Tag: Brexit

Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiatior, rejected the customs proposals in the British government’s Brexit white paper. On Friday last week he said: Barnier said today that the EU was “open to a customs union” with the UK after Brexit. He said: Barnier said the UK and the EU had made good progress towards a deal on security after Brexit. (@nickeardleybbc) This from Michel Barnier today doesn’t bode well for the Chequers proposal... pic.twitter.com/oRBHNSarOX July 26, 2018 Here is some reaction to the press conference from journalists and commentators. He says he negotiates with Theresa May, with Dominic Raab, and their teams. He says he has been asking the UK to say what it wants. But there are other points where the EU has “a problem”, because the UK’s plans contradict his negotiating mandate. Raab says he and Barnier have had a good meeting. He says the UK has decided to leave the EU, with its single market and four freedoms. He says the UK government has a backstop plan.

Boris Johnson has used a stinging resignation speech to tell MPs that it was “not too late to save Brexit” but stopped short of a leadership challenge to Theresa May’s battered premiership. The former foreign secretary, who resigned from the cabinet last week over May’s Chequers negotiating strategy, said the government had allowed a “fog of uncertainty” to descend since her Lancaster House speech in January 2017, which suggested a “comprehensive, bold and ambitious free trade agreement” with the EU27. May faces pressure from both sides over Brexit plan at PMQs Read more A sombre Johnson had told the House of Commons: “It is not too late to save Brexit. But much of his speech was devoted to criticising the negotiating strategy that has been personally overseen by May. Johnson’s departure – along with those of former Brexit secretary David Davis, former Brexit minister Steve Baker and a handful of more junior government figures – has underlined the deep divisions in the Conservative party, and the conundrum facing May as she tries to negotiate a deal that will satisfy parliament. Baker warned May that she would not be able to avoid confronting the sceptics in her own party, claiming he and his colleagues can rely on many more than 40 votes to reject the Chequers approach. “Whether people like it or not, however impartial they may be, they must bring forward a deal which can be voted through by the Conservative party,” he said. People who have said the number 40 are not out by a fraction when they come to consider the number of members who don’t like this deal on these benches and are willing to vote in line with this dislike. They are out by a factor, not a fraction.” May caved in to amendments on her customs bill tabled to scupper the Chequers deal earlier this week, rather than confront the Brexit rebels directly. One cabinet minister said afterwards: “Whatever the differences are, we hang together and support the prime minister.” A second cabinet minister, who predicted that the PM would now survive, added: “Everybody was positive, including people who haven’t been in the last couple of weeks.

Theresa May has told MPs that dozens of documents spelling out the actions needed to prepare for a no deal Brexit will be published this summer. In a dramatic intervention, the Conservative MP, Simon Clarke, stood up and declared he was withdrawing his letter of no confidence in the prime minister and said others should give her their backing. Steve Baker, who resigned as a Brexit minister last week over the prime minister’s Chequers deal, has a further warning for Theresa May. The Brexit-supporting MP, Iain Duncan Smith, is echoing that language as he leaves the meeting: (@JasonFarrellSky) After 1922 Iain Duncan Smith tells me Tories have an “inner gravity” pulling them back together created by “the threat of Jeremy Corbyn” Simon Clarke, the Tory MP who withdrew his letter of no confidence this afternoon, is making clear that May’s government is not out of the woods yet. This from Business Insider’s UK political editor, Adam Bienkov: (@AdamBienkov) Conservative MP Simon Clarke tells journalists after Theresa May’s 1922 speech: “We’ve stared into the abyss in the last few days and we’ve got a decision to make about what to do.” (@AdamBienkov) Tory MP Simon Clarke told Theresa May that he has now withdrawn his letter calling for a vote of no confidence in her, but tells journalists the party is still “on the brink”. We’re getting some news now on how the 1922 committee meeting went for the prime minister: Relatively well, it seems. In 1922 Committee, Tory Brexiteer rebel Simon Clarke publicly withdrew his letter asking for a leadership contest. (@tnewtondunn) PM, on if she heard Boris’s resignation speech: “They don’t pipe it into the Liaison Committee you know”. As my colleague Pippa Crerar reports, she also told journalists they needed a break. Lewis asks May to accept that the UK has always outspent its European Nato allies.

