MPs vote down Farage’s proposal for UK to leave ECHR – as it happened
The result is in,Nigel Farage was defeated by 154 votes to 96, a majority of 58,The vote is not particularly meaningful,The main parties were not whipping their MPs, and so the numbers do not say anything significant about opinion in the Commons on leaving the ECHR,The only parties in the Commons that clearly favour ECHR withdrawal are the Conservatives (119 MPs), Reform UK (5 MPs), and TUV (1 MP).
Within the DUP (5 MPs), there is some support for withdrawal, but views are mixed.Keir Starmer has refused to rule out tax rises in next month’s budget, which would breach Labour’s manifesto promises, boosting speculation that Rachel Reeves is considering raising income tax to reduce a shortfall.MPs have voted down a 10-minute rule bill proposed by Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, for the UK to leave the European convention on human rights.Under the 10-minute rule process, there was no chance of the bill being passed anyway.But the Liberal Democrats, who led opposition to Farage, claimed the result as a win.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said:We just defeated Nigel Farage’s bill in parliament to tear up people’s rights and withdraw from the ECHR.Farage wants to do away with the Britain Churchill built and turn it into a version of Trump’s America.We stopped him.Defence lawyers would have used Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly’s statements about China to dismiss a case against two men charged with spying for Beijing, Lord Hermer, the attorney general, has argued.The UK government will go “all in” on clean energy and climate policy, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has said, as he unveiled plans to put the UK back on track to reach its net zero commitments.
Reform UK has set out plans for changes to personal independence payments (Pip) that the party says could save up to £9bn a year, with Lee Anderson, one of its MPs, saying he used to “game the system” to help people become eligible for the benefit.For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.Former MP Mhairi Black has joined the cast of a new BBC legal drama in her first television acting role, PA Media reports.PA says:She plays a police detective in Counsels, which is being filmed in Glasgow and will be aired on BBC One and the BBC iPlayer.Black will appear in four episodes of the eight-part series, and starts filming next week.
Black, who stepped down as an SNP MP last year, said: “I’m excited to be joining Counsels and look forward to getting stuck in to playing Detective Inspector Bridges.“I’ve been relishing trying different things since politics, this is my first TV acting role and I really enjoyed auditioning for the part.“To work on a series which is set and filmed in Glasgow is an amazing opportunity – what a brilliant show to be a part of.”The UK is supporting Jamaica with £2.5m in emergency humanitarian funding after Hurricane Melissa, the Foreign Office has announced.
The money will go towards delivering emergency supplies such as shelter kits, water filters and blankets,Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent,A cross-party group of more than 30 MPs have written to parliament’s standards commissioner asking him to investigate the Reform MP Sarah Pochin for saying that seeing adverts featuring black and Asian people “drives her mad”,The letter, led by the Labour MP Dawn Butler, and signed by 35 MPs from Labour, the Lib Dems, Greens, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and independents, said Pochin’s comments were racist,“They single out Black and Asian people and frame their visibility as a problem,” says the letter to Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
It argues that Pochin breached the principles of public life which MPs are meant to abide by, as it presented ethnic minority communities “as outsiders or exceptions”, and that she was “promoting division based on skin colour”,It goes on:Statements that single out or diminish entire groups of people based on race have no place in public life,We therefore urge you to take this matter seriously and ensure that the standards of his house reflect an inclusive, respectful and diverse Britain,Speaking on a phone-in show on Talk on Saturday, Pochin said: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”, adding that “your average white person, average white family is … not represented any more”,The comments were condemned by Keir Starmer, as well as Lib Dem and Conservative MPs.
Nigel Farage said that while Pochin’s choice of language was wrong, he did not feel that the words were “deliberately and genuinely racist”.Five women have asked for an apology from Nigel Farage after he suggested they were not victims of grooming gangs, Geraldine McKelvie reports.A reader asks:What has happened to the abolition of hereditary peers bill?The bill has gone through the Commons and the Lords, where peers passed a series of amendments that would undermine the bill.One of them would allow all the hereditary peers to stay, but would gradually phased them out over time by ending the system for Lord byelections to fill gaps left when a hereditary peer dies.MPs voted to take out those amendments in September.
