Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Boris Johnson dodges ‘ambush’ as Luxembourg’s PM holds press conference next to anti-Brexit mob… Boris Johnson dodged an “ambush” after an EU boss chose to hold their press conference near furious anti-Brexit protesters. Xavier Bettel ilked the whooping cheers and applause from the pro-Remain mob after ’empty-chairing’ the PM in a petty move in front of bemused reporters. No10 said the PM’s aides asked to move the press conference away from the baying crowd – described as a “large Remain gathering” – but the request was denied by their hosts. A Downing Street source said: “We repeatedly asked for it to be moved into the press centre but they refused and said it needed to be outside – by the loud protesters. We took a decision to take a media engagement at the residence instead.” The sourced added: “We went to Luxembourg to see Juncker, not him.” – The Sun Boris Johnson walks into ambush as Luxembourg’s PM holds press conference next to empty podium – Telegraph (£) Tory anger as Boris Johnson ambushed in Europe – The Times (£) …where he attacks absent Johnson for the Brexit “nightmare” Luxembourg’s prime minister has attacked Boris Johnson for the Brexit “nightmare” after his UK counterpart skipped a joint press conference amid noisy protesters waiting close-by. Despite Mr Johnson avoiding the press conference, Xavier Bettel went ahead with it and took the chance to lay into the British PM, saying the Brexit impasse was a “home-made” problem. But Mr Johnson, who decided to only give a statement to a small group of journalists assembled at the nearby residence of the British ambassador, insisted “we’ve got a good chance of a deal”. Explaining his absence, Mr Johnson said the press conference was cancelled over fears they would have been “drowned out” by pro-EU protesters. Luxembourg’s PM went further, warning that EU citizens were facing mounting uncertainty due to Brexit while standing next to an empty podium after Mr Johnson pulled out of a joint appearance. “You can’t hold their future hostage for party political gains,” Mr Bettel said. He added: “I know that the UK Government is unhappy with the Withdrawal Agreement as it stands. That’s why I thought it was important to speak to Prime Minister Johnson to get proposals. We need more than just words.” – ITV News > WATCH: Luxembourg PM Xavier Bettel’s statement on his meeting with Boris Johnson Jean-Claude Juncker says he is still waiting on workable backstop solutions from Johnson… The U.K. has not yet produced “legally operational solutions” to the problem of the Northern Ireland border after Brexit, according to a European Commission statement issued after a meeting between Jean-Claude Juncker and Boris Johnson. It is the first time that the Commission president and U.K. prime minister have met face-to-face since Johnson took over from Theresa May in July. They were accompanied over lunch in Luxembourg by the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and U.K. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay. Both sides billed the meeting as a chance to “take stock” of the talks, but the Commission statement said there had been no game-changing proposals from Johnson’s team. “President Juncker recalled that it is the UK’s responsibility to come forward with legally operational solutions that are compatible with the Withdrawal Agreement,” the Commission statement read. – Politico …which Brexit Committee chairman Hilary Benn also urges Johnson to publish… The chairman of the Commons Exiting the EU Committee, Leeds MP Hilary Benn, has called on Boris Johnson to say when he intends to publish his alternative proposal to the Northern Ireland backstop. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Labour’s Leeds Central MP Mr Benn pointed out that he had told the Commons he would set out his plan “long before” the 30-day timetable suggested by Chancellor Angela Merkel when they met in August. However, Mr Benn said that with just four days to the 30-day deadline, EU Commission president Jean- Claude Juncker had made clear that such proposals “have not yet been made” by the UK side. The European Union’s frustration with Boris Johnson about his Brexit strategy was laid bare today after the Prime Minister met Mr Juncker. Mr Johnson and the European Commission president sat down for their first face-to-face talks in a restaurant in Mr Juncker’s native Luxembourg. – Yorkshire Post …as the DUP appear to soften their stance on accepting EU regulations after Brexit The Democratic Unionist party has for the first time signalled it is prepared to accept some post-Brexit EU rules for Northern Ireland as long as the Stormont assembly has a say. The party’s chief whip said it was looking at regulatory alignment with the EU in the agri-food sector as a way of avoiding a hard border with Ireland. “Where