Brexit deadline

EU Rejects UK’s Request for Weekend Talks as Johnson Insists on No Brexit Delay

The UK will be given “another opportunity to present its proposals in detail” on Monday.

The European Union has rejected a British request to hold Brexit talks this weekend, British media reported, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson reiterated his commitment to leaving the bloc on October 31 despite the possibility of a not reaching an exit deal.

The European Commission said that Johnson‘s new Brexit proposals do not provide any basis for finalising a separation agreement, according to Sky News.

Talks on Johnson‘s plan to replace the Irish backstop will not take place over the weekend, EU Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud was quoted as saying by Sky. She added that the UK will be given “another opportunity to present its proposals in detail” on Monday.

“If we held talks at the weekend it would look like these were proper negotiations,” the Times newspaper had earlier cited an EU diplomat as saying. “We’re still a long way from that”.

Johnson has consistently said he will not ask for a Brexit delay, reiterating the point on Friday.

“New deal or no deal – but no delay. #GetBrexitDone #LeaveOct31″, Johnson said in a tweet.

However, his government also acknowledged for the first time on Friday that Johnson will send a letter to EU asking for a Brexit delay if no divorce deal has been reached by October 19.

Johnson has not explained the apparent contradiction, with opponents believing he will seek some kind of legal escape route to avoid asking for an extension, or try to pressure the EU into refusing to agree to such a request.

Johnson‘s top adviser said the government will be observing developments over the coming week but will not change its negotiating position, The Times reported.

“Next week we are going to know how things turn out,” Dominic Cummings was quoted by The Times as telling other advisers.

“If the EU says no then we are not going to do what the last lot did and change our negotiating position. If we don’t get anything next week, we are gone.”

(Reuters)

British PM May Seeks More Time, Promises Brexit Deal Vote by March 12

As the Brexit crisis goes down to the wire, May said a so-called “meaningful vote” would not take place this week as expected.

Egypt: Prime Minister Theresa May put off a vote in parliament on her Brexit deal until as late as March 12 – just 17 days before Britain is due to leave the EU – setting up a showdown this week with lawmakers who accuse her of running out the clock.

As the Brexit crisis goes down to the wire, May said a so-called “meaningful vote” would not take place this week as expected. Parliament will still hold a series of Brexit votes on Wednesday, but May’s deal itself will not be on the table.

On her way to an EU-Middle East summit, May said she is close to bringing home changes to her agreement that would satisfy objections to it, but needed time for meetings with European leaders which meant it would not be ready this week.

“We won’t bring a meaningful vote to parliament this week but we will ensure that that happens by the 12th of March,” May told reporters on board her plane. “It is still within our grasp to leave the European Union with a deal on the 29th of March and that is what we are working to do.”

Opponents accuse her of deliberately running out the clock, so as to force parliament to choose between a deal it has already rejected or leaving the EU with no deal at all, which businesses say would destroy their supply chains.

Both May’s Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party are formally committed to exiting the EU in line with a 2016 referendum vote, but both parties are internally divided over how or even whether to do so.

Cabinet split

Before May set off for Egypt, three members of her cabinet publicly split with government policy and said they would side with rebels and opposition parties to stop a no-deal Brexit.

Yvette Cooper, an opposition Labour lawmaker who has proposed a bill that would block a no-deal Brexit, said May’s “last minute announcement that she won’t put a deal to parliament this week, and is leaving it until just two weeks before Brexit day, is utterly shambolic and irresponsible.”

“She cannot just keep drifting and dithering like this or there is a real risk our whole country tumbles off a cliff edge into a chaotic no deal that no one is ready for and that would hit food prices, medicine supplies, manufacturing and security.”

Some lawmakers will seek to grab control of Brexit in Wednesday’s series of votes, though such attempts have previously been defeated as May sought more time to get a deal.

Senior Labour figures said that the main opposition party was moving closer to supporting another Brexit referendum and could do so as soon as early as this week.

9 Labour lawmakers and three Conservatives quit their parties last week in the biggest shakeup of its kind in British politics for decades, raising the prospect of further defections from both parties.

The British parliament voted 432-202 against May’s deal in January, a defeat by the biggest margin in modern British history. May says she can still win support for it if EU leaders ease rules intended to ensure no hard land border ever appears between British-ruled Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland.

European Council President Donald Tusk told May that the EU needs clarity that whatever the bloc might offer would command a majority in the British parliament, before a summit of EU leaders scheduled for March 21-22, an EU official said.

EU officials have considered many theoretical scenarios, including an extension of Brexit for up to two years, though it is unclear if such a delay would resolve the current impasse.

