Tag: Brexit negotiations

Downing Street has described the Brexit talks in Brussels as “deadlocked” after negotiations over the weekend failed to find a breakthrough on the Irish backstop. Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, spoke on the telephone on Sunday evening to “take stock”, but plans for the prime minister to visit the Belgian capital to sign off on any compromise are on hold. “No further meetings at a political level are scheduled but both sides will remain in close contact this week”, a commission spokesman added on Monday. “The commission has made proposals on further assurances that the backstop, if used, will apply temporarily… It is now for the House of commons to make an important set of decisions this week”. They have advised May instead to replace the vote with a motion setting out the sort of Brexit deal that would be acceptable to Tory MPs, in the hope that this would trigger concessions from the EU. Could end with a no-deal Brexit, a second referendum, new ideas or ... MPs vote on May’s deal for a third time No Yes Brexit with May’s deal on 29 March No-deal Brexit on 29 March, or ... EU makes surprise last-minute concessions on the backstop. MPs pass May’s deal Brexit with May’s deal on or shortly after 29 March 12 March MPs vote again on May’s deal Brexit with May’s deal on 29 March Yes No 13 March MPs vote on whether to leave without a deal No-deal Brexit on 29 March Yes No 14 March MPs vote on whether to extend article 50 UK asks for a short extension Yes No 21 March summit EU leaders vote on allowing a short extension Brexit postponed No Yes No to short, but yes to longer extension Brexit postponed MPs vote on offer of a longer extension No Yes Deadlock. Could end with a no-deal Brexit, a second referendum, new ideas or ... Brexit with May’s deal on 29 March MPs vote on May’s deal for a third time Yes No No-deal Brexit on 29 March, or ... Brexit with May’s deal on or shortly after 29 March EU makes surprise last-minute concessions on the backstop. The uncompromising mood among Brexit-minded Conservatives was illustrated on Monday when the Yeovil MP Marcus Fysh suggested May should abandon the meaningful vote and instead have the Commons back a motion outlining support for a deal based on technology-based “alternative arrangements” for the Irish border. Writing in the Guardian, Sam Gyimah, a former Conservative minister who resigned as a minister to back a people’s vote, warned MPs against voting for the deal under government pressure, suggesting bad policy decisions such as the Iraq war were made under similar circumstances.

Theresa May was battling on Sunday night to save her Brexit deal and prolong her premiership, amid signs Eurosceptics could move against her if there is a delay to leaving the EU. The prime minister’s position looked precarious as she was unable to announce any progress in talks with the EU less than 48 hours before her House of Commons vote on the deal. Stopping Brexit will be on you, not Brexiteers. In an article for the Guardian, Sam Gyimah, a Conservative who resigned as a minister to back a people’s vote, warned his colleagues across the parties against voting for the deal under government pressure, suggesting bad policy decisions such as the Iraq war were made under similar circumstances. MPs are effectively being asked to choose between the frying pan and the fire, in the hope they will choose the former and that will somehow be declared as a victory.” The prime minister was poised to fly to Brussels in the early hours of Monday if there were signs of a breakthrough but she was still undecided late on Sunday night about whether to make a last-minute dash. If May fails to pass her deal, Labour said it was open to working with other parties to secure a better Brexit deal involving a customs union. Quick guide Tory leadership contenders Boris Johnson The former foreign secretary topped ConservativeHome’s latest poll of party members on 24%, not quite double the figures for his nearest challenger, Dominic Raab. Is the party ready to embrace a British Muslim as its leader? “If the votes go this week in a way which means that the prime minister’s policy as she has set out and stuck to rigidly over the course of the last two-and-a-bit years is taken away, dismantled slowly by parliament this week, I think it would be very difficult for the prime minister to stay in office for very much longer.” She suggested the cabinet would have to “take a role in saying potentially to the prime minister, ‘Actually, things have changed significantly. We think you should think about your position, prime minister.’”

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Tory MP Steve Baker and the DUP's Nigel Dodds said the "extended uncertainty" would be a "political calamity". On Tuesday, Theresa May will again ask MPs to back her Brexit deal, but if they reject it they may get a chance to vote to delay Brexit. The UK is due to leave the EU on 29 March. Your guide to Brexit jargon Enter the word or phrase you are looking for MPs rejected the prime minister's deal by 230 votes in January - the largest defeat for a sitting government in history. If they do the same this week, MPs have been promised a vote on whether the UK should leave without a deal. If Parliament approves Mrs May's withdrawal agreement, and the UK leaves the EU on 29 March, it will begin a transition period, when the two sides will attempt to agree a comprehensive trade deal. Q&A: The Irish border Brexit backstop Brexit's border drama nears final act But some MPs fear that - in its current form - the backstop may leave the UK tied to the EU indefinitely. On Friday, Mrs May said the UK had put forward "serious" proposals to resolve the deadlock. But Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay and the DUP, the party Mrs May's government relies on for a majority in Parliament, were both dismissive of the EU's latest proposal. Meanwhile the US Ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, has urged the British public not to let the "distraction" of the debate over food standards and chlorine-washed chicken block the "huge opportunity" of a trade deal between the countries.