The pound slid to lead losses among major currencies on Tuesday as U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s fate hung on the line over her Brexit plans. Sterling headed for a two-week low as May risked a defeat in Parliament later Tuesday over customs arrangements and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney warned of economic pain if the U.K. failed to secure a trade deal with the European Union. While lawmaker tensions over Brexit have been simmering for months, traders are focused on the possibility of a leadership challenge for May, which some strategists say could drive the currency down 5 percent. Pound traders have been caught in recent months between two competing forces, with positive noises on an interest-rate hike from the BOE drowned out by concerns over Brexit. May narrowly avoided a defeat in Parliament Monday by making concessions to those in her party pushing for a clean break with the EU, infuriating pro-EU rebels and provoking another rebellion. Gauges of volatility in the currency, which have been subdued in recent months, climbed on Tuesday. “The political backdrop in the U.K. could well be a source of disruption to market equanimity over the summer months,” wrote Bank of New York Mellon Corp.’s senior currency strategist Neil Mellor in a research note. With the U.K. government facing tough choices on whether to extend the Brexit process or even hold a fresh referendum, “the mood music on the economy might therefore prove to be important.” With politics becoming increasingly hard to predict, investors may be opting to focus on the central bank to guide their bets on the U.K. currency. The market currently prices a more than 80 percent chance that the BOE will raise rates when it meets next month. If the U.K. fails to get a deal with the EU and instead trades with it under World Trade Organization rules, that potentially presents a “financial stability event” for both Britain and the bloc, the BOE’s Carney told lawmakers on Tuesday.

Dover and Calais are facing “economic catastrophe” because of Brexit, and both the UK and the EU are allowing the two ports to drift towards disaster, a leading French politician has said. Bertrand believes this does not go far enough and that talks need to swiftly move to local planning or time will have run out for practical contingencies including border inspection posts and customs clearance checks. Even at the moment you see queues of 1km to the tunnel – and that is where there are no checks. “The French and British governments have to talk to each other to find a solution, otherwise we are heading for something catastrophic. Both governments need to talk to each other to find solutions.” Bertrand has now made five trips to Britain to try to impress upon politicians and officials the need to swing contingency plans into action. “I am going to one more time try to increase the pressure and warn people about the dangers: what about the catastrophe?” he said, but time was running out. In the absence of advanced planning on the British side, he revealed that Calais was prepared to solve the problem of space for checks in Dover. Bertrand said he used to be optimistic that a solution for Dover-Calais would be found, but he now despaired as he could see that Brexiters thought no deal was “still a way”. I’m going to call on the French government and the French president to make the voice of common sense heard.” Calais after Brexit 'could be 10 times worse than Irish border' Read more He is concerned that his own efforts at contingency planning will hit the buffers because there is no cross-border communication at a political level. In March, Bertrand and the boss of the port of Calais said the Channel would be 10 times worse than the Irish border.

Image WASHINGTON — The day after Britain voted to exit the European Union in 2016, Donald J. Trump landed in Scotland and promptly declared the referendum result “a great thing.” More than two years later, President Trump is back in Britain, and now he wants to speed it along. With its push to restrict immigration and its appeal to “take our country back,” the Brexit campaign was always a close political relative of the Trump movement in the United States. It is an ambition that Mr. Trump has often appeared to support, casting the European Union as an economic competitor that has stymied American farmers with its limits on genetically modified produce, hormone-treated beef and chlorine-washed chicken. That put him at odds with Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, who is pushing a business-friendly approach that would preserve many economic ties to the bloc. One Conservative Party lawmaker, Bill Cash, told The Daily Mail newspaper that Mr. Bolton “gave a positive view of what he believed the president thought about Brexit.” Image The Brexit vote was unique to Britain’s strained relationship with other European countries. “The populist revolt in Europe is always six months to a year ahead of us,” Mr. Bannon said Friday in an interview from London. When asked about the vote, however, he made clear that he saw it as similar to what was stoking his campaign in the United States. “People want to take their country back,” he said. Mr. Bannon was on hand in London this week, meeting with Mr. Farage and giving interviews that praised Mr. Trump’s confrontational approach. No,” Mr. Bannon said.

