Some non-prorogation news now. Our political correspondent Kate Proctor reports that there is speculation that the Liberal Democrats are preparing to welcome another defector, after their former leader Vince Cable announced he would stand down as an MP at the next election.
The candidate for Cable’s Twickenham seat, which he won back from the Conservatives in the 2017 general election, will be chosen from an all-female shortlist. Those wanting to stand have until midday on Friday to say so. A spokesman for the party said:
Vince has enjoyed a fantastic parliamentary career in the Liberal Democrats and representing the people of Twickenham. He will continue to serve as the MP until the next election, whenever that may be.
The vacancy opens up the possibility that the rumoured defection of another former Change UK MP will soon follow, with new members to be announced at the party’s autumn conference in Bournemouth.
Senior party figures have said they are holding out for Heidi Allen, Luciana Berger or Angela Smith to make the switch and follow their former colleague Sarah Wollaston. A source said: “Twickenham coming into play has certainly raised the levels of speculation about defections.”
Berger said she was still deciding what to do at the next election. The former MP Sarah Olney, who briefly took the Richmond Park seat from Zac Goldsmith before losing it months later in 2017, was briefly rumoured for Twickenham but has been reselected as the candidate in Richmond.
The all-women shortlist quashes rumours that the former Labour MP and now Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, Chuka Umunna, could switch from running in Streatham to Twickenham, where Cable had a 9,000 majority.
Our Brexit correspondent Lisa O’Carroll has been listening to the Irish deputy PM, Simon Coveney, and the UK’s Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, speaking at a conference in Paris.
The former prime minister John Major has said he is seeking legal advice on whether he can challenge Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament.
In a statement read out on BBC News, Major said: “I have no doubt that the prime minister’s motive in seeking prorogation is to bypass a sovereign parliament that opposes his policy. As events unfold I will continue to seek advice on the legality of this and other matters, but will be making no further comment.”
Last month Major said he would be willing to go to court to seek a judicial review to stop Johnson proroguing parliament.
This tweet sent in June by Matt Hancock, now the health secretary, has been doing the rounds. In it he called on other Conservative leadership candidates to rule out proroguing parliament, saying it undermined parliamentary democracy. He doesn’t appear to have said anything yet about today’s announcement.
Nicola Sturgeon hopes the Brexit crisis will boost the Scottish National party’s chances of a shock Holyrood byelection victory in the Liberal Democrat stronghold of Shetland tomorrow.
Pundits believe the SNP is on the verge of winning the seat, which the Lib Dems have held comfortably since the first Scottish parliament elections in 1999. Tavish Scott, previously a Scottish Lib Dems leader, won in 2016 with 67% of the vote, a majority of 4,865 over the SNP.
The contiguous Westminster seat of Orkney and Shetland has been a Lib Dem constituency since 1950 and is the party’s safest in the UK, but Sturgeon and the SNP have shovelled huge resources into the contest to succeed Scott, who stood down in June to work instead for Scottish Rugby.
An SNP win tomorrow would be cited as clear proof that Scottish voters now favour independence from the rest of the UK after Brexit. Shetland historically has been sceptical about the case for leaving the UK.
Sturgeon has visited Shetland to campaign three times in recent weeks, alongside numerous Holyrood ministers and SNP MPs and MSPs, inviting criticism from her opponents after one visit meant she failed to appear at a government press event disclosing a multibillion-pound public spending deficit in Scotland last year.
The Scottish Tories pointed out Sturgeon had visited Shetland as many times in the last month as she had during her previous five years as first minister. Brydon Goodland, the Tory candidate for Shetland, said: “The SNP only care about Shetland when there are votes to be won.”
The final message to voters from Tom Wills, the SNP’s young candidate, was Brexit-focused. He claimed the SNP was “by some distance the strongest pro-European party in the UK” with 100 parliamentarians at Scottish, UK and European level focused on stopping the UK leaving the EU.
The Lib Dems reject the implication they are softer on Brexit. After all, their European election campaign slogan was “bollocks to Brexit”. But observers on Shetland say the Lib Dem campaign has suffered greatly from the lacklustre performance of its candidate, Beatrice Wishart , while Wills has energised younger voters.
Much hinges on turnout. The Lib Dems hope the island’s broadly conservative voters will treat with cynicism Wills’s claims that the SNP will slash ferry and air fares for islanders, increase housing spending and protect fishing interests.
Here is the document with the orders approved at the privy council at Balmoral today. And this is the key text:
It is this day ordered by Her Majesty in Council that the Parliament be prorogued on a day no earlier than Monday the 9th day of September and no later than Thursday the 12th day of September 2019 to Monday the 14th day of October 2019, to be then holden for the despatch of divers urgent and important affairs, and that the Right Honourable the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain do cause a Commission to be prepared and issued in the usual manner for proroguing the Parliament accordingly.
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