Shadow Brexit secretary says impasse could be broken by allowing confirmatory vote
The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, has blamed “wannabe Tory leaders” for the breakdown of cross-party talks as he renewed his call for a second referendum on leaving the EU.
The government and Labour sought to blame each other after talks to find a compromise Brexit plan collapsed on Friday, leaving any remaining hopes of an imminent solution to the impasse in tatters.
Continue reading...Brexit party leader dismisses Nicola Sturgeon’s campaign for independence within EU
Nigel Farage has called on “genuine Scottish nationalists” to vote for his Brexit party in next week’s EU elections, as he described Nicola Sturgeon’s campaign for an independent Scotland within Europe as “the most dishonest political discourse anywhere in the world”.
As anti-racist protesters chanted outside the venue, Farage told cheering supporters at a rally in Edinburgh: “If you’re genuinely a nationalist lend your vote to the Brexit party, let’s get out of the EU and then have an honest debate about independence.”
Continue reading...Tories and Labour point to each other’s internal divisions after negotiations fail
The government and Labour have sought to blame each other after cross-party talks to find a compromise Brexit plan collapsed, leaving any remaining hopes of an imminent solution to the impasse in tatters.
While both sides insisted the discussions had taken place in good faith, Theresa May said a sticking point had been Labour splits over a second referendum.
Continue reading...17 May 1971: Mr Wilson and Mr Callaghan succeeded in persuading both pro- and anti-Market groups not to insist on firm decisions on either tactics or principle
Labour Party leaders last night came to the sensible conclusion that it was not worth splitting the Labour movement wide open over the Common Market when Mr Heath and the Conservative Party were already faced with the even more immediate and difficult problem of rallying a respectable Parliamentary majority for entry on the basis of Tory votes without the aid of Labour MPs.
That was, to all intents and purposes, the outcome of a full afternoon session of Labour’s national executive committee and the Shadow Cabinet of the Parliamentary Labour Party, at which Mr Wilson and Mr Callaghan succeeded in persuading both pro- and anti-Market groups not to insist on firm decisions on either tactics or principle. For the time being, the heat is out of the European issue inside the party.
Continue reading...1922 Committee agrees to let PM wait until after vote on withdrawal agreement bill in early June
Theresa May has agreed to set a timetable for her departure as prime minister in the first week of June, leading MPs to believe she will trigger a leadership contest before the summer.
Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, said she would agree a timetable for the election of a new leader after her Brexit legislation returned to parliament for a final attempt in the week of 3 June.
Continue reading...EU commission president says he should have spoken out on Vote Leave’s Brexit campaign
Jean-Claude Juncker has said he regrets failing to rebut claims made in the run-up to the Brexit referendum about the hundreds of millions of pounds the UK would save each week if it left the EU.
In an interview in which the European commission president also criticised the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, over his recent Brussels-bashing, Juncker said he could not understand why he had failed to speak out.
Continue reading...Three in 10 think conflict among EU countries is a realistic possibility, survey finds
More than half of Europeans believe the EU is likely to collapse within a generation, despite support for the bloc hitting heights not recorded in more than a quarter of a century.
In France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, Romania, Greece, the Czech Republic and Poland, a majority of people surveyed thought EU disintegration was a “realistic possibility” in the next 10 to 20 years.
Continue reading...German chancellor also shares views on Brexit and climate crisis in interview
Europe must reposition itself to stand up to the challenges posed by its three big global rivals, China, Russia and the US, Angela Merkel has said before her final European election as German chancellor.
Facing challenges that range from Russian interference in elections to China’s economic clout and the US’s monopoly over digital services, Europe needs to get better at putting up a united front, Merkel said in a wide-ranging interview shared with the Guardian.
Continue reading...Boyko Borisov has praise even for Theresa May, but is less keen on questions about corruption
At a time when some politicians in central and eastern Europe are profiting from hostility towards Brussels, Bulgaria’s Boyko Borisov is taking a different path, aiming to winning favour from Europe through charm and flattery.
“I’ve been all over the world and I can say that there’s no better place to live than the EU,” he said during a recent interview with the Guardian in Sofia.
Continue reading...Prime minister under pressure from 14 senior party figures to abandon cross-party pact
Theresa May’s Brexit talks with Labour have been criticised as a “blind alley” as she came under intense pressure from 14 senior party figures to abandon the idea of a cross-party pact.
The former defence secretary Michael Fallon said the talks should be stopped, after he joined 12 other former cabinet ministers and Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, in warning No 10 against any deal that involved a customs union.
