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Rebecca Long-Bailey says that the Labour Party will ‘of course’ vote for a general election if the EU offers an extension

But will Labour backbenchers mount a mass revolt and block one? […]

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Mario Draghi may be the man who saved the euro but his last press conference as President of the European Central Bank on Thursday is unlikely to be the grand finale he was hoping for.

Inflation in the euro zone languishes at less than half the ECB’s target, the economic outlook is darkening again and support for Draghi’s brand of aggressive money printing has never been lower among rate-setters.

All that is taking the shine off an eight-year reign that had its climax when Draghi single-handedly averted a collapse of the euro in 2012 with a pledge to do “whatever it takes” to preserve the currency – code for coming to the rescue of heavily indebted euro zone countries.

His later moves have been less well supported and Draghi is set to spend at least part of his last press conference defending a decision to restart the ECB’s 2.6 trillion euro bond-buying program despite opposition from a third of fellow rate setters in September.

“We expect Draghi to come up with a strong – emotional – plea in support of the September package, probably combined with a broader attempt to safeguard the legacy of all measures taken under his leadership,” said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING.

Recent data is on his side. Price growth in the euro zone was a paltry 0.8% last month, a global trade war is threatening to push the bloc’s largest economy, Germany, into a recession and the risk of a hard Brexit continues to loom large.

The ECB is all but certain not to make any policy changes on Thursday, six weeks after unveiling a package including new asset purchases worth 20 billion euros a month, a rate cut and a pledge to open the money taps further if needed.

But investors will be trying to gauge sentiment on the Governing Council after the very public spat that followed the last meeting and culminated in Germany’s appointee to the ECB’s board, Sabine Lautenschlaeger, stepping down.

The turmoil is certain to extend into the mandate of Draghi’s successor, Christine Lagarde, who will take over on Nov 1 promising a review of the bank’s “monetary framework”, likely meaning its goal and tools.

“Despite Draghi’s reputation as savior of the euro, controversy over his policies will linger, forcing incoming president Lagarde to deal with them in next year’s strategy review,” Anatoli Annenkov, an economist at Societe Generale, said. […]

Here’s how the process for agreeing on a delay to Britain’s departure from the European Union works.

On Saturday, Boris Johnson wrote to EU Council President Donald Tusk asking for a three-month extension to the Brexit negotiations until Jan. 31.

The EU’s approval isn’t automatic and requires the unanimous agreement of national leaders. Indeed, French President Emmanuel Macron has threatened to block it, as he did Britain’s last request for an extension.

Ambassadors from the EU’s other 27 governments will meet in Brussels at 5:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday to discuss the U.K.’s request. They may decide to hold further meetings before making their recommendation. The diplomats can’t make the final decision — that will have to come from Tusk on behalf of all the leaders — but they will give a sense of what the EU’s response will be.

It could be that the decision is a formality or, if there’s disagreement over how long the extension should be, Tusk will have to convene a summit. EU officials say they expect a final decision on Friday — either to grant the extension or call a summit. […]

Some Bank of Japan policy makers see little merit in an interest-rate cut this month, believing the ammunition should be saved for worse economic conditions – WSJ sources $JPY […]

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#CHINA TO ADOPT NEW TRADE POLICY, CAIXIN CITES COMMERCE MINISTER
*CHINA TO ADOPT NEW POLICY TO BOOST TRADE DEVELOPMENT: CAIXIN […]

Christophe Barraud on Twitter

The government will abandon its Brexit bill if MPs vote down its three-day timetable to get it through Parliament.

Boris Johnson told MPs if the programme was rejected and the EU confirmed a delay to the 31 October exit, he would instead push for a general election.

The PM said Parliament had been “caught in a deadlock of its own making”, and he would “in no way allow months more of this”.

But opposition MPs called the threat to pull the bill “childish blackmail”.

The Withdrawal Agreement Bill was published on Monday night and MPs are now debating it in the Commons.

They will vote at around 19:00 BST on the proposed timetable. […]

Results from the autumn Business Outlook Survey indicate that business sentiment improved slightly, but regional differences are more pronounced. Positive views in Central Canada contrast with widespread weakness in the Prairies.

