Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

Theresa May faces a frantic 48 hours to try save her Brexit negotiating strategy after she admitted talks had ground to a halt because of the EU’s insistence upon a Northern Ireland backstop.

The prime minister is expected to plead with EU leaders to drop their Irish backstop proposal at a make or break summit dinner on Wednesday night, after seeking the support of members of her cabinet on Tuesday morning.

With time running out before Wednesday’s meeting, May used an emergency Commons statement to say the EU’s plan “threatens the integrity of our United Kingdom” because it could lead to the creation of a customs border in the Irish Sea.

She told an audience of largely sceptical MPs that the EU had stuck to its backstop proposal because Michel Barnier’s negotiating team had told her there was not time to evaluate a British counter-proposal “in the next few weeks”.

The prime minister will also speak to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Monday night, as she tries to lobby EU leaders to change their minds. May has already also spoken to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, in recent days, No 10 said.

EU leaders also acknowledged that the Brexit talks had hit a roadblock, although some insisted the problems could still be overcome. Donald Tusk, the EU council president, said a no-deal scenario was “more likely than ever before”.

Merkel said: “We were actually pretty hopeful that we would manage to seal an exit agreement,” but, she said, “at the moment, it looks a bit more difficult again”. Speaking to the German Foreign Trade Federation, she said a breakthrough was still possible but would need “quite a bit of finesse and if we aren’t successful this week, we’ll just have to keep negotiating”.

The cautiously optimistic tone of officials was further echoed by Macron, who had demanded “maximum progress” by this week’s leaders’ summit to allow an extraordinary Brexit summit to be called in mid-November. “I believe in our collective intelligence, so I think we can make progress,” he said.

A backstop is required to ensure that there is no hard border in Ireland if a comprehensive free trade deal cannot be signed before the end of 2020.

The EU plan would mean that Northern Ireland would remain in the single market and the customs union, prompting fierce objections from Tory hard Brexiters and the DUP, which props up her government.

That prompted May to propose a country-wide alternative in which the whole UK would remain in the parts of the customs union after Brexit, but she admitted in the Commons that despite months of talks her counter-proposal had not been accepted.

“The EU still requires a ‘backstop to the backstop’ – effectively an insurance policy for the insurance policy. And they want this to be the Northern Ireland-only solution that they had previously proposed,” May told MPs on Monday.

Raising the stakes, the prime minister insisted that the EU’s insistence amounted to a threat to the constitution of the UK: “We have been clear that we cannot agree to anything that threatens the integrity of our United Kingdom,” she added.

A group of Brexiter ministers met on Monday night at a meeting organised by Andrea Leadsom to discuss May’s strategy ahead of the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, amid concerns from the right of the Tory party that May’s own backstop plan needed to be clearly time limited.

Friends of one of those attending, Penny Mordaunt, the international development secretary, said that she was remaining loyal to the prime minister for now. Others expected to be present included Esther McVey and Chris Grayling.

The prime minister insisted that she demanding of the EU that the UK backstop, known as the “temporary customs arrangement”, was time-limited: “I need to be able to look the British people in the eye and say this backstop is a temporary solution.”

“People are rightly concerned that what is only meant to be temporary could become a permanent limbo – with no new relationship between the UK and the EU ever agreed,” May told the Commons.

May had gone to the Commons to clarify the status of the Brexit negotiations a day after a deal had been thought to be close. Brexit secretary Dominic Raab was dispatched to Brussels on Sunday afternoon, only to return empty handed with No 10 warning that the talks had reached an impasse.

Few MPs in the Commons spoke in support of May. Tory Brexiters, led by former cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith, repeatedly pressed May to confirm there would be a specific end date for the temporary backstop plans.

The prime minister avoided answering the question, telling MPs: “I continue to believe that we should be working to ensure that the backstop never does come into place.”

Conservative Brexiter MP for Middlesborough South, Simon Clarke, told her she had “failed to reassure the House”.

The prime minister also came under pressure from the remain wing of her party, with former home secretary Amber Rudd urging her to deliver a Brexit that also worked for the 48%.

Former education secretary Nicky Morgan warned her that there was no majority for no deal in the Commons and that MPs would have to “step in” if she failed to get one.

May highlighted a concession she had already made on the EU withdrawal bill, telling MPs: “If it were the case that at the end of the negotiation process actually it as a no deal … then that would come back to this house and then we would see what position this house would take in the circumstances”.

About 15 MPs, including four Conservatives, used the debate to urge May to reconsider holding a second referendum. Former cabinet minister Dominic Grieve, who has led previous rebellions against the prime minister’s plans, said he would not back the transition period, which he described as a “condition of vassalage”, unless there was another vote.

Nigel Dodds, the DUP’s Westminster leader, pressed the PM to reiterate the UK will leave the EU “together with no part hived off either in the single market or customs union differences”.

Dodds was visibly unhappy with May’s answer, shaking his head when she replied in general terms: “We will be leaving the European Union together.”

Jeremy Corbyn urged May to “put the country before her party” and stand up to the “reckless voices” on the Tory benches. “It is clear that the prime minister’s failure to stand up to the warring factions of her own side have led to this impasse.”

Theresa May has won the backing of the cabinet for her Brexit negotiating strategy after a two-and-half-hour discussion that centred on concerns about when the UK could leave any customs backstop it signed up to as part of the EU divorce deal.

