Sat Nov 24, 2018 2:39 pm
Sat Nov 24, 2018 3:22 pm
rebbonk wrote:I find Boris amusing, but don't really see him as PM material.
Sat Nov 24, 2018 5:05 pm
Brexit row: 'Utter cock' slur as eurosceptic Tory MP awarded knighthood
MPs have mocked a knighthood awarded to a veteran eurosceptic MP, and accused the prime minister of abusing the honours system to help secure her Brexit deal.
Sir John Hayes was honoured by Downing Street on Friday, prompting critical calls of "cronyism".
In a stinging rebuke, Conservative MP Mark Francois suggested his coat of arms should feature an "utter cock rampant on one side and a big chicken on the other".
Mr Francois, who is calling for a no confidence vote in the prime minister, said Sir John could list his political principles "on the back of an old postage stamp".
Sat Nov 24, 2018 5:09 pm
May gives way over Gibraltar after Spain's 'veto' threat
Theresa May has given way to Madrid’s demands over the future of Gibraltar after the Spanish prime minister threatened to “veto” the Brexit deal due to be signed off by EU leaders on Sunday.
On the eve of Sunday’s special Brexit summit, the British ambassador to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow, wrote to concede that Gibraltar would not necessarily be covered by a future trade deal with the EU.
The development gives Spain a veto over Gibraltar benefiting from a future trade and security agreement between Brussels and the British government.
The Spanish leader, Pedro Sánchez, reacted immediately, claiming the UK would now have to open talks on “joint sovereignty” of Gibraltar, over which Spain has had a claim since the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
Sánchez said: “Once the UK has left the EU, Gibraltar’s political, legal and even geographic relationship with the EU will go through Spain …
“Spain will be a fundamental pillar of the relationship between Gibraltar and the EU as a whole.
“When it comes to the future political declaration, the European council and the European commission have backed Spain’s position, and backed it as never before.
“In these fundamental future negotiations, we’re going to have to talk about joint sovereignty and many other things with the UK.”
Sat Nov 24, 2018 5:38 pm
Sat Nov 24, 2018 5:40 pm
Sat Nov 24, 2018 5:57 pm
BELFAST (Reuters) - The Northern Irish party propping up Prime Minister Theresa May’s government launched fresh attacks on her Brexit withdrawal deal on Saturday, saying it would leave Britain in a “pitiful” place and that a Labour government may be preferable.
At its annual conference in Belfast, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) rallied its supporters to oppose May’s deal and invited her arch rival in the Conservative Party, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, to address delegates.
“The published withdrawal agreement portrays a pitiful and pathetic place for the United Kingdom ... locked into an EU straitjacket, divided and diminished,” deputy DUP leader Nigel Dodds told the conference.
“It will require the collective will not just of this party, but of all who value and cherish our precious Union, to stand firm in the face of the inevitable onslaught,” he said. “Prime Minister - bin the backstop!”
With four months left until Britain leaves the EU, the divorce treaty and accompanying political declaration were due to be endorsed in Brussels on Sunday by May and the other 27 EU leaders, although Spain was threatening to derail the summit over the future of Gibraltar.
The biggest obstacle to the accord is the vehement opposition in the British parliament from within May’s party and the DUP, whose 10 members of parliament agreed to a ‘confidence and supply’ deal last year to back her minority government after a snap election.
Party leader Arlene Foster on Friday said the DUP would revisit the confidence and supply deal if the withdrawal agreement was approved in parliament.
In an interview with The Times newspaper published on Saturday, she suggested a government led by the Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn - a longtime sympathiser with the DUP’s arch rival Sinn Fein - might be preferable to the deal.
While a Corbyn government is “not a pleasant scenario,” a Brexit that carves Northern Ireland from Britain is worse, she was quoted as saying.
“The Brexit deal is a real threat as opposed to something that may happen,” she said.
The draft withdrawal treaty’s ‘backstop’ provision could ultimately align Northern Ireland more closely with the EU than the rest of the United Kingdom if no other way can be found to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.
Under the terms of a 1998 Good Friday Agreement that largely ended years of violence between Irish republicans and pro-British unionists, border posts were removed and the province was given a power-sharing structure where both communities were represented.
Foster’s pro-British unionist party fears that the backstop provision, if implemented, could one day threaten the province’s place in the UK altogether.
May has responded by telling her critics that Britain will not get a better deal with the EU if it does not take this one.
Her finance minister Philip Hammond, who met Foster in Northern Ireland on Friday ahead of the conference, told the BBC on Saturday that her concerns were “understandable” but that he hoped to find a solution.
Sun Nov 25, 2018 2:24 pm
Sat Dec 01, 2018 9:05 am
Minister resigns over Theresa May's 'naive' deal
A UK minister has resigned saying a row over involvement in the EU's Galileo satellite-navigation system exposes Theresa May's Brexit deal as "naive".
The UK had wanted to stay part of Galileo after Brexit, but the EU said it would be banned from the extra-secure elements of the programme.
Mrs May confirmed on Friday that the UK was pulling out of the project.
Science minister Sam Gyimah said the row was "a clarion call" and that any deal with Brussels would be "EU first".
The UK's interests "will be repeatedly and permanently hammered by the EU27 for many years to come", he added in a Facebook post setting out his reasons for resigning.
Mr Gyimah, who is the 10th minister to resign from the government since Mrs May set out her original proposals for leaving the EU at Chequers in July, also said he would be voting against the deal she had eventually negotiated with Brussels.
Sat Dec 01, 2018 1:15 pm