Overview

• Indicators of future sales suggest moderate sales growth ahead. Sales expectations are positive in most regions, notably in Quebec, but are soft in the Prairies. Foreign demand continues to support export sales prospects, though they are being weighed down by trade tensions.
• Investment and hiring plans are healthy, mainly outside the energy-producing regions.
  The share of firms reporting pressures on production capacity and the share reporting labour shortages are at somewhat elevated levels. These firms are concentrated in Central Canada and British Columbia.
• Input price growth is expected to soften modestly due to less pressure from various commodity-related inputs. Nevertheless, firms anticipate output prices will grow at a slightly greater rate than over the past 12 months. As in recent surveys, a majority of businesses expect inflation to be in the lower half of the Bank of Canada’s inflation-control range.
• Firms reported a marginal easing in credit conditions over the past three months.
• Although below the high levels reached in 2017 and 2018, the Business Outlook Survey indicator moved up, signalling a slight improvement in overall business sentiment. […]

Prime Minister Boris Johnson will find out Tuesday evening whether he has any chance of getting his Brexit deal through Parliament — and whether he can do it ahead of his Oct. 31 deadline.

Having twice been denied a vote on whether members of Parliament support his deal, Johnson has introduced the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which would implement the deal in law, and plans to push it through Parliament at a breakneck pace. His moment of truth will come at around 7 p.m. in London, with what’s known as the Second Reading vote — on whether Parliament agrees with the general principles of the bill.

An analysis of MPs’ previous votes and statements suggests Johnson probably has just about enough support to win that vote. But it will be immediately followed by a second, on whether MPs agree to his rapid timetable for pushing the bill through. If he doesn’t pass that hurdle, he could still deliver Brexit, but he has little chance of doing it on time.

“The public doesn’t want any more delays, neither do other European leaders and neither do I,” Johnson said in an emailed statement. “Let’s get Brexit done on Oct. 31 and move on.”

Still trying to meet that deadline, Johnson has proposed an express timetable for passing the Withdrawal Agreement Bill. It sparked an immediate backlash in the Commons, with MPs attacking the the government for attempting to “ram through” the bill.

The government’s schedule looks like this:

The bill will then go to the House of Lords, Parliament’s upper chamber.

Losing the Second Reading vote would kill the bill. Losing the subsequent Program Motion, which sets the timetable for the rest of debate, would simply make it very hard to hit his deadline.

Defeat on either vote would be a blow for the prime minister, but would feed his public narrative that Parliament is trying to frustrate Brexit. Some of his actions in recent weeks have looked like efforts to pick fights. On Monday, he attempted to repeat the same vote he’d held Saturday, something that Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow predictably ruled to be out of order. “We’re disappointed that the Speaker has yet again denied us the chance to deliver on the will of the British people,” Johnson’s spokesman, James Slack, told reporters in London.

If Britain’s departure from the European Union is delayed, and Johnson gets to call the election he has been pushing for, his slogan will be: “Get Brexit done.”

Johnson was forced Oct. 19 to request a three-month delay to Brexit from the EU. If that’s granted, it will be a significant defeat for a man who promised to get Britain out by Oct. 31 “do or die.” But he was clear on Saturday that he would blame this on MPs for standing in his way, rather than accepting that his plans had been unrealistic.

Around 8 p.m. on Monday, the government published the 110-page Withdrawal Agreement Bill, along with 125 pages of explanatory notes. Many MPs immediately complained that three days was far too little time to scrutinize it.

“This government proposal is frankly outrageous given the length and complexity of this bill,” Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said. Former Conservative Chancellor Ken Clarke also attacked the timetable, saying there was no way the government could expect Parliament to scrutinize the exit agreement in three days.

Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, who were supporting Johnson’s plans until he went back on his promise not to allow a customs border between Britain and Northern Ireland, could be tempted to back a move that would delay Brexit. Their opposition helped to defeat him Saturday.

They will be further outraged by an admission from ministers that under their plan, goods leaving Northern Ireland for Britain will require “exit summary declarations,” even though they’ll be staying inside the U.K.. Michael Gove, minister in charge of Brexit planning, pledged the paperwork would be “seamless.”

Another measure that seemed likely to provoke opposition was a clause forbidding the government from negotiating a closer relations with the EU than the loose free-trade agreement that Johnson proposed on Oct. 17. If he does want to pass the bill, Johnson needs the support of MPs from the opposition Labour Party, and moves like that make it harder for them to back him.

Wednesday is likely to see opposition parties try to re-write the bill to force the U.K. to stay in the EU’s customs union, or to make the Brexit deal conditional on approval from the public in another referendum. […]

UK Chief Treasury Secretary Sunak: Government Hopes Speaker Bercow Allows Vote On Brexit Deal – BBC […]