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...Suggestions that the war in Syria is winding down must sound like a sick joke to the people of Ras al-Ain. Their village, in north-western Idlib province, was targeted in an air raid last week. Five residents were killed, including three children, and at least 20 others were injured.
A local man, Hussein al-Sheikh, described to Al Jazeera reporter Farah Najjar how a building collapsed as the children ran for cover: “I was standing near the front door watching the kids play. Suddenly we heard another explosion... It was a difficult scene to watch. I can’t express what I saw.”
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...Paralysis over Brexit means the country is burying its head in the sand over the very real challenges ahead
The European elections Theresa May never intended Britain to participate in are now only two weeks away. They are inevitably being fought as a proxy contest for Brexit by all the political parties. The results will be interpreted as a verdict on Brexit too, just as last week’s English local elections have been, and probably in much the same careless way.
Yet it would be a stretch to pretend that, for once in our recent history, the UK’s European elections are actually focusing on Britain’s and Europe’s place in the 21st-century world. The truth is far less flattering. These elections can better be understood as another episode in the national – and, in particular, Conservative – trauma over the historic decline of British power, of which the referendum was an interim climax. The elections are therefore unlikely to be cathartic or cleansing. On the contrary, they are dragging us deeper into the ongoing psychodrama that was intensified by the vote in 2016.
Continue reading...Ministers to sign agreement securing rights conferred under common travel area
The rights of Irish people in the UK and British citizens in Ireland are to be guaranteed in a Brexit side deal to be signed by the countries’ two governments.
Sources say the memorandum of understanding will put the rights already conferred on citizens of both nations under the common travel area (CTA) on to a more secure footing.
Continue reading...Corbyn faces opposition from at least 60 MPs to a customs pact with May without a second vote
Jeremy Corbyn will not be able to get enough of his MPs to back a Brexit deal without the promise of a second referendum, even if Theresa May makes a big offer on a customs union and workers’ rights this week, senior Labour figures believe.
Senior party sources said they believe two-thirds of Labour MPs, including several shadow cabinet ministers and many more frontbenchers, would refuse to back a deal without a people’s vote attached.
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor says he has no trust in PM and likens Brexit talks to dealing with firm that is going bust
The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has poured cold water on Theresa May’s plan to offer a temporary customs union to win Labour over to a Brexit deal, saying the cross-party talks were like “trying to enter a contract with a company going into administration”.
McDonnell said his party wanted to do a deal as quickly as possible but would require a permanent customs union to provide stability for businesses, not just an interim arrangement until the next election.
Continue reading...Next up: Brexit hijacks the European elections
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Continue reading...They thought they’d be out of Brussels weeks ago – instead they continue to work in limbo. We followed four through months of near-exits and false dawns
When the Newcastle upon Tyne result came in, Linda McAvan knew it was all over. It was 23 June 2016 and, after a day knocking on doors, the Labour MEP and remain campaigner was at her local count in Sheffield. Things started to go wrong before midnight. Newcastle was meant to be a comfortable victory, but remain only scraped home. Then Sunderland voted to leave. Across McAvan’s Yorkshire and Humber constituency, counts were called: Craven, Scarborough, Sheffield; leave, leave, leave. In the small hours, David Dimbleby called it: “We’re out.” At a stroke, 73 British members of the European parliament were handed their redundancy papers.
These MEPs, who make up nearly 10% of the 751 members of the European parliament, did not lose their seats immediately: this was just the start of the UK’s odyssey to leave the European Union. While the past three years have seen Westminster convulsed by cabinet resignations, missed deadlines and political deadlock, British MEPs have carried on their business more or less as usual. Now, they face the once-unimaginable prospect of a fresh European election – an event that some hope will be a proxy referendum, while Nigel Farage seeks to repeat his 2014 landslide with a new Brexit party.
Continue reading...Findings contradict assumption UK is more hostile than European neighbours
British people are more persuaded of the benefits of immigration than any other major European nation, according to a global survey, which has also found that almost half of Britons think immigrants are either positive or neutral for the country.
The YouGov–Cambridge Globalism survey found that 28% of Britons believed the benefits of immigration outweighed the costs, compared with 24% in Germany, 21% in France and 19% in Denmark. A further 20% of British people believed the costs and benefits were about equal, while 16% were not sure.
