Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

Jean-Claude Juncker has accused Boris Johnson of spreading "lies" during the Brexit referendum campaign, in his most strongly-worded attack on the prime minister yet.

Speaking on Thursday evening the European Commission president said he "should have intervened" in the campaign to point out "bullshit" and falsehoods spread by "Boris Johnson and others".

"They were saying things, some of them – lying. Telling the people things which have nothing to do with our day by day reality," he told an audience at a think-tank in Brussels.

"David Cameron asked me not to intervene in the referendum campaign because he said the European Commission is even less popular on the islands than on the continent ... That was a major mistake: I should have intervened, because nobody was denying, contesting the lies Boris Johnson and others were spreading around."

But the Commission president denied that it was the EU's fault that the campaign had been lost, instead pointing the finger at the British press.

"If for 46 years you are told day after day, and you are reading in your papers that the place of the British is not really in Europe, but that they are there for economic and internal market reasons, and all the rest – it's nonsense. bulls***, as they are saying in the European Parliament – don't be surprised if voters are asked to give their impression, some of them, a small majority but nevertheless a clear majority, is voting like a majority of the British sovereign people is voting," he said.

Mr Juncker is not the first EU leader to lambast Leave campaigners in the strongest terms. In March this year Emmanuel Macron said Brexiteers were "anger-mongers backed by fake news" whose "lies and irresponsibility" had thrown Europe into danger.

But last week the French president, who had stopped short of naming Mr Johnson in his earlier tirade, claimed he had not been taking about the prime minister, telling journalists at an EU summit: “I never described Boris Johnson" as such.

European Council president Donald Tusk also angered Brexiteers after he said in February that there was a "special place in hell" for "those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan" of how to carry it out successfully.

Research finds majority of both leave and remain voters feel violence worth it to get outcome they support

A majority of voters in England, Wales and Scotland believe that violence against MPs is a “price worth paying” in order to get their way on Brexit, an academic survey has found.

The poll from Cardiff University and the University of Edinburgh asked respondents what they would be willing to see happen in order to leave or remain within the European Union.

Most leave voters who took part in the Future of England study thought violence towards MPs was a “price worth paying” for Brexit to be delivered – 71% in England, 60% in Scotland and 70% in Wales.

The majority of remain voters felt that potential violence was worth it if it meant we would stay in the EU – 58% in England, 53% in Scotland and 56% in Wales.

Most also thought that violence towards MPs and violent protests in which people are “badly injured” were likely to occur if and when Brexit happens.

Richard Wyn Jones, a professor of Welsh politics at Cardiff University who co-directed the research, said he had been “flabbergasted” by the results, given the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox before the referendum in 2016 and recent threats made towards other MPs.

“If we’re going into a general election in which polarisation is the name of the game, it’s very, very hard to see how you can bind these wounds,” said Wyn Jones.

“I think this division is now existential, it’s about who we think we are and who we think we’re not. It’s very hard to see how the state of the union in it’s current form survives Brexit.”

He added: “If we’re going into a general election in which further polarisation is a deliberate aim of the campaigning of at least some of the political parties, you do wonder in all seriousness where all of this ends.”

Of the 4,103 politically representative respondents, a significant number – 47% in Wales, 52% in England and 61% in Scotland – thought that the UK’s departure from the EU would likely lead to the breakup of the UK.

Many were also willing to see the union change substantially if it meant they would get their own way on Brexit. Among leave voters, 74% in England, the same percentage in Wales and 59% in Scotland believed the breakup of the UK would be worth it to take back control through delivering Brexit.

Similar proportions of remainers believed undermining faith in the union would be a price worth paying in order to remain in the EU.

Ailsa Henderson, a professor of political science at the University of Edinburgh and fellow co-director of the research, said the findings showed that Brexit negotiations were “putting the union under considerable strain regardless of whether we stay or go”.

She added: “Both sides are prepared to fundamentally rewrite the rules of politics as we know it to get what they want. Staying in the EU will likely decrease faith in the union. Brexit could well change its borders.”

Despite leave voters’ conviction that Brexit should be delivered at all costs, over half of people throughout all three countries thought that the nation would become substantially poorer as a result of Brexit.

However, a huge number of those who voted leave in the EU referendum believed that economic losses would be worth it – 76% in England and Scotland and 81% in Wales.

Similarly, voters overwhelmingly felt that the potential destruction of the country’s farming and fishing industries would be a price worth paying for getting the result they wanted in the Brexit negotiations.

Sajid Javid has "paused" production of the new Brexit 50p coins due to the likelihood that the UK will not leave the European Union next Thursday.

A Treasury source told The Daily Telegraph: "We have paused production of the Brexit coin and will take a final decision in due course."

