German chancellor dismisses as ‘rubbish’ claims she thinks CDU successor is not up to job
Angela Merkel has sought to scotch rumours of a rift with her party’s new leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, dismissing reports that she thinks her successor is not up to the job.
The German chancellor defended Kramp-Karrenbauer after the new leader was criticised for calling for a clampdown on opinionated YouTube clips ahead of elections.
Continue reading...Green politicians to push agenda urging climate action, social justice and civil liberties
Europe’s Greens, big winners in Sunday’s European elections, will use their newfound leverage in a fractured parliament to push an agenda of urgent climate action, social justice and civil liberties, the movement’s leaders say.
“This was a great outcome for us – but we now also have a great responsibility, because voters have given us their trust,” Bas Eickhout, a Dutch MEP and the Greens’ co-lead candidate for commission president, told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Naomi Long wins seat after trebling party’s vote, saying supporters want to remain in EU
Opposition to Brexit has propelled the leader of Northern Ireland’s Alliance party to a dramatic victory in the European elections.
Naomi Long, an outspoken advocate of a second referendum on the UK’s European Union membership, won a seat on Monday with 105,958 first preference votes after almost trebling support for her party compared with the 2014 election.
Continue reading...Sebastian Kurz faces no-confidence vote after his party tops EU election polls despite video-sting scandal
Austrian politicians are likely to sack the chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, in a no-confidence vote after the leader of the far-right Freedom party (FPO) indicated it would probably vote against him.
Kurz’s conservatives came out on top in Sunday’s European parliament elections despite a video-sting scandal a week ago involving the FPO leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, which brought down their coalition government. Strache then resigned from all his political posts.
Continue reading...Magid Magid shot to fame as the lord mayor of Sheffield on a platform of hope and anti-racism in his city. A year later he has been elected as the first Green MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber. We followed him on the campaign trail and find out how he got his message out and what he will do in Brussels
In the UK, the Conservatives and Labour have been decimated over their stance on Brexit, with Nigel Farage's Brexit party and pro-remain parties emerging as the big winners. With votes still being counted across Europe, voters have boosted Greens and far-right groups, leaving centrists diminished
Continue reading...Party could hold balance of power in EU parliament with projected 71 MEPs
Green parties have swept to their strongest ever showing in European elections, boosting their tally of MEPs to a projected 71 compared with 52 last time and giving themselves every chance of becoming kingmakers in a newly fragmented parliament.
“Thank you so much for your trust in us Greens,” a delighted Ska Keller, one of the European Greens’ two lead candidates for the post of European commission president, told a press conference in Brussels.
Continue reading...France, Germany, Italy and others go to polls on Sunday, with gains expected for nationalist parties
The western world’s largest democratic exercise is nearing its finale as tens of millions of EU citizens in 21 countries go to the polls on Sunday, the last of four days of voting in European parliament elections that will shape the bloc’s future.
Polls suggest the vote will produce a more fragmented parliament than ever before, with the two centre-right and centre-left groups that have dominated Europe’s politics forecast to lose their joint majority for the first time, and nationalist and populist forces to make gains.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Campaign groups prepare legal challenge following ‘systemic denial’ of suffrage
The government is facing the prospect of being sued by campaigners for EU citizens in the UK and British nationals abroad who were denied a vote in the European parliament elections.
John Halford, a public law specialist at Bindmans, said this week’s electoral fiasco was something a democracy should not tolerate.
Continue reading...Group of MEPs writes to Electoral Commission over reports of ballot paper delays
The Electoral Commission has been asked to permit late postal votes for the European parliament elections to be counted as reports continue of many British nationals living abroad receiving their ballot papers too late to return on time.
A group of 10 MEPs has written to the regulator to say that it should consider any postal vote that arrives by Sunday when the polls close across Europe. “We cannot permit lousy disenfranchisement like this,” said the Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder, who wrote the letter to the commission.
Continue reading...Pets accompany their owners across the UK as the nation votes in the European elections
• This article was amended on 23 May 2019 to remove an image taken at the local elections in the UK in May
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political events as they happen as the UK votes in the European elections 2019 and pressure continues on Theresa May to resign
This is what Valerie Vaz, the shadow leader of the Commons, said in the chamber earlier about the government’s decision not to publish the EU withdrawal agreement bill tomorrow. (See 11.22am.) She said:
Yesterday the prime minister told the house that the second reading of the withdrawal agreement bill would be in the week commencing June 3rd, now we hear it’s not, so in less than 24 hours the prime minister has broken her word. This is yet another broken promise by the prime minister on Brexit.
