Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

Attempts by backbench MPs to remove the government's power to deliver Brexit are "extremely concerning", Downing Street has said.

On Monday one group of MPs will present a bill that could allow Brexit to be delayed if Parliament does not approve an EU withdrawal agreement.

According to the Sunday Times, another group led by Dominic Grieve wishes to pause Brexit by suspending Article 50.

But Downing Street said it was "vital" MPs delivered on the referendum result.

A group of cross-party MPs will present a bill proposing that the UK extends its negotiations with the EU - if MPs do not approve a withdrawal agreement.

MPs have already rejected Theresa May's withdrawal agreement once, by 432 votes to 202.

The new bill would give the prime minister until 26 February to get parliamentary approval for a deal.

Theresa May will launch a fresh bid to win support for her rejected Brexit deal by trying to bypass the EU and secure a bilateral Brexit treaty with Ireland.

The move, which comes as No10 expresses extreme concern at a backbench bid to give parliament control of Brexit, would see the two governments try to agree their own plan for keeping the Northern Ireland border open after Britain leaves the EU.

Officials believe that such an agreement could remove the need for the controversial backstop part of Ms May’s Brexit deal, which is the leading cause of Tory and DUP opposition to the plan and the main reason it was overwhelmingly rejected by MPs last week.

Ms May will update the Commons on Monday on how she plans to proceed after the crushing defeat.

Under the new proposal being discussed by No10, the Sunday Times reports, the UK would try to convince the Irish government to negotiate a treaty that would remove the need for the backstop, which Brussels insisted on as an insurance policy to ensure an open border is maintained even if the EU and UK cannot agree a trade deal.
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Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, appeared to confirm the new government plan, telling the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “We have to compromise on the backstop. If we’re to get the agreement through, we absolutely have to do that. The question is how we find a way to do that.”

Asked what such a compromise might involve, he said: “It’s getting an agreement with Ireland on an alternative mechanism to ensure that we don’t get friction across the Norther Ireland-Ireland border.”

Mr Fox said both the UK and Irish government shared a desire to preserve an open border in Northern Ireland, adding: “The question can we achieve what the Irish government wants and what we want by a different mechanism.”

The government will “explore ways” to “find an alternative mechanism to ensure that we give the Irish government what they want, which is that we end up with no hard border”, he added.

Dublin moved swiftly to pour cold water on the suggestion.

Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, wrote on Twitter: “As Brexit dominates news coverage, no surprise that some analysis today gets it wrong. I can reassure you the Irish government’s commitment to the entire [withdrawal agreement] is absolute – including the backstop to ensure, no matter what, an open border between Ireland + NI and the [Good Friday Agreement] are protected.

And an Irish government source told the Sunday Times that a bilateral treaty "doesn't sound like something we would entertain".

Ms May's chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, has reportedly told cabinet ministers that, if the plan fails, the prime minister could seek to secure more support for her deal by announcing she will step down in May.

Ms May will brief her cabinet on her next steps during a conference call on Sunday afternoon.
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In a sign of growing concern among Eurosceptics that the amendments could lead to Brexit being delayed or reversed, leading Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, a vocal critic of Ms May's deal, said it would be better to leave the EU on the terms of the prime minister's plan than not leave at all.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he called on the Conservatives to “come together in the national interest” and said: “If I had to choose between no deal and Mrs May’s original accord, I would have no hesitation of opting for no-deal Brexit but even Mrs May’s deal would be better than not leaving at all.

“Even at this very late stage, I believe that with commitment and effort we can avoid such a choice.”

On Monday afternoon in the Commons, Theresa May will update MPs about any progress she may have made on Brexit options following her conclusive parliamentary defeat last week. It is expected to be a holding statement, to enable her to carry on consulting as she hunts for the elusive formula that can win a Commons majority, retain EU agreement and keep her government alive.

Given Mrs May’s approach and personality, this could be a long search. Don’t hold your breath for the outcome. One of Mrs May’s most disabling qualities in this situation is her political rigidity. In spite of last week’s defeat, she struggles to see that everything about her premiership has changed. She remains formally in charge of the government. But, on the issue that defines British politics, she is no longer in charge at all. She merely leads one of the many groups with no majority that make up the patchwork of Commons Brexit opinion. Mrs May will both fail and fall if she does not change her approach. She needs either to find Brexit allies, in which case she must compromise on policy, or to reset the Brexit process in some way, which will require an even bolder form of leadership. Over the weekend, as it happens, two former prime ministers came to her aid in different ways with practical suggestions – though she is unlikely to thank either of them for doing so.

