News review – Tuesday 29 October 2019

GE

Express
DEFIANT Boris Johnson will today make a fourth attempt to trigger a general election aimed at ending Parliament’s “stagnation and paralysis” over Brexit. Amid fractious scenes at Westminster last night, the Prime Minister warned that the country was being held hostage by a House of Commons dominated by Remainer MPs. It came as he failed in his third bid to stage a general election. Immediately after the vote, Mr Johnson announced he would try again using legislation that will only require a simple majority to give the go-ahead to the poll. He said: “This House cannot any longer keep this country hostage. Millions of families and businesses cannot play for the future. I don’t believe this paralysis and this stagnation should be allowed to continue. Now that no deal is off the table we have a great new deal.

BBC News
Boris Johnson will try for a fourth time to secure an early general election, after MPs rejected his plan. The prime minister will publish a bill proposing a poll on 12 December that would only need a simple majority to succeed – not two-thirds as required in previous attempts. However, he would still need votes from smaller parties for it to pass. Mr Johnson said Parliament was “dysfunctional” but Labour said the prime minister could not be trusted. The push for an election comes as the government said it would abandon its attempt to pass its Brexit bill, for the time being. The Commons backed the government’s election motion by 299 to 70 on Monday – well short of the two-thirds majority needed under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

Telegraph
Boris Johnson will make a fresh attempt to force a December election on Tuesday after claiming he had “snookered” Jeremy Corbyn by agreeing to put his Brexit deal on ice. The Prime Minister announced that a Parliamentary Bill calling for a general election on Dec 12 will be put to a vote on Tuesday, meaning the five-week campaign would start next week. Mr Johnson made his move after he had seemingly agreed a deal with the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, but neither party would formally commit to voting with the Government because of a last-minute row over dates. The LibDems and SNP had wanted an election on Dec 9, partly to maximise their vote from students who will still be at university, and talks between the three parties were continuing into Monday night which could mean the date being changed to Dec 10 or 11.

Mail
Boris Johnson today dramatically ditched his Brexit Bill and launched an all-out bid to force a pre-Christmas election – after the EU took a wrecking ball to his ‘do or die’ pledge to cut ties with Brussels by Halloween. The PM is set to put forward new legislation to trigger a snap poll, with support from the SNP and Lib Dems allowing him to overcome frantic resistance from Labour.  Downing Street unveiled the plan hours before a crunch Commons vote in which Mr Johnson will give Jeremy Corbyn one last chance to change his mind about an election.

Guardian
Boris Johnson will abandon attempts to push his Brexit bill through this parliament in a bid to get the Liberal Democrats and the SNP to agree to an election before Christmas – although the parties are still in dispute over the potential date. The prime minister failed on Monday to get the votes of two-thirds of MPs he needed to secure an election under existing laws, after opposition parties largely abstained. However, he said he would table a short bill on Tuesday that would change the law in order to hold a poll on 12 December. He would only need a simple majority for this plan, so an election could be achieved with the backing of the Lib Dems or the Scottish National party.

Sun
JEREMY Corbyn and his cowardly MPs last night denied Boris Johnson the chance for an election for the third time – putting Britain on track for weeks more Brexit chaos. MPs voted by 299 to 70 in favour of an early general election, but it fell short of the 434 MPs needed to get through as Labour bottled it again and refused to vote. The PM has now confirmed he will back an SNP-Liberal Democrat one-line bill plot instead, which will come back to the Commons today. That would only require 50 per cent of MPs to push through instead – a total of 320 – which would be far more likely to succeed.

Times
Boris Johnson will make one last effort today to send Britain to the polls before Christmas but could be thwarted by a squabble over the exact election date. The prime minister last night took up an offer by the Liberal Democrats and SNP of an early election in return for a promise to abandon efforts to get his Brexit deal through parliament. The two parties offered yesterday to vote for legislation amending the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, meaning that Mr Johnson would need only a simple Commons majority to secure an election.

Morning Star
BORIS JOHNSON intends to continue pushing for a December general election, whether or not MPs backed his plans in the Commons vote held last night. The Prime Minister suggested that if his third attempt for a general election was rejected then he will introduce legislation for one to be held three days earlier than he previously planned. Labour MPs were expected to reject his motion to call a general election for December 12 in a vote due after the Star went to print. Mr Johnson’s signature pledge to take Britain out of the EU by Halloween was left in tatters as Brussels agreed to a three-month extension today.

EU

Express
A BREXIT Party MEP has warned Boris Johnson’s deal with Brussels will leave the UK vulnerable to a “toxic time bomb” of £32 billion (€37billion) if the Eurozone hits the skids – equal to more than a quarter of the NHS’s annual budget. Robert Rowland also lamented the fact that UK negotiators have effectively written of £7billion (€8 billion) by abandoning any claim to accumulated profits from the European Investment Bank (EIB), which is jointly owned by the EU28. That cash would have covered more than one-fifth of the £39billion “divorce bill” the UK is likely to be expected to pay if Mr Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement and Implementation Bill (WAIB), is eventually ratified by Parliament.

