Brexit: public does not need to see worst-case no-deal scenarios, says Leadsom – live news

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, is due to make his Brexit speech very soon. My colleague Heather Stewart has previewed it here.

Related: Brexit: Tom Watson to break Labour’s uneasy truce

An argument in principle that there is no such thing as a good Brexit deal, that all versions of Brexit are going to leave Britain poorer and more isolated in the world, and that’s why there is no good reason why Labour should be supporting that … It’s at odds with our values, it’s at odds with the electoral interests of the Labour party and it’s at odds with the prospects for a better future for our constituents, so we should be opposed to it and we should be clear that Labour doesn’t believe Brexit is a good thing and critically we shouldn’t be bamboozled or bullied by Boris Johnson into going into an election on his terms.

The withdrawal agreement bill, which is a very different thing – that was the outcome of the cross-party negotiations – ought to be presented to parliament as a basis on which trying to find a deal… I think minds are sharpening, I think people are seeing what damage could be done from a no-deal Brexit.

Andrea Leadsom, the business secretary, has been doing a round of broadcast interviews this morning. Among other things, she gave a surprisingly candid reason as to why the government might not publish in full its Operation Yellowhammer no-deal Brexit planning documents. Here are the main points from her various interviews.

You are right to say what potentially might happen. Yellowhammer is, as you know, the reasonable worst case scenario. It is by no means a prediction of anything. It’s simply the government looking at every possible angle and ensuring that we have measures in place to deal with that.

I actually do not think that it serves people well to see what is the absolutely worst thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen to me is I could walk out of here and get run over. It is not a prediction, but it is something that could happen. And simply putting out there all of the possible permutations of what could happen actually just serves to concern people. Whereas what the government is doing is working flat out to ensure that in all circumstances, including in the event of no deal, we have a smooth transition for the United Kingdom. There is so much work underway to make sure that in all circumstances the UK will absolutely thrive once we leave the European Union.

In leaving the EU it will be our government that’s able to determine our migration policy and that’s incredibly important. Now we get to decide and instead of being open to free movement from just the EU, the UK will be able to take advantage of a global talent pool of young people and workforce coming from all around the world and that’s something that’s a great advantage for us.

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p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Leadsom on #@BBCr4today claims that “outside the EU we won’t be restricted just to immigration from the EU but can take advantage of a global talent pool.”

Nothing stops us now, in fact non-EU immigration greater than EU free movement. But of course not challenged by Humphrys.

There is a move in opinion polls that suggests that migration is now increasingly popular.

Well we will not do anything that undermines the UK or indeed UK internal market. So we are looking at getting a deal, getting a good deal that works for the UK and for the EU that is different to the one that was negotiated previously because that couldn’t get through Parliament.

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