So the bill is heading back to the Lords for “ping pong”.But, almost two months after those Commons votes, the Lords have not set a date for their next debate.I presume government business managers are going to leave hereditary peers “ping pong” until nearer the end of the session, so they can run down the clock and use that as a means of getting peers to agree.Peers love nothing more than debating Lords reform, and I presume the whips are worried that, if they schedule “ping pong” now, peers will waste all their time debating this bill and not get anything else done.Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
The vote by 63 Labour MPs against Nigel Farage’s ten-minute rule bill on the UK leaving the European convention on human rights – without which the Commons would have backed the bill – happened because a few Labour backbenchers warned whips and the party hierarchy that they had to act,While 10-minute rule bills have no chance of becoming law without subsequent government backing, MPs including Stella Creasy warned that allowing Farage’s bill to be passed would send a terrible signal to European neighbours, who would not necessarily understand the purely symbolic impact of the vote,The initial instruction to Labour MPs was to not vote,After a pushback, this was amended to say that while frontbenchers should do this, those on the backbenches could vote if they wanted,“To let such a bill pass at a time of sensitivity in negotiations over our European deal would be taken badly,” Creasy said.
A convicted child sex offender mistakenly released from prison after arriving in the UK in a small boat was given £500 of public money as he was deported back to Ethiopia, Rajeev Syal and Pippa Crerar report,The division lists are out,The 95 MPs voting for Farage’s proposal to leave the ECHR came from:The Conservatives: 87Reform UK: 3DUP: 2Independents: 2 (Rupert Lowe and Patrick Spencer)TUV: 1And the 155 MPs voting against came from:Lib Dems: 64Labour: 63Independents: 10SNP: 7Plaid Cymru: 4Green party: 4Alliance: 1SDLP: 1UUP: 1The result is in,Nigel Farage was defeated by 154 votes to 96, a majority of 58,The vote is not particularly meaningful.
The main parties were not whipping their MPs, and so the numbers do not say anything significant about opinion in the Commons on leaving the ECHR,The only parties in the Commons that clearly favour ECHR withdrawal are the Conservatives (119 MPs), Reform UK (5 MPs), and TUV (1 MP),Within the DUP (5 MPs), there is some support for withdrawal, but views are mixed,
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India beat Australia in historic chase to reach Women’s Cricket World Cup final – as it happened
As heart rates stabilise east of GMT, I’m off for a soothing vada pav at Manchester Chit n Chaat (as kindly recommended by Krishnamoorthy’s cousin). Thank you all for your company and your emails – sorry I didn’t get around to them all.There will be a new winner of the Women’s World Cup on Sunday. See you there.Harmanpreet Kaur, with the face of a woman dazed by events
India chase down record total to stun champions Australia and reach World Cup final
India pulled off a dramatic record run-chase to knock reigning champions Australia out of the World Cup, led by an outstanding century from Jemimah Rodrigues.Rodrigues was dropped three times by Australia, on 50, 83 and 106, eventually finishing unbeaten on 127 as the seven-time world champions uncharacteristically cracked under the pressure of defending 338. Running back from mid-off, Tahlia McGrath had leaked the catch proffered by Rodrigues in the 44th over, while Annabel Sutherland sent down two wides in a wayward 48th over which cost Australia 15 runs. It was left to Amanjot Kaur to reap the rewards of Rodrigues’ staying power, striking the winning runs from Sophie Molineux’s 49th over with nine balls to spare.The historic run chase – the highest ever achieved in women’s ODI cricket – had hung in the balance after Harmanpreet Kaur miscued a pull to midwicket in the 36th over, out for a run-a-ball 89 with 105 runs still needed
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