Times
Boris Johnson has pleaded with European leaders not to delay Brexit further after he was forced to accept a three-month extension until January 31. In a letter to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, Mr Johnson asked EU leaders to make clear that a delay beyond January 31 was “not possible”. He said it would further “corrode” public trust in British politics and distract from the “good conduct of the business of the EU”. European ambassadors agreed the extension to the Article 50 process under the terms of the Benn act, the legislation that forced the prime minister to request a delay when MPs blocked his Brexit deal this month.

Guardian
The EU will start strategising for the post-Brexit trade negotiations with the UK at a December leaders’ summit following Boris Johnson’s formal agreement to an extension to 31 January 2020. There is renewed confidence in Brussels that the UK is moving towards a general election and resolution of the first Brexit phase. Johnson’s attempt to secure both a short period for pushing the withdrawal agreement bill through the Commons as well as a post-Brexit general election on 12 December was defeated on Monday evening.

Independent
The European Union has agreed to extend the Brexit deadline until February next year by approving a further extension of Article 50. The delay was requested by Boris Johnson after MPs passed a law forcing him to avert a no deal at the end of October. The decision to grant the extension was taken at a meeting of ambassadors representing the 27 remaining EU  member states on Monday morning in Brussels. It leaves the prime minister’s pledge to exit by 31 October in tatters – despite a commitment that he would take Britain out of the EU “do or die” on that date.

Breitbart
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is concerned that the next round of negotiations with the EU will end in a ‘no deal’ because London wants more freedom and Brussels demands regulatory control over the region. The withdrawal agreement has recently passed its first hurdle in the House of Commons and the EU27 granted on Monday a short extension of Article 50 to allow Parliament to pass the legislation fully. If MPs pass the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, the UK will leave in the next three months and then remain aligned to the EU during the transition period to December 2020, during which time London will negotiate a future deal with Brussels. Remainers are already gearing up for the next fight. Anti-Brexiters say that negotiations over a future relationship during this transition will end in No Deal 2.0, because the UK wants to become more ambitious in terms of deregulation and tax cuts — making it more attractive to foreign investors and businesses — while the EU wants to continue imposing Brussels’ regulatory standards on the UK to maintain its anti-competitive ‘level playing field’.

Second referendum

Times
The campaign for a second referendum on EU membership  descended into disarray yesterday amid a battle over who controls the organisation. Tom Baldwin, head of communications at People’s Vote, and the campaign director James McGrory were dismissed by Roland Rudd, the chairman, in an email on Sunday night. They refused to step down and accused Mr Rudd of “putting a wrecking ball” through the group. They were backed by Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor and a supporter of the campaign, who described Mr Rudd’s move as “madness” and a “deliberate act of sabotage and destabilisation”.

Mail
The campaign to force a second Brexit referendum descended into utter chaos today amid a schism at the heart of the main organisation behind it. Staff at the People’s Vote staged a walk out this morning over an attempt to fire two senior figures in the movement in a power struggle.  Roland Rudd, a millionaire public relations executive and senior figure in the campaign for a new referendum, dismissed director James McGrory and Tom Baldwin, the group’s head of communications and a former spokesman for Ed Miliband. But Mr Baldwin said that he still planned to turn up for work and accused Rudd of putting a ‘wrecking ball’ through the campaign.

Independent
Staff at the People’s Vote campaign for a second Brexit referendum have staged a walkout after an attempt to sack two of its most senior figures in what they branded a “boardroom coup”. Director James McGrory and head of communications Tom Baldwin were told to leave in an email to all staff on Sunday evening, which named former Labour head of campaigns Patrick Heneghan as new acting chief executive. But the pair turned up for work regardless, with Mr Baldwin taking to the airwaves to insist that millionaire businessman Roland Rudd – chair of Open Britain, one of the five organisations which make up the People’s Vote campaign – does not have the power to fire him.

Labour Party

Mail
Diane Abbott reportedly told Labour MPs who oppose an early election to ‘go f*** themselves’ at a stormy shadow cabinet meeting today as Jeremy Corbyn agreed to block Boris Johnson’s plan for a snap poll on December 12. Mr Corbyn and his top team decided at a special meeting at lunchtime today that Labour MPs would be instructed to abstain this evening when Mr Johnson asked for their support.  The move delighted many Labour backbenchers who are against holding an election before Brexit has been resolved. But in a sign of the simmering tensions inside the party, Ms Abbott, the shadow home secretary, reportedly launched a scathing attack on members of the Parliamentary Labour Party who are set against an early election.

Independent
Labour has launched a furious attack on the Liberal Democrats  amid a row over Boris Johnson‘s attempts to force a pre-Christmas general election. Senior figures in Jeremy Corbyn‘s party condemned Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson after she joined with the SNP in ditching an opposition party agreement to oppose a snap election and offered to help the prime minister secure a December poll. Labour is expected to vote against Mr Johnson’s attempt to force an election when MPs vote on the matter on Monday and says it will not support a poll until a no-deal Brexit has definitely been avoided.

