Tag: Brexit

After a long day of talks at Chequers, the cabinet has agreed what Theresa May hailed as a “collective position for the future of our negotiations” on Brexit. It might yet be modified amid Brussels objections or MPs’ concerns but below is the plan as agreed, as set out in a government statement: Harmonisation on goods The statement says the UK will “maintain a common rulebook for all goods” including agricultural products after Brexit, with the UK committing via treaty on continued harmonisation, thus avoiding border friction. However, the proposal says protections in areas such as the environment, employment laws and consumer protection would not fall below current levels. Joint jurisdiction of rules The plan proposes what is termed a “joint institutional framework” for interpreting UK-EU agreements, to be carried out in each jurisdiction by the respective courts. This would see the UK and EU avoid hard borders by being treated as a “combined customs territory”. Under this, the UK would apply domestic tariffs and trade policies for goods intended for the UK, and their EU equivalents for goods heading into the EU. The statement says the new arrangements would prevent a hard Irish border, ensuring the “backstop” elements of the initial withdrawal agreement would not be needed. The plan, it adds, would still give the UK an independent trade policy, with the ability to set its own non-EU tariffs and to reach separate trade deals. It also promises to end the role of the ECJ in UK affairs. This is version one.

Household bills will rise by between £245 and £1,961 a year after Brexit, with a disproportionately adverse impact on lower-income groups and people in Northern Ireland, Wales, the Midlands and the north-east, they say. The Institute for Public Policy Research found a hard Brexit would hit those out of London the most because household spending patterns involved more goods and services that will be hit by price rises. It modelled post-Brexit costs on a basket of 150 imports and found that prices would rise for all consumers regardless of income or where they lived. But in poorer areas the impact of increased costs in goods that attract higher tariffs such as meat and dairy products would be greatest because a greater proportion of household income would go on weekly shopping bills and transport, for example. It calculated that almost £1,000 a year would be added to household spending under the worst-case scenario of a hard Brexit, which it said would cause significant red tape and have World Trade Organization tariffs and increased labour costs. The price of a restaurant meal would go up because of increased cost of imported food and labour because of trade and non-trade barriers in every Brexit scenario, it said. Oliver Wyman concluded Northern Ireland, which has the poorest economy of the 12 regions of the UK, would be hit worst by increased costs. Reaching the same conclusion as the IPPR, Oliver Wyman found that the savings in importing goods from non-EU countries did not outweigh the increased costs of EU imports under every Brexit scenario. “Given that the EU will continue to negotiate trade deals with third countries, it is hard to see how the UK could significantly outpace the EU in negotiating agreements that lower consumer prices,” it said. But as Brewer pointed out, such a free trade agreement on Argentinian beef would only result in a 20p per kilo saving on beef – not enough to compensate for the higher cost of imports of other goods such as dairy, cars parts or electronics from the EU.

At least 100,000 people took to the streets yesterday as part of the largest ever demonstration of support for a new referendum over Britain’s final Brexit deal. With more businesses poised to issue dire Brexit warnings this week and senior Tories already drawing up plans to soften Theresa May’s exit proposals, organisers of the march on Sunday said it showed Britain’s departure from the European Union was not a “done deal”. Anger on the streets at the prime minister’s handling of the Brexit negotiations is being accompanied by a renewed push from industry to ensure that trade with Europe is not disrupted as a result of leaving. More prominent manufacturing firms are set to issue warnings about Britain’s Brexit negotiations within days, after Airbus and BMW broke cover to say they could reconsider their UK investment plans unless a Brexit deal was reached keeping Britain closely aligned with Europe. Senior Tory MPs are already warning that the government will face another parliamentary crisis over Britain’s post-Brexit trade arrangements within weeks unless May gives clear indications that she backs such a deal. They have always had to have a wide manufacturing base, but it has always been an irritation to them that manufacturing wings for their aircraft is not carried out in mainland Europe, where its major shareholders are located. The timeline of some of these products is years.” One senior business figure said further public concerns were on the way and EU countries would benefit from an exodus of UK-based businesses. “There are people waiting in the wings if they think they can intervene without serious consequences from the government,” he said. Boris Johnson and other leading cabinet Brexiters have come under renewed attack from business leaders for pushing for a hard Brexit. A Downing Street source said: “The government is getting on with delivering the Brexit people voted for and we are working hard to ensure that our future outside the European Union is brighter and better.”

