Britse politiek #27 Brexit, gifgas, chaos

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Norway-style Brexit option can't be considered, Corbyn tells MPs

Jeremy Corbyn has told Labour MPs that a Norway-style option cannot be considered by the party, but faces a party split after rebel Lords passed an amendment to the EU withdrawal bill which would keep membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) as an option.

Speaking at a private meeting of MPs in parliament, Corbyn told them there were significant issues with the Norway-option, which could leave Britain as “rule taker” without influence at EU level.

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Scottish parliament decisively rejects EU withdrawal bill
Legislation voted down by large margin, putting UK on brink of constitutional dispute

The Scottish parliament has voted against Theresa May’s Brexit legislation by a large margin, putting the UK on the brink of a major constitutional dispute.

Holyrood rejected the UK government’s EU withdrawal bill by 93 votes to 30 on Tuesday after Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Greens backed Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to oppose proposals on post-Brexit power sharing set out in clause 11 of the bill.

The vote is not legally binding but it will force the prime minister to make a high-risk decision to impose those power-sharing plans on Scotland or make further concessions to the Scottish government to avoid a crisis.

Imposing powers on Scotland would be unprecedented and fuel Sturgeon’s demands for a second independence referendum, potentially providing the Scottish National party with a further justification for staging one.

The two governments have been at loggerheads for months over how to manage 24 EU powers that will return to the UK after Brexit, including over state aid for industry, genetically modified crops policy, fishing quotas and farm subsidies, after ministers in London made a series of concessions brokered by the Scottish Conservatives.

Both governments agree those policies should operate uniformally across the UK, shared between the four governments in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. The UK says it will consult the Scottish government on all changes to those policies, and try to seek agreement.

Sturgeon, the first minister and SNP leader, has decided that consultation is not enough, and insists that her government or Holyrood should be given the legal power to block any changes they disagree with. UK ministers have rejected this stance as an unacceptable veto.

With the EU withdrawal bill due for its final vote in the Commons within weeks, May is running out of time to reach a deal before it becomes law.

Sturgeon told an audience in London on Monday it was “three minutes to midnight”. She said: “What happens after tomorrow, the ball will be very much in the UK government’s court.

“They have a decision to make as to whether they are going to ignore the views of the Scottish parliament or listen to those views and try very hard to get a deal and to close the gap that remains between us.”

The UK government and Scottish Tories have so far refused to offer any further concessions after the Welsh government dropped its opposition to the bill and accepted the power-sharing plans on offer.

The Welsh deal in turn led the House of Lords to endorse the UK stance, increasing the likelihood the measures will be passed by the Commons.

Tory sources indicate that May is likely to push the legislation through the Commons without Scottish parliament consent, and hope that the UK supreme court will rule in her favour after a potentially crucial hearing on the Scottish parliament’s powers over Brexit in July.

As the Guardian revealed in March, the Westminster government has asked the supreme court to quash the Scottish parliament’s rival legislation on Brexit, which was introduced by Holyrood this year in case the two governments failed to reach a deal on power sharing.

David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister and de facto deputy prime minister, told Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, that the UK would not allow one devolved administration to veto arrangements the others wanted.

“We have always been clear that it is not right that one part of the UK could hold a veto over all the others when it comes to, for example, protecting the vital common market of the whole of the UK,” Lidington said.

Leonard is attempting to broker cross-party talks at Holyrood to agree a deal. Lidington told the Labour leader he would welcome and consider “any practical variations [to the bill] that you have may have”.

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Mogelijkheden US/UK FTA onderzocht

Brexiters argue that the UK has to leave the EU customs union so that it can benefit from striking its own free trade deals with other countries and they generally argue that the biggest prize would be a juicy trade deal with the US. This led Michael Gove, in his rather sycophantic interview (paywall) with Donald Trump in January last year (when Gove was out of government) to ask for an assurance that the UK would be “at the front of the queue”. The UK was “doing great”, Trump replied elliptically, although Gove concluded that overall Trump was very positive about a deal.

But a new study, published by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, says the UK won’t benefit from such a deal. It may well never happen, and even if it were to be signed, the UK would have to make so many concessions it could become politically unacceptable.

