General election: Corbyn challenges Johnson to TV debates – as it happened | Politics

One of Boris Johnson’s main lines of attack against Labour at the moment is the claim that Jeremy Corbyn would submit the country to two referendums after the general election. This is how he put it at PMQs. Johnson said:

[Corbyn] also offers a political disaster, consigning next year, which should be a wonderful year for our country, to two more referendums: another referendum on the EU because he cannot make up his mind what he thinks, flip-flopping this way and that; and another referendum on Scottish independence. Why on earth should the people of this country spend the next year, which should be a glorious year, going through the toxic, tedious torpor of two more referendums thanks to the Labour party?

Labour is committed to renegotiating Brexit and holding another referendum. As Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman said in a briefing for journalists after PMQs, Labour would not agree to a Scottish independence election in 2020. But Corbyn has confirmed that he would be willing to agree to a Scottish independence referendum at some stage later. (For a Scottish independence referendum, Westminster has to allow it.) The Scottish Labour party used to be flatly opposed to a second independence referendum, but Corbyn changed party policy on this during the summer.

Speaking during a visit to Crawley Hospital in West Sussex this afternoon, Corbyn said he was “not in favour” of another referendum on Scottish independence “any time soon”. But he went on:

At a later stage, obviously under the terms of devolution, if the Scottish parliament demands it, then there could be, at a much later stage, a referendum. I make it very clear, we are against Scottish independence and we are certainly not in favour of any referendum in Scotland any time soon.

From the BBC’s Mark D’Arcy

According to BuzzFeed’s Alex Wickham, who has written a good insider account of the Conservative election campaign, some senior Tories put their chances of winning at between 50/50 and two thirds. He says:

Senior Conservatives put their chances of forming a government on Dec. 13 at between fifty-fifty and two-thirds in favour.

The path to a Johnson majority has been made slightly easier after he restored the whip to 10 of the 21 Tory rebels who opposed his Brexit plans last month. But the Tories still go into the election well short of a majority and likely to lose their foothold in Scotland as well as further seats to the Liberal Democrats in areas of England where support for EU membership remains strong.

To win a majority healthy enough to comfortably pass his Brexit deal, Johnson would have to gain Labour seats far away from their usual target list — and with the added unknown factor of Nigel Farage’s Brexit party eating away at their vote in leave areas.

The fear among Conservatives throughout the party is that they fall short and that parliament remains hung and deadlocked. The potential of Corbyn in Downing Street in coalition with the Scottish Nationalist party is a risk some Tories did not want to take. But there is a growing worry that, even if Johnson has the numbers to stay in Downing Street but the Commons remains at an impasse, the conversation will turn to another long Brexit extension and a second referendum as the only way to find a definitive answer.

Wickham says some Tories are summing up their mood as one of “positive fatalism”.

Overall, while its various factions disagreed over when to go for an election, No 10 is united in the belief that it ultimately has the team and message to win. One Tory who spoke to BuzzFeed News talked about “positive fatalism” — the idea that the choice facing the country was clear, an election to break the deadlock in Parliament was inevitable at some point, and that if voters genuinely preferred Corbyn, then so be it.

According to CNN’s Luke McGee, Brexit party activists have been told not to say on social media where the party will be standing at the election, amidst rumours it may decide to not most seats, as originally planned, but just a handful. McGee writes:

Rumours are now circulating that the Brexit party will switch its focus from standing in every seat to concentrating on a handful of seats that they have a decent chance on winning.

On Wednesday morning, party campaigners were sent the following message, which has been seen by CNN. “Message from HQ … IMPORTANT. Please go DARK on social media. DO NOT respond to any questions about where we are standing, what the strategy or plan is from now. Things will be made clear to all PPCs very soon. #changepoliticsforgood.”

Adam Price, Plaid Cymru’s leader, has confirmed that his party may form a pact with other pro-remain parties to maximise their chances. In August Plaid Cymru and the Greens stood aside in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, which helped the Lib Dems win the seat from the Tories. Price said:

The Brexit crisis has shown up Westminster to be totally unfit for purpose.

The Conservatives and Labour are divided and are simply not offering the solutions we need.

Plaid Cymru is a party of principle and we have consistently said that Wales is best served within the European Union.

That is why, as Wales’s leading remain party, we are open to working with others to secure our European future.

