Hugh Bennett
@HughRBennett
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Former Special Adviser @10DowningStreet @FCDOGovUK
London
Joined January 2014
"I used to dislike the Lords because it's undemocratic, but now I like it because it's trying to block a democratic decision I don't like"
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Boris utterly wiping the floor with Corbyn. Corbyn's got away with an easy ride against May for years, this must be painful for Labour MPs to watch.
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The 'Revoke Article 50' petition Remainers are all getting excited about is being signed by people everywhere from Russia & Saudi Arabia to Papua New Guinea & North Korea. I thought they were meant to be against foreign interference in our democracy?
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Top trolling from Trump - downgrades the EU's diplomatic status without even telling them, leaving them to work it out for themselves as they gradually stop being invited to parties. Couldn't have happened to a nicer organisation.
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EXC: Anti-Brexit billboard campaign 'Led by Donkeys' appear to be massively in breach of electoral law - by their own count they've spent over £230,000 on campaigning in England in the regulated period, more than £70,000 over the legal limit of £159,750
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So May's final gambit of her disastrous premiership is to officially offer MPs a second referendum. If there were any Leave voters she hadn't managed to drive away from the Tories already, that should finish the job.
Prime Minister Theresa May says the Withdrawal Agreement Bill will include a vote on whether to hold another referendum.
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Loopy Remainers throwing slurs of "dark money" at @brexitparty_uk for spending £19k on Facebook ads - which will all be declared under electoral law. Meanwhile the two biggest anti-Brexit campaigns have spent over £750,000 in the same period - despite keeping their funding secret.
We mustn’t let dark money steal the #EuropeanElections2019 :
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Heidi Allen asks "when was the last time people appluaded a new political party?" Err. about 20 minutes ago at the @brexitparty_uk candidates launch. .
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Tusk was wrong - Vote Leave absolutely had a plan. The problem was that no-one followed it.
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Not sure why MPs are expecting sympathy when the only reason these votes are happening is because they've torn up Parliamentary procedure to ram a poorly drafted Bill through without any proper scrutiny - all in the name of trying to block the biggest democratic vote in history.
Voting till at least midnight in these miserable cramped lobbies. This place knows how to make misery even more unbearable. .
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Jo Swinson's only been in the job a day and she's already completely undermined the case for a second referendum - revealing that she still wouldn't accept the result even if Leave won again. Whoops.
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Staggering rhetoric from the man who's supposedly the EU's top diplomat. If the EU wants to know why so many people despise being ruled by the unelected Eurocrat class, this sneering arrogance sums it up perfectly.
I've been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted #Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.
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NEW: Bracknell Conservative Association pass motion of no confidence in Phillip Lee.
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Taoiseach @campaignforleo says he won't let UK planes fly over Ireland in the event of a "hard Brexit". Hope he likes going on holiday to Lanzarotte because he's going to have trouble flying anywhere else.
Taoiseach warns hard Brexit grounds international flights from UK:. “If they want their planes to fly over our skies, they would need to take that into account. You can’t have your cake and eat it. You can’t take back your waters and then expect to take back other people’s sky.”
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So Barnier confirms he still:. a) Wants the EU to annex Northern Ireland.b) Has no respect for the December deal.c) Has no respect for the Good Friday Agreement.d) Has no respect for the views of the Unionist community. But it's the UK that's being unreasonable, right?
Michel Barnier rejects the UK's backstop proposal: EU chief negotiator insists that Northern Ireland remains part of the EU's customs territory and calls for customs checks to be introduced between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain
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Pro-Brexit protesters have now discovered the placard-on-a-stick technique too.
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The fact that a *Prime Minister* is seriously considering using legal threats as a last gasp attempt to keep herself in office in the face of overwhelming discontent from her party and country is truly extraordinary - even for May
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Punchy from @SteveBakerHW after Hunt this AM:. The people who would stop Brexit should know just this: what you do, you’ll have to do in public now. And everyone will know just what you have done. Stopping Brexit will be on you, not Brexiteers. Don’t kid yourselves otherwise.
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Does a single MP making the argument that a second referendum will "heal divisions" and "bring the country together" genuinely believe the words coming out of their mouth?. Have they literally been asleep for the last 3 years?.