Nevertheless, she should listen. In the first, John Major told the BBC that Mrs May needs to become a mediator between parliament’s many Brexit groups. If neither the hardline remainers nor the hardline leavers can have their way without mayhem, only compromise offers a way forward, he believes. This is essentially the lesson of the Northern Ireland peace process. If Sir John is right, and he may be, then Mrs May needs to test MPs’ mood on a series of Brexit-related issues, see where there is potential for a deal and put herself at the head of the effort to agree it.

A second approach comes in our pages from Gordon Brown. He argues that Britain faces a triple problem: a government at odds with parliament; a country divided by Brexit; and a disconnect between the public and politics. Mrs May, he says, must stop the Brexit clock and embrace new ways that could assist the building of a consensus. Like the Guardian, he advocates deliberative assemblies to help parliament achieve that end. But he also grasps that this requires a debate about Britain itself, not just Britain in Europe.

The two former prime ministers have much in common. Both of them recognise the seriousness of the situation. Both propose new approaches in place of the strategy that collapsed last week. And both seek compromise between the warring sides. Their solutions differ – Sir John would rely on patient leadership to broker a Brexit deal while Mr Brown puts his trust in new forms of process to produce a wider transformative outcome. But, in their different ways, they are voices of sanity, fresh ideas, cooperation and practicality. Mrs May has the chance to show, starting from Monday, that she can learn from the wisdom of her prime ministerial predecessors.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Poland’s foreign minister said on Monday he had proposed limiting the Irish backstop to five years in order to unblock the Brexit deadlock but the idea was immediately knocked back by Ireland as being out of step with the EU’s stance.

The Irish backstop - an insurance policy to avoid the return of a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland - is the most contentious element of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal which was overwhelmingly rejected by parliament last week.

“I’ve just discussed that idea with my (Irish) counterpart Simon Coveney and also with (British foreign minister) Jeremy Hunt today, I think it would be one of the solutions,” Poland’s Jacek Czaputowicz told reporters on entering a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May promised on Monday to be more open with parliament in negotiating the future relationship with the European Union and to ease the concerns of lawmakers over the divorce deal to win their agreement.

Highlighting three changes to her Brexit approach, May told parliament she would be “more flexible”, implement a demand from opposition Labour on guaranteeing workers’ rights and would find a way to calm nerves over a commitment to no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland.

“In doing so we will honor the mandate of the British people and leave the European Union in a way which benefits every part of our United Kingdom and every citizen of our country,” she said.

Following the Government's defeat in the 'meaningful vote' last week, Prime Minister Theresa May set out the Government's next steps for the Brexit process.

In her statement, the Prime Minister spoke of conversations since the loss of the 'meaningful vote' with the Leaders of other parties and back-benchers across the House of Commons. She criticised Jeremy Corbyn for refusing to participate and called on all MPs to work together to deliver Brexit.

The Prime Minister remained clear that she would not support a second referendum, and that she did not believe there was a majority in the House for one. She also refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit, stating that she remained committed to delivering a deal in advance of Article 50's expiration on March 29th 2019.

Concluding her statement, Mrs May said she had identified three key changes to which could secure Parliamentary support for a deal. She said firstly that her Government would be more “flexible, open and inclusive” in engaging Parliament in their negotiations with the EU. Secondly they would embed protections on worker rights and environment, and finally that they would work to ensure that the Norther Irish border issue is resolved in a way that both the EU and UK can support.

The Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn responded on behalf of his party. He said;

"There is a clear majority in this house to support a deal in principle and to respect the referendum result. But it requires the Prime Minister to face reality and accept her deal has been comprehensively defeated".

Theresa May has been warned that up to 40 government ministers could resign if she refuses to allow them to vote for a plan that would block a no-deal Brexit in March.

Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, has told No10 it faces an exodus of members of the government unless ministers are allowed to support a backbench amendment that would extend Article 50 if a Brexit deal is not in place within weeks.

The amendment, tabled by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and former Tory ministers Sir Oliver Letwin and Nick Boles, will be debated and voted on by the Commons on 29 January.

Ms Rudd is urging Ms May to give Tory MPs a free vote on the motion in order to avoid a mass ministerial walkout.
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Freight trade across the Channel could fall up to 87 per cent under no-deal scenario, leaked document reveals

Freight trade across the Channel could fall by up to 87 per cent in the event of a no-deal Brexit, a leaked Border Force document has revealed.

