On BBC Newsnight, Emily Maitlis was taken to task by Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood on her anti-prorogation argument. The BBC presenter asked: “How can you call the obstruction of parliament an elephant ninth room? They can’t get on with even trying to work out how to resolve brevet because they can’t even get on with their jobs.”

The former Defence Minister said: “You’re missing the point here.

“The trouble is all those people you saw outside of Parliament or in the Parliament building today, they don’t make it very clear what they want next.

“You actually saw Tom Watson with a different approach to the Labour Party.

“And what we actually saw in the last couple of days is the most important thing to happen, which is resolving the Northern Ireland backstop.”

He continued: “The issue to do with Leo Varadkar, and what happens over there on the island of Ireland.

“Then the executive comes back to Parliament on October 14 to 17, and we have something substantial to actually debate.

“I simply make the case, the practical case, as a parliamentarian, how do we go forward?

“What would we be actually debating?”

He added: “We need to get a deal over the line.

“We have 25 Labour MPs, Steven Kinnock is leading a group of people that want a deal.

“The DUP are now firm that they want a deal as well.”

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He continued: “It’s actually one of the things we did agree last week, to have that put back on the table.

“The critical aspect of this is making sure we get something prior to the European summit itself.

“That should be the focus of every single parliamentarian.

“But as we saw today, the SNP and Lib Dems want something very different, Labour are split in all sorts of ways.

“And this is all denying that actual promise that we made to honour the referendum result back in 2016.”

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