Category Archives: Brexit

Ursula von der Leyen makes final pledges to secure EU’s top job

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Candidate to lead European commission seeks to win over MEPs and seal knife-edge vote

The woman seeking to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as the European commission president has made last-minute pledges on the climate crisis, Brexit, an EU minimum wage and gender quotas for company boards as she faces a knife-edge vote on her candidacy.

In leaked letters to the leaders of two of the EU parliament’s main political groups, Ursula von der Leyen, who was nominated two weeks ago by the heads of state and government for the top EU post, has sought to win over critical left-leaning MEPs at the risk of alienating some on the right.

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Amber Rudd embraces no-deal Brexit as ministers pitch to Johnson

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Cabinet members seek jobs under new PM with Liz Truss eyeing role of chancellor

Boris Johnson has begun receiving very public job applications from would-be cabinet ministers, with Liz Truss pitching to be a tax-slashing chancellor and Amber Rudd ditching her opposition to a no-deal Brexit in a bid to stay on as work and pensions secretary.

With Johnson on the brink of No 10, senior Tories have begun laying out their credentials for positions in his potential cabinet – some with more hope than others.

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Ursula von der Leyen signals she will not reopen Brexit talks

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Nominee to lead European commission also says ‘precious’ backstop must be defended

Ursula von der Leyen, the nominee to lead the European commission, has signalled she will not reopen Brexit talks with the next British prime minister and stressed the “precious” Irish backstop must be defended.

She said she still hoped the UK would remain in the European Union, while indicating she had no intention to renegotiate the withdrawal deal agreed by Theresa May and EU leaders.

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MPs vote in favour of extending same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland by 383 to 73 – live news

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Rolling coverage of the day’s political news, including the row over the UK ambassador’s leaked memos and latest on Tory leadership contest

Jeremy Hunt, the underdog in the Tory leadership contest, has told President Trump on Twitter his comments about Theresa May “disrespectful and wrong”.

1/2 @realDonaldTrump friends speak frankly so I will: these comments are disrespectful and wrong to our Prime Minister and my country. Your diplomats give their private opinions to @SecPompeo and so do ours! You said the UK/US alliance was the greatest in history and I agree... https://t.co/hNeBWmyyVN

2/2...but allies need to treat each other with respect as @theresa_may has always done with you. Ambassadors are appointed by the UK government and if I become PM our Ambassador stays.

MPs have voted to introduce same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland, unless the power-sharing executive is revived by 21 October, by 383 votes to 73 - a majority of 310.

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Corbyn says Labour would back remain in Brexit referendum

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Email to members stops short of setting out party’s stance in event of early general election

Jeremy Corbyn has sought to draw a line under Labour’s Brexit travails by announcing a “settled” policy of backing remain in any referendum called on a Conservative deal.

The Labour leader has been under intense pressure to shift to an overtly anti-Brexit stance, but has insisted on consulting the party’s stakeholders in recent weeks, including the trade unions.

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Unions agree Labour should back remain in referendum on Tory deal

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Party poised to announce move in surprise consensus but will still seek deal if elected in time

Labour is poised to declare it will campaign for remain in a second referendum on any deal put to parliament by a Conservative prime minister, after trade union leaders including Unite’s Len McCluskey backed a change of policy.

The joint position agreed by the unions on Monday would not commit Labour to an explicitly pro-remain position in all circumstances: unions also agreed Labour should seek to deliver a Brexit deal if the party won an election before the UK left the EU.

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Boris Johnson: I’ll make UK ‘match fit’ for no-deal Brexit

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Tory leadership frontrunner pledges to leave the EU by 31 October ‘come what may’

Boris Johnson has pledged to get the UK “match fit for no deal” to ensure it can leave the EU on 31 October “come what may”.

The Conservative leadership frontrunner said there would be “no second chances” as he stressed that the Halloween deadline was real, “not fake”, in a comment aimed at his rival Jeremy Hunt.

