Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

I'm not sure what you mean by saying the British are less informed about the EU than other member states.

The British Labor party has been a minority in the UK for some time.

What is that 2.7 billion euros cost per citizen in the UK?

Theresa May has tried to threaten EU leaders over dinner at a special summit in Salzburg by telling them the UK would not seek to delay Brexit, prompting European leaders to warn that the two sides remained far apart on trade and the Irish border despite months of negotiations.

The prime minister told her counterparts “that the UK will leave on 29 March next year” and as a result “the onus is now on all of us to get this deal done” by the end of an emergency summit that the EU confirmed would happen in mid-November.

It was the first time that May has had a chance to address the EU’s 27 heads of government instead of going through their chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, with No 10 hoping that it would inject some urgency into the divorce talks. “We all recognise that time is short but extending or delaying these negotiations is not an option,” she said.

But as the summit started Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, said that a deal remained “far away” while Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, warned that the UK’s proposals for the Irish border and future trade relations with the EU needed to be “reworked and further negotiated”. Tusk added that “various scenarios are still possible” – a clear hint that no deal was still a possibility.

Despite the EU leaders’ statements, No 10 is hoping that May’s pitch to EU leaders will eventually prompt some greater flexibility on the part of Brussels in the critical period for the Brexit negotiations between a scheduled European council meeting in October and the decisive summit in November.

Theresa May would then have to get her deal signed off by parliament – the so-called “meaningful final vote” – before the government can then implement the legislation it needs in time to hit the deadline of leaving the EU on 29 March 2019, two years after serving notice under article 50.

The summit also saw May reject in front of her peers the proposals put forward by Barnier for a revised Irish backstop border because the EU is still insisting on customs checks in the Irish Sea if the two sides cannot strike a free trade agreement after Brexit.

“The idea that I should assent to the legal separation of the United Kingdom into two customs territories is not credible,” May said following a dinner of schnitzel and fruit salad in the Austrian city. Her pitch at the end of the meal lasted roughly 10 minutes but there was no debate – EU leaders will instead return to the subject of Brexit tomorrow lunchtime where they will discuss the issue without the British leader present.

May was also able to refer directly to her Chequers proposals for the UK’s future relationship with the EU, in which the UK would sign up to “a common rulebook” for food and goods after Brexit, in the hope that other leaders would engage with them more positively than has happened until now.

But hours before she arrived, she was reminded how controversial they were on her party’s rightwing when the former Brexit secretary, David Davis, released remarks from a speech he will give in Munich on Thursday, in which he says the prime minister’s Chequers plan is unpopular and does not represent what people voted for at the time of the referendum in 2016.

Davis says the prime minister had previously promised to “return control over our law, our money and our borders. These promises were in [the Conservative] manifesto too. But the Chequers plan crosses on all of those red lines. The EU is often correctly described as having a democratic deficit. But Chequers is devoid of democracy altogether.”

The former minister, who resigned when May promised to impose Chequers, will say in a speech to a German thinktank that “many of us will shortly be presenting an alternative plan which will outline a more ambitious vision” and said that the UK and Europe would be better off if they engaged in friendly economic competition.

Complications over implementing Brexit were further highlighted by junior Treasury minister Mel Stride, who diverted from the prime minister’s position by appearing to suggest a second referendum could happen if parliament voted down the deal May negotiates with Brussels.

Stride said: “When we have a firm deal on the table, I suspect that those to the right of the party – the pro-Brexit wing – will be very concerned that if that deal does not prevail, they will end up in the situation where we could have a second referendum or we could end up not leaving the EU altogether.”

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, also offered little succour to Downing Street over progress on the future trading relationship with the EU. She said: “I hope that we have an exit that takes place in a good atmosphere, with great respect for each other and that in certain areas very close cooperation is possible, namely in the areas of security – of domestic and also foreign security.”

In Salzburg, the prime minister will hold bilateral meetings on Thursday with the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, over breakfast, and with Tusk after the lunch from which she is excluded as she seeks to end the impasse.

On Tuesday, Barnier said he was making revised proposals as part of an attempt to “de-dramatise” the Irish border issue, and tried to downplay them by describing them as “a set of technical checks and controls”, insisting that the EU respected the territorial integrity of the UK.

According to EU sources, Barnier briefed ministers from the 27 member states on his fresh thinking on the Irish backstop at a meeting on Tuesday evening. The EU’s chief negotiator said that while there were four categories of products that would be under scrutiny when coming into Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, only animal and food products would always require physical checks at the border.

Customs declarations, VAT declarations and tests on the conformity of industrial goods to EU standards could be made in advance. There would only be a need for random physical tests at ports based on a risk analysis, Barnier told EU ministers. One senior EU diplomat said that this was the last word on the issue from their side, and that they would continue to push it, even though May has repeatedly said it was unacceptable.

A discussion of Theresa May's Chequers Brexit trade plan by the 27 EU leaders resulted in "everybody" agreeing that the proposal "will not work", the president of the European Council has said.