Continue reading...Uncertainty and the falling pound are jeopardising aid that millions of people worldwide rely on, says the shadow development minister
Since the 2016 referendum we have all learned a lot more about the depth of the relationship between the UK and the EU; whether it’s joint cooperation on research, or the potential impact of leaving the EU on agriculture exports.
When considering the effects of Brexit, parliamentarians have focused their attention on our constituencies and the country as a whole. International development has only raised its head in discussions of post-Brexit trade deals.
Continue reading...Labour NEC resists pressure to unequivocally support second referendum in EU election manifesto
Jeremy Corbyn has faced down a challenge spearheaded by his deputy, Tom Watson, for Labour to signal its unequivocal backing for a second Brexit referendum in the forthcoming European election campaign.
In a move that sparked an immediate backlash among remain-supporters, Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC), announced that its manifesto for the election would be “fully in line” with its longstanding policy.
Continue reading...Plan could lose support of more Tory MPs than it gains from Labour, says foreign secretary
A Brexit deal with Labour to enter a customs union could cost the Conservatives the support of as many of their own MPs as they would gain from Labour, Jeremy Hunt has said as pressure mounts on Theresa May’s leadership over the cross-party talks.
Related: Brexit: Tory MPs won't accept cross-party compromise involving customs union, says Hunt - live news
Continue reading...Chinese firm’s technology is security risk, says Strayer after council gives partial go-ahead
A US official has warned that the UK’s leaked proposal to adopt Huawei technology for 5G mobile phone networks risks affecting intelligence cooperation with the United States, prompting further criticism from Conservatives opposed to the plan.
Robert Strayer, a deputy assistant secretary at the US state department, said on Monday that Huawei “was not a trusted vendor” and any use of its technology in 5G networks was a risk, contradicting the British stance.
Continue reading...PM raises prospect of more indicative votes as Labour and Tories disagree on customs union
The government is unlikely to try to force through the Brexit deal using the withdrawal agreement bill and will instead try to devise a way to forge a compromise through new indicative votes if talks with Labour break down.
Theresa May’s spokesman said cross-party talks would continue as long as there was “still a prospect of reaching a single position to put to parliament”, but added that the prime minister would then look to bring forward “a small number of votes to try and find a way through parliament”.
Continue reading...Voters are predicted to punish the party for its failure to pass a Brexit deal
The Conservatives can expect to lose 800 or more seats at the local elections this week, as voters punish Theresa May’s administration for failing to pass a Brexit deal, a leading Conservative analyst has said.
In his latest projection for Thursday’s polls, in which more than 8,000 council seats in England are being contested, the Tory peer Robert Hayward suggested his party could lose about 500 to the Liberal Democrats, and 300 to Labour.
Continue reading...Shadow minister says if party’s demands are met she would not expect a second public vote
Labour is prepared to sign up to a Brexit deal with the government without the promise of a referendum attached if cross-party talks make significant progress in the coming days, one of the party’s negotiators has said.
With talks set to resume on Monday, Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, made clear that if Labour’s Brexit demands were met, she would not expect the party to insist it be put to a public vote.
Continue reading...The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman detained in Iran since 2016 on spying charges, has accused the authorities in Tehran of “playing games” with his family’s hopes, as he called on the Foreign Office to escalate its attempts to secure her release by the summer.
Richard Ratcliffe said he was still hopeful his wife would soon be released on health grounds, after she was finally allowed to have tests and MRI scans to determine whether the lumps in her breasts are cancerous. But speaking a day after the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, appeared to retract an offer of a prisoner swap, Ratcliffe spoke angrily of the authorities who have separated his wife from him and their four-year-old daughter, Gabriella.
Continue reading...The warlord Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, has never disguised his ambitions. Once one of Muammar Gaddafi’s generals, he returned from exile in the US when the dictator fell in 2011, attempted to launch a coup three years later, repeatedly declared his intention to take Tripoli and has said that his country may not be ready for democracy.
So the professions of shock from his backers when he mounted his assault on the western capital, held by the internationally recognised Government of National Accord, cannot be treated with great seriousness. The only real surprise about his advance was its timing. By moving while the UN secretary-general was in the country, to discuss arrangements for a UN-organised conference intended to lead to elections, he destroyed muted hopes of a political solution and underscored his already evident contempt for the process. As the prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, complained, the response of many supposed allies was silence.
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