Category Archives: Politics

Sunderland: where the terraces are a refuge from the uncertainties of Brexit

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Nissan’s bombshell for the city has dented confidence, but citizens draw strength from their football team

Andrew Cammiss got up at four yesterday morning to set off on a 250-mile trip to Oxford for a third division football match. “I took my lad Niall who’s named after my favourite player,” he reveals. Along with other club legends Peter Reid and Kevin Phillips, an image of Niall Quinn is inked on the 39-year-old superfan’s body. “It takes my mind off things. Tattoos show my love for the lads.”

By “things” he means the latest kick in the teeth to his home city. Nissan has scrapped plans to manufacture the X-Trail sport-utility vehicle there. Despite reassurances that the cancellation does not imperil the plant, which employs about 7,000 people, Cammiss fears the worst. “I’ve a cousin and uncle who work there. Everyone knows someone who works there. If Nissan goes we’ll be gutted for a bit, but we’ll get used to it. There’s always the football.”

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Sack Grayling over the Brexit ferry fiasco, demand MPs

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Cross-party calls for transport secretary’s dismissal follow collapse of £13.8m contract to Seaborne Freight

Theresa May faced cross-party calls to sack her transport secretary, Chris Grayling, last night, after the calamitous collapse of a no-deal Brexit ferry contract handed to a company with no ships.

Senior Tories said the prime minister had turned “a blind eye” to Grayling’s decision to award the £13.8m contract to Seaborne Freight to run ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend, despite widespread derision and accusations that it had been awarded illegally.

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Brexit crisis command centre starts hiring civilians

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Exclusive: recruiters told military-style operation could stay open for two years

The government has started to recruit civilians to work in an emergency command and control centre being set up to make sure Britain runs smoothly in the aftermath of a potential no-deal Brexit.

Briefing notes issued by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to recruitment agencies state the EU Exit Emergencies Centre (EUXE) could stay open “potentially for two years”.

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No-deal Brexit: UK exporters risk being locked out of world’s harbours

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Goods dispatched in coming days may not arrive until after 29 March deadline

British exporters sending goods to far-flung destinations in the coming days risk being locked out of harbours around the world as a no-deal Brexit looms, business leaders have warned.

Independent trade experts and the UK’s biggest business groups said exporters could be dispatching goods from UK ports imminently that would not arrive until after the 29 March deadline. This raised the prospect of goods being stuck in ports or facing hefty additional costs in the event of a disorderly Brexit.

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May clashes with Tusk and Juncker but EU agrees to fresh talks

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No 10 and EU announce new negotiations on the ‘speed’ of post-Brexit trade talks

Theresa May clashed with Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk during Brexit talks in Brussels but has secured agreement for a fresh round of formal negotiations to break the impasse.

A meeting with the European commission president was described as “robust”, with Juncker resolutely rebuffing May’s demand for a renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement.

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Fightback against the billionaires: the radicals taking on the global elite

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When Rutger Bregman and Winnie Byanyima spoke out about taxes at Davos they went viral. They talk with Winners Take All author Anand Giridharadas about why change is coming

Rutger: Winnie, why did the comments you and I made about billionaires and taxes at Davos go viral? Why do things seem to be changing right now?

Winnie: Why did we go viral? I think we said things that people have wanted to hear, especially on a big stage where powerful politicians and companies are represented. And they are rarely said. People go there and speak in coded words and praise themselves and spin out the stats that suit them, but for once we spoke plainly about the challenges that people face.

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‘Aristocrats are anarchists’: why the wealthy back Trump and Brexit

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Nationalism has been sold as ‘a war for the little guy’ but Brooke Harrington argues that it serves the interests of elites

We know that politics makes strange bedfellows, but few alliances are more surprising than the one linking the ultra-rich to ultra-nationalists. What could the wealthiest people in the world have in common with those upending politics in the name of the “forgotten man”? As I have found in over a decade of research on global elites and tax havens, a shared political project unites them: both seek to weaken or dismantle international alliances that constrain them.

