Boris Johnson news: More than 50 Labour MPs ‘ready to back new Brexit deal’, amid fears PM ready to cut Northern Ireland loose

Tony Blair has warned that it is wrong as “a matter of principle” to use a general election to resolve the Brexit issue.

The former prime minister said it would be a mistake to mix up the issue of Britain’s departure from the EU with the wider election issues.

Speaking at King’s College London, he said the right way to “unblock” the deadlock in parliament was through a second referendum, with the option to Remain on the ballot paper.

“It is wrong as a matter or principle to mix the general election up with the specific Brexit question,” he said.

“If the British people end up having a general election on Brexit you are going to mix up issues that should be kept separate.

“What Boris Johnson thinks is ‘If I fight a Brexit general election, I can say to people ‘look it’s no-deal or you get Jeremy Corbyn’.

“You could end up with the bizarre situation where, let’s just suppose the Conservatives manage to win a majority with 35 per cent to 40 per cent of the vote, they will claim a mandate for no-deal when, if you add the votes for all the parties opposed to no-deal together, they will come to more than 50 per cent of the vote. It is a completely undemocratic way of deciding it.”

Natalie Bennett, former leader of the Green Party, is becoming a peer after she was nominated by the party’s current leadership.

It means the Greens have doubled their number in the House of Lords, as Bennett joins Jenny Jones.

The EU commission has been accused of adopting “grotesque” and “fascist” rhetoric after it created a new “Commissioner for Protecting our European Way of Life” to oversee immigration policy.

Incoming president Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the new job earlier today.

Here’s our Europe correspondent Jon Stone with the details.

At the launch of a new group of MPs in Westminster today - 'MPs for a Deal' - it was claimed there is still time to secure a Brexit deal in parliament with a "sizeable voice building across the House". 

Despite Theresa May's deal being voted down three time in the Commons by historic margins, Labour MP Stephen Kinnock, who joined cross-party MPs at the launch of the group, said striking a "pragmatic deal" for the UK to leave the EU is "not a unicorn" and could command a majority in parliament.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Kinnock said this was "not about reproducing a carbon copy" of the deal which failed in three votes, adding that what emerged from cross-party talks was a "compelling proposal".

He continued: "The fact is that we are rooted in reality here. This is not a unicorn. We have something here which is the basic foundation of a perfectly pragmatic deal that we believe can command a majority in Parliament and also begin to reunite our deeply divided country and even at this 11th hour we think there is time to do it."

MPs are gearing up in the race to replace John Bercow as speaker of the House of Commons, as former Labour minister Harriet Harman became the latest to announce her candidacy. 

It comes after Mr Bercow made his surprise statement to step down by the 31 October Brexit deadline after more than a decade in the chair.

It means an election for the new speaker is now likely to take place ahead of any general election – scuppering any plans of installing a Brexiteer to the position in the event of Boris Johnson winning a healthy majority.

Each candidate vying to replace Mr Bercow must submit their nominations of between 12 and 15 cross-party MPs by the morning of the election when scheduled by the Commons authorities.

Here The Independent looks at the runners and riders for the next custodian of the Commons.

In retaliation to Theresa May's resignation honour's list, Labour is now calling on the government to rescind Geoffrey Boycott's knighthood over his conviction for domestic violence in 1998. 

It follows an interview from the ex-England cricketer this morning, in which he said he did not "give a toss" about a leading domestic abuse organisation's criticism of his knighthood. 

Labour's shadow minister for equalities Dawn Butler said: “Celebrating a man convicted of assaulting his partner by giving him a knighthood is an insult to victims and survivors of domestic violence.

“Honouring a perpetrator of domestic violence just because he is the former Prime Minister’s favourite sportsman shows how out of touch and nepotistic the honours list is.  

“Boris Johnson should rescind his knighthood today. The whole honours system needs radically overhauling, alongside peerages, so that our political system works for the many not the few.”

DUP chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson dismissed the notion the DUP’s influence on the government was “waning” – amid unionist fears Boris Johnson could be preparing to cut Northern Ireland loose in his desperation for a Brexit deal.

“I don’t see the prime minister who appointed himself as the minister for the union agreeing to an arrangement that separates Northern Ireland from Great Britain in trading terms,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme.

“So, I think that this idea that you have a Northern Ireland-only backstop where you have a trade border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is simply a non-runner, in any event it would contravene the core principles of the Good Friday Agreement, the Belfast Agreement.”

He added: “The solution to avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland is not to create a second border in the Irish Sea because I think that would be deeply destabilising.”

Sir Jeffrey said a considerable number of Tory MPs would look to the DUP to see what its view was on any arrangements relating specifically to Northern Ireland.

He said: “The idea that our influence is waning, I think, flies in the face of reality. Our leader will be meeting with Boris Johnson, we are plugged into the ongoing discussions about alternative arrangements, we have a significant role to play and, therefore, I would argue that our influence remains.”

More than 50 Labour MPs could be ready to rally behind a compromise Brexit agreement allowing Boris Johnson to avoid crashing out of the EU with no deal, Caroline Flint has claimed.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock has the details.