Jeremy Corbyn has downplayed the Brexit crisis by claiming that poverty and climate change are far greater priorities for Labour and the country. Addressing Scottish Labour’s annual conference, Corbyn said his party was not “obsessed by constitutional questions, like the others are. And fundamentally, the destruction of our climate is a class issue,” he said. “We believe that the real divide in our society is not between people who voted yes or no for [Scottish] independence. It’s not between people who voted to remain or to leave the EU,” he told party members in Dundee. [There] is no such thing as a Labour Brexit or a jobs-first Brexit”. The Scottish party has been beset by bitter rows over Europe after a conference statement by its two MEPs, David Martin and Catherine Stihler, was allegedly edited to remove remarks in support of a people’s vote. Corbyn said Labour would commit his party to a target of reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, a goal many climate experts and campaigners say is not fast or ambitious enough to halt runaway climate change. It’s not just an ecological priority – it’s a socialist priority too.” Corbyn also addressed the antisemitism problems engulfing Labour, saying he was “utterly determined” to rid the party of the scourge. “The only thing that can hold us back is if we were to turn our fire on each other rather than on the Tory government and the wealthy establishment interests they represent,” he told delegates.

Ministers will resume efforts later to secure legally-binding changes to Theresa May's Brexit deal that might get MPs' backing in a week's time. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox will meet EU officials in Brussels in search of guarantees over the backstop plan to avoid border checks in Ireland. Mr Cox has dismissed reports he has given up on securing a firm end date to ensure the UK is not stuck. MPs will vote on the deal by 12 March. If MPs reject the withdrawal agreement for a second time, they will have the opportunity to vote on whether to go ahead in just over three weeks' time without any kind of negotiated deal. If they decide against, they will then have a vote on whether to extend negotiations and push the date of departure back by several months. Separately, Scottish and Welsh politicians are joining forces in an attempt to force the prime minister to change her position on Brexit. For the first time since devolution 20 years ago, they will debate the same motion, at the same time. Struggling towns to get post-Brexit funding Brexit: A really simple guide Macron urges reforms to protect EU Brexit: Your questions answered Leading Brexiteers are hoping Mr Cox will be able to change his legal advice to satisfy them that the backstop - a controversial plan which will see the UK aligned with EU customs rules until the two sides' future relationship is agreed or alternative arrangements worked out - will not endure indefinitely. Last week, Jeremy Corbyn said Labour will back another EU referendum, after his alternative Brexit plan was again defeated in the Commons.

Has Labour committed to supporting a second referendum? Yes, in principle. That is expected to be defeated, at which point Labour has announced it is “committed to also putting forward or supporting an amendment in favour of a public vote to prevent a damaging Tory Brexit being forced on the country”. A second referendum amendment is expected then. What amendment will Labour’s frontbench support at that point? One possibility is that Labour will back the so-called Kyle-Wilson compromise, an amendment being promoted by two Labour backbenchers, Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson. But there are deep reservations about the Kyle compromise in some Labour circles because it would involve Labour allowing May’s Brexit deal to pass. When asked about the amendment, a Labour source repeated that the party “would not vote for a damaging Tory Brexit”. Only a handful of Tories support a second referendum – probably fewer than 10 – so without the support of Downing Street, it remains very unlikely to pass the Commons even with Scottish National party and Liberal Democrat support. The principal issue uniting the eight former Labour and three former Conservative MPs in TIG is opposition to Brexit and support for a second referendum.

