After MPs rejected Theresa May’s Brexit deal for the third time in March, the prime minister said she would speak to Labour, to try to find a compromise. The BBC has learned those talks are about to end – without an agreement.
Labour wanted a permanent and comprehensive customs union with the EU after Brexit. But some Conservatives felt this didn’t honour the result of the referendum – and would stop the UK negotiating its own trade deals with the wider world. At the same time, Labour had “fears about the durability of a deal agreed with a weak prime minister”, according to Newsnight’s political editor Nicholas Watt.
The next Brexit vote is due in the week of 3 June, when MPs will vote on the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill – which is legislation needed to implement Mrs May’s deal. If that bill is defeated, Mrs May is expected to step down. Meanwhile, the public will vote in European elections in six days’ time. Read all the parties’ Brexit positions here.
100 stabbed to death in UK this year
One hundred people have been fatally stabbed in the UK so far this year, according to BBC research. The first death was 33-year-old mother Charlotte Huggins, who died in London just a few hours after celebrating the start of the new year. The 100th death was John Lewis, 32, who died in Middlesbrough on the evening of 14 May. Almost half the victims were under 30 and were overwhelmingly male.
