Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Britain’s government knows the outline of what it sees as a possible deal to leave the European Union, Michael Gove, the minister in charge of planning for a no-deal Brexit, said on Sunday.

Speaking at the governing Conservative Party’s annual conference in the northern English city of Manchester, Gove said the government’s proposals for an agreement would see a deal that would differ significantly from the one negotiated by former prime minister Theresa May.

He added that there was still time for a deal to be done with the EU, and that the government could sign off on such an agreement at a summit in Brussels on Oct. 17-18. If not, the talks would go to the wire, he said.

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Britain will need to take negotiations with the EU on Brexit up to the deadline to force the changes needed to a get deal that will pass through parliament trade minister Liz Truss said on Sunday.

At the Conservative Party’s annual conference in the northern English city of Manchester, Truss told an event organized by the Times newspaper that she believed parliament would now pass a Brexit deal.

“The reason we didn’t get further concessions in advance of March 29 is that we didn’t get close enough to the deadline ... Deadlines work and we need to take it to that deadline to make the changes we all need,” Truss said. “That is what we are doing.”

Parliament rejected a deal negotiated by former prime minister Theresa May three times.

Exhibition at Bonn’s House of History documents ‘unrequited love’ of all things British
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In November 1974, the then German chancellor Helmut Schmidt was desperately searching for the right words to convince British Eurosceptics to vote to remain a member of the European Economic Community.

Schmidt had been offered a generous slot of 10 to 15 minutes at the Labour party conference, but a number of leftwing MPs had already announced they would walk out on his speech if he tried to “lecture” them.

Katharina Focke, the German federal minister for youth, family and health, had some ingenious advice to offer after an informative meeting with her British counterpart Barbara Castle: “The only way to keep Britain in the European Community,” she wrote to Schmidt, “is not to remind it that it is already in.”

Focke’s diplomatic cable is on display in the first room of a new exhibition at Bonn’s House of History, entitled Very British: A German Point of View – right next to a digital watch counting down the seconds until Britain is due to depart from the bloc of nations on 31 October.

Michael Gove has raised the prospect of Boris Johnson being toppled if he fails to strike a Brexit deal, to be replaced by “a new Labour or other prime minister”.

Asked about the fading prospects for an agreement, with a crucial EU summit just 17 days away, the cabinet office minister argued the EU must recognise “this process will involve compromise for everyone”.

He then added: “I can’t believe that the EU would want a situation where we are continually negotiating a deal, with a new Labour or other prime minister, and this process is endlessly delayed.”

The suggestion of a different leader in No 10 followed a discussion about the EU’s likely reluctance to shift its stance, given the growing political chaos at Westminster and Mr Johnson’s weakness.

And it came as opposition parties, and ex-Tory MPs, reopen talks about whether to stage a vote of no confidence as early as this week, with the aim of bringing him down.

The comment also contradicted the repeated insistence of government ministers that the UK will crash out of the EU on Halloween, if no deal has been struck.

During a fringe meeting at the Conservative conference, the prime minister’s key ally also said the hunt for a deal could stretch beyond the EU summit on 17 October – which Mr Johnson has called the deadline.

Mr Gove pointed to the Greek bailout crisis in 2010, telling the Policy Exchange event, when the EU indulged in “deal-making late into the night”.

“Ideally, we would have a proposition that was ready for the European Council – but it may well be the case that things go right to the wire,” he said.

The claim ignores the reality that the Benn Act requires the prime minister to seek an extension to Article 50, to delay Brexit, if no deal has been passed by parliament by 19 October.

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - The United Kingdom will leave the European Union on Oct. 31, hopefully with a deal, finance minister Sajid Javid said on Monday.

“Hopefully we leave with a deal,” Javid told ITV. “If we cannot strike a deal, I think it is important to leave in any case and leave with no deal. It is not perfect but it is appropriate that we leave on the 31st.”

Javid repeatedly refused to set out how the government could deliver Brexit if there was no deal given a law which demands the prime minister delay Brexit in such a scenario.

“The legislation that parliament has passed of course has made things more difficult, but we are clear our own policy is completely unchanged, we will be leaving on 31st,” Javid said.

Boris Johnson’s hopes of entering into decisive Brexit negotiations next week could be dashed after he was criticised in Dublin and Berlin for signalling the possible return of a hard border.

The prime minister is expected to table his long-awaited proposals for the Irish border soon after making his speech at Conservative party conference in Manchester on Wednesday.

With little over two weeks before a crunch EU leaders’ summit at which Johnson hopes to sign off on a deal, Downing Street is banking on then entering secretive “tunnel” negotiations to hammer out the details of an agreement.

