Tag: Brexit

The government has set up a team of troubleshooters to tackle problems in the NHS in the event of a no-deal Brexit, including drug shortages and the loss of key staff. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, disclosed this week that he was arranging for special flights to bring medicines from the Netherlands to beat anticipated shortages, and he urged NHS bodies in England to buy fridges in which to stockpile drugs. The troubleshooting team started work this month, before the government stepped up its no-deal preparations as a result of the political deadlock over Theresa May’s Brexit deal and the approaching 29 March deadline. No-deal Brexit 'may mean cancelled NHS operations and staff shortages' Read more It is made up of civil servants from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and officials from NHS England and NHS Improvement, which together oversee the 240 health trusts and 197 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England. They will deal with problems with the supply of drugs, staffing shortages, fridges in hospitals not working – all of the scenarios that could arise from a no-deal Brexit,” the source said. “The DHSC has strengthened its national contingency plans for no-deal,” he wrote. “With just over three months remaining until exit day, we have now reached the point where we need to ramp up no-deal preparations.” Wormald said the centre “will lead on responding to any disruption to the delivery of health and care services in England that may be caused or affected by EU exit. [It] will coordinate EU exit-related information flows and reporting across the health and care system.” NHS England and NHS Improvement will set up local, regional and national teams “to enable rapid support on emerging local incidents and escalation of issues into the operational response centre as required”, the letter says. Wormald said some problems may end up “impacting across the health and care system at a national level”. He told the NHS bodies: “I recognise the uncertainty that you face.”

The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, has said the prime minister is highly unlikely to secure the meaningful changes to her Brexit deal that will be necessary for it to pass the House of Commons in January. Starmer accused the prime minister of pulling the vote in order to “run the clock down” and playing up the risks of no deal in the hope of convincing MPs to back her. “I really think it is the duty of the government and the PM to stand at the dispatch box and rule out no deal,” he said. Tory MPs could resign whip if no-deal Brexit becomes primary focus Read more Demanding a three-hour debate is one of the tools at MPs’ disposal to challenge the government, if they feel measures are being railroaded through without scrutiny. Downing Street announced on Tuesday, after a three-hour cabinet meeting, that the government would “ramp up” no-deal preparations dramatically – with 3,500 troops on standby, and an extra £2bn set aside across 25 Whitehall departments. Instead, he chose a motion of censure criticising May – for which the government did not set aside time for parliament to debate. No-deal Brexit is a national disaster. It is every politician’s job to avert it | Jonathan Freedland Read more The shadow housing secretary, John Healey, suggested on Tuesday that Labour would wait until after May’s deal has been rejected by MPs, before tabling a motion of no confidence. Campaigners for a second Brexit referendum, including Streatham MP Chuka Umunna, have been urging Labour to get on with trying to engineer a general election in the hope that it would then allow the party to move on to advocating a “people’s vote”. The SNP’s Commons leader, Ian Blackford, won the right for an SO24 debate on May’s Brexit deal on Tuesday, after the prime minister confirmed that MPs would not be given a vote on it until mid-January.

Labour for a People’s Vote, the group that was instrumental in ensuring Brexit was discussed at Labour’s annual conference in September, is calling for a half-day recall for members to endorse a policy of backing a second referendum. It has the support of Labour MPs including Alex Sobel, Paul Williams and Anna McMorrin. Labour for a People’s Vote, which helped organise more than 100 local constituency Labour parties (CLPs) to submit motions to conference calling for a referendum, is now encouraging them to adopt a statement demanding a special conference. “Whether or not a vote of no confidence is tabled and a general election called for, Labour needs to move quickly to clarify our position on a public vote,” the motion says. “When the opportunity to lead presents itself, we believe the Labour party must be seen to take the initiative. Anti-Brexit campaigners are concerned that Labour backed away from tabling a full-blown motion of no confidence in the government on Monday in part to avoid being trapped into supporting a referendum. Instead, Corbyn tabled a vote of no confidence in the prime minister, which has no formal status under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. That means the government is not obliged to set aside time to debate it, and even if it lost it would not bring down the government. Corbyn’s spokesman has insisted the confidence motion does not imply automatic support for a referendum, even if a vote of no confidence is lost. Other opposition parties, including the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru, have tabled a full-blown no confidence motion, challenging Corbyn to add his signature – without which it will not be discussed until the new year.