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Sunday that the country's crisis-ridden National Health Service will receive an additional 20 billion pounds ($26.5 billion at today’s exchange rate) by 2023. In normal times, that sort of decision might have followed a public discussion of how much the nation should spend on health care and where the money should come from. Still, the Brexit dividend was a highly effective ploy; it's no exaggeration to say it was instrumental in delivering the Brexit vote. If we are to have a health and social care system which meets our needs and aspiration, we will have to pay a lot more for it over the next 15 years. It concluded that funding increases of nearly 4 percent a year were required in the medium term, and 5-percent increases were needed now to stabilize services. Any Brexit windfall is a long way off if it comes at all. So instead of the promised new money coming from Brexit savings, it will come from spending cuts, tax increases and added borrowing. Polls suggest that Britons would accept modest tax increases to pay for the NHS, but for May's gambit to pay off, Britain will also need increased economic growth and a Brexit deal that minimizes disruption. Meanwhile, the opposition Labour Party argues that the new spending will be too little. As for a real discussion on how to fund the health service, that will have to wait.

Tory rebels against Theresa May’s Brexit plans could ultimately collapse the government, Dominic Grieve has said, ahead of another key week in parliament over the EU withdrawal bill. The ping-pong process of the withdrawal bill between the two houses of parliament returns to the Lords on Monday, when peers are expected to reject the amendment drafted by May and her team, and insert one modelled more closely on Grieve’s idea. A series of Conservative rebels pulled back from voting against the government last week after the PM promised to listen to their concerns, but then said they felt let down by the eventual government amendment produced on Thursday. Grieve said: “I can’t save the government from getting into a situation where parliament might disagree with it. And that, I can tell you, I am not prepared to do.” The government’s prospects of defeat were increased last week when the junior justice minister Philip Lee resigned his post so he could vote against the minister on a meaningful vote. “My intention is to support Dominic Grieve in the amendment that he put before the house, because that’s what I publicly stated last Tuesday,” he told Sky’s Sophie Ridge on Sunday show. The Guardian view on a no-deal Brexit: a fatal delusion | Editorial Read more The rebels were angered after the government amendment offered parliament the opportunity only to vote on a “neutral motion” stating that it has considered a minister’s statement on the issue, if a deal is rejected. In an interview with the prime minister, broadcast on Sunday, May rejected the idea she had double-crossed her rebels. “I listened to their concerns and I undertook to consider their concerns. We recognise the concerns people have about the role of parliament.” She added: “Parliament cannot tie the hands of government in negotiations.”

Labour’s Janet Daby has won the Lewisham East byelection and immediately promised to oppose a hard Brexit, after the party’s margin of victory was cut by a resurgent Liberal Democrats in the heavily pro-remain seat. Daby took just over 50% of the vote in the south-east London constituency, ahead of the Lib Dems’ Lucy Salek, who won 25% of the vote – a 20 percentage point rise in the party’s share of the vote – to leapfrog the Conservatives and take second place. The Conservative share fell by 8 percentage points after their candidate, Ross Archer, won less than 9% of the votes. Labour held Lewisham East with 50.2% of the vote – down 17.75 points since June 2017 Standfirst ... % 0% 10 20 30 40 50 Lab Janet Daby 50.2% (11,033 votes) Lib Dem Lucy Salek 24.59% (5,404) Con Ross Archer 14.38% (3,161) Green Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah 3.59% (788) Women’s Equality Mandu Reid 2.30% (506) Ukip David Kurten 1.73% (380) Guardian Graphic | Turnout 69.28% (47,201) Daby won a closely contested internal Labour battle to run for the safe seat vacated by Heidi Alexander, who quit parliament to work with the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. “I will oppose an extreme or a hard Brexit,” she said. “I will consider people’s jobs, the economy and people’s rights, and that will dictate to me the precedent in how I will conduct myself both within parliament and out of parliament.” The Labour share of the vote fell by almost 18 percentage points from the 2017 election, and, with a much-reduced turnout from last year, Daby secured a majority of 5,629, compared with the 21,213 seen by Alexander. A Lib Dem bounce in Lewisham cannot shift Labour’s Brexit stance | Owen Jones Read more The Lib Dems claimed the swing was the biggest against Labour in a seat since 2004, and the most significant since 1983 when Labour was in opposition. “This is the largest swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats in over a decade and the failure of Labour’s leadership to oppose the Conservatives’ hard Brexit cannot be hidden or forgotten.” Salek said the result showed the party was “the real opposition here. #LewishamEast June 15, 2018 Asked how much distance there was between her and Corbyn’s views on Brexit, Daby said: “In terms of the single market, our Labour view on this is that we would have a new single market where we have the same access that we presently do. “In terms of Jeremy Corbyn, I voted for Jeremy Corbyn twice in the leadership election and obviously within politics not everybody will agree on everything.” The Greens came fourth in the byelection, followed by the Women’s Equality Party.