Theresa May has vowed to Tory grassroots activists that she will not allow the referendum vote for Britain to leave the EU to be frustrated. The prime minister is flying to Egypt for an EU-League of Arab States summit where she is expected to hold talks with key EU figures as she battles to break the deadlock in the Brexit talks. The prime minister is pressing for changes to the Northern Ireland backstop which she hopes will finally convince MPs to back her Withdrawal Agreement following last month’s crushing Commons defeat. Brexit: Rudd, Clark and Gauke should resign, says Andrew Bridgen Read more Ahead of her departure, No 10 released details of her speech to a closed meeting of the National Conservative Convention (NCC) in Oxford on Saturday, when she told supporters the government’s focus on delivering Brexit must be “absolute”. The intervention by Amber Rudd, Greg Clark and David Gauke led to calls for their resignations by furious Tory Brexiters - comments said to have been echoed in private by some cabinet ministers. “We’d have built an enormous elephant trap for ourselves, and there’d be no way to climb out.” MPs are preparing for a potentially crucial series of votes on Wednesday which could see parliament seize control of the Brexit process if May cannot secure an agreement with Brussels by mid-March. However, the Sunday Times reports the votes could now be shelved in the wake of the latest cabinet divisions. Church of England urges five days of prayer for poor as Brexit looms Read more In a joint article, Rudd, Clark and Gauke said it was clear a majority of MPs would back an extension to the Article 50 withdrawal process rather than see no deal. A similar amendment was defeated by MPs last month, but there is speculation that enough Tory rebels, alarmed that there is still no deal in place, could be prepared to back it this time round for it to pass. Downing Street has said if there is no deal by Tuesday, the prime minister will at that point make another statement to the House and table an amendable motion to be debated and voted on the following day.

More than half of the company’s clients are in the UK, and Granat fears that two decades of hard work building up the business could now be put at risk by the looming threat of a no-deal Brexit. For Future Processing, there are three main concerns about a hard Brexit. First, the likelihood that the pound will plummet, creating currency risk. Vladimir Vano, a Bratislava-based analyst and member of the British Chamber of Commerce in Slovakia, estimated that a hard Brexit would lead to a 1% lower GDP for both Slovakia and the Czech Republic, due to trade disruption and increased bureaucracy, with further indirect impact likely as well. “We are on different edges of the EU geographically, but Britain has gone from zero to be the in the top five or six trade partners for Slovakia and the Czech Republic,” he said. Britain is in the group’s top three markets, but she said the company’s contractors were already looking to shift business from Britain to central Europe or Germany to avoid potential Brexit hurdles. As well as exporters, the tourism sector across the region could also be hit by a potential fall in the pound or a Brexit-related economic slowdown. For most businesses in the region with exposure to the British market, there remains a hope that the worst will not happen, but as each week goes by, the worry increases. Granat admitted to a frustration with British politicians’ failure to agree on a deal and the hopeless Westminster infighting. 170,000 Jobs in central and eastern Europe connected to food exports to UK.

From this week, freighters setting sail from UK ports with cargo for far-flung destinations such as Australia and New Zealand, a journey of about 50 days, risk arriving after Brexit day with – in the event of a no-deal Brexit – no idea of the trade rules that will be in place. 14 February: Brexit debate in the Commons. 20 February: international treaty ratification deadline. 21-22 March: article 50 extension request? This is when some EU officials think the UK might ask for more time to conclude Brexit by requesting an extension to article 50. Mid-late March: UK ratification of deal. If there has been no extension, the European parliament’s second Strasbourg meeting would be the last chance for MEPs to vote through the withdrawal agreement to get it agreed before Brexit day. 29 March: Brexit day? Without an extension, the UK will formally leave the EU on 29 March at 11pm UK time (midnight in Brussels). If the UK sought and obtained an extension to article 50 that went beyond 2 July – the first day of the new parliament – it would have to take part in those elections, EU officials have said.

The prime minister is due to chair a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning before departing for a two-day visit to Northern Ireland to underscore her commitment to avoiding a hard border with Ireland. Read more She is expected to say: “I know this is a concerning time for many people here in Northern Ireland. But we will find a way to deliver Brexit that honours our commitments to Northern Ireland … that commands broad support across the community in Northern Ireland … and that secures a majority in the Westminster parliament.” Privately, however, there is scepticism within the government about the possibility of a breakthrough before May returns to parliament to make a statement about her Brexit plans on 13 February. The prime minister’s withdrawal agreement faces a new problem in the shape of a potential legal challenge by one of the architects of the Good Friday agreement. The group was created after Tory MPs from the leave and remain camps came together to promote the Malthouse compromise, which involves a longer transition period while alternatives to the backstop are explored. The resulting 'Malthouse compromise' involves redrafting the backstop arrangement for the Irish border which is so unpopular with Conservative Eurosceptic MPs and the Democratic Unionist party, which props up the government. It would also extend the transition period, set out under the previously negotiated withdrawal agreement, until the end of 2021. If the attempt to renegotiate the backstop fails, the Malthouse compromise proposes what amounts to a managed no deal. Before MPs voted for that amendment and against others, Theresa May praised the Malthouse compromise. The Northern Ireland minister, John Penrose, told Cable in a written parliamentary answer that his department had not allocated any funding for no-deal preparations, adding: “A number of staff across the department work on both EU exit and non-EU exit related work.” Cable said: “If the government is serious about letting Britain crash out of the EU, there should be a dedicated unit in the Northern Ireland Office, preparing for this eventuality.