Rolling updates on the day’s political developments as three MPs defect from the Tory party to join the Independent Group

• Full story: Three Tory MPs quit to join Independent Group
• Analysis: the ideological lines diving rebel MPs from party
  

1.43pm GMT

Soubry says you don’t join a political party to fight it. “The battle is over and the other side has won,” she says. “The right wing, the hard line anti-EU awkward squad are running the Conservative from top to toe.”

She says that many of her friends in the party know “in their heads and in their hearts that it’s over”. “Brexit now defines the Conservative party.”

1.39pm GMT

Anna Soubry says the Conservative party has been very good to her – electing her as MP three times. She says she had rejoined the party in 2002 as a single mother of two when it had started to modernise. “It is with a heavy heart that I have today resigned my membership of the Conservative party,” she says.

Teenager who travelled from London to Syria to join Isis says decision is ‘kind of heart-breaking’

Shamima Begum, the teenager who travelled from east London to Syria to join Islamic State in 2015, has described Home Office plans to strip her of citizenship as “kind of heart-breaking”.

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Visa-free travel plan derailed again by Spanish demands over status of Gibraltar

British tourists travelling to continental Europe may need to pay £52 for a visa in a few weeks after Spanish demands over the status of Gibraltar again derailed Brussels’ preparations for Brexit.

Agreement on legislation exempting UK nationals from requiring the travel permit is mired in a dispute over whether the British overseas territory should be described as a “colony” in the EU’s statute book.

NHS figures – believed to be underestimate – show admissions rose from 1,539 in 2008/9 to 10,259 in 2017/18

Thousands of homeless people in England are arriving at hospital with Victorian-era illnesses such as tuberculosis, as well as serious respiratory conditions, liver disease and cancer, with hospital admissions for such conditions surging over a decade, the Guardian can reveal.

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Florida sculpture of George Mendonsa and Greta Zimmer Friedman defaced as kiss comes under scrutiny

A statue in Florida depicting the US sailor famously photographed kissing a female stranger at the end of the second world war has been vandalised, with “#MeToo” written in red spray paint across the woman’s leg the day after the serviceman’s death.

Although the image of George Mendonsa kissing Greta Zimmer Friedman has long been heralded for epitomising the joy shared throughout the world upon the ending of hostilities in 1945, it has come under scrutiny more recently, with many accusing Mendonsa of assault.

Jackson Yamba, whose son David discovered the slogan, welcomes arrest of man, 54

A man has been arrested on suspicion of spraying racist graffiti at the home of a 10-year-old boy and his father days after they moved in.

Jackson Yamba, 38, said he was told that officers from Greater Manchester police made the arrest on Wednesday morning.

UK foreign secretary visits Berlin after raising concerns about impact of moratorium

Jeremy Hunt, the British foreign secretary, will visit Berlin on Wednesday after urging Germany to exempt big defence projects from its efforts to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia, or face damage to both its economic and European credentials.

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Virgin says event ‘is not a political statement and the US is not involved’

The Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has criticised an upcoming Live Aid-style concert to raise funds for humanitarian aid for Venezuela, by claiming it is a US-backed effort to tarnish the socialist government.

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Haul from 150,000 donors was more than double the $1.5m Kamala Harris raised in the first 24 hours of her campaign

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Bernie Sanders raised $4m from 150,000 donors in all 50 states in the 12 hours after announcing he had entered the 2020 race for the White House on Tuesday, according to his campaign.

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The actor had been due to voice a role in Luck but left the film after Skydance controversially hired the former Pixar chief who has been accused of sexual harassment

Emma Thompson has pulled out of a role in a large-scale animated film after former Pixar chief John Lasseter joined the production.

Thompson had been due to voice a role in Luck, produced by Skydance Animation, but reportedly left the film after Skydance controversially hired Lasseter to head its animation division. Lasseter, who was chief creative officer of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, took a leave of absence in 2017 after admitting to sexual conduct “missteps”, before leaving the company in 2018.