The Treasury declined to comment further but it is likely that hundreds of thousands of the coins have already been minted.

The coins are likely to be collectors' items if any are allowed to leave the Royal Mint before they are melted down.

Michel Barnier has said the EU27 has not yet been able to make a decision on the length of the next Brexit delay due to the ongoing debate in the UK over Boris Johnson’s demand for a general election.

Speaking after a two-hour meeting of ambassadors in Brussels, the EU’s chief negotiator said an “excellent” discussion had not concluded with any clear way forward. “No decision,” he said.

It may not take until Monday for the EU to make public its offer on an extension after parliament votes on whether there will be a general election.

A majority of member states want to accept the terms of an extension reluctantly requested by Johnson in a letter sent last Saturday under which Brexit could be delayed up until 31 January. The UK would leave earlier if the withdrawal agreement was ratified in Westminster and by the European parliament.

Boris Johnson has dropped plans for the government to go "on strike" if he fails to trigger a pre-Christmas general election, after the move was widely ridiculed.

No 10 had threatened to abandon all legislation, if Jeremy Corbyn refuses to agree to a snap poll – saying “nothing will come before parliament but the bare minimum”.

But the stance, widely interpreted as going on strike, prompted criticism from both Brexit supporters and from Labour MPs, one of whom branded it “beyond childish”.

Now Downing Street has retreated, saying only Brexit legislation will be halted, while bills for the prime minister’s “domestic priorities” will go ahead.

Asked if the strike had been called off, Mr Johnson’s spokesman insisted: “I don’t believe anyone has used that language.”

The prime minister is leaving open the option of pulling Monday’s vote, to overturn the fixed term parliaments act for a 12 December election, if the EU has not made its decision on an Article 50 extension.

However, No 10 still expects Brussels to decide early on Monday – but is braced for a delay to 31 January, which Mr Johnson has condemned as unacceptable.

The Brexit deal will allow the UK to slash protections for workers’ rights and the environment, a leaked document reveals – prompting accusations that Boris Johnson has misled parliament.

The prime minister is wooing Labour MPs with a promise to maintain so-called ‘level playing field’ rules with the EU, which also include safety and consumer standards.

But the official paper, drafted by the Brexit department and shared with ministers, makes clear the commitment in the agreement “leaves room for interpretation”, The Financial Times revealed.

It said the UK’s and EU’s “interpretation of these [level playing field] commitments will be very different” and that the text represented a “much more open starting point for future relationship negotiations”.

The document also boasts that “UK negotiators successfully resisted the inclusion of all UK-wide LPF rules” that were part of Theresa May’s doomed Brexit deal.
[...]
The leak could hit the prime minister’s hopes of winning Labour support for his withdrawal agreement bill in the Commons, if he decides to bring it back.

The issue will come to a head, if Brexit goes ahead, when the UK begins talks to forge a new trade deal with the EU. They must be completed by the end of 2020.

Mr Johnson once described employment regulation as “back-breaking”, fuelling Labour suspicions that any verbal promises are not worth the paper they are not written on.
[...]
Ms May’s deal included a legal commitment not to roll back EU regulatory standards as long as her “backstop” plan for preventing a hard Irish border was needed.

But Mr Johnson’s replacement scraps that plan for all of the UK to remain in the customs union, at least temporarily, in favour of Northern Ireland-only alignment.

Instead, the future status of workers’ rights and environmental protections is consigned to the political declaration – which has no legal force.

The public is turning against Boris Johnson’s deal and blaming him – rather than Labour – for the latest Brexit delay, a poll has found.

Only 19 per cent of voters believe the surprise agreement struck with Brussels last week is a good deal and only 3 per cent described it as ‘very good’.

The proportion not knowing enough about it to offer an opinion has fallen from 45 per cent to 34 per cent – with most who have made up their minds refusing to give their endorsement.

Furthermore, the survey suggested the prime minister has failed in his strategy of pinning the blame on Labour for the failure to deliver on his “do or die” pledge to leave the EU by 31 October.

One in five said that Mr Johnson and the Conservatives would be most responsible when Brexit fails to happen on Halloween, more than the 13 per cent who will blame Jeremy Corbyn’s party.

Over half the public blamed “MPs on all sides” suggesting the Tories will struggle to make the controversy a vote-winner in a general election.

Nevertheless, the poll, by YouGov for The Times, shows the Conservatives are maintaining their huge overall lead, holding out the promise of a Commons majority if the election is held.

It found 36 per cent of people planned to support the Tories, while only 23 per cent would back Labour, 18 per cent the Lib Dems and 12 per cent Nigel Farage's Brexit Party.