In the event that Britain is unable to secure a deal with the European Union, the decline of freight trade could last up to six months, estimates in contingency plans drawn up for the government say.

The figures were found in an “official sensitive” document that was titled Freight Traffic Contingency Assumptions. It was part of an internal government presentation that was leaked to Sky News.

In what is said to be in reference to traffic from Dover-Calais and the Channel Tunnel, a slide from the presentation reads: “The reasonable worst case flow through the Short Straits is reduced to between 13 per cent and 25 per cent of current capacity for a period of between three-six months.”

Another section says: “The French will apply at least the legal minimum of third country customs controls on all goods and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks on specified food and agricultural products.

“This includes the imposition of 100% customs documents checks.”

The presentation is dated from late November last year and was thought to have been discussed, although the numbers may have been updated since.

The Home Office declined to comment on the accuracy of the document, which is also said to assume a “new normal” for cross-Channel freight will be 50 to 100 per cent of current flows “until significant changes are made to improve border arrangements” following the initial shock.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium’s Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Tuesday the European Union was still waiting for Brexit proposals from London.

“We are all Irish for the moment,” Reynders also told reporters of the bloc’s unity with Dublin on the contentious issue of the Irish border after Brexit.

LEEDS (Reuters) - With just nine weeks to go until Britain is due to leave the European Union, a company is selling worried Britons a survival kit to help them prepare for the worst.

The “Brexit Box”, retailing at 295 pounds ($380), provides food rations to last 30 days, according to its producer, businessman James Blake who says he has already sold hundreds of them.

With still no deal on how Britain will trade with the EU once it leaves, retailers and manufacturers have warned a “no-deal” Brexit could cause food and medicine shortages due to expected chaos at ports that could paralyze supply lines.

The Brexit Box includes 60 portions of freeze-dried British favorites: Chicken Tikka, Chilli Con Carne, Macaroni Cheese and Chicken Fajitas, 48 portions of dried mince and chicken, firelighter liquid and an emergency water filter.

LONDON (Reuters) - British ferry and shipping freight operator P&O will re-flag its entire UK registered fleet to Cyprus ahead of Britain’s departure from the European Union to keep tax arrangements in the bloc, the company said on Tuesday.

Last month P&O said it was re-flagging two of its UK ships operating on the English Channel route to France to the Cyprus registry.

“In advance of Britain leaving the European Union on March 29, 2019, we undertook a review of the flag status of our ships on the English Channel,” a P&O spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday.

“For operational and accounting reasons, we have concluded that the best course of action is to re-flag all ships to be under the Cyprus flag.”

Spokesman says it is ‘pretty obvious’ border controls would be needed under no deal

The EU has confirmed it will enforce a hard border on the island of Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit, despite the risk it would pose to peace.

In comments that will be highly uncomfortable for Dublin, Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief spokesman told reporters it was “pretty obvious” that border infrastructure would be necessary if the UK were to leave without deal.

Both the Irish and British governments have been wary about speculating on the repercussions of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, was caught on tape last week indicating that his fellow ministers should not talk about the resumption of checks publicly for fear of a backlash.

In a private conversation, he had told the Irish transport minister, Shane Ross, that “once you start talking about checks anywhere near the border, people will start delving into that and all of a sudden we’ll be the government that reintroduced a physical border on the island of Ireland”.

But the EU’s chief spokesman said on Tuesday that the likely enforcement of border checks could not be avoided.

The spokesman said: “If you were to push me to speculate on what might happen in a no-deal scenario in Ireland, I think it is pretty obvious you will have a hard border, and our commitments to the Good Friday agreement and everything we have been doing for years with our tools, instruments and programmes will have to take inevitably into account this fact. So of course we are for peace. Of course we stand behind the Good Friday agreement but that is what a no-deal scenario would entail.”

The European commission spokesman also echoed the complaints of many in the House of Commons about Theresa May’s statement on Monday by claiming that “at this stage we have nothing new to say from Brussels because there is nothing new from London”.

“We continue to follow very closely the ongoing parliamentary debate in the UK. We urge the UK to clarify its intentions as soon as possible,” the spokesman said.

During her appearance in the Commons, May insisted that she had listened to the MPs who had voted down her deal but was subsequently accused of failing to offer any new ideas to win round parliament. May’s deal was rejected last week by 230 votes, the heaviest defeat ever for a sitting government.

Juncker’s spokesman said Brussels welcomed May’s announcement, in her statement, that the UK would waive the £65 fee for those seeking settled status in the country as the “only new element” in her update to parliament.

