Top story: MPs seize control of Commons to prevent no deal

Good morning, I’m Warren Murray. So much to tell you – here goes with trying to boil it down.

The House of Commons has inflicted a major defeat on Boris Johnson that means MPs will vote on a bill to rule out a no-deal Brexit. MPs will seek to take the bill forward today and our live blog is ready for all the action. Jeremy Corbyn says Labour will not agree to a general election unless the bill is passed. Twenty-one Conservative MPs who stood up to Johnson had the whip withdrawn in retaliation, costing them their Tory electoral candidacy – among them, Nicholas Soames, 71, grandson of Winston Churchill. Another, Ed Vaizey, said: “When you hear those speeches in the House of Commons by Antoinette Sandbach and Ken Clarke, you just know you are on the right side.” David Gauke said it was his first vote against the whip in 14 years as an MP but “if tonight’s motion had been lost, a no-deal Brexit would have been almost inevitable. Probably not a good career move but the right choice.”

The Commons voted 328-301 to take control of business for the anti-no-deal bill – but even before that, one Conservative MP, Phillip Lee, quit the party of his own accord and crossed the floor to join the Lib Dems.

Play Video 0:34 Tory MP Phillip Lee defects to Lib Dems midway through Johnson speech – video

His authority shredded, the prime minister said he would move under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act to hold a general election on 15 October. Corbyn insisted: “There is no consent in this house to leave the European Union without a deal. There is no majority for no deal in the country … Get the bill through first in order to take no deal off the table.” Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, came under fire for lounging sprawled along the government frontbench during one of the most consequential debates in parliamentary history. “He was sitting bolt upright, however,” writes Kevin Rawlinson, “when the tellers returned soon afterwards to deliver the result: MPs had handed his government a crushing defeat in its very first Commons vote.”

Midweek catch-up

> Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) has voted for a coalition with the centre-left Democratic party (PD) after the far-right League crashed itself out of government. The PM, Giuseppe Conte, is expected to choose his ministers by Friday.

> After devastating Grand Bahama, Hurricane Dorian has begun creeping towards the US coastline. It has been downgraded to category 2 but is still rated a serious threat to northern Florida and the coastal Carolinas.

> The use of stop and search by police has been rising in Northern Ireland since 2005 but results in few arrests, say criminologists at Queen’s University Belfast. Its use in England and Wales fell after Theresa May as home secretary ordered a scaling-down in 2011.

> The chancellor, Sajid Javid, will be something of a sideshow in the Commons today if and when he gets to make his spending round statement, which is expected to commit £2bn more to no-deal Brexit planning, taking the total to more than £8.3bn.

‘Grotesque’, a ‘ticking timebomb’ – Some of the European reaction to British plans to leave oil rigs abandoned in the North Sea. The government is intending this year to endorse Shell’s plans to leave behind a steel jacket and the concrete bases beneath three of its rigs in the Brent oilfield. The Bravo, Charlie and Delta installations still contain an estimated 11,000 tonnes of raw oil and toxins in their base. Several hundred of the platforms are due to be decommissioned over the next three decades. Germany has issued a formal complaint backed by Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It will come to a head at a special meeting on 18 October in London of members of Ospar, the international mechanism to protect the marine environment of the north-east Atlantic.

‘County lines’ gang guilty – Seven drug gang members have been found guilty over a “county lines” operation that ran thousands of pounds worth of heroin and crack cocaine from London to Cornwall. Vulnerable young Londoners were sent to Bodmin and dumped in the flat of an addict to sell heroin and crack cocaine that was transported into the county in hired Mercedes and Audi saloons. It was broken up by Operation Ligament when 200 police officers held raids across Cornwall and north London this year. The group will be sentenced in October.

Sugar-free no guarantee – People who regularly consume soft drinks have a higher risk of an early death, even if they drink no-sugar varieties, researchers have found. Dr Neil Murphy, a co-author of the research from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, said people should “replace them with other healthier beverages, preferably water”. The authors of the study say it supports public health efforts to reduce consumption of soft drinks, such as the UK’s sugar tax.

‘Life-changing treatment’ – NHS England is to pay for a genetic treatment that will save children with a rare inherited disorder from going blind. The one-off injection of voretigene neparvovec, also known as Luxturna, is for babies born with inherited retinal dystrophies. It normally costs £613,410 per patient but the NHS has done a deal with Novartis, the UK supplier, and the numbers needing treatment are low. The company estimates that 86 people in England could benefit now, and about three to five babies with the genetic mutation are born every year. “Loss of vision can have devastating effects, particularly for children and young people, but this truly life-changing treatment restores the sight of people with this rare and distressing condition,” said the NHS chief executive, Simon Stevens.