Speaking at the end of the Salzburg summit Donald Tusk told reporters that a planned November summit to finalise a deal might not happen and that the Council would decide in October "whether conditions are there to call an extra summit".

SALZBURG, Austria (Reuters) - Britain is preparing to leave the European Union without an agreement on the terms of its departure unless there is a proposal it deems acceptable, British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Thursday.

May said that she would only agree to a “backstop” proposal for the Irish border if it worked for the whole United Kingdom.

“If there is no agreement on a deal that is acceptable to the United Kingdom, then we’re preparing for no deal,” she said at a news conference after meeting EU leaders in Austria.

“I believe we can get a good deal. I believe there is a growing desire to sit down and ensure that we can achieve a deal.”

British PM tries to downplay unexpectedly strong criticism of UK proposals by European leaders at Salzburg summit

Theresa May has insisted that her Chequers plan is not dead and claimed that European Union leaders were engaging in “negotiating tactics” when at the end of the Salzburg summit Donald Tusk declared that her plan would not work.

The prime minister acknowledged that she had had a “frank bilateral” with Tusk an hour before her end-of-summit press conference in which she was forced to defend Chequers and maintain that it was possible to reach a Brexit deal in the autumn.

May had met Tusk after the other EU leaders had discussed Brexit over lunch, amid signs that they were attempting to harden their stance. But she tried to downplay their unexpectedly strong criticisms of her Chequers plan.

“I have always said these negotiations were going to be tough,” May told reporters. “And at various stages of these negotiations, tactics would be used as part of those negotiations.”

Substantial Brexit progress was never on the agenda for the EU’s Salzburg summit in Austria, so its absence comes as no surprise. More revealing is what the gathering says about the balance of power: European leaders can send Theresa May away humiliated and empty-handed, and still imagine they have done her a favour.

May was given 10 minutes to address her fellow heads of government over dinner last night, but no subsequent discussion was permitted because, formally, Brexit terms are negotiated with Michel Barnier and the European commission. Any British hopes that those lines might blur at Salzburg and more productive channels might then open up behind Barnier’s back were dashed. Concluding the summit, Donald Tusk, the European council president, re-affirmed member state solidarity behind the commission process. He also said bluntly that the economic aspect of May’s Chequers blueprint for Brexit “will not work.”

None of this looks like the diplomacy that was promised by those hardline eurosceptics who insisted that the EU needed the UK more than the UK needed Europe. There would be cake to have and cake to eat; the negotiations would simply be over the colour of the icing. Instead, the raw arithmetic of 27-to-one asserted itself. The prime minister’s advocacy of the Chequers plan has become a plea for mercy, although Tusk politely pretends the relationship is more balanced than that. European leaders can see how little room for manoeuvre May has in parliament and with her party.

The timetable for Brexit talks has been stretched to swerve around the Conservative conference coming up in Birmingham, but not by much. Talk of an emergency summit in November, allowing some slippage from a scheduled deadline in October, sounded more provisional from the EU side than it does when UK officials have been organising their diaries.

The British side had also hoped that some friendlier theatrics might have been staged at Salzburg to present May as the tough negotiator – some choreography of clash and concession to advertise the prime minister’s effectiveness. But there is a gap between what EU leaders think is a compromise with May (hinting that some kind of bespoke deal could yet evolve from Chequers) and what May can exchange for hard political currency back home. And on the substance – specifically the Irish border impasse – they cannot pretend there is progress if there is none.

May’s weakness in Westminster still gives her one point of leverage in the negotiations – the alternative to dealing with her with little time to spare, is dealing with someone worse with no time at all. The prospect of, say, Boris Johnson emerging as his party’s champion from the rubble of a collapsed Brexit process is sufficient to focus minds in Brussels.

Some EU officials and leaders see the risk that constructive British engagement with the European project could die along with May’s premiership. They see a messy Brexit provoking a lurch into something more like marauding, anti-Brussels, Trumpian nationalism. A faction of the Tory party is already saddling up for that journey.

There is also the prospect of another referendum coming into focus over May’s shoulder although she pretends not to see it. In the past 24 hours, both the Maltese and Czech prime ministers have made encouraging noises about Britain reconsidering the whole Brexit enterprise – and being unanimously welcomed back into the fold. That might be overstating it. Across the EU there are many pools of sorrow at the UK’s 2016 decision to leave, but there are also now strong currents of impatience. Much goodwill was frittered away in the period when Tory ministers were making ludicrous Brexit pronouncements at home and offering nothing sensible abroad.

There is also anxiety about the integrity of the European project that discourages anything that might look like a reward for splitting the union. This view – short-sighted, perhaps, but potent – holds that euroscepticism must be seen to end badly for the country that has taken it furthest. But the punitive urge is not paramount. In Berlin and Brussels, the capitals that still largely set the tone on Brexit, the emphasis is on getting the UK safely off the premises, not on finding ways to hurt us or keep us in.

