MPs vote down Farage’s proposal for UK to leave ECHR
The result is in. Nigel Farage was defeated by 154 votes to 96, a majority of 58.
The vote is not particularly meaningful. The main parties were not whipping their MPs, and so the numbers do not say anything significant about opinion in the Commons on leaving the ECHR.
The only parties in the Commons that clearly favour ECHR withdrawal are the Conservatives (119 MPs), Reform UK (5 MPs), and TUV (1 MP). Within the DUP (5 MPs), there is some support for withdrawal, but views are mixed.
Key events
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Afternoon summary
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Former SNP MP Mhairi Black gets role in new BBC legal drama
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Commons standards watchdog urged to investigate claim Sarah Pochin’s ‘racist’ comments broke code of conduct
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Female survivors of grooming gangs demand apology from Farage
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Why Labour changed its stance on letting its MPs vote against Farage’s bill for UK to leave ECHR
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Epping sex offender given £500 after threatening to challenge deportation
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How MPs voted on Farage’s 10-minute rule bill to withdraw from ECHR
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MPs vote down Farage’s proposal for UK to leave ECHR
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Davey says Farage has ‘made his career by damaging our country’
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Ed Davey defends ECHR, saying it ‘protects very people who need it most’
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Davey says leaving ECHR would align UK with Russia
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Farage says ECHR is ‘unfinished business’, and that it gives political power to judges
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Farage proposes 10-minute rule bill that would take UK out of ECHR
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MSPs debate new early release plan as Scottish prison population reaches record high
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Tories confirm Chris Philp’s bill proposing mass deportation of people with indefinite leave to remain no longer party policy
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Tightening Pip benefit eligibility could save £9bn a year, say Reform
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Reform UK government in London would pose ‘existential threat’ to Scottish devolution, John Swinney says
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Labour MPs unhappy about being told to abstain on Farage’s 10-minute rule bill proposing ECHR withdrawal
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Judicial review of Palestine Action ban to go ahead next month, after Home Office gives up trying to stop case being heard
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PMQs – snap verdict
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Starmer declines to rule out extending freeze on tax allowances
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Starmer condemns Reform UK as ‘Putin-friendly’, as Ed Davey calls for probe into Russian interference in UK politics
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Starmer says productivity figures show damage done to economy by Tories
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Starmer refuses to say he remains committed to manifesto pledges not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT
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Starmer claims Green party wants to take UK out of Nato
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Starmer faces Badenoch at PMQs
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Jones rejects claim from Labour committee chair that government seems to be ‘kowtowing to China’
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Hermer rejects claim from former Labour defence secretary Lord Hutton that government complacent about China threat
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Statistics watchdog reprimands Steve Reed for saying water pollution worse in Scotland than in Wales
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Cabinet Office minister Darren Jones ducks question about whether China should be in enhanced tier for Firs rules
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Hermer accuses Gavin Williamson of making bogus allegations against Jonathan Powell, underming faith in justice system
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Counting in 2026 Scottish parliamentary elections will start on Friday morning, not overnight, officials announce
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Hermer says claims that ministers intervened in China spy case ‘disgraceful’, in attack on senior Tories
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Hermer says prosecution could have gone ahead under NSA, even though China not in enhanced tier under Firs rules
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Hermer says, if spy case had gone to trial, Badenoch’s quote saying China not a foe would have helped accused get off
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Hermer says China spy prosecutions would have gone ahead if National Security Act had been passed ealier
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Lord Hermer says, once China prosecution originally approved, attorney general had no further role in CPS decisions
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Lord Hermer, attorney general, gives evidence to committee on China spy case
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Government suffers 5 defeats in Lords as ‘ping pong’ starts over employment rights bill
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Boris Johnson approved China’s London super-embassy proposal in 2018
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Shabana Mahmood says Home Office not ready for all challenges, as it says illegal working arrests at record level
Afternoon summary
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MPs have voted down a 10-minute rule bill proposed by Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, for the UK to leave the European convention on human rights. Under the 10-minute rule process, there was no chance of the bill being passed anyway. But the Liberal Democrats, who led opposition to Farage, claimed the result as a win. Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said:
We just defeated Nigel Farage’s bill in parliament to tear up people’s rights and withdraw from the ECHR. Farage wants to do away with the Britain Churchill built and turn it into a version of Trump’s America. We stopped him.
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
Former SNP MP Mhairi Black gets role in new BBC legal drama
Former MP Mhairi Black has joined the cast of a new BBC legal drama in her first television acting role, PA Media reports. PA says:
She plays a police detective in Counsels, which is being filmed in Glasgow and will be aired on BBC One and the BBC iPlayer.
Black will appear in four episodes of the eight-part series, and starts filming next week.
Black, who stepped down as an SNP MP last year, said: “I’m excited to be joining Counsels and look forward to getting stuck in to playing Detective Inspector Bridges.
