Tag: what is happening with brexit

Britain Set for December 12 Election to Break Brexit Stalemate

The election result will be announced in the early hours of Friday the 13th. If no party wins conclusively, the Brexit deadlock would continue.

London: Britain will hold its first December election in almost a century after Prime Minister Boris Johnson won approval from parliament on Tuesday for an early ballot aimed at breaking the Brexit deadlock.

After the European Union granted the third delay to the divorce that was originally supposed to take place on March 29, the UK, its parliament and its electorate remain divided on how, or indeed whether, to go ahead with Brexit.

Johnson, who had promised to deliver Brexit on October 31 “do or die”, demanded a December 12 election after parliament – where he has no majority – frustrated his attempts to ratify the last-minute divorce deal he struck with the EU earlier this month.

In a rare parliamentary success for Johnson after a string of defeats, his short bill calling for a December 12 election was approved 438 to 20 in the House of Commons. The bill now goes to the House of Lords.

“It’s time to unite the country and get Brexit done,” Johnson said after meeting Conservative Party lawmakers who cheered him.

Before the vote, Johnson had said parliament was obstructing Brexit and thus damaging the economy by preventing investment decisions and corroding faith in democracy.

A pro-Brexit supporter holds signs outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain October 29, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Henry Nicholls

The first Christmas election in Britain since 1923 would be highly unpredictable: Brexit has variously fatigued and enraged swathes of voters while eroding traditional loyalties to the two major parties, Conservative and Labour.

Some politicians feel an election so close to Christmas could irritate voters while campaigning and getting voters out could be hampered by cold winter weather and darkness setting in by mid-afternoon.

Ultimately, the electorate will have a choice between an emboldened Johnson pushing for his Brexit deal or a socialist government under Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn renegotiating the deal before another referendum.

The election result will be announced in the early hours of Friday the 13th. If no party wins conclusively, the Brexit deadlock would continue.

Also read: Boris Johnson Could Be More in Control Than He Seems

Christmas Election

After four years of arguing over Brexit, almost all British politicians now agree an election is needed to break the cycle of inaction that has shocked allies of a country once considered a bastion of stable Western capitalism and democracy.

An election, though, could decide the fate of Brexit as well as the main players – Johnson, 55, and his rival Corbyn, 70.

When Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, bet on an early election in 2017, she lost her slender majority – a failure that ultimately prevented her from ratifying her Brexit deal in parliament and sank her political career.

Conservative members of Parliament Nicholas Soames and Rory Stewart talk outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain October 29, 2019. Reuters/Henry Nicholls

Johnson’s Conservatives are ahead of Labour by an average of about 10 percentage points in polls this month, though pollsters underestimated the support for Brexit in 2016 and admit that the models they use are wilting beside the Brexit furnace.

Both major parties will have to fight on at least three fronts: against each other while the hardline Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage seeks to poach Brexit voters and the Liberal Democrats seek to win over opponents of Brexit.

“This will probably be the most unpredictable election I have ever known,” Anand Menon, director of The UK in a Changing Europe, told Reuters.

“Is it Brexit or is it not? We don’t know. Second, the election is as volatile as ever and, thirdly, the potential for tactical voting – and tactical voting to go wrong – is very high given the Leave-Remain split,” he said.

Also read: UK PM Johnson Slams Labour Party for Refusal to Back Election Bid

Brexit Up in the Air

Labour swung behind an election earlier on Tuesday.

“I’m ready for it,” Corbyn told parliament. He frames Labour as a socialist alternative to the inequality and close relations with US President Donald Trump that he says characterise Johnson’s premiership. “Change is coming.”

As Johnson moved closer to an election than he has ever been in his tumultuous three-month premiership, the EU granted a Brexit delay to Jan. 31 but warned it might be the last.

“The EU27 has formally adopted the extension. It may be the last one. Please make the best use of this time,” outgoing European Union Chairman Donald Tusk said on Twitter.

Among voters, there was some relief that the Brexit debate might be ending soon.

“We’ve just got to bring this to some sort of resolution,” commuter Matt Finch, 36, said outside London’s Charing Cross rail station on Tuesday. “We’ve had many votes in the last 12 months in parliament and I think a general election might be a way to sort it all out.”