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This is not going to ease any Brexiteer suspicions about the May/Robbins deal - Guy Verhofstadt says Olly Robbins asked for Belgian citizenship, while his staff celebrate turning the UK "into a colony"
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How long before Lord Adonis tries to blame this on Brexit as well?.
Ford to slash over 5,000 jobs in Germany
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Hard-hitting home truths from Lord Forsyth: These amendments are part of a campaign that is putting Peers against the people - it's an exercise by Remainers in this House who refuse to accept the verdict of the British people. Predictably, the other Lords don't want to hear it.
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Finally Remainers are coming clean and dropping the second referendum pretence - all they actually want to do is revoke Article 50 and stop Brexit outright. It may have taken three years but at least they're finally being honest about it.
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Labour didn’t just hint at respecting the EU referendum result during the 2017 General Election, it was a central pledge that they repeated over and over again. Yet now they're shamelessly trying to convince the public that they were a Remain party all along.
Every Labour MP was elected on Labour's promises to deliver Brexit. But now those Labour promises are being broken.
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EXC: People's Vote have declared just one donation, £82k from a small Scottish company that doesn't even have its own website. Turns out their parent company is a €2bn EU/Swiss big pharma corp which counts the Princess of Denmark among its board members
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Love the FBPErs getting absolutely triggered by this. The point isn't that every signature from abroad is fake, but there are zero safeguards against fake signatures. All you need is random Gmail accounts and you can sign as Jean-Claude Juncker from Iran as many times as you like.
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May now offering Olly Robbins up as a sacrificial lamb to try to save her own skin. But it wasn't Olly Robbins who gave himself the authority to run Brexit as his own private fiefdom behind the backs of the Cabinet and even the Brexit Department itself. It was May.
Today’s @EveningStandard exclusive: Olly Robbins could be sacked to try to save deal & delay to vote looms
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You're right, "Marxist" isn't an insult. Just a description of someone who follows an ideology that led to 100 million people's deaths.
Hey Tories: calling someone a “Marxist” isn’t the insult you think it is.
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EU running around like a bunch of headless chickens attempting to maintain even a vaguely coherent position on the backstop - Varadkar now looking like a complete buffoon
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Absolute first-class hypocrisy from @peoplesvote_uk - their own website literally says that they set their donation limit at £499 "which means that individual donors don't have to be checked".
Guess who has set the limit for donations to their 'European elections battle fund' at £499, so that 'individual donors don’t have to be checked'? #DarkMoney . Yep, its @peoplesvote_uk .
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EU: Tell us what you really want. UK: We want the deal with alternative backstop arrangements. EU: They don't exist. UK: What about the alternative backstop arrangements you've already made for no deal?. EU: . EU: Tell us what you REALLY want.
#Brexit is not a bad April Fool's Joke, but a tragic reality for all our citizens and business. It is now five to midnight. Today MPs must find a compromise & stop this chaos. This evening, for once voting "Yes", instead of every time voting "No".
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Hammond 2019: It's a "total travesty of the truth" to say people were warned that voting for Brexit could mean leaving without a deal. Hammond 2016: "At the end of that two years, there is no guarantee that agreement would have been reached, but our exit will be automatic".
Remain politicians are wrong to claim that leaving on WTO terms was "not regularly raised" during the 2016 referendum. They regularly raised it themselves!
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Jo Johnson didn't just stand on the Conservative Manifesto in 2015 which pledged to hold an in-out referendum and honour the result "whatever the outcome" - he literally wrote it himself
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Excoriating article from former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, calling May's deal the "result of incompetence of a high order" and comparing it to the political failures of the 1930s and 1970s
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Highly respected former Speaker Baroness Boothroyd was overheard in Parliament earlier telling a senior Tory MP that Bercow's behaviour was "disgusting" and an "absolute and utter disgrace"
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There's even 220 signatures from tiny Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker must have had a busy night
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David Davis demolishes the myths around the Irish border in his first speech since resigning - unsurprisingly he reveals that negotiations on the border were going much better until the EU took the decision to politicise the issue
Former Brexit Secretary @DavidDavisMP explains why the issues around the Irish border are eminently soluble - by technical means and cooperation between the UK and Ireland
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Love the irony of MPs who are directly campaigning to reverse their own manifesto commitments on respecting the referendum result saying to May "how can we trust anything she's saying?".
