Rees-Mogg Urges Farage to Stop Fighting the Tories: Election Update
MPs Elect New Speaker as Farage Slams Johnson’s Deal: Election Update
Members of Parliament are electing a new speaker of the House of Commons, an appointment that could influence the direction of Brexit. John Bercow, who stepped down last week, set new precedents to allow opponents of the deals negotiated by both Johnson and his predecessor, Theresa May, to scrutinize and amend those plans.
With election campaigning in full swing, Nigel Farage dug in over his pledge to stand Brexit Party candidates nationwide, potentially taking votes from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said Farage’s position “risks us losing Brexit altogether.”
Key Developments:
- MPs taking part in a series of votes to elect a new Speaker
- Farage says Brexit Party can exert “great influence” in new Parliament
- Plaid Cymru continues talks with Greens, Liberal Democrats on electoral pact
- NHS chiefs warn politicians not to “weaponize” NHS during election campaign
- Pound falls 0.3% after weekend opinion polls indicated Conservative Party’s lead may be narrowing
Harman and Winterton Out of Speaker Race (6 p.m.)
Harriet Harman has dropped out of the race for Speaker. Rosie Winterton was automatically eliminated. Going through to the next round are Lindsay Hoyle, Eleanor Laing and Chris Bryant. With 89 votes up for grabs, it is still possible for any of them to win.
Sky Proposes Three-Way Leaders’ Debate (5:20 p.m.)
Sky News proposed a three-way leaders’ debate on Nov. 28 which would include the Liberal Democrats’ Jo Swinson, alongside Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson.
Swinson responded on Twitter, saying “I’m in” and challenging the Labour and Tory leaders to accept. The only other debate announced so far, on ITV on Nov. 19, isn’t scheduled to include Swinson, who argued on Monday that “Remain deserves to be represented.”
Swinson: Main Parties ‘Sexist or Scared’ (3:50 p.m.)
Jo Swinson, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said she is pursuing “legal avenues” to ensure she is included in leader debates before the Dec. 12 election. The first debate, announced by ITV on Friday, is scheduled to include only prime minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“I should be in this debate, if they’re refusing to debate me it looks like they’re sexist, or they’re scared, or possibly both,” Swinson told reporters outside Parliament. “They’ve engaged in an establishment stitch-up.”
Swinson said her party is closer in the polls to Labour and the Conservatives than it was in 2010 when then leader Nick Clegg was included in the debates.
Hoyle and Harman Plea for Votes (3:10 p.m.)
Meg Hillier, a Labour MP who chairs the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, said she would champion “better conduct” among MPs to eliminate the “bullying and harassment that is still all too rife” in Parliament.
She was followed by Bercow’s most senior deputy, Lindsay Hoyle, who is the runaway favorite in the competition. He pointed to his track record over the past nine years, and said he’ll ensure there’s no “pecking order” under which longer-standing MPs get picked to speak more often that newer members.
“I have tried to ensure there is not one part of this house that has not been brought to speak,” Hoyle said. “And I want to continue to do that.”
Labour’s Harriet Harman, the longest serving woman MP, appealed to the House of Commons to show it has changed by naming the second female speaker in its history, noting that in 600 years there have been 156 male speakers. In a pitch for the votes of minor parties, she pledged to create a fourth deputy speaker role from their ranks.
Bryant, Leigh, Laing Appeal for Votes (2:55 p.m.)
Chris Bryant, a Labour MP who’s known for his encyclopedic knowledge of Parliamentary procedure, pledged that as speaker, he would “return to the rulebook” – another swipe at Bercow after Winterton’s opening pitch (see 2:35 p.m.).
Bryant said he’d be “an umpire not a player,” and promised to have “absolutely no favorites.” A dark horse to win the contest, his speech was peppered with laughter from colleagues, who broke into applause when he said he wanted to return to traditional rules and “stop the clapping” in Parliament.
Third to give his pitch was Edward Leigh, a longstanding Tory MP, who made a virtue of being a backbencher for 33 of the past 37 years. He was followed by another of the current deputies, Eleanor Laing, another Conservative. She also made a swipe at Bercow, without naming him.
“It is not the role of the speaker to create division or rancor in this House, but to seek consensus,” Laing said.
Farage Rejects Tory Pleas to Stand Aside (2:45 p.m.)
Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage fired back at the Conservatives after they urged him to stand aside in the election, warning he could split their vote (see 9:20 a.m.).
At a rally for candidates in London he was cheered as he said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s deal meant the U.K. isn’t really leaving the European Union. “It’s not Brexit,” he said. “We won’t split the vote. We will be the only people actually offering Brexit.”
In a telling moment, the audience booed the name of Jacob Rees-Mogg, previously a darling of such events for his strong Brexit stance.
Speaker Candidates Make Their Pitches (2:35 p.m.)
Boris Johnson formally announced the start of the process for choosing a new speaker of the House of Commons, before handing over to Father of the House Ken Clarke, who, as the longest-serving MP, took the chair to begin proceedings.