“I’ve been relishing trying different things since politics, this is my first TV acting role and I really enjoyed auditioning for the part.
“To work on a series which is set and filmed in Glasgow is an amazing opportunity – what a brilliant show to be a part of.”
The UK is supporting Jamaica with £2.5m in emergency humanitarian funding after Hurricane Melissa, the Foreign Office has announced. The money will go towards delivering emergency supplies such as shelter kits, water filters and blankets.
Commons standards watchdog urged to investigate claim Sarah Pochin’s ‘racist’ comments broke code of conduct
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
A cross-party group of more than 30 MPs have written to parliament’s standards commissioner asking him to investigate the Reform MP Sarah Pochin for saying that seeing adverts featuring black and Asian people “drives her mad”.
The letter, led by the Labour MP Dawn Butler, and signed by 35 MPs from Labour, the Lib Dems, Greens, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and independents, said Pochin’s comments were racist.
“They single out Black and Asian people and frame their visibility as a problem,” says the letter to Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
It argues that Pochin breached the principles of public life which MPs are meant to abide by, as it presented ethnic minority communities “as outsiders or exceptions”, and that she was “promoting division based on skin colour”.
It goes on:
Statements that single out or diminish entire groups of people based on race have no place in public life. We therefore urge you to take this matter seriously and ensure that the standards of his house reflect an inclusive, respectful and diverse Britain.
Speaking on a phone-in show on Talk on Saturday, Pochin said: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”, adding that “your average white person, average white family is … not represented any more”.
The comments were condemned by Keir Starmer, as well as Lib Dem and Conservative MPs. Nigel Farage said that while Pochin’s choice of language was wrong, he did not feel that the words were “deliberately and genuinely racist”.
Female survivors of grooming gangs demand apology from Farage
Five women have asked for an apology from Nigel Farage after he suggested they were not victims of grooming gangs, Geraldine McKelvie reports.
A reader asks:
What has happened to the abolition of hereditary peers bill?
The bill has gone through the Commons and the Lords, where peers passed a series of amendments that would undermine the bill. One of them would allow all the hereditary peers to stay, but would gradually phased them out over time by ending the system for Lord byelections to fill gaps left when a hereditary peer dies. MPs voted to take out those amendments in September. So the bill is heading back to the Lords for “ping pong”.
But, almost two months after those Commons votes, the Lords have not set a date for their next debate.
I presume government business managers are going to leave hereditary peers “ping pong” until nearer the end of the session, so they can run down the clock and use that as a means of getting peers to agree.
Peers love nothing more than debating Lords reform, and I presume the whips are worried that, if they schedule “ping pong” now, peers will waste all their time debating this bill and not get anything else done.
Why Labour changed its stance on letting its MPs vote against Farage’s bill for UK to leave ECHR
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
The vote by 63 Labour MPs against Nigel Farage’s ten-minute rule bill on the UK leaving the European convention on human rights – without which the Commons would have backed the bill – happened because a few Labour backbenchers warned whips and the party hierarchy that they had to act.
While 10-minute rule bills have no chance of becoming law without subsequent government backing, MPs including Stella Creasy warned that allowing Farage’s bill to be passed would send a terrible signal to European neighbours, who would not necessarily understand the purely symbolic impact of the vote.
The initial instruction to Labour MPs was to not vote. After a pushback, this was amended to say that while frontbenchers should do this, those on the backbenches could vote if they wanted.
“To let such a bill pass at a time of sensitivity in negotiations over our European deal would be taken badly,” Creasy said.
Epping sex offender given £500 after threatening to challenge deportation
A convicted child sex offender mistakenly released from prison after arriving in the UK in a small boat was given £500 of public money as he was deported back to Ethiopia, Rajeev Syal and Pippa Crerar report.
How MPs voted on Farage’s 10-minute rule bill to withdraw from ECHR
The division lists are out.
The 95 MPs voting for Farage’s proposal to leave the ECHR came from:
The Conservatives: 87
Reform UK: 3
DUP: 2
Independents: 2 (Rupert Lowe and Patrick Spencer)
TUV: 1
And the 155 MPs voting against came from:
Lib Dems: 64
Labour: 63
Independents: 10
SNP: 7
Plaid Cymru: 4
Green party: 4
Alliance: 1
SDLP: 1
UUP: 1
MPs vote down Farage’s proposal for UK to leave ECHR
The result is in. Nigel Farage was defeated by 154 votes to 96, a majority of 58.
The vote is not particularly meaningful. The main parties were not whipping their MPs, and so the numbers do not say anything significant about opinion in the Commons on leaving the ECHR.
The only parties in the Commons that clearly favour ECHR withdrawal are the Conservatives (119 MPs), Reform UK (5 MPs), and TUV (1 MP). Within the DUP (5 MPs), there is some support for withdrawal, but views are mixed.
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