Tag: Member of parliament

Aa Aa Down to the wire UK Prime Minister Theresa May made a last-minute trip to Strasbourg on Monday night where she negotiated legally binding changes to the Brexit agreement that will be voted on by British MPs tonight. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and May promised to find an alternative solution to the highly controversial backstop agreement by 2020 if the deal passes through Parliament. Read the fine print Despite the newly negotiated terms, UK Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said the “legal risk remains unchanged” over the UK's ability to exit the backstop agreement. The statement came as a major blow to May, who was hoping to appease members of her own party who fear the agreement will permanently trap the UK in a customs union with the EU. Cox added that the House needs to make a "political judgement" on the agreement. 'No third chances' Juncker on Monday night said there will be “no third chance” for a Brexit deal if MPs vote the current version down on Tuesday. If the deal does not pass, MPs will vote Wednesday on whether the UK will leave the EU without a deal in place. In the event that this vote also fails, a third vote will be held on Thursday that will determine if the UK would be open to extending negotiations past the March 29 deadline. Forecasting May What could tonight mean for the future of the UK prime minister? Our panel discusses what might be in store for May.

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.

The party has had a dramatic effect on both the major parties with talk of further defections to come. LONDON — The Independent Group (TIG) of 11 former Labour and Conservative MPs has already had a dramatic impact on British politics. In just a few short weeks, it has snatched 11 MPs from the two major parties, surged in the opinion polls, and arguably helped force a major shift in the Labour party's Brexit policy. one TIG MP said this week, reflecting on the two weeks since the group's dramatic launch. TIG targets new MPs REUTERS/Henry Nicholls The group does not yet have an official leader, and doesn't plan to elect one until it is a party, but this week appointed former Labour MP Chuka Umunna as its chief spokesperson and main figurehead. One former Labour shadow minister told BI on Friday that they planned to join TIG as soon as the Umunna-fronted group unveiled its first batch of policies. Julian Dunkerton — the co-founder of clothing range Superdry who donated one million pounds to the People's Vote campaign in August— is also weighing up becoming a financial backer, sources in to the anti-Brexit campaign said. A TIG MP said on Friday there would be "no pacts, no alliances" with the Lib Dems amid suggestions from people including Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable that the two could work together in certain seats at the next election. They added that Lib Dem MPs and supporters have already signaled that they could quit to join TIG. Comments by members of the group that they would refuse to back a vote of no confidence in the current government have only fueled those charges.

The talks, which Mr. Karzai and the other politicians say could build trust and clarify how the Taliban see their future political role, come at a delicate time. Besides Mr. Karzai, who made no real progress on peace talks with the Taliban during his 13-year presidency, the Afghan delegation includes about three dozen former officials, representatives of political parties and members of Parliament. Both sides said they had agreed, in principle, to a framework on two issues: a Taliban guarantee that Afghan soil would never again be used by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, and a pledge from the United States to withdraw its troops. The insurgents have refused to meet with anyone from Mr. Ghani’s administration, instead reaching out to other political figures and parties. Many Afghans are concerned that the Americans might be too eager to strike a deal, given that the Taliban have not clarified their views on fundamental issues — including the future of Afghan women, who were denied rights and a role in public life when the Taliban held power before the American invasion in 2001. In a statement released before the Moscow meeting, a group of Afghan women objected to the domination of the peace process so far by men and by non-Afghans. They said Afghan women had been marginalized in talks about a future in which they had more to lose than anyone. “Afghan women would not accept peace bought at the cost of their hard-gained freedoms,” the statement said. “Which Afghan will accept that the resources of the forces, built on blood, will again be sold as scrap metal?” Ostensibly, the talks in Moscow are being organized by an Afghan diaspora group. While Russia supported the American mission against Al Qaeda and the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks, in recent years President Vladimir Putin’s government has grown more skeptical and hedged its bets by supporting elements of the Taliban.