Today in Focus podcast: Back to school after a decade of austerity

Education correspondent Sally Weale tells Anushka Asthana how nearly 10 years of government cuts in school funding have fed through to the classroom. Plus Dr David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist, on why he chastised Jacob Rees-Mogg over his support for a possible no-deal Brexit.

Today in Focus Decade of austerity in schools Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2019/09/03-64282-190904TIF_schools.mp3 00:00:00 00:29:16

Lunchtime read: Strung out – the afterlife of puppet stars

“This thing is alive, this thing is alive, this thing is alive.” That insistence, says puppeteer Toby Olié, is essential to his job. “You are the soul and life force of a puppet, and you’re using suspension of disbelief to animate. So when the puppeteer lets go, that’s the moment of death.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A giant marionette, part of the French Theatre company Royal De Luxe’s performance of The Sultan’s Elephant in London, May 2006. Photograph: Jim Dyson/Getty Images

The question is: what do you do with the body? When the curtain falls on a marionette’s show, they’re put out to pasture, given a facelift – or turned into burglar deterrents, Kate Wyver discovers.

Sport

Tim Paine has admitted to having sleepless nights over Ben Stokes as the gripping battle for the Ashes resumes today at Old Trafford, the scene of many great memories. England have made one change with Craig Overton coming into the side in place of Chris Woakes while Australia’s patience with their under-achieving batsman Usman Khawaja has finally run out. Serena Williams claimed her 100th win at the US Open in style, dismantling her quarter-final opponent Wang Qiang 6-1, 6-0 in a blistering 44-minute performance, but Johanna Konta’s involvement at Flushing Meadows was ended in a tight match against Elina Svitolina. In the men’s draw Daniil Medvedev reached his first grand slam semi-final after overcoming injuries and a hostile reception from the crowd to beat Stan Wawrinka. Grigor Dimitrov took advantage of an ailing Roger Federer to beat the Swiss for the first time in his career and book a place in the semi-finals.

Phil Neville said “humility is one of our biggest values” after being accused of arrogance following “out of context” quotes used in the buildup to England’s 2-1 defeat to Norway in Bergen. The England manager also dismissed reports linking him to the US women’s national team. And England will finally unleash Bath’s uncapped Ruaridh McConnochie on Friday as they seek to conclude their World Cup preparations with a flourish against Italy in Newcastle.

Business

Sterling was one of the winners from last night’s parliamentary uproar as the prospect of MPs blocking a no-deal Brexit pushed the ailing currency back up against the US dollar. Earlier on Tuesday it had sunk to a 33-year low of $1.1959 but the PM’s Commons defeat saw it rally and it’s now sitting at $1.211. It’s also up against the euro at €1.1027. Meanwhile, the global downturn has reached Australia, where the economy recorded its worst growth since 2009. The FTSE100 is set to open up by about a third of a percentage point.

The papers

You can see our wrap of the papers here but in short: The Times gives weight to its front-page picture of an animated prime minister beneath the headline: “PM loses historic vote”. It says he “lost control of Brexit”, a theme echoed by the Mirror and the i.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Guardian front page, Wednesday 4 September 2019. Photograph: Guardian

The Guardian focuses on the significance of the defeat, calling it a “humiliation” for the PM. It also highlights the notable Tory rebels and the loss of the government’s majority after Phillip Lee walked. The Telegraph uses the headline: “Johnson demands election” and an image of the PM looking composed at the dispatch box. It carries a graphic with the numbers for last night’s vote without referring to the defeat. The Matt cartoon has the pets of Downing Street saying: “Somebody has made a horrible mess and I’m not clearing it up.”

The Financial Times says Johnson’s Brexit strategy is “in ruins” and uses an image of a contemplative PM alongside Andrea Leadsom and Sajid Javid. The Mail heads straight to the prospect of the UK “hurtling” towards an election next month. It gets a picture of Jeremy Corbyn and a “Britain needs you”-style image of Johnson, with the headline: “Now you decide, Britain”. The Sun echoes the Mail and Telegraph with Johnson’s call for an election, saying it is time to let Britain decide. The Express criticises the Tory rebels and parliament in general, accusing them of “betraying Brexit” on a shameful day for democracy. “Parliament surrenders to the EU” is the headline. Further afield, Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad links Johnson’s struggles to those of his predecessor, Theresa May. Its intro says: “A different premier, a different style, a different rhetoric, but the same outcome.”

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