The prime minister called for political unity after the lengthy meeting, during which all cabinet members spoke, telling them a day before a crucial European summit that “if we as a government stand together and stand firm we can achieve this”.

Her official spokesman said cabinet members had agreed that the UK “cannot be kept in the backstop indefinitely” and that ministers had discussed “the need for a mechanism to clearly define how that backstop will end”.

But the spokesman would not be drawn on what mechanism was being considered and whether individual cabinet members had pressed her to insist upon having a specific date by which any backstop agreement would terminate.


No 10 said nobody at the meeting had threatened to resign, leaving May free to ask EU leaders on Wednesday night for their help in kickstarting the stalled negotiations.

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I have no constituency vote clouding my view of Brexit. I have no ambition driving my support for it. I have no party whips demanding loyalty before conscience. I have made no false promises about Brexit that I must pretend can still be honoured, even though – in my heart – I know they cannot. I am free to say absolutely and precisely what I believe about Brexit. And it is this:

I understand the motives of those who voted to leave the European Union: it can – as I well know – be very frustrating. Nonetheless, after weighing its frustrations and opportunities, there is no doubt in my own mind that our decision is a colossal misjudgment that will diminish both the UK and the EU. It will damage our national and personal wealth, and may seriously hamper our future security. It may even, over time, break up our United Kingdom. It will most definitely limit the prospects of our young.

And – once this becomes clear – I believe those who promised what will never be delivered will have much to answer for. They persuaded a deceived population to vote to be weaker and poorer. That will never be forgotten – nor forgiven.

Our domestic focus is on the impact leaving Europe will have on the UK. That is quite natural, but, to the world at large, the bigger question is how the EU itself will be affected. The answer is – badly. Without the UK the balance of the EU changes. The free market majority may be at risk: protectionists will be encouraged and, perhaps, empowered.

The UK will no longer be a buffer between the Franco-German steamroller and smaller nations. Germany will be more isolated, and friction may grow. “So what?” committed Brexiteers say. “We won’t be members: it’s Europe’s problem.” But that ignores reality. How can it not be our problem, too?

Whether we are “in” or “out” the EU is in our neighbourhood; it is our predominant economic partner and our wellbeing is inexorably linked to their own wellbeing. In the hot heat of debate it should not be forgotten that we ignore the EU, disdain it, or stand aside from it, at our own risk.

None of the mainstream political parties is in a healthy condition. Both the Conservatives and Labour face pressure from fringe opinion within their own membership.

My fear is that the extremes of right and left will widen divisions and refuse to compromise, whereas more moderate opinion will often seek common ground. The risk of intransigence – “my way or no way” – is that the mainstream parties will be dragged further right and further left.

Our nation should not tolerate the unreasoning antipathy of the extremes – to the EU, to foreigners or to minority groups. Such antipathy is repellent, and diminishes us as a nation. Softer, more reasonable voices should not be drowned out by the raucous din of the loudest.

I freely confess to a taste for compromise. Politics is real life. It isn’t warfare. It isn’t a popularity contest. It’s about people. It’s about four nations who deserve more than an ideological tug of war.

Respect and civility would do much to help lift politics out of the dog days in which it is now living. More compromise – less confrontation.

More than 10 million tweets posted by suspected state-backed Russian and Iranian "troll farms" have been shared online by Twitter.

It has published more than 360GB of material to aid studies into how its platform has been used to try to influence the public.

The messages were posted from 2013 to 2018 and include references to the US presidential election and the UK's EU referendum.

In total, 4,570 accounts were involved.

Early analysis by the BBC's data journalism team indicates the word "Brexit" was mentioned in 3,789 tweets linked the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA), nearly all of which were published on the day of the vote or afterwards.

However, the hashtag #reasonstoleaveeu was also found to have been included in the text of 1,092 tweets posted on the day of the referendum.

In February, Twitter told a House of Commons committee it had identified 942 Brexit-related tweets posted by suspected IRA accounts over the course of the entire campaign.

The BBC understands Twitter's figure included only original messages and not retweets, which the social network believes accounts for the disparity.

In any case, the Brexit-related posts represent a small fraction of the Russian-linked account's overall activity.

The status of Gibraltar after Brexit has been resolved, Spain’s prime minister has said.

Speaking at the conclusion of an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, Pedro Sanchez said the issue between the Britain and Spain “is resolved” and “will no longer be a problem” for the UK’s plans to leave the EU.

Gibraltar will leave the EU along with the UK on 29 March next year.

The status of the British overseas territory on Spain’s southern coast, and that of two British sovereign areas in EU member Cyprus, will form part of any overall divorce agreement with the EU.

“Gibraltar will no longer be a problem in arriving at a Brexit deal,” Mr Sanchez said.

However, he said Britain and Spain were still holding separate bilateral talks regarding Gibraltar, focusing on matters such as workers' movements across the border, environmental issues and tax affairs.

The EU’s guidelines on negotiations for Britain’s future relationship with the bloc had granted Spain veto rights over the issue of Gibraltar, making it a potential difficulty.

Mr Sanchez said Britain had displayed a positive attitude towards the negotiations, but added that the two countries had yet to sign off on any agreement.

“If we reach an agreement [soon], great. If not, it doesn’t matter because we’ve got time to reach one,” he said.