Tory MPs have been criticised for jeering Jeremy Corbyn over his green tie, which he wore as a sign of respect to those who died in the Grenfell Tower fire, the Press Association reports. The Labour leader wore the garment for a House of Commons debate on Wednesday after the report into the disaster that killed 72 people was published. As relatives of those killed looked on from the public gallery, members from the Conservative benches mocked him for the bright tie. Theresa May, who was prime minister when the blaze took hold of the west London building in June 2017, could be seen admonishing them by stressing the tie was to mark the tragedy, PA reports.

Asked to comment on the MPs’ behaviour, Corbyn’s spokesman said:

I think that’s fairly contemptible. He was wearing a green tie as a mark of respect for the victims of the Grenfell disaster. I think those Tory MPs mocking his tie would be better supporting justice for the families and the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire and those who died in similar conflagrations and to deliver safety and protection for people living in tower blocks all over the country.

Michelle O’Neill has said Sinn Fein is hoping to unseat “an architect of Brexit” – DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds – as it aims to increase its number of MPs from seven to eight. As the Press Association reports, the Sinn Fein vice president said the December 12 general election will be about maximising the return of pro-Remain candidates.

Standing alongside the party’s North Belfast candidate John Finucane, O’Neill said:

We will stand in our seven constituencies in which we currently hold seats and we will stand in North Belfast to win that seat.

We believe there is a real opportunity in North Belfast to oust someone who has been architect of Brexit, someone who has actively worked against the interests of people who live here on this island, and John Finucane can provide local representation but also will reflect Ireland’s interests in all of this mess.

Dodds had a majority of 2,081 over Sinn Fein in 2017. But at that election Dodds did not face a challenge from the Ulster Unionist party, which agreed to give the DUP a clear run to maximise the unionist vote. But this time the UUP intends to put up candidates in all 18 of Northern Ireland’s constituency because it does not want to be seen to endorse the DUP’s Brexit stance.

Jeremy Corbyn is challenging Boris Johnson to face him in head-to-head televised debates during the election campaign, the Press Association reports. But it was unclear whether the Labour leader was willing to accept a challenge for a three-way discussion from Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson.

After PMQs, Corbyn’s spokesman told journalists:

As we demanded of Theresa May and she refused to agree, we would challenge Boris Johnson to agree today to head-to-head TV debates in this campaign.

But when asked about a three-way discussion with Swinson, the spokesman replied:

We are in discussion with the broadcasters. But there are only two people who can be prime minister at the end of this campaign and I think the British public have a clear right to see them debate head-to-head on TV and hear their cases.

The number of MPs who have said they are standing down has now reached 57. Sir Alan Duncan, the former Foreign Office minister, is the latest to announce his departure.

Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story about two of the most prominent departures, the former Tory work and pensions secretary Amber Rudd and the former “de facto deputy prime minister” David Lidington.

As the Mail’s Jack Doyle revealed, Mark Spencer, the Tory chief whip, sent a letter to Rudd today saying he was not willing to restore the whip to her because he did not trust her not to criticise the prime minister again. He told her:

I appreciate that you surrendered the whip in an act of solidarity [with the 21 fellow Tories who had had the whip withdrawn] but I am of the view that the receipt of the whip is an honour, not a right, and as such it cannot be discarded or returned at will if it is to have any meaning.

Brexit day has now officially been changed, in UK law, from 31 October 2019 to 31 January 2020. Although the Brexit extension was agreed with the EU earlier this week, the government still had to change the date of “exit day” set out in the EU (Withdrawal) Act for EU law to continue to apply until the new exit date.

Ministers have now just done this, by approving the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2019. James Duddridge, the Brexit minister, was the person who signed it.

Under the Act, ministers can change the exit date in the legislation without the need for a vote in parliament. There was a vote the last time it got changed, but that was because Theresa May agreed to hold one in response to a request from Tory Brexiters.

Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story about the opening of the Grenfell Tower debate.

I won’t be covering the rest of the debate, and I will be turning back now to general election developments.

Turning to the “stay put” doctrine, May says this doctrine had been developed for good reasons.

The problem was, there was no flexibility in implementing this, she says.

She says firefighters should get training to ensure that they know when and when not to enforce “stay put”. She says one father survived the fire because he ignored advice to stay put.

Labour’s Andrew Slaughter asks May if she accepts that Grenfell Tower would have benefitted from sprinklers. Should they be fitted in all new tower blocks, and retrofitted in old ones?

May says the Lakanal House report did not say sprinklers should be obligatory.

May praises the bravery of the firefighters who attended the fire. But she says it is clear from the report that there are problems with the way the fire service worked that need to addressed.

The emergency services must be able to work together, she says.

She says, as home secretary, she oversaw the JESIP project that was intended to address this. But the report shows that there were still problems.