Johnson’s predecessor at No 10, Theresa May, secured an all-UK customs element to the backstop following such a period of talks in 2018, during which the European commission’s negotiators took risks over the unity of the EU27 in order to find a deal that could be put to parliament.

When that deal emerged from the secret talks, a number of member states, including France, were unhappy with the outcome but allowed it to pass, having been convinced it was the only deal the Commons could accept.

But the UK’s current direction of travel, including an insistence on the return of a customs border on the island of Ireland, offers little room for negotiation, EU diplomats have said. “I haven’t seen a tunnel and I have never even seen the signs of heading to a tunnel,” said one EU diplomat. “Please put on your lights. I think it is a bit premature.”

Ireland’s deputy prime minister has rejected reports that a time-limited backstop could help solve the Brexit impasse. Simon Coveney has told RTÉ radio:

If we put an actual time limit on the backstop, well then there is no onus – particularly on the UK side, potentially – to find alternative solutions to the backstop that may be more permanent because it will simply fall after a certain period of time.

So, if you’re talking about a backstop and, if you can’t credibly answer the question: What happens on the border question at the end of it, of that time limit? Well, then it’s not a backstop at all.

It was claimed earlier in the afternoon that EU 27 governments had privately discussed offering the time limit. Bloomberg cited unnamed sources in the report and a European Commission spokesman was quoted as saying:

The EU is not considering this option at all. We are waiting for the U.K. to come forward with a legally operational solution that meets all the objectives of the backstop.

Today in Brussels we are tabling what I believe are constructive and reasonable proposals

Which provide a compromise for both sides

We will under no circumstances have checks at or near the border in Northern Ireland

We will respect the peace process and the Good Friday agreement

And by a process of renewable democratic consent by the executive and assembly of Northern ireland

we will go further and protect the existing regulatory arrangements for farmers and other businesses on both sides of the border

And at the same time we will allow the UK - whole and entire - to withdraw from the EU, with control of our own trade policy from the start.

And to protect the union

And yes this is a compromise by the UK

And I hope very much that our friends understand that and compromise in their turn. Because if we fail to get an agreement because of what is essentially a technical discussion of the exact nature of future customs checks, when that technology is improving the whole time, then let us be in no doubt that the alternative is no deal.

That is not an outcome we want. It is not an outcome we seek at all. But let me tell you this, conference, it is an outcome for which we are ready.

It cannot be stressed too much that this is not an anti-European party and it is not an anti-European country.

We love Europe. We are European. At least, I love Europe.

A cavernous £11m warehouse stocked with £5m of medical products and food has been set up on a business park in south Wales in readiness for a no-deal Brexit.

The Labour-led Welsh government said the money it had spent buying the warehouse could have bought seven MRI scanners for the NHS in Wales.

Mark Roscrow, the programme director for the NHS Wales shared services partnership, said the warehouse contained two months’ worth of stock to ensure that health and social services continued to run smoothly if a no-deal Brexit caused disruption.

He said: “It gives us an additional eight weeks of stock on top of what we normally hold. It gives us additional insurance against delays.”

The location of the warehouse cannot be revealed for security reasons but it is in south-east Wales, not far from major routes that will allow the goods to be dispatched to any part of the country.

Roscrow said there were 1,000 product lines and 40 employees on the site. He said many of the products came from Europe, such as syringes from Belgium and incontinence products from northern Europe.

Many of the products also come through Europe from the far east and the worry is that delays in Dover could lead to shortages in hospitals and clinics hundreds of miles away in Wales. “It is a challenge but we are trying to build resilience into the system,” he said. “At the moment we’re just not sure what the impact will be.”

A government official said Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan would create a single regulatory zone across Ireland for goods but not services - a suggestion that was previously rejected by the DUP.

The major difference between the new arrangements and the backstop is that there will now be a mechanism for consent allowing both the NI executive and assembly to endorse those arrangements, the official said.

Asked what would happen in regards to the border and border checks if Northern Ireland’s democratic institutions voted to end regulatory alignment with the EU, the official said: “That’s a discussion we will have closer to the time.”

The prime minister does not intend to extend the transition period but did not rule it out, the official said.

Crucially, the official was unable to say what would happen if Stormont or the executive rejects the new arrangements. It says in the documents that “if consent is withheld the arrangements will not enter into force or will lapse (as the case may be) after one year and arrangements will default to existing rules.”

The official also conceded that the new deal could involve another tranche of money going to Northern Ireland. Asked about the mention of a “New Deal for Northern Ireland” mentioned in Johnson’s letter, the official said: “I wouldn’t dispute that the support is likely to have financial implications.”