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So it turns out the NHS Brexit scare report was written by a bunch of Remainiac professors, former EU employees and the nutty Scientists4EU guy. Who'd have thought!
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The inescapable fact about the EU is that it is going to a place where the UK fundamentally cannot follow. Whether next year or next decade, the UK was always going to have to go its separate way from the EU sooner or later.
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Yet another anti-Brexit lawsuit crushed in the courts - judge completely tears apart their claims that the referendum result that was unlawful or that any alleged overspending in the campaign had any material effect on the outcome
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Angry Remainers are now targeting Lord Adonis with the #UnfollowAdonis hashtag after his dramatic conversion to Brexit yesterday. Try not to laugh.
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Remainers: Boris is an idiot for suggesting a 20-mile sea bridge. China: Here is a 22-mile sea bridge (+4 mile tunnel).
China's Xi opens world's longest sea bridge linking Hong Kong, Macau
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The UK has already given a unilateral guarantee that EU citizens can stay even if there's no deal. Where are the outraged voices attacking France for treating UK citizens as bargaining chips now?.
British citizens welcome in France after #Brexit says French Europe Minister @NathalieLoiseau, but UK government must reciprocate #marr. Read more:
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Fantastic news for @darrengrimes_ as Electoral Commission finally accept defeat. Serious questions for @ElectoralCommUK to answer about how they justified continuing their vexatious pursuit of him for so long amid a litany of serious errors and at great expense to the taxpayer.
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A concerted counterattack from the staunch Remain wing of the Tory Party. If these MPs and ministers are so unhappy about leaving the SM & CU (which is all JRM is demanding) then why did they happily go and get elected on a manifesto to do exactly that a year ago? Pure hypocrisy.
Backlash against Rees Mogg
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Massive warning sign for Theresa May.
The Conservative Party is rapidly losing Britain's Brexit voters . Leavers asked: 'Which party would handle #Brexit best?'. UKIP 26%.Conservatives 20%.None/Don't know 41%. YouGov April 3.
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For the millionth time:. There. Is. No. Need. For. A. Backstop. To. Avoid. A. Hard. Irish. Border.
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Remainer hypocrisy exposed again - here they are blowing almost £400k on targeted Facebook advertising including several blatant falsehoods. And yet @peoplesvote_uk and @BestForBritain won't admit to the public where any of these vast sums of cash are coming from
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2 people have managed to sign the petition from Western Sahara, which isn't even technically a country. One of the Vatican City's 594 citizens also appears to have signed, the Pope trying to revoke Article 50 too?
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Second referendum campaigners are still in denial about 3 basic facts - there's no majority in parliament for one, there's no majority in the country for one, and sending Tony Blair out as your spokesman in Davos is not going to change the first two facts
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What's the bigger national security risk - a Cabinet Minister leaking or Huawei building the UK's 5G network?. The way May's Government has responded, their biggest concern seems to be avoiding public debate over it, rather than the issue itself. .
Now Sedwill's got his Gavin Williamson scalp can we start discussing the actual issue?.
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And Varadkar won't have any more luck flying to America as the Shanwick Oceanic Control area which covers the entire airspace west of Ireland is managed by. the UK. Maybe do a little research next time before needlessly ramping up the rhetoric?
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I really can't exaggerate how little I care about the petition. It's an online form where you tick a box, put an email address, and write whatever you want. I managed to sign as Jean-Claude Juncker and with a random made-up address in Iran. It literally doesn't matter.
It’s pro-Brexit 4chan kids trying to spike the petition. just like they did in 2016. Plan is: Block genuine signatures (DDOS), then push a disinformation narrative that the petition is all fake. And Guido & you push it. Complicit. Easy to spot. We monitor this bs.
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Top Government source responds to Darren Grimes victory: "This sounds like rank incompetence from the Electoral Commission. Questions must be asked.".
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Baffled at why so many MPs remain unable to grasp the basic logic that it isn't possible to take no deal "off the table" without revoking Article 50 altogether.
Michael Gove admits that the Govt motion today if unamended does not take ‘No Deal’ off the table despite promises they would allow Commons to decide #ToryLies.