The election would also be dominated by Brexit, it seems, with 59 per cent citing leaving the EU as a priority in deciding how to vote, followed by health on 37 per cent and the economy on 29 per cent.

Twice as many people now think it would have been better never to have held a referendum on Brexit than believe it was a good idea, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.

Asked to consider the difficulties the government has had in reaching an agreement, 57% of UK adults surveyed said that they believed it would have been better not to have had a public vote in June 2016.

This compares with 29% of voters who believe it was right to hold the referendum on whether the UK should stay in or leave the EU.

The findings reflect a growing sense of public weariness about arguments over Brexit, which have paralysed British politics and divided the country. People who voted to remain in the EU are overwhelmingly of the view that the referendum should not have taken place, with 87% agreeing and only 7% saying it was a good idea.

Those who voted to leave, however, still have a majority view – although a decreasing one – that it was right to have put the question to the people; 57% of this group said that they believed it was the correct decision, against 32% who now think the reverse.

Despite this, the poll gives the Tories under Boris Johnson, who led the campaign to leave, a commanding 16-point lead over Labour, which opposed leaving the EU in the referendum. As Johnson prepares to push for a 12 December general election in a Commons vote tomorrow, the Conservatives are up three points compared with a week ago, on 40%. Labour is unchanged on 24%, while the Liberal Democrats are down one point on 15%. The Brexit party is down two on 10%, the SNP up one on 5% and the Greens down one on 3%.

The Brexit deal that Johnson struck with Brussels 10 days ago is regarded by more people as bad for their own financial prospects and those of the UK economy than the proportion who think it will be beneficial. Around 40% of voters think it will be bad for the UK economy as a whole, compared with 26% who think it will be good.

With the Brexit deadlock continuing in parliament, opinion among the public is divided on what should happen next. The most popular option, although only by a very narrow margin, is to hold a general election to sort out the impasse. This is backed by 31% of people as the best way forward; 42% of Conservative voters back a general election, compared with 31% of Labour voters who support this as the next step.

The next most popular option is to allow the House of Commons the necessary time to pass the Brexit legislation; this is backed by 27% of all voters, including 41% of Tory supporters and 24% for Labour.

The option of another referendum is supported by 23% of all voters. Only 5% of Tories support a second vote, against 35% of Labour voters who back one.

If there were to be another referendum, the poll suggests the result would be on a knife edge, with 43% of all voters saying they would back remaining in the EU, against 42% who would vote to leave.

Adam Drummond, head of political polling at Opinium, said that the latest results showed support for the Tories had continued to grow, although support for Johnson’s deal pointed to a more complex set of views on Brexit. “The Conservatives have hit the symbolically important 40% mark for the first time since before missing the [original] Brexit deadline back in March, and the reaction to Boris Johnson’s deal appears to be that the public are divided on whether it will be good for them and the economy.

“To the extent that there is a way out of the impasse, a general election is the most popular individual outcome, but if Johnson’s deal were put up against the option of remaining in the EU in a binary referendum, the country remains just as evenly split as it was last time we asked.”

LONDON (Reuters) - Boris Johnson’s Conservatives stepped up pressure on lawmakers on Sunday to back the prime minister’s bid to hold an early election and break Britain’s Brexit impasse, saying the country was being held “hostage” by parliament.

But with the main opposition Labour Party waiting for the European Union to grant a Brexit delay and two other parties launching their own bid for an even earlier election, the government’s bid so far looks set to fail.

Britain was due to leave the EU on Thursday, but despite the government arguing this is still the legal default date, few expect Johnson to meet his “do or die” promise to deliver Brexit on Oct. 31 after the bloc agreed to another delay.

More than three years since Britain voted to leave the EU, the divided country and its parliament are still debating over how, when and even whether Brexit, Britain’s biggest policy shift for more than 40 years, should happen.

All Britain’s political parties agree an election is needed to break the standoff over Brexit, but cannot agree on its timing. For many lawmakers, an attempt by Johnson to set the terms of a new election raises concerns that he might renege.

“Parliament cannot hold the country hostage any longer,” Johnson said late on Saturday. “Millions of businesses and people cannot plan their futures, this paralysis is causing real damage and the country must move on in 2020.”

His culture minister, Nicky Morgan, doubled down on the message on Sunday, warning lawmakers that Thursday was still “the default leaving date”.

“So that should focus minds,” she told Sky News.

Asked what would happen if the government failed on Monday in its early election bid, Morgan said: “We will keep asking for that election and we will find ways to do that.”

“STOP THROWING TANTRUMS”
On Thursday, Johnson called for a general election on Dec. 12, offering parliament until Nov. 6 to ratify his Brexit deal - the first time Britain’s prime minister had conceded he would not meet his Oct. 31 deadline.