Sir, – Boris Johnson says, in his letter to his prime minister: “In that respect we are truly headed for the status of colony – and many will struggle to see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement”. Indeed, in a former context, many Irish people experienced that struggle. Does this statement make Boris Johnson a revisionist historian? How reassuring. Bishopstown, Cork. Sir, – The UK is anything but “a real democracy” (Robert Sullivan July 11th). An unelected head of state in perpetuity, a completely unelected parliamentary upper house (the House of Lords), no proportional representation, a system of single-seat constituencies blighted with so-called “safe” seats, and only three UK-wide referendums in its entire history. With the 2016 Brexit referendum, Gibraltar – although not in the UK but did participate – voted 96 per cent to remain, along with Scotland 62 per cent and Northern Ireland 56 per cent, and all about to be forced out of the EU in defiance of the expressed wishes of the local electorates in this so-called era of devolution and subsidiarity. Complete democracy? Daingean,

The President delivered an astonishing political knifing of the British Prime Minister on Thursday, comprehensively undermining her fragile position in Britain's tortuous negotiations on leaving the European Union and getting his visit to the country off to the most explosive of starts. As he said in his interview with the Sun she 'is a very good person' and he 'never said anything bad about her.' "The deal she is striking is a much different deal than the one the people voted on," Trump said in the interview, and added that he had told May to toughen up. But Trump's frankness causes a huge problem for the Prime Minister, one that British officials will hope can be finessed when the two leaders meet Friday at Chequers, the Prime Minister's country residence west of London. "It's an opportunity to reach a free trade agreement that creates jobs and growth here in the UK and right across the United States." Trump's comments may deepen his unpopularity in the country since they are likely to be seen as an unwanted intervention by a foreign leader in domestic politics. While being careful not to say Johnson should replace her, Trump said: "I'm just saying I think he would be a great prime minister. President Barack Obama warned in 2016 that Britain would have to get to "the back of the queue" for a trade deal with Washington if it went ahead and voted to leave the EU. At the time, Obama faced a surge of complaints that he was interfering in an issue that was none of his business, and Brexit campaigners said he was asking Britain to cede powers to the EU that he would never allow the United States to give up. Trump said Khan had "done a very bad job on terrorism" and a "terrible job in London."

LONDON – The U.K. woke Friday to discover that President Trump had thrown fuel onto the country’s already fiery political debate -- on a day in which he will hold a joint press conference with under-siege Prime Minister Theresa May, meet with Queen Elizabeth II and witness tens of thousands of demonstrators march through London in protest of his three-day working visit. The looming press conference was made immeasurably more awkward after The Sun published an extraordinary interview with Trump, in which the president doubled down on his criticism of May’s approach to handling Britain’s departure from the European Union. “No, if they would do that I would say that that would probably end a major trade relationship with the United States.” While he did praise May in the interview, he also said May had not taken his advice on Brexit, something he said was “fine.” “I would have done it much differently. That plan sparked the resignation of a number of officials, including Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis. “I am just saying that he would be a great Prime Minister. "The President likes and respects Prime Minister May very much. As he said in his interview with the Sun she 'is a very good person' and he 'never said anything bad about her,'" White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. He is thankful for the wonderful welcome from the Prime Minister here in the U.K.” Trump’s interview dominated the country’s TV and radio discussions, MPs Twitter feeds, and the newspaper headlines -- all focusing on Trump’s opening salvo against May. “May’s Brexit will kill US trade deal, says Trump,” ran The Times of London. In London, the prime minister’s allies desperately tried to blunt the damage of what has been a chaotic week for May as she struggles to keep her cabinet and party united over Brexit.

Trump downplays controversial interview with The Sun, talks trade and immigration. FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable, FNC…