Face of Nation : The PM faces a showdown in Parliament later as MPs aim to take control of the agenda to stop a no-deal Brexit. Ex-chancellor and Tory rebel Philip Hammond said he thought there was enough support for the bill, seeking to delay the UK’s exit date, to pass.
No 10 officials warned the prime minister would push for an election on 14 October if the government loses. Boris Johnson said he did not want an election and progress with the EU would be “impossible” if MPs won. Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn said the Labour Party was ready for a general election.
But shadow Northern Ireland secretary Tony Lloyd later said Labour would vote against any government plans to hold a general election before the UK is due to leave the EU on 31 October. He said Labour “will not have Boris Johnson dictate the terms of an election that crashes this country out with no deal”.
A number of MPs have come together across party political lines in a fresh bid to stop a no-deal Brexit, after Mr Johnson vowed to leave the EU with or without a deal on 31 October. When Parliament returns on Tuesday afternoon after recess, they are expected to put forward legislation under Standing Order 24 – a rule that allows urgent debates to be heard.
The bill would force the prime minister to ask for Brexit to be delayed until 31 January, unless MPs had approved a new deal, or voted in favour of a no-deal exit, by 19 October.
Mr Hammond told BBC Radio 4’s Today that he believed “there will be enough people for us to get this over the line today” and called it “rank hypocrisy” for Downing Street to have threatened rebel MPs with expulsion from the party and deselection. He said the PM was making “no progress” on getting a Brexit deal.
The former chancellor, who was reselected by his local Conservative Party Association on Monday to stand as its candidate in the next election, said he did not believe Number 10 had the power to deselect him. “There will be the fight of a lifetime if they do,” he said.
“This is my party. I have been a member of my party for 45 years, I am going to defend my party against incomers, entryists who are trying to turn it from a broad church into a narrow faction.”
Mr Hammond said he will not support a motion to dissolve Parliament for a general election until the bill to stop no deal has been passed. In a televised announcement on Monday, Mr Johnson insisted he could achieve changes to the UK’s current Brexit deal at an EU summit on 17 October.