The prime minister’s official spokesman told journalists at the morning lobby briefing that Theresa May would be meeting cabinet colleagues to discuss the EU withdrawal agreement bill today, the Press Association reports.
“The prime minister is listening to her colleagues about the bill and will be having further discussions,” he said.
Continue reading...In its Brexit delirium, the party is tearing itself apart on an election day, its voters rampaging off into the Farage wildwoods
Welcome to an extraordinarily bizarre election day. Pause on the way to the polling station to wonder at the astounding mayhem within our “ruling” party, soliciting votes even while wrenching its leader from Downing Street. We may be so used to the Tory party in meltdown that we forget to be amazed at what is unfolding before our eyes – on election day.
Even allowing for all Andrea Leadsom’s fantastical ambitious absurdities, ponder how astonishing it is to see the leader of the house, no less, resigning on election eve just to steal a march on all her improbable leadership competitors. Jeremy Hunt is marching in to see the prime minister in publicly threatening mode – on election day. Forget any sense of decorum towards their party or their country, or the electoral process.
Continue reading...Tory ministers and backbenchers conspicuously absent as Theresa May makes statement about her proposed Brexit bill
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson criticised Andrea Leadsom’s decision to step down on the eve of the European elections, calling it a “slap in the face” for her colleagues.
He tweeted: “I accept that she may want to go but to do it the night before an election looks odd.
Commentators are pointing out the irony that it may be a resignation by Andrea Leadsom, who stood aside to let Theresa May take the Tory leadership in summer 2016, which may eventually lead to the prime minister’s downfall.
.@andrealeadsom will be seen by history to have delivered the coup de grace to @theresa_may - which is appropriate some would say because it was her withdrawal from leadership race that handed 10 Downing St to May on a plate. Revenge dish best served steaming hot perhaps
Continue reading...Footage shows Brexit party leader calling Bannon’s plan a ‘fightback against globalists’
Nigel Farage discussed the idea of fronting a global alliance of populist and far-right politicians being put together by the controversial former White House strategist Steve Bannon, it has emerged.
Farage said he would be keen to take the role after Bannon discussed the idea of forming a group based around populism and “economic nationalism”, with potential members including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines leader who is accused of presiding over mass rights abuses and who has admitted authorising extrajudicial killings.
Continue reading...Avaaz uncovers 500 accounts using fake news to spread white supremacy message
A web of far-right Facebook accounts spreading fake news and hate speech to millions of people across Europe has been uncovered by the campaign group Avaaz.
Facebook, which is struggling to clean up the platform and salvage its reputation, has already taken down accounts with about 6 million followers before voting in the European elections begins on Thursday. It was still investigating hundreds of other accounts with an additional 26 million followers, Avaaz said.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, as Theresa May’s cabinet met to consider the contents of the Brexit EU withdrawal agreement bill
PM’s speech is called ‘A new Brexit deal - seeking common ground in Parliament’
In the urgent question in the Commons earlier on British Steel, which is on the brink of collapse putting 5,000 jobs at risk, Andrew Stephenson, the business minister, said the government “leave no stone unturned” in supporting the UK steel industry. He said:
I can reassure the house that, subject to strict legal bounds, the government will leave no stone unturned in its support for the steel industry ...
We can only act within the strict bounds of what is legally possible under domestic and European law.
Continue reading...FvD will join divided ranks of Europe’s populist right where alliances are in flux
In the conference room of a slightly soulless hotel on the neat outskirts of the eastern Dutch town of Emmen, a crowd of 100 or so had gathered to hear a former MEP and European commission staffer tell them there is far too much Europe.
“Everyone wants more EU. We want less,” said Derk Jan Eppink. “Take power back from Brussels, return it to nation states. With our French, Italian, Polish, Spanish partners, we will be a united front.”
Continue reading...Man arrested after Brexit party leader is latest EU elections candidate to be soaked
Nigel Farage has been hit by a milkshake in Newcastle city centre, after a spate of similar incidents against far-right candidates in the European elections campaign.
The Brexit party leader appeared to be furious after the incident and was heard to mutter, “it’s a complete failure, you could have spotted that a mile off” as his security team led him away.
Continue reading...Deputy chancellor and head of far-right party has resigned after video sting operation
On Friday night, two German media outlets published a video that shows the Austrian deputy chancellor and leader of the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ), Heinz-Christian Strache, talking to an unidentified woman purporting to be the niece of a Russian oligarch at a luxury resort in Ibiza. When the woman expresses an interest in gaining control of the country’s largest-circulation tabloid, Kronen Zeitung, Strache suggests he could offer lucrative public contracts in exchange for campaign support.
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