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Suspension of parliament: MPs react with fury and Davidson set to quit after Johnson move – as it happened

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Wed 28 Aug 2019 18.18 EDTFirst published on Wed 28 Aug 2019 04.07 EDT
‘This is a dictatorship’: politicians react to Boris Johnson’s plan to suspend parliament – video

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Key events

Vince Cable to stand down as MP at next election

Kate Proctor
Kate Proctor

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.

Vince Cable will step down as an MP at the next election. Photograph: David Mirzoeff/PA

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.

simon Coveney listening to Stephen Barclay at Paris conference pic.twitter.com/1dBhiXJRtx

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) August 28, 2019

Ireland no budging on backstop. Coveney gives lie to claim EU bending to Johnson
Tells Paris conf:"Prime Minister Johnson’s proposal to abolish the backstop, in the absence of agreed alternative arrangements, is something we cannot support." pic.twitter.com/WguEyOKVZP

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) August 28, 2019

adds: "No one has yet come up with credible arrangements, or technological solutions, which could replace those temporary arrangements in the Withdrawal Agreement."

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) August 28, 2019

repeats that backstop is temporary: "the backstop is currently the only viable, if temporary, solution that avoids physical infrastructure and related checks and controls and preserves the all-island economy."

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) August 28, 2019

Stephen Barclay hits back at Coveney at same Paris conference.
Says backstop is dead, not just because parliament rejected it three times
"Parliament will not allow the people of NI to be subject to an indefinite period of continued alignment."

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) August 28, 2019

"It would mean Northern Irish citizens, UK citizens being governed by rules in which we have no say"

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) August 28, 2019

"Since we can only leave the backstop with permission of the EU, Once it is triggered we could be locked in it forever - makes it harder to leave the backstop than it does indeed the EU itself. "

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) August 28, 2019

Barclay attacks sequencing of Brexit talks. adds that he recognises the concerns over the risks to the single market caused by a porous Irish border, but he says talks on the border should be part of the future trade relations, as they always shd have been.

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) August 28, 2019

so that's it - Barclay and Coveney clash in Paris. Quite bad tempered words on backstop by Barclay, which were not released to the press in advance.

— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) August 28, 2019
Matthew Weaver
Matthew Weaver

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.

In June he said this:

‘I cannot imagine Mr Disraeli, Mr Gladstone, Mr Churchill or Mrs Thatcher even in their most difficult moments saying let us put parliament aside while I carry through this difficult policy that a part of my party disagrees with.’
- Sir John Major speaking at #CHLondon in June. pic.twitter.com/yz6SB4weHx

— Chatham House (@ChathamHouse) August 28, 2019

Planned anti-prorogation protests across the country

Planned protests against the prorogation of parliament are springing up around the country.

The campaign group Another Europe is Possible is planning a demo on College Green in Westminster at 5.30pm.

Leeds for Europe is planning a protest in City Square on Thursday at 5.30pm.

This is an emergency! Parliament is being shut down by a Prime Minister who wants to bypass it to force through #Brexit.
Join the resistance now.
Flash protest in City Square #Leeds 5.30pm Thursday.
+ Join Leeds for Europe at https://t.co/yukG7iMjF7. We need you NOW! pic.twitter.com/pZGO5LO0zo

— Leeds for Europe 🇪🇺 (@LeedsEurope) August 28, 2019

In Manchester, people will start to gather (with umbrellas, Hong Kong-style) in Albert Square from 4pm today.

#stopthecoup #protest #manchester @OwenJones84 @paulmasonnews

Protest on Albert Square from 4pm ONWARDS, I'll be there 5.30pm. Bring umbrellas, Hong Kong style. It's Manchester, we have umbrellas, yes?!#ProtectOurDemocracy #emergency #Peterloo2019 pic.twitter.com/Ik82DRzZBF

— Dave Haslam (@Mr_Dave_Haslam) August 28, 2019

The European Movement in Scotland is to host a walking vigil, meeting at 4pm at the foot of the Mound in Edinburgh.

In Cardiff, people will gather at the Aneurin Bevan statue at 6pm today, and in Cambridge there will be a protest in Market Square.

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.

Proroguing Parliament undermines parliamentary democracy and risks a general election. I rule it out and call on all candidates to do the same pic.twitter.com/4aaAK3Tq8M

— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) June 6, 2019
Severin Carrell
Severin Carrell

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’s the document with the orders approved at today’s meeting of the privy council at Balmoral.

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Anna Soubry has become the latest MP to write to the Queen today to ask for a meeting ...

I have written to HM the Queen asking her for a meeting with other Privy Councillors following the PMs anti democratic proposal to prorogue Parliament.

— Anna Soubry MP (@Anna_Soubry) August 28, 2019

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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