Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
EU may offer to extend Brexit talks to summer, despite PM’s insistence UK will leave on 31 October
Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan appeared to be all but dead on Tuesday night as the government admitted there was little prospect of a deal before 31 October, following a day of furious recriminations.
The prime minister spoke to the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, on the phone after a stormy 24 hours of briefing and counter-briefing, as concerns about his tactics were even raised in Johnson’s cabinet.
This is from Mujtaba Rahman, the Brexit specialist at the Eurasia consultancy.
Collapse of negotiations now leaves MPs with a huge dilemma. Do they put trust in Benn Act to be robust enough to prevent the no-deal Boris will now gravitate to? Or do they oust him in a VONC to make totally sure? Former more likely- still no sign of agreement on caretaker PM
And these are from the BBC’s Berlin correspondent, Jenny Hill.
Worth bearing in mind the following when looking at No 10’s interpretation of Merkel / Johnson call. 1. This confrontational language / style is unusual for Merkel 2. Germany - more than most - has been careful to avoid leaks / statements which wld inflame tensions between UK&EU
3. My understanding is that German govt still ready to work to find solution not least because....4. Germany doesn’t want no deal. Met president of German exporters assoc earlier - they are horrified by prospect
French president tells Boris Johnson he must present concrete proposals for UK exit
Emmanuel Macron has described the Irish backstop as “indispensable” to a Brexit deal and urged Boris Johnson to set out his proposed alternatives as soon as possible, as he met the British prime minister in Paris.
The French president told Johnson on Thursday that the EU would like “visibility” on London’s concrete proposals for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU within a month, echoing language used by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Wednesday.
The European Union has rebuffed Boris Johnson’s attempts to tear up the Irish backstop, in a coordinated response that appeared to close the door on further meaningful Brexit negotiations.
In remarks shortly before the prime minister departed for a whistle-stop tour to meet European leaders, Johnson put the blame for the EU’s hardline response at the feet of Conservative rebels, claiming his negotiating strategy was being undermined by those who said they could prevent no deal.
Leaders will have meet again on Tuesday after several countries refused to back France and Germany’s choice
The longest ever EU summit has ended without agreement as Angela Merkel warned that with Brexit “looming” imposing the centre-left candidate Frans Timmermans as European commission president risked creating a dangerous split with the populist governments in Poland and Italy.
With the leaders now forced to meet again in Brussels on Tuesday after being unable to agree on a candidate for the top post, the German chancellor said fears about the bloc splintering left her wary of trying to outvote critics of her compromise plan.
The European council president, Donald Tusk, and the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, raised some laughs after the leaders of the member states failed to reach agreement on who should take the bloc's top jobs. 'I note with some pleasure that it is not easy to replace me,' Juncker told a press conference. He will step down as commission chief in October
Donald Tusk ‘more cautious than optimistic’ that leaders can reach a deal this week
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have clashed again over who will fill the EU’s most senior posts, prompting one frustrated national leader to claim it would be easier to elect a pope.
An unproductive meeting on Thursday between the German chancellor and the French president appeared to dash any hope of a swift resolution to their dispute over the future leadership of the EU’s institutions, including a replacement for Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European commission.
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.
Britain’s membership could be extended to March 2020 after PM fails to sell her plan in dash to Paris and Berlin
Theresa May’s request for a short Brexit delay has been torn up, putting the EU on track to instead extend Britain’s membership until 2020.
Despite the prime minister’s desperate dash to Paris and Berlin to convince leaders of her plan to break the Brexit impasse, the European council president, Donald Tusk, signalled EU politicians’ lack of faith in her cross-party talks.
Donald Tusk has said the EU cannot betray an 'increasing majority' of British people who want to cancel Brexit and remain in the bloc. The European council president hailed those who marched on the streets of London and the millions who were petitioning the government to revoke article 50. Tusk finished his speech by saying: 'They may feel that they are not sufficiently represented by the UK parliament, but they must feel that they are represented by you in this chamber. Because they are Europeans'
I am going to wrap this up now. Here a few of tonight’s highlights at a glance:
Theresa May tells the British People ‘I’m on your side” ...which side is that? Leave, Remain, or Resign?
The summary of Beth Rigby, deputy political editor of Sky News, is blistering:
May’s national address badly misjudged. She has further angered the very people she needs to win over, MPs. Never before has the power of persuasion and art of compromise been so sorely needed and so clearly missing
PM forced to seek extension of article 50 as No 10 admits it is too late to leave with a deal
Theresa May will be forced to write to EU leaders on Wednesday and beg them to delay Brexit, with her cabinet deadlocked over the best way out of what Downing Street now concedes is a “crisis”.
The government had maintained until the last possible moment that Brexit could go ahead as planned on 29 March or after a brief “technical extension”.
The Irish premier, Leo Varadkar, has said London needs to tell the EU about what purpose an extension would serve and how long it would last.
Varadkar said he welcomed Westminster’s vote to extend Article 50 as it reduces the likelihood of a cliff edge, no-deal Brexit at the end of the month.