However, he added: “This … doesn’t provide the sort of clarity of intentions that we are expecting as soon as possible on the broader picture of the orderly withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.”

Of May’s plans to return to seek further concessions on the Irish backstop, which would keep the UK in a customs union to avoid a hard border, the spokesman said the deal agreed was “not open to negotiation”.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Scots with a taste for traditional meat pies or haggis face “enforced vegetarianism” after Brexit, a Scottish government minister warned on Tuesday, as it may starve abattoirs of a vital European workforce.

In Brussels to press Scotland’s case for continued membership of the European single market, Constitutional Relations Minister Michael Russell said the British government’s plan to end free movement for EU workers would sound a “death knell” for the Scottish economy.

Noting that over 60 percent of workers in Scottish slaughterhouses and 98 percent of their vets come from other EU countries, he concluded: “Enforced vegetarianism is the outcome there, because there just won’t be legal means of slaughter.”

Scots around the world are this week toasting their national poet Robert Burns with carnivorous feasts of steaming haggis: sheep’s stomach stuffed with offal, oats and pepper.

Russell told reporters the independence-minded devolved government in Edinburgh was expanding permanent missions in Brussels, Berlin, Paris and other European centers to help keep close to trading partners.

From world-leading university research teams to fruit farms, a loss of EU nationals would be damaging and Scotland would struggle to cope with its aging population, he said.

Representing a nation that voted heavily to remain in the EU in the 2016 British referendum, the Scottish government is backing efforts in the London parliament to stop Prime Minister Theresa May taking Britain out of the bloc on March 29 without a deal to smooth the process and keep close free trade ties.

Russell said the Scottish National Party, in power in Scotland and the third largest in the British legislature, said May should delay withdrawal and hold a new referendum giving voters a choice between staying in the EU or leaving on terms she negotiated last month but which parliament has rejected.

After seeing preparations at the Belgian port of Zeebrugge for new controls on imports from Britain in the event of a no-deal Brexit, Russell said Scottish firms were preparing but such an outcome would be very disruptive.

The possibility of Britain simply keeping its ports and borders open after a hard Brexit was “an open invitation to smuggling and to illegality”, he said.

“I ... don’t believe that can last a week.”

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Parliament expects to start next week its procedure to endorse the Brexit deal negotiated between the bloc and London, lawmakers said on Tuesday, despite the fact that Britain is still struggling to finalize the divorce agreement.

Britain’s Labour opposition party on Tuesday edged towards a new Brexit referendum as the deadlocked UK parliament looks for ways forward, keeping the EU waiting for what sort of majority could emerge.

They EU has told Britain it awaits its proposals but that the already negotiated - and voted down in the House of Commons - legal withdrawal agreement was the best Britain could get.

It has stressed, however, that it could work further on an accompanying text laying out future ties for Britain and the EU should London opt for a closer relationship.

“Hopefully, at the end of January we will start our procedure,” lawmaker Danuta Hubner said on Tuesday of the parliamentary consent necessary for the deal to take effect.

She expected the Brexit deal to be referred to the European Parliament next Wednesday-Thursday so the lawmakers can finalize their ratification by the Brexit date of March 29.

The parliament’s Brexit pointman, Guy Verhofstadt, told the same session on Tuesday that starting the process would send an important signal.

“This means there is no renegotiation possible for us of the Withdrawal Agreement. If there is renegotiation possible, it’s only the Political Declaration in which we have nothing against a more deep future relationship between the EU and the UK,” he said.

With time running short, the bloc is stepping up preparations for a no-deal Brexit and the two sides said they expected the parliament to receive corresponding files from the bloc’s executive European Commission in mid-February.

“The problem seems to be for the moment in the UK that apparently there are only negative majorities in the House of Commons,” Verhofstadt said.

“No positive majorities for alternatives at this stage. Prolonging Article 50 without having a clear plan for a way out to break the deadlock based on a majority in the House of Commons seems to me very difficult to do,” he said of the EU treaty regulating Britain’s departure.

Should Brexit be delayed beyond the end of June, Britain is under legal obligations to hold May elections to pick representatives to the new European Parliament, which is due to form from July.

“Whatever the solution with Brexit, this does not prevent the parliament from regularly constituting itself when the time comes and starting its functioning,” Hubner said.

In the ensuing debate, lawmakers called for more strategic thinking on the EU side and flexibility to try every avenue to keep close ties with Britain.

Others, however, said Brexit should not be delayed just because of political infighting in Britain, the country should be out in two months and the EU free to get on with its own agenda.