Continue reading...PM told that any deal involving customs union would be ‘bad politics and bad policy’
Theresa May is under intense pressure to abandon cross-party Brexit talks, after a group of senior Conservative figures, including leadership contenders Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab, issued a strongly worded warning against any deal that involved a customs union.
May’s cabinet, and Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, are both due to take stock of the talks on Tuesday, with neither side optimistic about the prospects for an agreement that could secure a majority in parliament.
Continue reading...Jeremy Hunt warns of conflict erupting in the Gulf by accident after Saudi ships sabotaged
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has been urged by European leaders to show maximum restraint towards Iran after Saudi Arabia confirmed that two of its vessels had been mysteriously sabotaged on Sunday in the waters off Oman by an unidentified assailant.
Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, warned Pompeo in a hastily arranged meeting in Brussels: “We are living in crucial delicate moments where the most responsible attitude to take and should be is maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation on the military side.”
Continue reading...Senior Tory and Labour politicians have issued frantic calls to their voters to back them in next week’s European elections after a new poll showed support for Nigel Farage’s Brexit party had soared to a level higher than for the two main parties put together.
Related: ‘Labour should be pushing for a second referendum - I may vote Green’
Continue reading...Demonstrators say Brexit and austerity have increased support for leaving the UK
Thousands have demonstrated in Cardiff to call for an independent Wales in what organisers said was the first such march in Welsh history.
Some protesters said they had been lifelong supporters of independence, while others said they were converted by Brexit and austerity. A recent poll for ITV Wales showed that 12% of people support self-government.
Continue reading...Ex-minister hits out at campaigners pushing for a fresh vote
Boris Johnson has accused supporters of a second Brexit referendum of “doing the work of the Scottish National party” by making a second Scottish independence vote more likely and threatening the union.
In a speech in Aberdeen on Friday, the former foreign secretary and perennial Conservative leadership hopeful sought to turn the tables on remainers who argue that Brexit would increase the risk of a second independence referendum.
Continue reading...EU chief says good reason to believe leave vote could be reversed in second referendum
The chances of the UK staying in the EU are as high as 30% as the country would be likely to reject Brexit in a second referendum, the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, has said.
The bloc’s most senior official claimed the British public had only truly debated Brexit after the 2016 referendum and there was significant reason to believe the leave vote could be reversed.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Jeremy Corbyn launching Labour’s Euro elections campaign
Nicola Sturgeon has urged Scottish voters to treat both Labour and the Conservatives as pro-Brexit parties in the European elections, claiming only the Scottish National party has the weight to fight to remain in the EU.
Describing the vote on 23 May as the most important European election in Scotland’s history, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister also reiterated her call for a fresh referendum on Scottish independence before 2021, regardless of whether Brexit happens.
It is striking, I would say depressingly, just how close together Labour and the Tories are on Brexit. On this defining issue of our time, Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May have so much more in common than they like to pretend. They oth want to take Scotland and the UK out of the European Union.
There is no escaping the fact that Labour is a pro-Brexit party, just as the Tories are a pro-Brexit party.
Continue reading...About 2.8 planets would be needed if rest of world followed suit, biocapacity data shows
Europe is using up natural resources so quickly that the planet’s ability to replenish itself over the year would be exhausted by this Friday if everyone consumed as much, a new analysis has found.
It would take 2.8 planets to extend the EU’s rate of consumption of fuels, food, fibres, land and timber to all the world’s people, according to data collected by WWF and the Global Footprint Network.
Continue reading...Ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Ghent to pipe greenhouse gas into vast under-sea cavities
Three of the largest ports in Europe – Rotterdam, Antwerp and Ghent – are to be used to capture and bury 10m tonnes of CO2 emissions under the North Sea in what will be the biggest project of its kind in the world.
The ports, which account for one-third of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg region, would be used to pipe the gas into a porous reservoir of sandstone about two miles (3km) below the seabed.
Continue reading...President suggests US could help revive Iran’s economy in return for no-nuclear weapons pledge
Donald Trump has offered Iran direct talks, saying its leaders should “call me” and suggested the US would help revive the country’s economy as long as Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons.
The impromptu offer by the US president, if serious, represents a dramatic lowering of the bar set by his administration for lifting extensive sanctions, including an oil embargo. Iran is already party to a 2015 agreement that strictly limits its nuclear programme and places it under close scrutiny. Trump withdrew the US from the Obama-era treaty a year ago.
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