The EU has ruled out reopening the withdrawal agreement. Both sides are looking at a possible legal addendum to reassure lawmakers who worry that the Irish border plans could keep Britain trapped in the EU’s orbit for years to come.

But Europeans sound increasingly frustrated at Britain’s political chaos: “You need two to dance tango, and I know how to dance,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said when asked if he was running out of things to give on Brexit. “I have a certain Brexit fatigue.”

Theresa May Seeks to Resolve Brexit Deadlock After Surviving No Confidence Vote

With the clock ticking down to March 29, the date set in law for Brexit, the UK is now in the deepest political crisis in half a century.

London: Prime Minister Theresa May won a confidence vote in the British parliament on Wednesday and then appealed to lawmakers from across the political divide to come together to try to break the impasse on a Brexit divorce agreement.

Lawmakers voted 325 to 306 that they had confidence in May’s government, just 24 hours after handing her European Union withdrawal deal a crushing defeat that left Britain’s exit from the bloc in disarray.

With the clock ticking down to March 29, the date set in law for Brexit, the UK is now in the deepest political crisis in half a century as it grapples with how, or even whether, to exit the European project it joined in 1973.

After the results of the confidence vote were announced to cheers from her Conservative lawmakers, May said she believed parliament had a duty to find a solution that delivered on the 2016 Brexit referendum result.

But with lawmakers (MPs) deadlocked on the way forward, the UK could face a disorderly “no-deal” Brexit, a delay to Brexit, or even another referendum on membership.

“Now MPs have made clear what they don’t want, we must all work constructively together to set out what parliament does want,” May said in a statement outside her Downing Street office.

Also Read: Theresa May Suffers a Historic Defeat as Parliament Crushes Brexit Deal by 230 Votes

“That’s why I am inviting MPs from all parties to come together to find a way forward. This is now the time to put self-interest aside.”

After the confidence vote, May met several party leaders, but the main opposition leader, Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, refused to hold talks unless a no-deal Brexit was ruled out.

The votes on Tuesday and Wednesday brought into sharp relief the problem May faces; trying to win over pro-EU supporters in her own and other parties without alienating those who keep her in power – for instance, by giving up the “no-deal Brexit” that they see as a crucial bargaining chip.

Hardline Conservative Brexit-supporters, who last month made an unsuccessful attempt to oust her as leader, and the Northern Irish party that props up her minority government will not countenance a deal that keeps close ties with the EU.

“The confidence and supply arrangement (to support May) of course is built upon delivering Brexit on the basis of our shared priorities,” said Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.

No Deal, No Talks

However, Corbyn said no positive talks were possible unless a no-deal Brexit was taken off the table. His party wants a permanent customs union with the EU, a close relationship with its single market and greater protections for workers and consumers.

May’s spokesman said she was not ruling out a no-deal option and that it was government policy to be outside an EU customs union. Critics said this meant May was not budging from the deal that had alienated all sides in parliament.

Other opposition parties wrote to Corbyn after the confidence vote to demand he now back a second referendum, which Labour has agreed should be considered if it cannot force an election.

A protester stands among European Union flags outside the Houses of Parliament, after Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal was rejected, in London, Britain, January 16, 2019. Credit: REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

However, he and other senior political figures fear that stopping Brexit could alienate the 17.4 million people who voted to leave.

Sterling was trading just off two-month highs against the euro after May won the confidence vote, with many investors believing the prospect of a no-deal exit had receded as parliament hardened its stance against it.

Companies warned of catastrophic job losses and chaos at ports if there was no deal. Trade with the EU would then default to basic World Trade Organization rules, which many argue would disrupt innumerable manufacturing supply chains relying on rapid, friction-free trade.

Ever since Britain voted by 52-48% to leave the EU in June 2016, the political class has been debating how to leave the European project forged by France and Germany after the devastation of World War Two.

“No More Games”

Tuesday’s crushing defeat appears to have killed off May’s two-year strategy of forging an amicable divorce in which a status-quo transition period would be followed by Britain operating an independent trade policy alongside close ties to the EU, the world’s biggest single market.

Also Read: What the Brexit Debacle Reveals About the UK’s Broken Political System

Other members of the EU, which combined have about six times Britain’s economic might, called for discussion but indicated there was little chance of fundamental change to the deal May had negotiated.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that “the time for playing games is now over”.

For the EU, already reeling from crises over debt and refugees, Brexit may be the biggest blow in its 60-year history, though its 27 other members have shown remarkable unity on the issue.

Brexit supporters anticipate some short-term economic pain but say Britain will then thrive if cut loose from what they cast as a doomed experiment in German-dominated unity.

Opponents of Brexit say it is folly that will weaken the West, make Britain poorer and torpedo what remains of its post-imperial clout.

(Reuters)