019, it would be under a legal obligation to hold the elections. The government is therefore undertaking the lawful and responsible preparations for this contingency, including by making the order that sets the date of the poll ...

The government will want to agree a timetable for ratification that allows the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union before 23 May 2019 and therefore cancel the European parliament elections, but will continue to make responsible preparations to hold the elections should this not prove possible.

This means parties are going to have to select candidates and start campaigning for an election that may never happen. As well as being a potential colossal waste of money, it will be rather surreal.