A robot-dancing Theresa May has been given the Saturday Night Live treatment after her political week to forget. The US late-night show, which often lampoons Donald Trump, turned its comedic lens on British politics for the sketch titled Happy Christmas, Britain. It opens with the prime minister, played by Kate McKinnon, busting her infamous dance moves alongside four gyrating police officers, before addressing the nation with a pained grin. My Brexit deal is falling apart, I almost got voted out and no one in the world likes me at all. But it’s still Christmas, so let’s try to have some cheer tonight, shall we?” she says. She introduces a high-foreheaded and relaxed-looking David Cameron, played by Matt Damon, as “the man who called for the Brexit vote – then, when it passed, he bounced and left me to clean up his mess.” “You look well rested,” says May, and Cameron tells her he has just returned from a relaxing holiday in the Maldives. “You know what’s funny?” he says. “People hate me, but they really hate you. Even though I did Brexit. “I found her cheerful, from afar.

The owner of a Bristol online retailer that employs 85 people has said that unless there is a Christmas Brexit miracle he will move part of his business to Germany in January because of impending tariffs on exports to the EU. In anticipation of no deal, he has opened an office in Bucharest with seven staff and he is poised to sign the final paperwork on a new warehouse in Nuremberg to allow him to continue importing and exporting to the continent tariff-free. “Brexit is not a business disrupter, it’s a business bankrupter,” Loughlin said. He believes thousands of businesses are in a similar position but the politicians “are not listening, are not interested in us”. The Institute of Directors said last week that businesses were “tearing their hair out” over the lack of clarity on Brexit, while the Confederation of British Industry said hundreds of millions of pounds were already being diverted away from Britain because of business “despair”. “We’ve done some media locally and we’ve had people calling customer service with abusive messages saying this is all our fault, we’ve had abusive comments on social media that we have had to block and delete,” he said. This is a business that does not work if the UK is not in the single market,” Loughlin said. 'Despairing' businesses triggering no-deal Brexit plans, says CBI Read more He was invited to Westminster to give a talk in Portcullis House about the challenges Brexit was posing to businesses in the west country. “Not a single Tory MP showed up,” he said. There is a massive disconnect,” Loughlin said.

Our politics and our parliament is in deadlock over Brexit. But if we choose to learn from other countries in how we resolve our differences, this could be a moment when Britain comes together rather than falling apart in constitutional chaos. Damon Albarn joins call for citizens' assembly to break Brexit deadlock Read more Looking on, we cannot see how a majority can be found for any proposition in parliament: some want to remain, some want no deal, some want Norway, some want to vote again. Anger and resentment are growing, splitting families, communities and our country. Without a new intervention, the toxic culture which has infected public life will irrevocably damage democracy and the future for us all. Each of us individually has different views on what should happen next when it comes to Brexit, but we all agree that finding a way forward is vital to restoring faith in our democracy. Yet we also recognise that there are important ways to help heal this rift and involve the public in deeper and more meaningful ways. Citizens’ assemblies operate around the world to create a neutral forum for evidence-based, participative decision-making. In recent years, they have been used in Ireland, British Columbia and Iceland, and in national and local government in the UK, as democratic “circuit-breakers” on contentious and complex issues. Not superseding MPs by judging the outcome, but offering recommendations on how Brexit should be decided, to help break this deadlock and start to heal the nation’s bitter divisions.

The embattled prime minister had pinned her hopes on a last-ditch effort to persuade the European Union to work with her in devising a legal guarantee, known as a “joint interpretative instrument”, that she believes could get her Brexit deal through parliament. Following an address by May before a dinner, and subsequent discussions among the 27 member states, the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, suggested it was difficult to imagine any deal getting through parliament at the moment, and that it was not up to the EU to satisfy the demands of rebellious MPs. Juncker said: “Our UK friends need to say what they want, rather than asking what we want. Read more Deliberately avoiding the confrontational approach demanded by her hard Brexit critics, May had appealed to her EU counterparts to work with her in revising the Brexit deal. But Juncker said that he could not understand the mindset of British MPs, and indicated an unwillingness to bend to the Commons, setting up a nervous few weeks for Downing Street. The prime minister still hopes to begin a short, intense period of final negotiations with EU officials following the Brussels summit, leading to an additional guarantee that No 10 insists must have legal weight. The UK had hoped to set a year as a target for getting out of the backstop by negotiating a free trade deal or an alternative arrangement for avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland. That prompted hostile Conservative MPs to table a motion of no confidence in her as party leadership, which she saw off on Wednesday by 200 to 117. If it comes into force, the UK would remain in a customs union with the EU. And for the #eu also there will be no third country more important than the #uk.