(Reuters)

EU ‘Sorry’ to See UK Leave as Leaders Agree to Brexit Deal

Leaders of 27 EU countries have unanimously backed the Brexit deal at the EU summit in Brussels.

“Where there’s a will, there is a deal — we have one!” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker tweeted on Thursday, just hours ahead of a two-day EU summit in Brussels was set to commence.

After nearly three years of back and forth and just weeks before the UK’s October 31 deadline, the United Kingdom and the European Union announced they had struck a new Brexit deal Thursday morning, and by Thursday evening the deal had been unanimously endorsed by the 27 remaining countries of the EU.

Ball now in UK parliament’s court

The next task falls to the UK Parliament, which will sit for an extraordinary session on Saturday to vote on whether to approve the Brexit agreement.

Johnson said there was “a very good case for voting for this deal” on all sides of the House of Commons. “I’m very confident that when MPs of all parties look at this deal they’ll see the merits of supporting it,” he said.

However, Johnson’s new plan faces significant opposition in a deeply divided parliament, with his rivals — among them Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Brexit party leader Nigel Farage — rejecting the new plan immediately after it was announced.

Johnson also lacks the support of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which said the deal isn’t in Northern Ireland’s interest.

Johnson’s Conservatives do not have a majority in the 650-seat Parliament and will require at least 318 votes to get the deal ratified. The DUP has 10 votes. Parliament defeated a previous deal struck by Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, three times.

High stakes vote

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker made clear ahead of the EU summit that he had ruled out granting the UK another Brexit extension.

“There will be no prolongation,” Juncker said. “We have concluded a deal so there is not an argument for a further delay.”

Johnson said the deal allows the UK to leave the EU “in two weeks’ time” in a tweet earlier on Thursday.

A final Brexit deadline could raise the stakes in the House of Commons when it votes on the proposed deal. It’s designed to leave those parliamentarians reluctant to accept the deal as agreed by Johnson thinking that their choice is between this deal, and none at all, at the end of the month.

However, the decision on an extension is not Juncker’s to make, but that of the leaders of the other 27 EU member states.

Mixed emotions from EU officials

Juncker said he was pleased that an agreement had been reached but unhappy to see Britain go. “All in all, I am happy, relieved that we reached a deal,” he said. “But I am sad because Brexit is happening.”

It was a sentiment echoed by other players in the negotiations, including Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, and Donald Tusk, president of the European Council.

Also read: Johnson Hails ‘Great’ New Brexit Deal But DUP Says ‘No’

“On a more personal note, what I feel today is sadness,” Tusk told reporters. “Because in my heart, I will always be a Remainer. And I hope that if our British friends decide to return one day, our door will always be open.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said achieving the deal had been “real hard work,” and called the agreement “a compromise for all sides” and “an opportunity to have good, close relations with Britain in future as well.”

Merkel also said the EU and the UK need to wrap up a free trade agreement as soon as possible following the UK’s exit from the bloc.

“There is an essential difference compared with when Theresa May was prime minister,” said Merkel. “Then it was not clear how the future relations would look, whether membership of the customs union or not. Now it is quite clear.”

How is this deal different?

Concessions have been made on both sides, notably, on the UK’s side, that Northern Ireland will remain aligned to the standards of the internal market and the customs union, said DW correspondent Georg Matthes.

“If you look at the EU side, the main concession here really is that it will be UK customs officials who will be controlling that the EU’s customs laws will be applied when it comes to goods crossing from the UK into Northern Ireland,” he said.

In non-Brexit EU summit news

As the UK struggles to leave the bloc, Albania and North Macedonia are attempting to be allowed in. Merkel insists that she will make a case for opening accession negotiations with the two Balkan countries.

Macron has rejected those talks, even though the European Commission, Parliament and almost all EU member states feel the conditions for starting negotiations have been met. It’s not just a conflict between Macron and Merkel, but between France and the rest of the EU.

Personnel issues will also be a topic of discussion at the summit: Germany’s former-Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen was set to replace Juncker as the head of EU’s top executive body, the EU Commission, on November 1.

However, EU lawmakers have now decided to delay the switch by a month, after the deputies rejected three of von der Leyen’s nominees for the Commission, leaving her scrambling for replacements.

The article was originally published on DW. You can read it here.