MPs are set to decide the shape of Brexit next week, in what is coming to be seen as one of the most important votes so far on the EU withdrawal bill. Dr Sarah Wollaston, one of the most prominent Tory rebels, said: “There are some who really do just want a walk-away no-deal Brexit but others, like myself, who feel just as passionately that a hard Brexit would be immensely damaging and want parliament to be able to prevent that.” Rebels believe there is still no majority in parliament for a hard Brexit and that they can muster enough support across the Commons to carry an amendment on a meaningful vote. But Brexiters also believe that with a handful of Labour rebels and a few Tory abstentions, they can win, and they are urging Theresa May not to make any more concessions to MPs. On Monday, peers will vote again on the so-called Hailsham amendment. It says that if by February 2019 – only weeks ahead of the exit date of 29 March – there is no deal, MPs will be empowered to direct the government. One rebel, Antoinette Sandbach, who has been threatened and abused on social media for her pro-European position, said that in the hour before the amendment was tabled, David Davis’s Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) “appeared to get involved and the process was hijacked and one was tabled that wasn’t agreed to”. She said: “There was no discussion, no notification. It’s extraordinary. I’d like to see grown-up government and it seems to me that DExEU is trying to reduce parliament to a school debating chamber. The outcome of next week’s votes is likely to have a bearing on the approach the government takes as it prepares for the big quarterly council meeting in October.

After a dramatic week of Brexit brinkmanship in the Commons, what has actually changed? As Tory rebels and Brexiters both claim the other side blinked first, our expert panel will fill you in on what really happened – and what comes next. Joining Pippa Crerar this week are our political correspondent Jessica Elgot, Allie Renison from the Institute of Directors and Sam Lowe from the Centre for European Reform. Also this week: Britain marks the first anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire. Our reporter Robert Booth describes a week of commemoration and reflects on the opening weeks of the judge-led inquiry into the disaster. Plus: with populism on the rise and rescue boats being turned away from harbours in Europe there is at least one place that wants the right to attract higher immigration. Libby Brooks reports from Scotland on why the SNP sees new arrivals as the answer to a demographic time bomb.

Theresa May has cleared what was seen in advance as a perilous parliamentary hurdle, as over the course of a two-day debate MPs reversed or partially reversed 14 of the 15 defeats the government suffered on the EU withdrawal bill in the House of Lords. (It decided to accept the 15th.) Labour claims that it might achieve “a whole catalogue of victories against the government” proved unfounded. There were 20 divisions in total, and the government won them all fairly comfortably. May has not yet fully defused this row, and a further rebellion on this next week seems quite possible. Jeremy Corbyn faced his biggest backbench revolt since he became leader, as Labour’s divisions on Europe broke out once more tonight. A further 15 voted against. Many MPs were frustrated at the front bench attempt to fudge away party differences. The shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer said earlier this week that the party was too divided to pursue the so-called Norway option of EEA membership. But rebelling on the bill for the first time, Hilary Benn, the former shadow foreign secretary, who chairs the Commons cross-party Brexit committee, said there comes a point where “we have to stand up and be counted”.

Campaigners have lost a high court challenge over the legality of article 50. They had hoped to win permission for a judicial review which, they claimed, could result in Brexit negotiations coming to a halt. Lawyers for Elizabeth Webster, who spearheaded the crowdfunded effort, said there was clearly an arguable case to go forward to a full hearing. Hugh Mercer QC told Lord Justice Gross and Mr Justice Green on Tuesday: “It is a public interest challenge which aims to ensure simply that the law is applied.” The judges, however, said the case was “hopeless and, for that matter, totally without merit”. Justice minister Phillip Lee resigns over Brexit policy Read more The claim was contested by the Brexit secretary, David Davis, whose position was that it had no merit, was not brought promptly and was detrimental to public administration. Webster, 54, who ran as a Liberal Democrat candidate for North Swindon in the 2017 general election, was seeking a declaration that no decision to withdraw from the EU, for the purposes of article 50, had been made. Mercer told the court that the campaign was not seeking to nullify the negotiations that had taken place to date. “Should the court make the declaration sought by the claimant, it will be for the UK government to decide how to respond to it,” he said. Ruling that there had been undue delay, he said it was a “paradigm instance” of a claim which needed to be made promptly. “It is difficult to conceive of a challenge more detrimental to the conduct of a major issue of national and international importance, whatever political view is taken of the merits or demerits of Brexit,” he said Put bluntly, he said, the debate which it sought to promote was firmly in the political arena and not in the courts.