16 July 2019 | UK NEWS
Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd has told Politico that both candidates for the Conservative Party leadership and Premiership will “find they have to compromise”. She added: “I was surprised by what they both said and I think their views will collide with the reality when whichever one wins, starts negotiating and starts dealing with a Parliament which may be more difficult than they think to engage with.”
It comes amid reports that Mr Johnson’s team is looking to schedule a Queen’s Speech for early November, which would involve proroguing Parliament in the final half of October in order to deliver a No Deal Brexit. Dominic Grieve also stated on the Today programme that he believed it would now be “quite difficult” to block No Deal by Parliamentary means.
Separately, it was reported in The Times today that the Brexit Secretary, Stephen Barclay, left the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, “astonished and dismayed” during a meeting last week, when he informed him five times that the Withdrawal Agreement as previously negotiated by Theresa May was now “dead”.
Meanwhile, Lord Harris of Haringey, a Labour peer, has reportedly said that Jeremy Corbyn was not “cut out” to be the party leader. He made the comments on Radio 4, adding: “There’s no question that in any organisation the moral tone that it sets, the style that it operates in is set from the top – that’s what leadership is all about.”
Referring to Mr Corbyn’s inner sanctum, Lord Harris also suggested that Mr Corbyn might have “reined back” his “more idiotic supporters”, who have been accused of intimidation and discrimination against party members.
Elsewhere, we read in The Telegraph today that the incoming President of the European Commission (and its first female incumbent), Ursula von der Leyen, has insisted that the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement cannot be renegotiated.
The Guardian also carries a story reporting that over 60 Labour peers have told Jeremy Corbyn he has “failed the test of leadership” in respect of his handling of anti-Semitism within the party.
