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Portrait of the week: The Speaker resigns, BA pilots strike and Mugabe dies

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A bill sponsored by Hilary Benn and supported by Alistair Burt and other dissident Tories was passed — becoming the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019. It commanded the Prime Minister to send by 19 October a letter of stipulated wording to the President of the European Council requesting that the deadline for Britain leaving the EU under Article 50 be extended until 31 January. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said he’d ‘rather be dead in a ditch’ than ask for an extension. The government was twice defeated on a motion for a general election to be held on 15 October. A tearful John Bercow told the Commons he would resign as Speaker on 31 October. Welsh MPs sang at 2 a.m. and others tugged at the Speaker’s limbs to signal their unhappiness at the prorogation of parliament until 14 October. A block of 23 flats built this century at Worcester Park, Surrey, was destroyed by fire.

Twenty-one Conservative MPs who voted against the government on the Benn-Burt Bill had the whip withdrawn and were told they could not be Conservative candidates at the next election; these included Father of the House Kenneth Clarke, former chancellor Philip Hammond, and Sir Nicholas Soames, whose father oversaw the independence of Zimbabwe. Jo Johnson, the Prime Minister’s brother, resigned as a minister. Amber Rudd resigned from the cabinet and relinquished the Conservative whip. British Airways pilots went on strike for two days and 1,600 flights were cancelled. The government said it will allow international students to stay in Britain for two years after graduation. Officials intercepted 86 people crossing the English Channel on the same day.

Geoffrey Boycott, the cricketer, was knighted in Theresa May’s resignation honours, as was Oliver Robbins, her Brexit negotiator.

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