MPs across the political divide should "abandon outrage" and attempt to "forge a consensus" over Brexit, Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd has said. Theresa May travelled to Brussels earlier this week to make a special plea to EU leaders after delaying Tuesday's Commons vote on the deal, in anticipation of a heavy defeat. 'Serious trouble' Many of her own MPs are concerned that the controversial "backstop" plan in the withdrawal agreement, which is aimed at preventing a hard border in Northern Ireland, would keep the UK tied to EU rules indefinitely and limit its ability to strike trade deals. AdChoices Ms Rudd said she supported Mrs May's deal and advocated assembling a "coalition" - potentially reaching out to opposition parties to avoid what she called "the rocks of no deal". She said the country "will face serious trouble" if MPs "dig in against the prime minister's deal". Mr Farage added the treatment of Mrs May in Brussels this week had been a "shaming moment" for both the UK and the EU and that the PM's Brexit deal was now "dead". He said: "Our UK friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want... because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise." Mrs May said that, despite reports that the EU was unwilling to consider further clarification, she had talked to European Council President Donald Tusk, Mr Juncker and others, which "have shown that further clarification and discussion following the council's conclusions is in fact possible". But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "The last 24 hours have confirmed that Theresa May's Brexit deal is dead in the water. "Rather than ploughing ahead and dangerously running down the clock, the prime minister needs to put her deal to a vote next week so Parliament can take back control."

One shadow cabinet member said the moment at which Labour would table a no-confidence vote was getting “much, much closer”, but said it would depend on the stance of the DUP. In Brussels on Friday, EU leaders insisted they would not do any more to sweeten the Brexit deal containing the backstop that 100 Tory MPs want her to ditch. “We have to exclude any kind of reopening our negotiations on the withdrawal agreement. But of course we will stay here in Brussels, and I am always at Prime Minister Theresa May’s disposal.” The prime minister’s Brexit aide Olly Robbins had been holding secret negotiations since Monday over a two-stage plan to secure the legal guarantee that Downing Street believed could turn MPs in its favour. How No 10 tried, and failed, to contrive EU rescue of May's deal Read more The prime minister had been seeking a “joint interpretative instrument” that would put a duty on both sides to try to get out of the Irish backstop within 12 months of it coming into force. “The 27 member states have given assurances. “We have treated Prime Minister May with the greatest respect, all of us, and we really appreciate the efforts by the prime minister to ratify our common agreement,” Tusk said. He said he had been describing the “overall state of the debate in Britain”. Many questioned whether it would be worth making further concessions to the UK as suggested by May because they would not be accepted. She told reporters she had had “a robust discussion” with Juncker about his comments at the press conference and said she had been “crystal clear” about the assurances she was seeking.

Aa Aa EU leaders have expressed there's no renegotiation on the Brexit deal but there's room for renegotiation, clarification. What does this all mean? Our panelists Martina Anderson, an Irish MEP, and Brian Maguire with Euractiv, weigh in. "Theresa May wants something that she thinks she can give to the DUP and her radical wing within her party, the ERG … anything that’s not legally binding, they won’t accept," said Maguire. He adds: "Anything she gets is nice warm words to be able to bring this back to Westminister." Anderson said she wouldn't be surprised if Article 50 would be revoked and then invoked. "No one knows the British and the British establishment better than us. We’ve been in negotiations with them far longer than what we care to remember and we know their tactics and we try to explain this to [Brexit negotiator] Michel Barnier. "They get you to the negotiation table, they get you to sign off on the agreement and as soon as the ink is dried, they leave the table and they negotiate downwards," she said.