Brexit news: Theresa May formally resigns as Conservative leader, as Labour celebrates by-election win
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Your support makes all the difference.Labour has seen off a challenge from Nigel Farage's Brexit Party in a knife-edge by-election in Peterborough.
Mr Farage's newly-formed outfit lost out to Labour by 683 votes, in a blow to the former Ukip leader's hopes of building its recent European election showing.
As Theresa May formally bowed out as Tory leader, the Conservatives slumped to third place in what is traditionally a Tory-Labour marginal seat.
Meanwhile, Tory leadership hopeful Boris Johnson won a legal challenge, which means he will not appear in court over allegations he committed misconduct in a public office by “misleading the public” about Brexit.
And Jo Swinson and Ed Davey will go to head in the battle to become Lib Dem leader after being announced as the only two candidates running in the contest to replace Sir Vince Cable.
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A spokesman for Boris Johnson said he would not be commenting on the case.
The Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) has put out a statement saying Labour's newest MP Lisa Forbes should have the whip removed over a row over antisemitism.
Theresa May is facing resistance from the Treasury to plans to turn on the spending taps in the hope of burnishing her legacy before leaving office.
Chancellor Philip Hammond is understood to have put his foot down over proposals for a string of big spending commitments in the coming weeks which the Treasury believes could soak up as much as £10 billion.
Mr Hammond has told the Prime Minister he does not want to break into a £26 billion “war chest” he has built up to cushion the shock of a possible no-deal Brexit until the prospect of leaving the EU without an agreement is definitively off the table.
More here:
A charity which pledged to provide humanitarian help to Palestine and is fronted by George Galloway may not have delivered any aid to the region, according to a damning new report, writes Zamira Rahim.
The Charity Commission said there was “little if any evidence that humanitarian aid was distributed to those in need” by Viva Palestina, an aid group, following a decade of probes into the organisation.
Investigators found that “significant cash donations were received by the charity via direct bank transfer”.
Council officials called the Grenfell Tower area ‘”little Africa” and said it was “full of people from the Tropics”, a Labour MP has claimed, writes Emma Snaith.
Emma Dent Coad, MP for Kensington, said the attitude from Kensington and Chelsea Council following the fire was either “racism or snobbery, take your pick”.
Ms Dent Coad made the comments during a backbench debate in parliament on Thursday over the response to the blaze at the west London tower block in 2017, which left 72 people dead.
Nigel Farage has been asked why he decided Brexit Party MEPs would not join the European Parliament group of right-wing Italian deputy premier Matteo Salvini.
Speaking in Downing Street after delivering a letter demanding his new party be included in Brexit negotiations, he said: "Mr Salvini is a very effective politician, there's no question about that.
"I wasn't particularly impressed with the way one or two of his people behaved over the last couple of days.
"But we've decided the ENF group is not for us. There are some very successful political parties there, I'm not going to be derogatory about them, but politically the Brexit Party is much more centrist."
Mr Farage's party has yet to produce a manifesto or policy platform setting out its position, centrist or otherwise, on any issue beyond Brexit.
Additional reporting by PA
Britain’s next prime minister should “forget about” the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in Salisbury, Vladimir Putin has said, writes Samuel Osborne.
The Russian president said he hoped whoever succeeded Theresa May would see what he described as the bigger picture and move on from the Skripal attack.
“When all’s said and done we need to turn this page connected with spies and assassination attempts,” Mr Putin said on the sidelines of an economic forum in St Petersburg.
Labour Party candidate Lisa Forbes reacts after she won the Peterborough by-election (Chris Radburn/Getty)
The Brexit Party "missed an open goal" by narrowly losing the Peterborough byelection, according to one pollster.
Chris Hopkins, head of politics at ComRes, analysed the result in a series of tweets.
He said: "The Brexit Party will wake up with mixed feelings this morning; on the one hand, a party that has been around for no time at all ran an incumbent party very close in a by-election, with nearly a third of the vote, having recently won a nationwide election.
"On the other hand, with the Conservatives and Labour in utter disarray, in a seat that has always been marginal and with no ‘name-brand’ candidate running, they missed an open goal.
"Labour’s ‘Get Out The Vote’ strategy has been heralded this morning while, for the time being, the Brexit Party lacks infrastructure and especially local data.They have to find a way to address that if they’re to make in-roads under First Past The Post.
"Coming second in seats will not be what Nigel Farage wants, so if the Brexit Party are really here to stay, they’ll need to start thinking of a focused and realistic seat-by-seat strategy now, otherwise more nights like last night will be on the cards."
The next Conservative leader must be able to "claw back" voters from the Brexit Party, Mr Hopkins said, while any Tory or Labour MPs backing a general election now would be turkeys voting for Christmas, he said.
Brandon Lewis, the Conservative Party chairman, has admitted the Tories are going through a "difficult process" as two MPs, including one cabinet minister, face pressure from local members to not stand for re-election.
Justice secretary David Gauke and former attorney general Dominic Grieve have both been asked to attend meetings of their local Conservative Associations.
Mr Greive is attending a special meeting of his association on Friday night after losing a vote of no confidence held by his local party in Beaconsfield earlier this year.
Mr Gauke faces a similar confidence motion on 28 June by the South West Hertfordshire Conservative Association.
Mr Lewis told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "They're not actually facing deselection, that's not what's happening.
"Within our party's rules [these votes] don't actually have any direct meaning, it's a difficult process for the party to be going through and I'd rather not be seeing that.
"As the prime minister said, and I myself said some week as go, we're a wide open tent in our party, we are strong because of that."
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