The work and pensions secretary, Esther McVey, has become the second senior minister to quit the cabinet, following the Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, out of the door and throwing Theresa May’s government into turmoil. In her resignation letter to May, she wrote: “We have gone from no deal is better than a bad deal, to any deal is better than no deal.” Her departure came after Raab resigned as Brexit secretary saying he “cannot in good conscience” support the deal agreed by the cabinet, kicking off what was expected to be a day of turmoil for the prime minister as she struggles to retain control of her party. The departure of Raab, seen as a crucial figure in May’s attempts to sell her proposed deal to other Brexit-minded Tory MPs, follows the resignation earlier on Thursday of the junior Northern Ireland minister, Shailesh Vara. Raab wrote: “No democratic nation has ever signed up to be bound by such an extensive regime, imposed externally without any democratic control over the laws to be applied, nor the ability to exit the arrangement.” There will be concerns at No 10 that Raab and McVey’s departures could be the first two of a number of cabinet resignations, after Wednesday’s stormy five-hour meeting, during which a string of senior ministers raise objections to May’s Brexit deal. “The British people have always been ahead of politicians on this issue, and it will be no good trying to pretend to them that this deal honours the result of the referendum when it is obvious to everyone that it doesn’t,” she wrote. I could not look my constituents in the eye were I to do that. I therefore have no alternative but to resign from the government.” The Brexit secretary’s departure came an hour-and-a-half before Theresa May was due in the Commons to sell her EU divorce deal to largely sceptical MPs. A string of hard Brexit Conservatives, who will be emboldened by Raab’s departure, have voiced concerns about the plan and have said they will vote it down when it comes before MPs for ratification next month. I cannot in good conscience support the terms proposed for our deal with the EU. This is v serious, the PM will clearly be considering her position.” Jon Trickett, Labour’s shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: “The government is falling apart before our eyes as for a second time the Brexit secretary has refused to back the prime minister’s Brexit plan.

In normal times and in all good faith, politicians at a general election present a manifesto they believe will improve people’s lives. As an MP who campaigned for Remain during the EU referendum in June 2016, I do not believe I can, in all good faith and with all good intentions, tell my electorate that I have changed my mind. This presents a moral dilemma for Remain-supporting MPs, especially those whose constituents voted to leave. The loss of jobs in major industries. In many cases their constituents voted to leave. In my constituency, almost three out of five voted Leave. Brexit will be bad for Britain, the north-east and my constituents. Therefore, I believe Brexit for any Remain MP, especially those from Leave seats, is now about moral leadership. We know as Remain MPs that if leaving the EU was not good for the country in 2016, it is certainly not – after all the Brexit twists and turns – the right thing to do now. That is why the British people should have the right to think again, in a national vote on the deal.

Theresa May and the government would face a race against time to pass a slew of new laws, or risk creating an “unsustainable legal vacuum”, if Britain plunged out of the EU without a deal, Labour’s Keir Starmer has warned. Dominic Raab insisted last week that the government had the legislation in place to cope, if Britain is forced to leave in March 2019 without a withdrawal agreement. Criminals held under the European arrest warrant. The government has long promised an immigration bill – but has not yet even published a white paper. The withdrawal agreement with the EU is intended to allow for most existing laws and institutions to remain in place during a transitional period of almost two years, while the government negotiates the details of its future trading relationship with the EU. A hard Brexit would take Britain out of the EU’s single market and customs union and ends its obligations to respect the four freedoms, make big EU budget payments and accept the jurisdiction of the ECJ: what Brexiters mean by “taking back control” of Britain’s borders, laws and money. Labour has edged closer to backing a referendum on the final deal, if parliament rejects it – though the leadership would prefer the opportunity to challenge May in a general election. A government spokesperson said on Sunday night: “We do not want or expect a no-deal scenario and remain confident we will agree a mutually advantageous deal with the EU. “Leave Means Leave have the fight of our lives ahead of us. Raab stressed that a no-deal Brexit was not the government’s preferred outcome and said: The vast majority, roughly 80%, of the withdrawal agreement has now been agreed.” However, ramping up preparations for a no-deal outcome was one aspect of the agreement reached in Chequers in July.

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.

Jeremy Corbyn faced a double Commons rebellion and was warned against “flirting with anti-trade populism” after Labour abstained over two trade votes. As the Press Association reports, 18 Labour MPs ignored orders in two votes to have their say on parliamentary motions linked to the EU-Canada comprehensive economic and trade agreement (Ceta) and the EU-Japan economic partnership agreement. Shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner told the Commons that Ceta did not offer enough protections. But the Labour former minister Chris Leslie advised his party’s front bench against slipping into a “rut” over trade matters and said decisions needed to be viewed against how they could benefit public services, particularly if they wanted to be seen as a government in waiting. As the Press Association reports, the 75,968 jobs created in 2017/18 was 1% up on the 75,226 figure for the previous year, but the number of jobs safeguarded in the UK by inward investment was cut by more than 50% from 32,672 in 2016/17 to 15,063. And today he gave a big speech on housing (pdf). In the speech he identifies four reasons why housing is in crisis. The planning system is compounding these problems. What is required is a dedicated, arm’s length, agency – non government and non profit – to take a key role in acquiring land at low cost at current use value. The new body – let us call it the British Housing Company – would be empowered by law to acquire land of low amenity and market value through compulsory acquisition.