there is political will, there is certainly a way,” Jeffrey Donaldson told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland. “I think it is still possible to get that agreement.” He said the party still had great difficulty with the proposed backstop solution because it created trade barriers between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. But he made it clear there could be an exception: keeping the same EU rules across the island for animals and food. – Guardian Supreme Court to begin hearing appeals today over prorogation of Parliament… A legal battle over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s controversial decision to suspend Parliament for five weeks is set to be heard by the UK’s highest court. The Supreme Court in London will hear appeals from two separate challenges brought in England and Scotland to the prorogation of Parliament over three days, starting on Tuesday. Mr Johnson says the five-week suspension is to allow the Government to set out a new legislative agenda in a Queen’s Speech when MPs return to Parliament on October 14. But those who brought legal challenges against the Prime Minister’s decision argue the prorogation is designed to prevent parliamentary scrutiny of the UK’s impending exit from the EU on October 31. The Supreme Court, which will sit as a panel of 11 justices for only the second time in its 10-year history, must reconcile contradictory judgments issued by the English and Scottish courts. – ITV News …where Sir John Major wants judges to rule that Boris Johnson lied to the Queen Sir John Major will this week personally urge the Supreme Court to rule Boris Johnson lied to the Queen about suspending Parliament. In an astonishing move, the line-up for the legal blockbuster yesterday revealed the former Tory PM will make a 20 minute ‘intervention’ in the emergency hearing – which begins today. Sir John Major is expected to take to the stand on the final day of three on Thursday. Furious Brexiteers last night said they were “astonished”. Iain Duncan Smith told The Sun: “All I can say is that his purpose in doing this must be to give the Supreme Court a ready example of hubris. This is the Prime Minister who prorogued Parliament in 1997 during the Cash for Questions saga!” – The Sun Dominic Raab sparks fresh Brexit row by hinting Johnson could escape the ‘flawed’ law ruling out No Deal Dominic Raab yesterday sparked a fresh Brexit row by hinting the Government can escape “flawed” legislation ruling out a No Deal. The Foreign Secretary insisted the Ministers would always “behave lawfully”. But he said the ‘Benn Bill’ passed by the Commons – ordering Boris Johnson to seek a Brexit delay – was “deeply flawed”. And he said: “The precise implications need to be looked at very carefully.” The ‘Benn Bill’ passed by the Commons earlier this month compels the PM to seek a Brexit delay beyond October 31 if a agreement isn’t struck with the EU by October 19. But yesterday a top lawyer warned ‘Remain’ MPs there was a loophole that could allow Boris Johnson to legally ignore the Bill. Jolyon Maugham QC claimed the PM could pass the Withdrawal Act – legislation needed for any Brexit deal to become law – by October 19 and the “obligation to request an extension falls away”. – The Sun Legal loophole ‘would allow Boris Johnson to deliver no-deal on 31 October’ . – Independent Johnson would still be dependent on Labour MPs’ votes to pass any Brexit deal Boris Johnson will still need a bloc of Labour MPs to vote for any Brexit agreement struck with the EU, even if his whips have managed to reduce the number of Tory Eurosceptic “Spartans” holding out against a deal down to just eight. The prime minister insisted again on Monday that he wants a deal with Brussels that removes the Northern Ireland backstop. But even if he secures some concessions that he can sell as a new deal, his chances of getting that agreement through the House of Commons remain extremely finely balanced. On the current numbers, he has 287 MPs who voted for a deal last time, while there are 289 MPs from opposition parties and independents who are against a deal. – Guardian John Bercow insists Parliament must get a final say on Brexit A defiant John Bercow insisted that Brexit should not be implemented without the approval of Parliament. The Commons speaker, who has been fiercely critical of Boris Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament, insisted that Westminster must have the final say. Mr Bercow showed no sign of backing down when he addressed the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It is not for me to implement or stop Brexit,” he said, before setting out what he described as three scenarios of how Brexit will play out. “Either there is an approved Brexit deal and we leave because Parliament has approved said deal. Alternatively, there is not