Emergency Brexit debate: Corbyn tells MPs he will table no confidence vote ‘at appropriate time’

Jeremy Corbyn has told MPs he will table a vote of no confidence “at the appropriate time”, as Prime Minister Theresa May meets European leaders today to discuss amendments to the Brexit transition deal.

Speaking this afternoon in an emergency debate on the PM's decision yesterday to postpone the so-called meaningful vote on the deal, the leader of the opposition said: “We have no confidence in this government. We need to do the appropriate thing at the appropriate time.

“The PM now seems unable to convince the EU to accept any meaningful change,” he added.

Corbyn has come under pressure from MPs to table a vote of no confidence in recent days.

David Lidington, minister for the Cabinet Office, said the commons wanted to bring the matter to a head, and that the vote had not been delayed, just deferred.

He said a second referendum on leaving the EU would not be decisive, only divisive. "The PM is motivated by the national interest and nothing else," he added.

But, as expected, Conservatives did not put up a united front later on. Backbencher Dominic Grieve said it was "simply not acceptable" that the debate was resuming in January.

Meanwhile Nadine Dorries went one step further, comparing the PM to Hitler as characterised in the film Downfall, which shows the defeat of his Nazi regime in the Second World War. 

"The Prime Minister is in a bunker. She's starring in her own episode of Downfall and we all know how that story ends," she said.

Leader of the SNP Ian Blackwell called May's decision to defer the deal "an act of pathetic cowardice" and that she was "more focused on keeping her own job".

Downing Street meanwhile said today May will stick to the deadline of the EU withdrawal act, which gives 21 January as the date she must outline how the government plans to move forward if no Brexit deal is agreed.

The PM met German Chancellor Angela Merkel this afternoon and her Dutch opposite number Mark Rutte earlier to discuss possible changes to the deal. She faces crunch meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker this evening, who earlier ruled out further negotiation between the UK and EU.