There seems to be two emerging options – ratification of the withdrawal agreement followed by a short extension into the summer, or a much longer extension that would give the UK time and space to decide what they want to do, including considering options that had been taken off the table like participation in the customs union and single market.
I think we need to be open to any request they make, listen attentively and be generous in our response. This matter will be now discussed further at next week’s European Council meeting and hopefully we will have more clarity from London in the meantime about their intentions.
Why EUCO should allow an extension, if the UK gov and her majority in the House of Commons are not ready for a cross-party approach to break the current deadlock ? https://t.co/lj1Tm4kmIg
Cable has now released a statement on his impending departure:
I indicated last year that, once the Brexit story had moved on and we had fought this year’s crucial local elections in 9,000 seats across England, it would be time for me to make way for a new generation. I set considerable store by having an orderly, business-like, succession unlike the power struggles in the other parties.
So I wanted you, our members, to know that, assuming Parliament does not collapse into an early general election, I will ask the party to begin a leadership contest in May.
Britain is Egypt’s largest foreign investor. Yet at the recent Arab-EU summit, Theresa May was oddly quiet on rights abuses
While there may be “a special place in hell” for those who backed Brexit without a plan, regimes that execute people after fundamentally flawed trials get their own summit. Just a fortnight ago, Donald Tusk and the leaders of the EU met with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, at the Arab-EU summit in Sharm el-Sheikh – days after his regime executed nine people.
The summit was co-chaired by Tusk and Sisi. Tusk and other European leaders, including Theresa May, were curiously silent at the summit about the fate of Egypt’s political prisoners. The execution of the nine – convicted after unfair trials in which human rights campaigners say confessions were elicited by torture – was the third consecutive week of executions. In total 15 people were put to death in February in Egypt.
European council president echoes Emmanuel Macron’s warning of malign influences
Donald Tusk has claimed external powers meddled in the Brexit vote as he called for EU member states to do more to protect the upcoming European elections.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels with the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, the European council president said he agreed with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who used an editorial in the Guardian and other newspapers to call on European countries to be alert to malign influences.
Theresa May will not get her Brexit deal through the Commons, Donald Tusk has warned, leaving the UK with the option of “a chaotic Brexit” or an extension of its membership of the EU beyond 29 March.
The European council president, to quell “speculation”, disclosed that, during private talks with the prime minister at a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, he had walked through the legal process that would need to be followed to delay Brexit.
The summit of the EU and the Arab League in Sharm el-Sheikh highlights the ongoing and ill-advised support for President Sisi
Days after Egypt executed men who said they were tortured into confessions of killing the country’s former top prosecutor, Europe’s heads of state are enjoying the hospitality of its president. The resort of Sharm el-Sheikh is hosting the inaugural summit of the European Union and the Arab League. Donald Tusk, president of the European council, is co-chairing with Abdel Fatah al-Sisi; Britain’s Theresa May is among the guests.
If the event itself is a first, the approach is familiar. As Mr Sisi entrenches his rule, presiding over what Human Rights Watch calls Egypt’s worst human rights crisis in decades, European countries murmur about their “quiet diplomacy” on such issues. Then they carry on building ties and providing the air of international legitimacy that he needs given his grim record since seizing power in 2013’s coup. Mr Sisi’s recent spate of executions is instructive: he must have felt confident there would be no repercussions for putting people to death so close to the summit – despite their blatantly unfair trials.
New BBC documentary reveals European Council president’s anger when German chancellor had private talks with Turkey
Donald Tusk was enraged when Angela Merkel held private talks with Turkey to stem the flow of refugees and migrants into the European Union, warning the plan would be “a catastrophe”, a new documentary reveals.
“I couldn’t believe it was true. These were my closest partners,” Tusk tells a BBC2 documentary, Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil, about the migration crisis to be aired on Monday.
The president of the European council caused a tabloid feeding frenzy with his ‘special place in hell’ remark but what makes him tick?
Donald Tusk has it in him to be a bit of a hooligan. His younger self, he admits, would “roam the streets cruising for a bruising” to break the monotony of communist life in his home-town of Gdańsk, the port city on Poland’s Baltic coast.
Contrary to the image of the typical bloodless Brussels Eurocrat, the president of the European council, who stands alongside Jean-Claude Juncker as the most senior of EU figures, is a man of passion with a feel for who is on the right side of history. Last week it was frustration, not boredom, that brought out the inner wrecking ball.
Earlier tonight, thousands of people in favour of a second referendum marched on Parliament Square, where they watching the thumping defeat of Theresa May’s deal broadcast on large screens.
The former Maryland congressman John Delaney has become the first 2020 presidential candidate to weigh in on Theresa May’s resounding Brexit defeat in parliament on Tuesday.
In a statement to the Guardian, Delaney, a former businessman and centrist Democrat mounting a dark horse bid for the White House in 2020, said: “The truth is Brexit was never honestly sold to voters, which is why the UK finds itself in such a difficult position right now.