an approved deal, because the deal as put is rejected. But Parliament resolves we should nevertheless leave at the end of October.” – Telegraph (£) Jo Swinson faces ‘hypocrisy’ backlash over Lib Dem pledge to cancel Brexit and block a second referendum… Jo Swinson has faced a fierce backlash after arguing that a Liberal Democrat general election victory would cancel Brexit but another SNP Holyrood win would not justify a second independence referendum. The Liberal Democrat leader denied being guilty of “fundamental hypocrisy” by claiming her party would have an electoral mandate to revoke Article 50, but this would not apply to Nicola Sturgeon for another separation vote. She attempted to draw a distinction between the two scenarios by arguing that her ‘cancel Brexit’ policy was aimed at “getting out of a crisis”, while the SNP’s independence plan would add a further “layer” of constitutional chaos. But Kirsty Blackman, the SNP’s deputy Westminster leader, said Ms Swinson’s double standards were “utterly grotesque” and warned they would repel Scottish voters. – Telegraph (£) > Robert Courts MP on BrexitCentral today: The hypocritical Lib Dems want to ignore the result of the Brexit referendum they demanded a decade ago …as her colleague Sir Norman Lamb says her promise to cancel Brexit is ‘playing with fire’… A split has emerged at the top of the Liberal Democrats over Brexit, as senior MP Sir Norman Lamb warned that the new policy of cancelling EU withdrawal was “playing with fire”. Activists voted overwhelmingly at the party’s annual conference in Bournemouth on Sunday to back leader Jo Swinson’s proposal to revoke the UK’s Article 50 letter informing Brussels of its intention to quit the EU. But Lamb warned that there was a “real danger” of breaking the nation’s social contract if Leave-voters felt that their referendum victory in 2016 was simply being cast aside. The former health minister, who is a member of the MPs For A Deal group calling for a new vote on the last version of Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, warned his party that a failure to compromise was fuelling the rise of populist figures like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. – Independent > LISTEN: Norman Lamb MP on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme …but she says she’s ‘ready to be Prime Minister’… Jo Swinson will state she wants to be Prime Minister in her first speech to the Liberal Democrats conference as leader of the party. Ms Swinson, who has already suffered a “David Steel moment” after she said her party was aiming for a majority in government, despite only having 18 MPs, will use the speech to set out why she should be in Number 10. “There is no limit to my ambition for our party,” she will tell the Bournemouth conference. “And today I am standing here as your candidate for Prime Minister.” Her ambition for Prime Minister was echoed by Chuka Umunna, the party’s shadow Foreign Secretary, who described Ms Swinson as a “big wild card”, whose potential impact during a general election campaign had been “massively” underestimated. – Telegraph (£) …and will accuse Boris Johnson of acting like a ‘dictator’ Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat leader, will on Tuesday accuse Boris Johnson of acting like a “dictator” in trying to push through a hard Brexit and tell her fast-growing party: “Our country needs us at this precarious time.” Ms Swinson, in her first conference speech as party leader, will tell activists in Bournemouth that Mr Johnson is silencing his critics, purging opponents and threatening to ignore a law aimed at preventing a no-deal Brexit. “For someone who proclaims to hate socialist dictators, he’s doing a pretty good impression of one,” she will say. “Our first task is clear: we must stop Brexit.” The Liberal Democrats have been buoyed by recent high profile defections of MPs from the Conservative and Labour parties, with potentially more parliamentarians preparing to join. – FT (£) Former Business Secretary Greg Clark forced to deny Lib Dem defection rumours Ex-Tory Cabinet minister Greg Clark is forced to deny he is on the verge of joining the Lib Dems as speculation reaches fever pitch among Tory MPs. In what would be the biggest defection to the anti-Brexit party so far, rumours swept around a Tory MPs’ Whatsapp groups that the former Business Secretary would be unveiled by leader Jo Swinson as a Lib Dem MP ahead of her keynote speech to party conference on Tuesday. Tory insiders said he had been put-off the idea by the Lib Dems’ new policy to revoke Article 50 without holding a referendum. A source close to Mr Clark said talk of his defection was “complete rubbish” but others pointed out that defectors such as Sam Gyimah had given the same response before they jumped ship. And it would swell the Lib Dems’ number of MPs to 18 – six