It is his third attempt to get the required backing in parliament, where he needs the support of two-thirds of its 650 lawmakers for a new election.

Almost immediately, Labour said it could not back a new election until the party was sure a so-called no-deal Brexit had been taken off the table.

On Sunday, the party’s health policy chief, Jon Ashworth, again said the party would wait for the EU to decide on the length of any Brexit extension before taking a decision.

“Of course we want a general election but we’ve got to make sure that we get those absolute reassurances that Boris Johnson won’t use a general election and the campaign to crash us out of the European Union with a disastrous no-deal Brexit,” he said.

“That is what we’re waiting for.”

The EU has agreed there should be an extension but has set no departure date, saying it would wait to see how parliament voted on Johnson’s call for an early election.

Taking a different tack, two other opposition parties, the Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrats, have written to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, to ask for a delay until Jan. 31. They want a new poll on Dec. 9.

But the Conservatives and Labour described the move as a stunt, putting into question whether the two parties’ alternative bid could be passed by parliament.

With the government looking likely to lose its vote on Monday, former finance minister Philip Hammond had a word of warning for the prime minister.

“I shall be voting against him. This is not the time to be holding a general election, it is a time for cool heads and grown-up government,” Hammond told Sky News.

“The government should stop making threats, stop throwing tantrums and get on with the grown-up business of doing its business.”

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The 27 European Union countries that will remain after Brexit hope to agree on Monday to delay Britain’s divorce until Jan.31 with an earlier departure possible should the factious UK parliament ratify their separation deal, sources said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week reluctantly requested the three-month delay until the end of January, 2020, after the parliament’s lower House of Commons refused to swiftly approve a new Brexit deal he had agreed with the bloc.

Any postponement to Brexit can only be granted unanimously by the 27 and French objections have so far prevented a decision as Johnson spars with lawmakers over calling an early election.

Diplomatic sources told Reuters the bloc’s 27 EU ambassadors would meet at 0900 GMT on Monday in Brussels to agree on the three-month delay from the current Brexit date of Oct. 31.

The latest plan envisages that Britain could also be out on Dec.1 or Jan.1 should the parliament ratify the agreement in November or December, respectively, according to diplomats who deal with Brexit in the EU hub, Brussels.

The bloc will state that the extension, the third granted so Britain can sort out its departure, will not be used to renegotiate the divorce treaty again and that London should not impede other essential work by the EU on projects from budgets to climate policies.

Should all the ambassadors agree, there will be a short period — less than 24 hours and possibly as little as several hours — during which national capitals could still object. If no issues are raised, the decision will take effect.

If Britain is still in the EU after Oct. 31, the bloc will ask London to name a candidate for the new executive European Commission, added the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. A new Commission, comprising one representative from every member state, is due to take over on Dec. 1.

More than three years after Britain voted to quit the EU, the country and its parliament remain divided over how, when and even whether to leave, and the matter has triggered a spiraling political crisis in the country.

For the EU, the unprecedented loss of a member is a historic setback. But the 27 are also deeply frustrated with the intractable divorce, which is sapping time, energy and political capital that should otherwise be spent on jump-starting economies and tackling security and other challenges.

Press Association reports that the government is going ahead with its preparations for a no-deal Brexit by activating measures to manage traffic on Kent’s motorways despite the EU considering an extension.

Operation Brock will come into force at 6am on Monday - three days before the UK is due to withdraw from the EU and the day Parliament votes on whether to hold a snap general election.

It comes amid signs the EU is set to grant a fresh Brexit delay until the end of January after Boris Johnson was forced – under the terms of the so-called Benn Act – to request a further extension.

The traffic measures are designed to keep the M20 open in both directions in case there is a disruption to services across the English Channel.

Lorries heading for Europe will face a 30mph limit on a 13-mile stretch of the coast-bound carriage of the M20.

All other traffic on the motorway - including lorries carrying out UK deliveries - must use a 50mph contraflow of two lanes in each direction on the London-bound side of the road.

Several holding areas to park lorries are also available to be activated if required, including at Manston Airfield.

Hauliers must be ready to show they have the correct paperwork before reaching the border or face being turned back.

Motorists have been warned to allow for extra travel time and to make sure they have food and water in their vehicles in case of delays.

Highways England south east operations director Nicola Bell said Operation Brock is part of a set of measures in place to allow the M20 and the rest of Kent to keep moving in the event of cross-channel disruption.

“We have worked extensively with our partners in Kent to ensure that the county is as prepared as possible for any disruption to cross-channel services,” she said in a statement.

Operation Brock was initially deployed on 25 March, four days ahead of the first planned Brexit date.

It was deactivated about three weeks later following the delay to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, but the steel barriers for the contraflow system and 50mph speed limit remain in place.