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Explosive leaks from Brussels overnight confirm all of Brexiteers' worst fears that the backstop will be used to lock the UK in permanently after Brexit. Sabine Weyand sums it up: "They must align their rules but the EU will retain all the controls."
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People's Vote bottle People's Vote - then try to blame Corbyn rather than their own incompetence and the fact that there isn't a majority for a second referendum in Parliament or the country
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Fiona Onasanya's appeal refused:.- Represented herself without papers.- Referred to Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, faces being struck off.- Bercow now needs to initiate recall petition.- If 10% of P'borough voters sign in 6 weeks, by-election triggered.
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So the case found that Sanni's claim that BeLeave was manufactured by Vote Leave to channel funds through was rubbish & the EC ignored much evidence to the contrary. But yeah, just whip out another conspiracy to distract from your appalling harassment over the last few years.
Congrats to @darrengrimes for winning his appeal. Nobody ever thought 22-year-old was mastermind of biggest electoral fraud in British history. He was used. He's protected the real perpetrators - including future PM @BorisJohnson. And every single one of them has got away with it
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Another Speaker's Stitch-Up Special - Bercow recalls four Remainer motions that were defeated just 5 days ago but refuses to call any Brexiteer ones including one which previously commanded a majority.
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Then why doesn't he tell the EU to drop its unreasonable demands.
Japanese PM says the 'whole world' wants to avoid no-deal Brexit
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If you wonder why people don't trust politicians, here's what Chuka said in 2016: "I'm not one of those people who thinks we should be calling for a second referendum. the referendum was fought under rules we agreed to, a result was delivered"
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In all seriousness - how on earth has the Government allowed themselves to be negotiated into a position where there would be no deal but they would STILL put up a border along the Irish Sea? An abject failure of the UK's negotiators if true.
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Just 85 MPs voted for a second referendum. Crushing defeat.
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Turns out you get a very different answer on the costs of Brexit if you ask someone who actually runs a business, rather than people who've sat behind desks in Whitehall their entire careers. Who'd have thunk it?
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Numerous MEPs voted the wrong way on the EU's meme-ban law after an extra vote was inserted at the last minute. At least 13 MEPs have now had their own records corrected but the EU is refusing to hold the vote again, despite it only passing by 5 votes.
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If David Lidington takes over as PM wouldn't be surprised if we end up joining the Euro before the year is out.
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Remainers can say what they like, but the fact is that the NHS is now getting over £350m extra funding a week. Would this have happened now without the Leave campaign's pledge and Boris's constant lobbying within government? Not likely.
The NHS will be getting more than £350m extra funding, every single week - all because we voted to leave the EU. #OurMoneyOurPriorities #Budget2018
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EXC: Met Police demolish latest loony Remoaner lawsuit. Legal response to Tom Brake/Caroline Lucas etc utterly damning of the Electoral Commission - truly staggering catalogue of incompetence of the Commission's handling of their referendum investigation
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It's like 2016's vote never happened. Leave is Remain.
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EU not looking funny or clever after today's childish diplomatic outbursts. Member states will be watching their antics and asking themselves if they really want the Commission to be driving them hard into a Brexit outcome none of them want.
Juncker Shares Inflammatory Card With Varadkar Saying “Britain Does Not Care About Peace in Northern Ireland”
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Actually the audience was 2:1 Remain:Leave according to the producers. We just had better arguments I'm afraid. #BrexitInbetweeners.
Did the camera caught me mouthing WTF at the end?.A show about young people's views on Brexit which includes the stats that young people are massively anti-brexit but then had just 10 minutes of a 1-hour episode with young people and they're mainly Brexiters. #BrexitInbetweeners
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Hear that nuclear option of abstaining on all government business from now on was raised at ERG meeting tonight. .
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A huge 73% of voters favour either no backstop or no deal over accepting May's deal - while almost a 3:1 margin believe that those calling for Article 50 extensions are actually seeking to stop Brexit entirely
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German press reporting Brexit deal already agreed with whole UK staying in customs union & NI cleaved off into single market. May is seriously misjudging strength of DUP/Brexiteer opposition if this is really the deal she is going to try to force through
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Some Brexiteers think the risks of the deal are too bad to let it pass. Others think the risks if it doesn't are so bad they have no choice. Both are honest positions by people making the hardest judgement call of their lives. Neither justify the abuse @darrengrimes_ has received.
