Brexit news latest: DUP dismisses Michel Barnier proposal as Theresa May says EU withdrawal could be cancelled if deal rejected

Here is the extract from Downing Street released on Thursday evening ahead of the prime minister's speech on Brexit this afternoon. The location of her speech is Grimsby - an area where 71 per cent of residents voted to leave the EU in June 2016. 

“Just as MPs will face a big choice next week, the EU has to make a choice too.

“We are both participants in this process.

“It is in the European interest for the UK to leave with a deal.

“We are working with them but the decisions that the European Union makes over the next few days will have a big impact on the outcome of the vote.”

After Amber Rudd - the work and pensions secretary - was forced to apologise for referring to Diane Abbott as a "coloured woman" during a BBC radio interview on Thursday, the deputy chairman of the Conservative MP has defended her. 

Conservative deputy chairman James Cleverly told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that unfortunate comments were inevitable in politics: "We all do a lot of talking on really, really sensitive matters and people sometimes make mistakes at work.

"When I've dealt with soldiers or police officers or people in local government, if I chewed them up every time they make a mistake, we'd have nothing done."

Asked about Ms Rudd's remarks, Mr Cleverly said: "The point that I've always taken is you look at what people are doing perhaps slightly more than what they are saying."

Answering a question about internet trolling during a radio interview on Thursday, Ms Rudd said: "It definitely is worse if you're a woman, and it's worst of all if you're a coloured woman.

"I know that Diane Abbott gets a huge amount of abuse and I think that's something we need to continue to call out."

Mr Cleverly told Today: "At that point, what Amber was doing was showing huge solidarity with Diane Abbott, who's been the recipient of a horrific, unbelievable, huge volume of misogynistic and racist abuse.

"Amber was showing solidarity. She used a terrible, terrible word and now we are talking about that word (rather than her message)."

Here is the story from Thursday on Ms Rudd's comments

Muslim Labour MP Naz Shah has called for an apology from Andrea Leadsom after the Commons Leader suggested Islamophobia should be treated as a Foreign Office issue.

In a letter to Theresa May, Ms Shah said: "This comment exposes profound ignorance of race issues at the top of Government. This is not a trivial matter.

"In the face of rising hate crime and an emboldened far-right movement here in Britain, how can the Government hope to combat racism when its own ministers seem to lack an understanding of the ways in which it manifests itself?"

She continued: "This is while the former chair of your party, Baroness Warsi, has been for months asking that you and (Conservative chairman) Brandon Lewis take the issue of Islamophobia seriously, which you seem to be in complete denial of. We all must be better and braver against the scourge of racism across the political spectrum and broader society."