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Scottish secretary warns Johnson: no-deal Brexit could split UK

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David Mundell says Nicola Sturgeon would use October exit to push for independence

Boris Johnson is being warned that embracing a disruptive no-deal Brexit would fuel nationalism in Scotland and risk the future of the union, as both opponents and supporters predict that he will now claim a decisive victory in the Tory leadership election.

Related: Brexit must work for the whole UK to see off Scottish nationalism

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Brexit: Hammond warns Johnson and Hunt that parliament will block no deal – live news

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Follow the day’s political developments, including the latest on the Conservative leadership race as 160,000 Tory members begin voting

Boris Johnson has apologised for offending Scots, while condemning the SNP’s record in government and insisting that a no-deal Brexit is “extremely unlikely” in an interview in the Press and Journal.

Asked about a series of magazine articles in which he described being a Scottish MP as a “political disability” and said that “government by a Scot is just not conceivable”, Johnson replied:

“Of course I am sorry if people take offence at distorted quotations from old newspaper articles – but one of the things I want to make clear is that Conservatives must reach out beyond the Westminster bubble and that means not just speaking in waffle and jargon”.

Boris Johnson has been shearing sheep in North Yorkshire before the hustings in Darlington today.

Good luck @BorisJohnson #BackBoris pic.twitter.com/2dqd2FRCbK

Our house, two Tory members voted for Boris today ... #backboris pic.twitter.com/2mf5zeM0i9

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Ann Widdecombe likens Brexit to emancipation of slaves

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Widdecombe becomes first Brexit party MEP to speak in new European parliament

The former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe has likened the UK’s departure from the EU to the emancipation of slaves, as she became the first Brexit party MEP to speak in the new European parliament.

With her leader, Nigel Farage, on her right, Widdecombe said the recent negotiations among the EU’s heads of state and government over the leadership of the bloc’s institutions confirmed the need for Britain to leave.

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With Brexit just one of EU’s headaches, Merkel avoids rocking the boat

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As another five-year term begins, the bloc is straining for unity across a range of issues

When the German chancellor was asked this week why she would not railroad Italy and the so-called Visegrád group of countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary – into accepting the former Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans, a critic of populist governments, as European commission president, Angela Merkel’s answer was telling.

“The Brexit is looming on the horizon,” Merkel said in reference to the need to avoid tensions when appointing the next head of the commission. “Other important issues are on the table. I think we need to treat each other with care.”

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Is a new generation taking over the Democratic party? – podcast

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Kamala Harris was the big winner of the first round of Democratic party debates in the US. This week, her poll numbers surged and so did donations to her campaign. But as Lauren Gambino in Washington notes, it was bad news for the frontrunners as Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders faltered. Also today: Daniel Boffey on the new cast of characters taking over the EU’s top jobs

The race for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination is intensifying after two rounds of televised debates in which the candidates squared up to each other on major issues and their past records. The big winner was the California senator Kamala Harris, who denounced the record of the frontrunner, Joe Biden, on race.

The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino joins Anushka Asthana to look across the diverse field of potential presidential nominees and the debates that highlighted the generational and ideological divides in the party.

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Brexit: Starmer tells Johnson MPs will ‘stand in his way’ to stop no deal

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Shadow minister says research shows even a no-deal Brexit would need Commons approval

Keir Starmer has warned Boris Johnson that MPs will “do everything to stand in his way” if he tries to force through a “bad deal or a no-deal Brexit”.

Johnson, the frontrunner in the race to be Britain’s next prime minister, has suggested he will “disaggregate” Theresa May’s “otherwise defunct” withdrawal agreement and implement its less contentious elements.

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In praise of shame: how Trump and Johnson show we need it more than ever

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It has become associated with online mobs and prudishness, but shame can be a powerful tool to change our culture and hold governments and corporations to account

“First holiday snap!” read the faux-cheery caption on the picture Laura Muldoon posted, featuring a bunch of young men on a plane, one flipping the V sign and another giving the finger to the camera.