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Funny how John Major didn't have such a problem with prorogation in 1997 when he prorogued Parliament in order to suppress the publication of the report into the "Cash for Questions" sleaze scandal
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A very important point from Bill Cash - the Government has released legal advice on the backstop but not on the Withdrawal Agreement as a whole.
The motion passed yesterday required AG’s advice on Withdrawal Agreement but the gov has only released advice on Northern Ireland. Given that Law Officers ought to have been consulted regarding the whole Withdrawal Agreement, (Ministerial code) where is the rest of the advice?
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The EU's own ombudsman has ruled that the scandalous appointment of Martin Selmayr broke the "letter and spirit" of the law. In any functioning democracy Selmayr would have been forced to resign in disgrace. Yet he's still right there in the top job.
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Shameless cynicism of Labour MPs standing up to carp on about "Parliament taking back control". What they are actually condoning is a jumped-up Speaker unilaterally tearing up Parliamentary precedent and rule of law because it suits their own political agendas.
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From Cabinet Gauke, Rudd, Clarke and Perry all abstained on the motion in defiance of 3 line whip. May's authority will be in tatters if she allows them to continue in Government.
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Anyone hoping Brexit Party success is going to change the EU will be disappointed - but that's precisely the point of the EU anyway. Democracy is just a sideshow that's tolerated as long as it doesn't interfere with the EU's core project. Me for @Telegraph
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Remain campaign spin that there's been a "big shift in support" for a second referendum blown apart by BBC Fact Check
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Tory MPs absolutely livid after BBC's Jim Naughtie claims they would be in the National Front in France or AfD in Germany. IDS slams "outrageous" comments and calls on Naughtie to withdraw "misleading and untrue" remarks.
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ICO report devastates Cadwalladr's claims:.- No evidence Leave .EU worked with Cambridge Analytica beyond prelim discussions.- No evidence CA worked on any referendum data at all.- No evidence AIQ was involved in unlawful data processing.-> No conspiracy.
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One parl'y source says Graham Brady was seen going to the PM's office about an hour ago. .
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Exc: Any tiny chance of a shock return to the Tories for the TIG defectors is now officially gone - Tories have formally opened up new candidate selections for Anna Soubry, Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston's seats (+ Nick Boles)
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The term is overused but this is truly Kafka-esque. Vote Leave agreed with the ICO to delete their database after the referendum. Now the ICO have fined them £40,000 because they followed their own guidelines.
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This is pure spin. The new amendment is already an uncomfortably large concession from the Government. It gives the rebels everything they have asked for EXCEPT the ability to block Brexit altogether. There are no honest grounds for opposing it unless that is your true motivation
PM has gone back on her word. Govt amendment takes the meaning out of a meaningful vote. Parliament should reject it.
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Labour table amendments calling for "full access" to the single market while not actually being in the single market, ably demonstrating that they can always be relied upon to come up with something so illogical and contradictory that it makes the Government's policy look clear.
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Newsflash for FBPE trolls saying "but they're not a party, stupid": the spending limit specifically applies to Non-Party Campaigns. Which you would know if you'd bothered to read to the 2nd paragraph of the story before posting dense comments about how you think you know better.
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Not only did convicted MP Fiona Onasanya swing last night's Cooper coup by one vote while wearing her electronic angle tag, it turns out she was actually in court again yesterday facing a disability discrimination employment tribunal. Oh dear.
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EXC: No confidence bid launched against Sam Gyimah.- Motion tabled after Gyimah's appearance at SEM tonight.- Unhappy members feel he has misled them over his Brexit reversal.- Activists nickname him "Where's Sam" after poor attendance at local events.
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Barnier confirms what everyone knew already - May's customs plan is never going to work. Chequers leads only to a customs union. The only alternative is preparing to become a genuinely independent trading nation - as May promised right from the start, but has not delivered on yet
Barnier completely rejects May's Chequers customs plan: "The EU can not, and the EU will not, delegate the application of its customs policy and rules. to a non-member who would not be subject to the EU's governance structures."
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Yet more evidence that the backstop is a entirely spurious political invention and completely unnecessary to avoid a hard Irish border - now the WTO itself confirms that there is no need to put up border posts under WTO rules
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