For now, May is the person with whom European leaders have to do business. But, more important, given the alternatives, she is also the person with whom they want to do business. The EU collectively has no interest in undermining or humiliating the prime minister. At the Salzburg summit it didn’t look much like May was getting any favours, but these things are relative. From the continental point of view, she was shown patience, she was indulged. Ultimately the EU cannot give May what she really needs, which is a Brexit model that will simultaneously satisfy the whole Tory party and win support from a majority in the Commons, without inflicting harm on the country. They cannot give her that because it doesn’t exist, never did, never will.

She always seems to have been at different meetings than the other participants.

PM pretends nothing has changed as EU leaders take turns to rubbish her Brexit plans

If it hadn’t all been so numbingly inevitable, it might have been possible to feel sorry for Theresa May. Back in the UK, both remainers and leavers had pronounced her Chequers’ proposals to be dead in the water, but the prime minister had still travelled to the informal EU summit in Salzburg hoping for a stay of execution. A few luke-warm words and some insincere air kisses at the very least, until after she had survived the Conservative party conference. Her current range of vision really is that limited.

Instead she got a lesson in plain-speaking brutality. No attempts to sugar the pill, as EU leader after leader took it in turns to dismiss Chequers and to mock the UK over its lack of progress in its Brexit preparations. Even the Dutch thought they were better prepared for a no-deal Brexit than us. It was left to Donald Tusk, president of the EU council, to deliver the coup de grace. The Chequers’ deal was unworkable because it undermined the integrity of the single market. And, by the way, its solution to the Northern Ireland border was just fantasy.

Moments after being given the bad news in person, May had to face the UK media. The room in which the press conference was held was small and airless, but the prime minister was already sweaty when she walked in. More than that, she looked angry and terrified. Alone and out of her depth, her eyes darting across the room, searching for one friendly face. There wasn’t one. There hadn’t been one in the two days she had been in Austria.

May did what she always does when she’s up against it. She went into denial. Stick her fingers in her ears and pretend absolutely nothing had happened. Nothing had changed. She began by highlighting the important work on people trafficking and national security that had been discussed before – almost as an afterthought – getting round to Brexit. Ah yes, Brexit. “Our white paper remains the only serious, credible proposal,” she said nervily. “And I am confident we shall reach a deal.” Nothing really had changed. Madness.

There were a few seconds of silence as everyone took this in. It almost felt intrusive to observe the prime minister visibly falling apart. A public humiliation on the epic scale of both her refusal to accept the reversal of the dementia tax during the general election campaign and her car-crash leader’s speech at last year’s Tory party conference. Then May composed herself as best she could and invited the kicking she knew was coming her way. Bring it on. Everyone else had had a go so she might as well let the media have theirs. The martyrdom of St Theresa.

Her head swivelled back and forth frantically several times as she tried to pick out Laura Kuenssberg. She just couldn’t get her eyes to focus. Eventually, May spotted the BBC’s political editor, sitting where she had been all along, in the front row just a couple of feet from where she was standing. As the inevitable questions came, challenging her version of reality, the prime minister couldn’t help but disconnect and go full Maybot. She wasn’t there, no one was there. All she had to do was to hang on for the next 10 minutes and the ordeal would be over.

“I’m negotiating hard to give the British people what they voted for,” she said mindlessly, playing for time. Except she wasn’t. Almost no one had voted for the level of helplessness that was all she apparently had to offer. If the EU did have concerns, she continued, reluctantly admitting that – just possibly – there were objections to her Chequers plan, then she wanted to sit down and hear them. The last 24 hours were now a total blank. She had completely forgotten she had spent them sitting down listening to the EU’s concerns.

The digging became ever more fevered as her facial expressions became more contorted. Too much more of this and she would have become a dead ringer for Munch’s The Scream. She did have a counter proposal but everyone would have to wait until she had thought of what it was. In any case, the EU were really just kidding – they did like to have their little European jokes – and would come round and see sense in the end. Just wait and see.

As quickly as decently possible, May made her excuses and left, keeping her head down, fearful that she might burst into tears if she made eye contact with anyone. If the shame didn’t get her, then the pity would. She had been laid bare. The naked prime minister. Sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything.

The EU insists on its own "operational and legally-binding Irish backstop" - what it describes as an insurance policy to prevent the return of physical infrastructure on the border, in the event no other solution can be found.

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - A legal appeal to determine whether Britain alone can change its mind about leaving the European Union should be given consideration by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), Scotland’s highest court said on Friday in a boost to anti-Brexit campaigners.

The Court of Session decision means the ECJ should say whether it is legally possible for Britain to stay in the world’s biggest trading bloc if its parliament so decides.
[...]
Friday’s decision could now, theoretically, be appealed again before the UK Supreme Court, although legal sources close to the case believe that option is unlikely.