For ultra-nationalists, this project means “taking back control” of their governments from foreigners. For the ultra-rich, it means eliminating the controls that international organizations and alliances have imposed on them individually and as a class: a world without the EU, or without the Global Magnitsky Act, is one in which the people who appeared in the Panama Papers can get even richer and expand their influence over an increasing share of the world’s governments and resources.

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MPs and peers call for end to indefinite detention

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Joint committee on human rights says people should be held for no longer than 28 days

Indefinite detention in immigration centres is traumatic and the practice should be stopped, with people ideally held for no longer than 28 days, a parliamentary committee has recommended.

In a highly critical report, the joint committee on human rights (JCHR), made up of MPs and peers, described the UK’s immigration system as “slow, unfair and expensive to run”, and said detention should be authorised only by decision-makers independent of the Home Office.

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Corbyn lays out Labour’s terms for backing May on Brexit

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Letter offers Labour’s support if PM makes five binding commitments – including joining a customs union

Jeremy Corbyn has written to the prime minister, offering to throw Labour’s support behind her Brexit deal if she makes five legally binding commitments – including joining a customs union.

The Labour leader held private talks with Theresa May last week for the first time since her deal was rejected by a historic margin of 230 votes in January.

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A special place in hell? Donald Tusk didn’t go far enough | Martin Kettle

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Not only were the Brexiters clueless: they didn’t give a stuff about Ireland. But this will come back to haunt the Tories

Donald Tusk should be criticised not for his malice, but his moderation. The European council president triggered a tsunami of confected outrage from leavers today when he observed, with some justice, that there should be a special place in hell for those who promoted Brexit without a plan. But he should have said far more. He should have added that, within that special place, there should be an executive suite of sleepless torment for those politicians who promoted Brexit without ever giving a stuff about Ireland.

Related: Dear Theresa May, your Brexit plan is doomed. Here’s a deal that will work | Gina Miller

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Rail tsar says stop taking customers for granted

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Keith Williams criticises micromanaging by government as one of the failings driving passengers away

Britain’s rail industry will “drive passengers away” if it continues to operate as it does now, according to the man leading the government-commissioned review into the working of the railways.

Keith Williams, the former British Airways chief executive, also suggested that the government had compounded problems by “micromanaging the industry” through ever more specific rail franchises.

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May’s pledge on Irish border threatens to reopen Tory rift

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Brexiters fear PM’s Belfast speech steps back from previous assurances

Theresa May fired a warning shot at Brexit supporters on Tuesday, insisting there was “no suggestion” Britain would leave the EU without an insurance provision to protect against a hard border in Northern Ireland.

At a speech in Belfast, May would only accept that technology could “play a part” in any alternative arrangements and that she would not countenance anything that would disrupt the lives of border communities.

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May to promise Brexit deal that Northern Ireland can support

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Prime minister’s speech in Belfast to underscore pledge to avoid hard border

Theresa May will attempt to reassure businesses and Northern Irish politicians by insisting during a visit to Belfast that she can find a way to deliver a Brexit deal MPs can support.

The prime minister is due to chair a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning before departing for a two-day visit to Northern Ireland to underscore her commitment to avoiding a hard border with Ireland.

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Brexit: EU official doubts backstop assurances will persuade MPs – Politics live

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Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

Turning back to Marin Selmayr for a moment, Mina Andreeva, the European commission’s deputy chief spokeswoman has posted a tweet that seems intended to mollify Brexiters upset by the tone of his intervention earlier. She was responding to Fraser Nelson, editor of the pro-Brexit Spectator.

For the sake of completeness:
1/ @MartinSelmayr made clear that @MichelBarnier is @EU_Commission’s chief negotiator. https://t.co/AILUEJwCit
2/ @EU_Commission always open to listen - in full respect of national parliaments. Our position is expressed here: https://t.co/GKRKYR7pfM

Lord Trimble, the former Ulster Unionist party leader who won a Nobel peace prize for his role in the Good Friday agreement, has announced that he and others “are planning to take the government to court over the protocol on Northern Ireland - which includes the so-called “backstop” - as it breaches the terms of the Good Friday agreement.”

