A summary of today's developments
Grant Shapps has been appointed the new home secretary after Suella Braverman resigned this afternoon. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the resignation of Braverman shows the government is “falling apart at the seams”.
Braverman said she resigned because she sent an official government document to an MP and this was “a technical infringement of the rules”. The document was a draft written ministerial statement about migration. Braverman said she sent the official document from her personal email. She added she has “concerns about the direction of this government”.
The government defeated a Labour motion that would have forced a vote on a bill to ban fracking. MPs voted 230 for yes, 326 for no.
Labour’s Chris Bryant said he saw MPs being “physically manhandled” and “bullied” in the voting lobbies. Bryant told Sky News: “There was a bunch of Conservative members who were completely uncertain about whether they were allowed to vote with the Labour motion because of what had been said in the chamber about whether it’s a free vote or a confidence vote. “There was a group - including several cabinet ministers - who were basically shouting at them. At least one member was physically pulled through the door into the voting lobby.”
Lord David Frost of Allenton has written in the Telegraph calling for Liz Truss to resign. “Truss just can’t stay in office for one very obvious reason: she campaigned against the policies she is now implementing.
The Conservative chief and deputy chief whip remain in post, Downing Street said. It follows confusion over whether Wendy Morton and Craig Whittaker quit amid the chaos of the fracking vote, with reports earlier suggesting they had
MPs passed the Labour motion criticising the mini-budget by 223 votes to 0. As is often the case with opposition day motions, the government told its MPs to abstain.
William Wragg, a Conservative MP, said that he has written a letter to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, calling for a vote of no confidence in Liz Truss.
Jason Stein, a special adviser to Liz Truss, has been suspended pending an investigation, Sky News reports. Sky says he is being investigated by the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics unit. There have been allegations that he was behind unauthorised negative briefings against former cabinet ministers, Sky says.
Sir Keir Starmer will accuse Liz Truss of “insulting” British workers while pledging a Labour government will repeal any new Conservative legislation restricting the right to strike. In his address to the annual TUC conference on Thursday, the Labour leader will say the Tories are “completely out of touch with the reality of the British economy”.
Senior Tory backbencher Sir Roger Gale predicted that Liz Truss could emerge stronger after Suella Braverman’s resignation.
The North Thanet MP told the PA news agency: “On balance, at the end of today I would say, in a peculiar way – and it is peculiar – Truss might come out of it stronger. I may be completely wrong and out of touch.”
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