Government admits UK must take part in European elections

The government has finally confirmed that the European elections cannot be avoided. The UK will vote to send 73 MEPs back to the European Parliament in just over two weeks’ time.

The government now hopes those MEPs will be out of a job after just a couple of months if a Brexit deal can be done before parliament breaks for the summer.

Labour’s Brexit team were back in Whitehall today for more talks on reaching a cross-party deal. But those talks infuriate some Conservative backbenchers and the person they want out of a job by the summer is Theresa May.