more than they won at the last election. – The Sun David Cameron admits for the first time his ‘regret’ over Brexit crisis and says he feels ‘responsibility’ David Cameron admitted for the first time last night that he shares responsibility for the Brexit crisis. In his first TV grilling since leaving No10 three years ago, the ex-Tory PM also admitted he is still “haunted” by his gamble. While expressing “regret” for the deep divisions across the country, he had previously insisted the landmark 2016 referendum was “inevitable” because of splits over Europe. Mr Cameron told ITV News’s Tom Bradby: “Do I have regrets? Yes. Am I sorry about the state the country’s got into? Yes. Do I feel I have some responsibility for that? Yes. It was my referendum, my campaign, my decision to try and renegotiate. I accept all of those things and people will have to decide how much blame to put on me.” – The Sun Iain Duncan Smith: Remainers’ overwhelming allegiance to the EU cause has created our political crisis It has long been apparent that the EU has eaten into the very soul of the British establishment – yet only now is it becoming clear just how bad things have got. For more than 40 years, this one-way process has gone on relentlessly as our political elite and professional bodies succumbed to political and financial inducements from Brussels, undermining our sense of nationhood and blurring the lines of accountability and loyalty. Up until now this has happened away from the public gaze, in the back rooms of power. For years the public could not see the extent of the conspiracy because, as the Tory MP and former chancellor Lord Thorneycroft put it of the European project: “The people must be led slowly and unconsciously into the abandonment of their traditional economic defences.” – Iain Duncan Smith MP for the Telegraph (£) Douglas Carswell: It’s Remainers, not Boris, who are making a mess of Brexit ‘Boris has bungled it!’ they scoff. ‘He’s made an absolute mess of everything’ various pundits imply. Among the opinion-forming classes it has become common wisdom that it is all starting to unravel – not just for Boris Johnson’s unapologetically pro-Brexit administration, but for the Brexit project itself. Are they right? Things certainly haven’t been easy. In Parliament and the courts, Remainiac ultras fight a ferocious rear-guard action. Boris’ government has suffered a series of set-backs. One might even say that he’s been snookered. Having pledged to exit the EU at the end of October, the Prime Minister is now confronted by legislative measures passed by Parliament that apparently forbid us to leave without a deal. Gifted a hamstrung government, it seems the EU now has little incentive to offer anything other than the sort of one-sided deal Mrs May brought back before. – Douglas Carswell for CapX Martin Howe: The judges should not join MPs as Brexit back-seat drivers On Tuesday 17 September 2019, the UK Supreme Court will begin hearing appeals from two conflicting judgments. The English High Court held that Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen to prorogue (suspend) Parliament until a new session starting on 14 October is lawful; while the Inner House of the Court of Session — Scotland’s equivalent of the English Court of Appeal — held the opposite. Lord Burnett, Lord Chief Justice, and two other senior English judges gave the High Court judgment. They decided that whether to prorogue Parliament, and for how long to prorogue it until the next Parliamentary session, are so inherently political in nature that there are no judicial or legal standards by which the courts are able to assess the legitimacy of the action taken. – Martin Howe QC for the Telegraph (£) Alan Cochrane: Will the Liberal Democrats believe in democracy if Jo Swinson cancels Brexit? Question: When is it perfectly all right to set aside a referendum result – as if it had never happened? Answer: When you’re a Liberal Democrat leader on the make and who’s getting carried away by a few defections, delusions of grandeur and dreams of Downing Street. That must be the explanation for Jo Swinson’s extraordinary decision to seek to invalidate the verdict of 17.5 million Britons in the EU referendum three-and-a-bit years ago … because there is no logic, whatsoever, in her folly. Like Ms Swinson I voted to Remain and am still of the view that leaving the EU was a mistake and hardly a day passes when I wish it hadn’t happened. But history can’t be re-written, especially not to accommodate a political leader who’s fortuitously emerged as our political system has sunk to the level of a malodorous swamp. – Alan Cochrane for the Telegraph (£) Stephen Booth: Not so long ago, EU leaders hoped Brexit would be stopped. They may now be ready for it to go ahead It appears that UK-EU negotiations are being conducted behind the scenes, but we’re unlikely