Guardian
Labour’s leftwingers are marching ahead in selection battles to choose the party’s new candidates for the expected general election. An analysis by the Guardian has shown that the left slate is currently ahead and likely to win several more candidate selections in the next two weeks. Despite a surge for the party’s centrists over the weekend, with several unexpected wins in the Midlands and north of England, Momentum said the left was providing the “new generation” of potential MPs for the Labour party. Claims of centrally organised “stitch-ups” by the office of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, have dominated selection battles so far.

The Brexit Party

Times
Leave campaigners have abandoned plans to hold a rally against MPs’ Brexit “betrayal” on Friday as Boris Johnson seeks to turn the delay to his advantage. Mr Johnson, who said he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than see Britain’s departure from the EU delayed, admitted yesterday that the country would not leave on Thursday. When Theresa May failed to meet the original deadline of March 29 she faced a protest outside parliament. However, pro-Brexit campaigners have pulled plans for a similar rally. Yesterday sources confirmed that the event, for which Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party had been expected to supply a speaker, would not go ahead.

Education

Times
A leading selective boys’ school has announced plans for a “satellite” site for hundreds of pupils 15 miles away. There has been a ban on opening new grammar schools since 1998 but Kent county council has asked Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys to open in Sevenoaks in 2021 with three forms of 30 pupils in Year 7, according to plans seen by The Times. It would eventually grow to a school of 630 pupils. The existing school has more than 1,200 pupils. The Conservative-led council said that it had forecast “significant short and medium-term pressure for additional Year 7 places” in the area and had asked the school to expand.

Health

Times
Taking two painkillers a day can reduce the symptoms of depression, a study has suggested. The findings have prompted calls for trials on whether over-the-counter pills could be prescribed for mental health disorders. Scientists reviewed 26 previous studies to look at the effect of anti-inflammatory drugs, including ibuprofen and aspirin, on the symptoms of “major depressive disorder”. These include low moods and the inability to feel pleasure. Researchers from the University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, found that the drugs were 79 per cent more effective at eliminating symptoms and 52 per cent more effective at reducing their overall severity than a placebo.

Grenfell

Times
More people could have survived the Grenfell Tower disaster if the London Fire Brigade had not told residents to stay in their flats, the official report into the tragedy has concluded. Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the retired judge who chaired the public inquiry into the fire that killed 72 people, said he had identified “serious shortcomings in the response of the LFB, both in the operation of the control room and on the incident ground”. In his 1,000-page report on the events of June 14, 2017, which will be published tomorrow, he concludes that the main reason the flames tore up the 24-storey tower was the aluminium cladding and insulation used in its refurbishment.

Mail
Systematic failures by the London Fire Brigade caused a greater number of deaths in the Grenfell Tower inferno, a damning official report into the tragedy concluded. The report found that fire chiefs’ slavish adherence to the controversial ‘stay put’ policy prevented residents from escaping. It is thought that up to 55 of the 72 people who died were told to stay in flats for almost two hours after the first 999 call, despite flames spreading with terrifying speed through flammable cladding.

BBC

Telegraph
A dozen BBC women are poised to take the corporation to tribunal over equal pay, it emerged on Monday, as Samira Ahmed launched a landmark case for £500,000 in back pay. Ahmed is arguing that as a presenter of Newswatch, the BBC News programme, she was doing an equivalent job to Jeremy Vine when he was presenter of BBC One’s Points of View. Yet she was paid just £440 per episode while Vine received up to £3,000 per show. The programmes have similar formats, airing viewers’ concerns about BBC content and interviews with the executives responsible.

Mail
Up to twelve more female BBC employees could launch employment tribunals over gender pay bias in the wake of Samira Ahmed’s landmark battle, it has been revealed. The Radio 4 presenter claims she was paid considerably less than her high-profile male colleague Jeremy Vine despite both doing ‘a very similar job’. She was cheered as she today arrived at the hearing in London, where she has alleged the BBC ‘failed to provide equal pay for equal value work’, according to court documents. Ms Ahmed was joined by supporters, including BBC journalist Carrie Gracie, who claimed a ‘dozen’ similar cases at the corporation are in the ‘pipeline’ towards a tribunal.

Times
At least a dozen more women working at the BBC are preparing to take the broadcaster to employment tribunals  over equal pay. Samira Ahmed, the Newswatch presenter, led the charge as she launched legal action claiming she was paid a sixth of Jeremy Vine’s fee for hosting a similar programme. Ahmed, 51, was supported by her BBC “sisterhood”, including the presenters Naga Munchetty, Carrie Gracie and Aasmah Mir, as she arrived for the tribunal hearing in central London. She is understood to be seeking hundreds of thousands of pounds in back pay related to Newswatch, the audience feedback TV show she has hosted since 2012.