The announcement came in a three sentence press statement from Global Britain, a pro-Brexit thinktank. It said:

The Nobel peace prize winner and architect of the Good Friday agreement plans to initiate judicial review proceedings to ensure that the protocol is removed from the withdrawal agreement.

Lord Trimble says that alternative arrangements - as outlined in A Better Deal And A Better Future - should be put in place instead.

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Brexiter MPs unmoved by EU hint at legal assurance on backstop

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Cross-party group unable to tell EU official that MPs would back deal with added protocol

A suggestion by one of the EU’s most powerful officials of possible further legal assurances on the Irish backstop has failed to win over Brexiter MPs, leading to heightened talk of the UK leaving the bloc with no deal.

After a meeting with Martin Selmayr on Monday, the cross-party Brexit select committee emerged clear that the European commission secretary general had floated the possibility of a legally binding adjunct to the withdrawal agreement.

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MPs slam Android-only app for EU citizens to apply for settled UK status

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Labour MPs and MEPs call on home secretary Sajid Javid to act over ‘digital discrimination’

Seventy-one Labour MPs and MEPs have accused the Home Office of “digital discrimination” for creating an Android-only app for EU citizens to apply for settled status.

In an open letter to home secretary Sajid Javid, frontbenchers including Luke Pollard, shadow environment minister, and Paul Blomfield, shadow Brexit minister, say the system “flies in the face of fair treatment of EU nationals”.

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Fear and anger stalk thousands of Britons living on Costa del Sol

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For 300,000 UK citizens in Spain, which does not allow dual citizenship, pension and healthcare worries are hard to resolve

A couple of years ago, Michael Soffe seemed to have a charmed life. A gourmet tour guide and wedding planner, he’d made a home and built a business in sun-soaked Málaga, the increasingly hip city at the heart of Spain’s southern coast.

Now he fears that everything he’s worked for is hanging in the balance as heedless politicians push Brexit negotiations to the brink. His biggest worry is that his partner, a two-time cancer survivor still in treatment, could lose his right to public healthcare.

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Queen to be evacuated if Brexit turns ugly – reports

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Cold war plans revived to move royals to safe locations away from London if unrest follows no deal

British officials have revived cold war emergency plans to relocate the royal family should there be riots in London if Britain suffers a disruptive departure from the European Union, two Sunday newspapers have reported.

“These emergency evacuation plans have been in existence since the cold war but have now been repurposed in the event of civil disorder following a no-deal Brexit,” the Sunday Times said, quoting an unnamed source from the government’s Cabinet Office, which handles sensitive administrative issues.

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Nissan shelving plans to build new X-Trail in UK, claims report

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Firm plans to move production claims Sky News, raising concerns about Brexit impact

Nissan has refused to comment on reports that it is abandoning plans to build a new model of one of its flagship vehicles at its Sunderland plant.

The Japanese car manufacturer said in 2016 it would be building the new version of the X-Trail SUV at the factory along with its next-generation Qashqai, prompting claims that Nissan and the government had struck a “sweetheart deal” to protect the company from any post-Brexit EU tariff wall.

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McDonnell accuses PM of ‘pork-barrel’ politics with Brexit ‘bribery’

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Shadow chancellor criticises May over reports she pledged extra cash for leave-voting areas if MPs back Brexit deal

John McDonnell has criticised Theresa May’s rumoured approach to persuading Labour MPs to vote for her Brexit deal as “pork-barrel” politics, saying: “If there is money there to spend on our constituencies, it should be done anyway.”

The shadow chancellor’s accusation follows reports that the government is preparing to plough extra funding into deprived areas that supported leave, with the Nottinghamshire MP John Mann claiming that a set of job-creation measures targeted at former industrial towns would make it “very difficult for Labour MPs in leave areas to vote against the deal unless they want a second referendum”.

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