The candidates have a chance to outline their priorities in short addresses to the House of Commons, with Clarke saying the order had been determined by a ballot. First up was Rosie Winterton, a Labour MP and former chief whip, and one of the current deputy speakers.
“The speaker’s job is not to dominate proceedings or to speak to Parliament,” Winterton said in a veiled swipe at Bercow. “But to facilitate debate and allow Parliament to speak for itself.”
Bercow Quits Early as MP (11:25 a.m.)
Outgoing House of Commons Speaker John Bercow -- who had his last day in the chair on Thursday -- has stepped down early as an MP. It means he won’t be able to participate in the vote later on Monday to appoint his successor.
His resignation was signaled in a Treasury announcement that Bercow has been appointed to be “Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.” Parliament is set to sit for the last time on Tuesday before dissolution at midnight ahead of the Dec. 12 general election.
Lib Dems See Deals Likely in ‘Tens of Seats’ (10:50 a.m.)
The Liberal Democrats are likely to strike electoral pacts with other smaller parties in “tens of seats,” but no formal nationwide deal is likely, Tom Brake, the party’s Brexit spokesman, said in an interview. The agreements will be brokered on a local basis, as has already been done in some Welsh seats.
“That is what we can expect a little bit more of, rather than any announcement about a national deal,” Brake said. “We’re talking tens of seats, not hundreds of seats. Given that this is very much based on ad hoc arrangements, it makes it very hard to predict what the final number will be.”
Brake’s comments come after Plaid Cymru Leader Adam Price said to expect an announcement “very soon” on the results of talks between his Welsh nationalist grouping, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats (See earlier).
Rees-Mogg: Farage Should Stop Fighting Tories (9:20 a.m.)
Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg heaped praise on Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage for his contribution to the Euroskeptic cause -- but warned he risked snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by fighting the Tories and splitting the pro-Brexit vote.
“Nigel needs to recognize that he has won,” Rees-Mogg told LBC Radio. Farage “risks us losing Brexit altogether” if he fights the Tories at the election and allows Labour to win power.
There can be no deal with the Brexit Party if Farage “simply wants to oppose” Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, Rees-Mogg said, pointing out that other leading Euroskeptics support the agreement.
Farage has said his party will field 600 candidates to challenge the Conservatives unless Johnson ditches his Brexit deal.
Farage Hardens Line on Johnson’s Deal (Earlier)
Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage showed no sign of backing down in his opposition to Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal or on his pledge to stand candidates across the country.
“What we get with Boris is three more years of negotiations minimum, we go on paying, we have taxation without representation, we have no voice, they can do what they like to us and we’re committed to staying part of EU rules forever,” Farage told ITV on Monday. “That is not Brexit.”
Farage said the British public would be “horrified” when they “wake up” to the deal that’s been negotiated, and said his party can affect proceedings in the new Parliament.
“Mrs. May was kept in power by 10 DUP MPs,” Farage said. “It is likely that we’re going to have a hung Parliament the next time around, so actually if the Brexit Party can get a reasonable amount of people in there, they can exert a great influence.”
Health Chiefs Warn Against Politicizing NHS (Earlier)
Health chiefs warned against politicizing the National Health Service during the general election campaign. Writing in The Times newspaper, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges Chairwoman Carrie MacEwen said it “cannot be right” for politicians to use the health service to score political points.
“The NHS’s role is to manage the health of the nation, not to be used as a tool to swing voters in a three-way marginal,” she wrote. “Our fear is that when it comes to the NHS in these febrile times, we will see irrational, undeliverable promises or even outright lies.”
Speaking to BBC radio on Monday, NHS Providers Chief Executive Officer Chris Hopson said politicians “need to be clear” about what extra spending is for. New funding pledged by the government, he said, “just enables us to keep up with extra demand.”
“One of the worries we have is that everybody’s running around saying that this extra money now takes us to the sunlit uplands and that it’s all going to be fantastic, and the reality is that it’s an amount of funding that just enables us to keep up with demand,” Hopson said.
Plaid Cymru Plans Pact With Greens, Lib Dems (Earlier)
Adam Price, leader of the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, said he’d had “positive” discussions with the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party over electoral pacts in certain voting districts.
Under the potential deals, two of the parties would stand aside in specific constituencies in order to give the other a clearer chance of defeating the Conservative candidate. “We hope to make an announcement very soon,” Price told BBC radio, declining to give specifics.
Read More:
Farage to Challenge Johnson in 600 Seats: U.K. Campaign Trail
Boris Johnson Says Sorry Tories Missed Oct. 31 Brexit Deadline
Brexit and Election Turmoil Cut Into BOE Preparation Time: Chart
BOE Governor Race Thrown Into Turmoil by December Election
U.K. Parliament Set to Elect Replacement to Speaker Bercow
As Brexit Radicalizes British Politics, There’s Nowhere to Hide
--With assistance from Thomas Penny and Tim Ross.
To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net;Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net;Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas Penny
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