to know if this will produce anything substantial until after the Conservative Party conference, in the immediate run up to the 17th-18th October European Council. Meanwhile, the EU has time to reflect upon the increasingly maddening Westminster debate over Brexit we’ve all witnessed in recent weeks. It has long been assumed, and for a long time probably correctly, that majority opinion among the EU27 was happy for the Brexit process to be strung along in the hope that the UK might eventually reconsider and remain. But there are signs this view is shifting and some important member states are reassessing what their preferred outcome of this process actually is. The more bitter the UK’s domestic debate becomes, the less upside there is for the EU if the UK were to end up remaining. – Stephen Booth for ConservativeHome John Redwood: The sovereignty of the people, and the battle of government and the Judges It would be completely unacceptable if the UK’s decision to stay for longer in the EU or to leave on the due date of October 31st fell to be decided by a few Judges. The people are sovereign. We exercised our sovereign right to decide between Leave and Remain. We accepted the promises of the main parties in Parliament that they would implement our decision. The ballot paper did not qualify leave, or suggest we could only leave if there was a deal the Establishment liked. Electors followed up the referendum by electing a Parliament dominated by two parties promising to implement the vote. The public put the Lib Dems in a weak third pace on their proposal of a second referendum because they did not like the result of the first. The sovereign people delegate their sovereignty to an elected government and Parliament to exercise for them between elections. The power of the people is restored at election time when we can change as many MPs as displease. Between elections the force of public opinion seeks to keep the MPs and government honest , loyal to its promises and keen to serve the public. – John Redwood’s Diary Benedict Spence: Brexit is inevitable. Remainers can delay it but they’ll never stop it Of the extracts from David Cameron’s memoirs that have been published in recent days, one phrase stands out above the rest: “Tory Psychodrama.” It’s one of those curious little things you hear a lot now – an effort to paint the whole question of membership of the EU as some sort of irrational horror, played out entirely within the sphere of a small set of politicians. It is meant to discredit the referendum, those who pushed for it, and their reasons for doing so. To hear it come from the prime minister who actually gave the go-ahead for that referendum beggars belief. But not nearly as much as it does to hear the same prime minister suggest a second could be the answer, and that he might back Tory rebels seeking to overturn the first. That is not to say there has not been psychodrama in the party, though. The thing is, those to blame are not Eurosceptics, but Remainers like Cameron himself. – Benedict Spence for the Telegraph (£) Tom Harris: The Brexit mess is not David Cameron’s fault When David Cameron led his party to an unexpected victory in 2015 – the first overall majority for the Conservatives in 23 years – he could not have foreseen the day, just four years down the line, when he would be the most hated man in Britain. Except that’s not quite accurate. He is certainly despised by all the right people – newspaper columnists and pro-Remain politicians. But you don’t have to dig very deeply to find the real reasons why the former prime minister is so hated: he lost. After all, no one criticises the late Harold Wilson for holding an In/Out referendum in 1975, predicated on precisely the same rationale as Cameron’s referendum: in order to hold his party together. – Tom Harris for the Telegraph (£) The Sun: Boris Johnson’s treatment in Luxembourg was staggeringly rude and utterly nauseating Our Prime Minister’s treatment at the hands of Luxembourg’s smugly self-important leader was an outrage. Why should Boris Johnson give a Press conference while being drowned out by hollering pro-EU yobs? Instead of shifting the session inside, as decency and courtesy demanded, Xavier Bettel seized his moment to humiliate Boris and badmouth Britain. It was staggeringly rude and unstatesmanlike. Would our PM have done the same outside No10 if the boot was on the other foot? No. It is unthinkable. Such antics insult not just Boris and 17.4million Leave voters, but all of us. He is our PM, whether Remainers like it or not. Seeing them cheer Bettel was utterly nauseating. – The Sun says Brexit in Brief The EEC, EU and the economy – John Redwood’s Diary I was wrong about Asian immigration, but don’t expect Philip Hammond to say he was also wrong about the consequences of a Brexit vote – Lord Tebbit for the Telegraph (£)