Boris Johnson news: PM condemned over ‘cruel and callous’ deportations to Jamaica, as Labour leadership candidate sparks transphobia row

Nicola Sturgeon ‘dithering’ over Scottish independence, says SNP MP

The senior Scottish nationalist MP Angus MacNeil has broken party discipline over the handling of a potential second independence referendum – launching an unusual attack on the first minister and her Holyrood government.

He accused Sturgeon of “dithering” over the issue and called on SNP chiefs to consider staging a Catalonia-style wildcat referendum – a vote held without Boris Johnson’s approval via a Section 30 request to hand powers from London to Edinburgh.

“All avenues of the consultative referendum should be explored now, and the Scottish Government should be decisive and not dither as it did over the Section 30 request,” said MacNeil. “That will be a hard sentence for many of my colleagues to read, but dither it was.”

Jeremy Corbyn ‘absolutely right’ to point out hypocrisy over deportations, says SNP MP

Drew Hendry, the SNP’s business spokesman in the Commons, has backed the Labour leader’s criticism of the government over the Jamaica deportation flight.

“We are talking about sending people back who have no roots [in Jamaica] … If people have committed offences they should be serving their sentences in jail,” Hendry told the BBC. “We should be trying to rehabilitate them and giving them the opportunities we would give to everybody else.”

Earlier Corbyn has questioned whether Boris Johnson could have been deported to the United States because he “dabbled in class A drugs” and “conspired” to beat up a journalist.

The Labour leader provoked a furious reaction from the Conservative benches after asking the PM if there is “one rule for young black boys from the Caribbean and another for white boys from the United States”.

Henry said:  “I don’t normally have any praise for Jeremy Corbyn but I think he’s absolutely right to point out the hypocrisies that we have from this prime minister and some of his government who’ve committed the same types of crimes that they’re accusing these people of.”

Theresa May challenges ministers to ‘find new paths’ on rehabilitation

The former Tory PM has been speaking in the Commons as MPs debate the government’s bid to end the automatic early release of terror offenders.

May said: “The government’s right to be addressing this question of the automatic early release of terrorist offenders, but terrorist offenders will still be released at some point.

“That is why the issue of rehabilitation, the work that is done both in prison and when they are out of prison is so important.”

May said “we will never deal with this issue of terrorism until we deal with the ideology” – and challenged the government to make “extra efforts to find new paths to ensure that we can turn people away from the extremism”.

‘It seemed to send people into a spasm’

Labour MP Tracy Brabin said the off-the-shoulder dress worn in the Commons which sparked a backlash from online trolls is currently at £18,000 on eBay. She’s selling the “shoulder-gate” item to raise money for Girlguiding UK.

“It seemed to send people into a spasm. There was lots of rudeness on social media. I’m in a privileged position – it doesn’t bother me. But there’s lots of women out there in the workplace who have this everyday sexism and harassment.”

Donald Trump has a 50p Brexit coin, says Brexit Party politician

According to Brexit Party AM Mark Reckless, Nigel Farage presented one of the commemorative coins marking the UK’s exit from the EU to the US president during a recent trip to Washington.

Terror legislation doesn’t violate European human rights law, says justice secretary

Robert Buckland said he believes the government’s bid to end the automatic early release of terrorist offenders would be upheld in the European courts.

During the second reading of the Terrorist Offenders (Restrictions of Early Release) Bill, Tory backbencher Sir Desmond Swayne asked whether a new law might be successfully challenged by the European Court of Human Rights.

Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights forbids “a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed".

Responding, Buckland said: “I’m not going to anticipate litigation in domestic courts or indeed in Strasbourg.

“But I will say this now and I will repeat it for the benefit of the record that it is my firm view that this Bill does not engage the provisions of article 7 of the European Convention because it relates to the way in which the sentence is administered not a change in the nature of penalty itself.”

Justice secretary Robert Buckland (Parliament TV)

‘I think I’m going to win. Obviously’: Long-Bailey backs herself

Rebecca Long-Bailey has backed herself to win the Labour leadership race despite receiving half the constituency party nominations of her main rival.

The shadow business secretary said she is “not concerned” at having won the support of around 138 Constituency Labour parties (CLPs) compared with 312 for Sir Keir Starmer.

She said the nomination meetings represent a “tiny proportion” of Labour’s membership because “a lot of people don't go to their (CLP) meetings”.

“You might get 50 to 100 people at a meeting if you’re lucky, some constituencies more. But, to give Salford as an example, we had about 100 people come to our nomination meeting. We’ve got nearly 2,000 members, who potentially are all going to vote,” she told HuffPost UK.

“So a lot of people that you’re trying to reach won’t be active party members. They’ll be political, but they won't be directly involved in your party locally. I think I’m going to win. Obviously.”

Labour leadership contender Rebecca Long-Bailey (Getty)

Downing Street defends deportations to Jamaica

Responding to Jeremy Corbyn’s criticisms at PMQs, Boris Johnson’s press secretary said: “What the public will see is the leader of the Labour Party defending serious and violent criminals. Until his leadership, this issue had cross-party Agreement. It was the last Labour government who passed the law in 2007 meaning persistent foreign national offenders must be deported.

“Corbyn has constantly supported making life easier for criminals. He has opposed tougher sentences for the most dangerous offenders, he has opposed custodial sentences for those found carrying knives, he has opposed the use of stop and search to help the police do their jobs, whereas our attitude is that we will always do what is necessary to keep the public safe

“That is why we are investing in 20,000 police officers and that’s why we continue to believe that removing serious foreign national offenders is the right thing to do.”

‘Labour was dying’ before Jeremy Corbyn, says Len McCluskey

The combative Unite the Union leader has dismissed the idea young, “middle-class” Corbyn supporters have taken the Labour party in a “different” direction – alienating the traditional working-class base.

“This is nonsense,” McCluskey told BBC Hard Talk interviewer Stephen Sackur. “If you’re challenging Jeremy Corbyn with bringing young people into politics, then he’ll plead guilty, and thankfully. The Labour Party was dying – the Labour Party was hollowed out in most of our constituencies throughout the UK.”

Row spills into the open over key COP26 climate summit 

Nicola Sturgeon has weighed in on reports the government is lining up a new venue for COP26 amid rows over preparations in Glasgow. We have written about the story here.

The Scottish first minister said Boris Johnson was 'playing politics' and insisted she was right to call him out on it.