Select Committee
Parliament

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David Davis says the delay in the publication of a Brexit white paper restricted negotiations with the EU, blaming "more than reasonable common sense" hesitancy by the civil service for this.

"It wasn't opposition, it was more like treacle...much of them did as well as they could."

Without the white paper, he says it was difficult to push back in negotiations.

On the controversial areas of the white paper, when it did appear, he says he wasn't involved: "I had five days notice."

He says former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union Olly Robbins, who also advises the prime minister on Europe, "had two masters".

This worked well initially, he says, but as time went on Mr Robbins "wasn't taking instruction as well as he should do".

It was inevitable that instruction from the prime minister would override other views, he adds.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Vince Cable says that the Commons is right to hold this debate now following the result last night.

"We could have a general election that could help resolve this issue," he says, if the Leader of the Opposition were to stand on a platform of holding a People's Vote.

"Hundreds of civil servants have been taken off the work they should be doing for Brexit preparations," he says, stating that mistakes being made "are not being rectified" so there is "no effective government".

He says he spent years in government with the Conservatives "scrimping and saving" for £4bn in cuts, but the Conservatives are permitting "reckless financing" for Brexit spending.

Benj Smith, 26, has been in touch to list what he thinks the UK has ruled out.

BBC News Channel

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The currency market had a major wobble overnight but all seems calmer this afternoon.

Ross Walker, senior UK economist at NatWest markets, says: "We are very much in wait-and-see mode.

"Pretty much everyone expects the government to win that (vote of no confidence)", he says.

But he admits: "There's a lot of information for the market to digest but not a lot of clarity about what's coming next."

Businesses are more wary of what's coming next and are appealing for consensus, says Nicole Sykes, head of EU negotiations for the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

"There is real concern, we're talking to companies who are stockpiling, renegotiating contracts... spending serious amounts of money trying to manage something that can't be managed."

House of Commons
Parliament

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Labour's George Howarth says that had the PM "reached out across the Chamber" then a consensus might have been able to be reached.

He adds that the prime minister has said that she is "fighting poverty and inequality" but he says that 8,000 people had to use foodbanks in his constituency last year, 3,000 of those parcels were for children.

BBC Radio 5 live

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Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who is in favour of a second referendum, has warned of the dangers of disappointing young supporters.

"There’s a big electoral issue here for the Labour party," he told BBC Radio 5 Live's Nihal Arthanayake. "We commanded a huge amount of support from younger people in the 2017 general election – many of whom voted for us for the first time in the expectation that we would stop this Conservative hard Brexit. If we fail to fulfill what people were expecting, then I don’t think we will ever be forgiven by those younger generations.

"We’ve seen what happens to parties, where in particular, they betray promises made to younger generations, you just need to look at the Liberal Democrats and the pledge to abolition tuition fees that they made in 2010. Of course, they trebled tuition fees and were punished heavily in the 2015 election... There are now two million people who can vote, who couldn’t vote three years ago, who are demanding a say on this.” You can hear Brexit reaction live from BBC Radio 5 Live on BBC Sounds.

Select Committee
Parliament

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The UK was "handicapped" by a lack of resources for the Brexit department, David Davis says, but also the lack of Northern Ireland Executive after Stormont collapse in January 2017.

He suggests, in hindsight, that more effort could have been put into resolving the issues in Northern Ireland. This wasn't helped by a change of Northern Ireland secretary, following James Brokenshire's illness.

"We didn't initially see it as being as big a problem as it turned out to be."

House of Commons
Parliament

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Conservative Sir Christopher Chope says that the prime minister has accepted that what was presented to the Commons last night was "a bad deal".

He says that the PM has previously said that "no deal would be better than a bad deal".

He adds that the UK "needs to be saying" that "we are confident and believe in ourselves", and he says that "unfortunately" this is not the negotiating stance of the prime minister.

He states that it is "wholly unacceptable" how the EU has been treating the UK during the negotiations.

Reality Check

There's been much discussion of whether a no deal Brexit is more likely after last night's vote.

At Prime Minister's Questions, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn challenged the prime minister to rule it out.

Here's Reality Check correspondent Chris Morris' take on what a no deal Brexit would look like.