Muldoon, who was flying on Ryanair with her girlfriend to Spain for a wedding, tweeted that she had just been called a “miserable bitch”, a “dyke” and a “lesbo” after complaining about rowdy behaviour from fellow passengers. The picture went viral and was picked up by newspapers. Before long, some of the alleged perpetrators had been identified publicly, their social media feeds combed for incriminating details, their mothers tracked down for comment – named and shamed, along with the airline whose staff Muldoon accused of failing to intervene sufficiently.

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Angela Smith launches bid to commission report on no-deal Brexit risks

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Labour’s leader in House of Lords at head of cross-party effort to establish joint committee of MPs and peers

Labour’s leader in the House of Lords, Angela Smith, is spearheading a cross-party bid to force the government to set up a powerful new committee to report by September on the risks of a no-deal Brexit.

Both candidates in the race to be Britain’s next prime minister are saying they are prepared to take Britain out of the EU without a deal if they cannot secure concessions from Brussels.

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Theresa May makes veiled attack on Boris Johnson’s Brexit policy

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PM says Britain must leave EU with ‘a good deal’ in apparent rebuke to ‘do or die’ comment

Theresa May has made a thinly veiled attack on Boris Johnson’s “do or die” approach to leaving the EU on 31 October, insisting that the right approach for Britain was to leave with a deal.

Attending her last EU summit in Brussels as prime minister on Sunday, May took aim at the approach of the Tory leadership frontrunner, who has taken an increasingly hardline approach in recent days.

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Boris Johnson ‘might never enter No 10’ if MPs withdraw support

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Constitutional experts say new Tory leader could be blocked from becoming prime minister without a Commons majority

Boris Johnson could be stopped from becoming prime minister even if he is elected as the new Conservative leader, two of Britain’s leading constitutional experts have said.

With Tory MPs threatening to withdraw support for the party under his stewardship, Johnson is warned that he could be prevented from ever entering Downing Street should it become clear he cannot command a majority in the House of Commons.

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How Brexit party won Euro elections on social media – simple, negative messages to older voters

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Analysis highlights key to success of Farage party and identifies dozens of pro-Brexit bot accounts

The Brexit party used simple messaging, an active social media presence and a “overwhelmingly negative” attack to win the online battle before the European elections, according to a new analysis of the campaign.

Nigel Farage’s party accounted for 51% of all shared content on Facebook and Twitter during the campaign, despite only producing 13% of the content. The analysis, by the 89up digital agency, said the “scale of their success went beyond what we were expecting”.

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Riven with tensions, Europe is in for a stormy and fractious autumn

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As the bloc struggles to agree its future strategy, leaders remain unelected, and its budget and emissions targets are up in the air

Angela Merkel has the shakes. Emmanuel Macron has the collywobbles. And still Europe has no idea who will be in charge as it contemplates a stormy autumn strewn with political booby traps. In Britain, the Brexit deadline of 31 October is the only date that matters. But the EU, fragmented, disputatious and wounded to an extent unusual even by its fractious standards, is taking one day at a time.

Sunday’s special summit is a case in point. It was convened by an exasperated Donald Tusk, the outgoing European council president, after this month’s regular heads-of-government meeting failed to agree on his successor or who will fill other key posts, including European commission president and president of the European central bank. Now they are having another try.

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UK must decide next step on Brexit, says France’s Europe minister

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Amélie de Montchalin says EU 27 countries are not putting pressure on Britain over Brexit

France’s minister for European affairs, Amélie de Montchalin, has said it is up to the UK to decide the next step on Brexit and no single European Union country was pressuring London, least of all France.

Asked to respond to a report that Boris Johnson, the Conservative leadership favourite, had called the French “turds” over Brexit, De Montchalin declined to comment, saying she was unfamiliar with the word.

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