22:48

Jeremy Corbyn has announced that he would take a “neutral” stance in the second referendum on Brexit being planned by Labour. He made the announcement during a BBC’s Question Time leaders’ special, that saw Corbyn, Boris Johnson, Nicola Sturgeon and Jo Swinson each spend half an hour being quizzed by the Question Time audience. This is famously about the most abrasive audience in current affairs TV and all four leaders faced harsh questions, although Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, almost certainly fared worst. Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, probably had the best night. (See 8.07pm.) Corbyn had some humbling moments (see 7.38pm), and Johnson more so (see 9.25pm), but they both avoided disasters, and the most significant moment came when Corbyn announced - apparently, intentionally - that he would not take sides in a second independence referendum. He said:

One, we negotiate a credible deal with the European Union. Secondly, we will put that, alongside remain in a referendum. My role, and the role of our government will be to ensure that that referendum is held in a fair atmosphere, and we will abide by the result of it. And I will adopt as prime minister, if I am at the time, a neutral stance so that I can credibly carry out the results of that to bring out communities and country together, rather than continuing in endless debate about the EU and Brexit. This will be a trade deal with Europe, or remaining in the EU. That will be the choice that we put before the British public within six months.

Corbyn’s new stance (which was not unexpected) means that he will no longer be criticised for refusing to answer questions about which side he would back in a referendum. But it means he risks losing more support from remainers, and Johnson claimed that Corbyn’s chances of negotiating a Brexit deal with the EU would be diminished if Brussels knew he would not be willing to campaign for it. (See 8.33pm.)

Sturgeon has argued that in practice a minority Labour government dependent on SNP support would agree to hold a second independence referendum - despite Corbyn saying on tonight’s programme he would not allow this in the first two years of a Labour government. Sturgeon said:

Do you think [Corbyn’s] going to walk away from the chance to end austerity, to protect the NHS, stop universal credit, simply because he wants for a couple of years to prevent Scotland having the right to self-determination? I’m not sure he’s going to compromise the chance to have a Labour government for that issue.

Johnson has refused to apologise for using racist and homophobic language in his newspaper columns in the past. When a questioner put it to him that he had contributed to “racist rhetoric”, Johnson replied:

I have written many millions of words in my life as a journalist and I have ... genuinely never intended to cause hurt or pain to anybody and that is my intention.

Johnson said the questioner was referring to an article he wrote last year saying women wearing the burqa looked liked letter boxes. But Fiona Bruce, the presenter, said that there were several Johnson articles that have caused offence. She told him:

To be fair, there’s a few articles. So there’s the Muslims going around looking like letterboxes, which was last year, you referred to tribal warriors with watermelon smiles and flag-waving pickaninnies and then just to get another demographic in, tank-topped bum boys.

Johnson refused to apologise. Instead he said:

If you go through all my articles with a fine-tooth comb and take out individual phrases there is no doubt that you can find things that can be made to seem offensive and of course I understand that.

Johnson dismissed criticism of his decision to delay the report from the intelligence and security committee into Russian interference in elections as “complete Bermuda Triangle stuff”. Asked why he would not publish it before the election, he replied:

There is absolutely no evidence that I know of to show any interference in any British electoral event ... And the reason I won’t [publish it now] is I see no reason, or if I decided not to ages ago, is because I see no reason to interfere with the normal timetable... just because an election is going on.

That’s all from me for tonight.

Thanks for the comments.