Image source, Reuters

Britain is still on course to leave the EU at the end of March, but nobody knows whether it will be with a deal or not, or whether there will be a general election or another referendum.

Here are some alternative ideas that a few weeks ago seemed highly unlikely but which could, in these extraordinary times, start to look like contenders.

House of Commons
Parliament

Ian Blackford says directly to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that "there is no such thing as a jobs-first Brexit".

He adds that "the people of Scotland are used to being in the European Union" and warns that the UK "is on a path to self-destruction".

He says the Bank of England governor has already warned that Brexit is costing each household £600.

He says that Scotland needs to become an independent nation within the EU.

Select Committee
Parliament

Asked whether officials were "given too much string" during the negotiations, Mr Davis says, "it's hardly a secret to say the majority of Whitehall was not exactly enthusiastically pro-Leave".

"You don't have to accuse them of being anti-patriotic to say that they weren't enthusiastic about these things."

He says his approach was "more aggressive, or more forward", whereas Whitehall's approach was "more risk minimising", which No.10 supported the more concerned they became about progress. This resulted in "a Remainer's Brexit".

BBC Radio 5 live

BBC 5 live reporter Chris Warburton is in a cafe in Edinburgh speaking to people about the future of Brexit.

Tony, 96, who has lived in the area for 30 years, says: "It's a right mess-up isn't it, because most of the people are totally confused and the professional politicians have ensured that they are confused."

He says since the referendum, "the truth has come out very, very slowly, bit by bit by bit. The people as a whole have been sold a pup."

Tony's son Paul, says: "At the end of the day, you've got to be able to engage with Europe in order to be able to sort the problem we've all got.

"We've got the same issues in this country as they've got in Germany, Holland, Belgium, Poland all these countries."

House of Commons
Parliament

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SNP's Westminster Leader Ian Blackford says it is the ERG, a group of "hard-line Brexiteers" led by the Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, that has captured the prime minister.

He adds that the prime minister is beholden to the DUP, but the DUP will only support the prime minister in certain circumstances and that "this is a government that has past its time."

Mr Blackford says the government has started to run down the clock to ensure that the UK crashes out of the EU with a no-deal, and that "the people are suffering."

The SNP has no confidence in this government, Mr Blackford says, "they do not care about the people of Scotland."

Select Committee
Parliament

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Former Brexit secretary David Davis says there were "strategic errors of negotiation" made by the government while negotiating with the EU, the outcome of which resulted in the deal being rejected by MPs yesterday.

He says sequencing was a key aspect, as this meant less progress was made than could have been; and it meant he was unable to tie elements of the divorce payment to the future relationship as he would have liked.

The government conceded on this way too quickly, he says, which was "the first big mistake".

The concession was made by No.10, he says, during the 2017 general election.

"When I returned from the election it was done."

BBC News Channel

Labour's Chuka Umunna tells the BBC that the no confidence vote is "likely" to fail, with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party backing the PM.

The MP for Streatham says he backs Jeremy Corbyn's call for a general election but says it won't “sweep all these Brexit questions off the table”.

He says: "The question is what next? My view is that we need to move to the next stage of the Labour Party’s conference policy, which is basically to go towards a People’s Vote as a way of resolving this."

Another public vote would be one of the only ways to gain an extension to Article 50 and prevent the UK leaving the EU without a deal, he says.

"If you want to stop no deal, a People’s Vote is a way of doing that," he says, adding that it also offers a way through the "gridlock" in Parliament.

And he says a "growing number" of Tory MPs support another referendum.

"We’re going to have to chuck the party politics out, junk it, frankly and work together in the national interest to come to a solution."

Select Committee
Parliament

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The no confidence debate isn't the only Brexit-related work going on in Parliament today, with the European Scrutiny Committee questioning former Brexit Secretary David Davis.

It's part of the inquiry into the conduct of negotiations on the UK’s exit from the European Union.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Theresa May says we need to bring the country back together, and last night's vote proves there is a long way to go, but a general election and a government led by the opposition is "not the way to do that".

"We have the confidence of the public, we should have the confidence of this House, and I urge this House to defeat this motion," Mrs May concludes.