Six authors have contributed to the report but one of them will be very familiar to readers - Ed Balls, the former shadow chancellor and now a research fellow at Harvard.

You can read the 57-page report in full here (pdf).

twitter:

JimMFelton twitterde op woensdag 16-05-2018 om 10:02:17 WE NOW GO LIVE TO BREXIT https://t.co/maJd1956QX reageer retweet

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Thought Brexit couldn’t get any more farcical? The story of the European patent court proves you wrong

This is the business end of Brexit, when all the contradictory promises and impossible dreams come face-to-face with legal reality. Usually we only notice this when it’s about trade, but the same is happening all over society, from security to rules around food recipes. This is the tawdry story of what the government did—and didn’t do—with patents, and why it is now stuck with a series of mutually incompatible promises which are about to collide headlong into one another.

It starts with Theresa May saying one thing and then proceeding to do exactly the opposite. In October 2016, she told the Conservative Party conference that Britain would leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Then, the next month, the government confirmed that in fact it would do the opposite. The first statement was made in the full glare of media attention at a key event in the political calendar. The second was made away from journalists, in a quiet announcement on a departmental website noticed by just a handful of lawyers and nerds.

It stated that it would ratify an agreement for a unified European patent court. Most people have no idea what the existing system is for patents or why the planned update to it would interfere with the government’s Brexit agenda. But for those who do, the decision was baffling. The new patent system is deeply embedded in the European Union’s architecture and would make any signatory dependent on rulings by the court May had just rejected. It is designed by EU states for EU states to rule on patents in EU states according to EU law as decided by the ECJ.

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Op woensdag 16 mei 2018 11:02 schreef Perrin het volgende:

twitter:

JimMFelton twitterde op woensdag 16-05-2018 om 10:02:17 WE NOW GO LIVE TO BREXIT https://t.co/maJd1956QX reageer retweet

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Op vrijdag 18 mei 2018 15:31 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:

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Wat was het? tweet is verwijderd

Hilarious video as man tumbles down set of steps into Thames

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Boris Johnson op weg naar Argentinië om de "Falkland-plooien" glad te strijken

De Britse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Boris Johnson is vertrokken naar Argentinië voor een cruciaal bezoek. Johnson zal daar deelnemen aan een top van de G-20, maar zal ook een bloemenkrans leggen aan een monument voor de Argentijnse slachtoffers van de Falklandoorlog van 1982.

Jos De Greef
15:00

Het is pas het tweede bezoek van een Britse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken aan Argentinië sinds de Falklandoorlog en de relaties zijn nog altijd erg gespannen. Officieel is Boris Johnson in Argentinië omdat daar een bijeenkomst van de ministers van Buitenlandse Zaken van de G-20 plaatsvindt. Dat zijn de 20 belangrijkste industrielanden.

Johnson zal echter ook een ontmoeting hebben met de Argentijnse president Mauricio Macri en hij zal er zelfs een bloemenkrans leggen aan een monument voor de Argentijnse gesneuvelden van de Falklandoorlog.

Veel toegeeflijkheid inzake de betwiste Falklandeilanden moeten de Argentijnen echter niet verwachten van Johnson. Sinds het aantreden van de conservatieve president Macri zijn de relaties tussen beide landen wat verbeterd, maar Argentinië zit nu in een nieuwe financiële crisis en heeft steun gevraagd van het Internationaal Muntfonds. Een betere relatie met het wereldomvattende financiële centrum Londen kan daarbij van pas komen.

Argentinië zit dus in een zwakkere positie en de Britten weten dat. Londen is overigens niet van plan om gelijk welk compromis na te streven over de Falklandeilanden, zeker niet nadat de inwoners daarvan enkele jaren geleden in een referendum zo goed als unaniem voor het Verenigd Koninkrijk hebben gekozen.

Zoeken naar kansen voor na de brexit

"Latijns-Amerika is een dynamisch deel van de wereld dat nauw samenwerkt met het Verenigd Koninkrijk inzake handel, veiligheid, wetenschap, infrastructuur, onderwijs en andere", zo zei minister Johnson voor zijn vertrek.

De Britse minister komt inderdaad ook polsen naar de mogelijkheden voor handelsakkoorden met Latijns-Amerikaanse landen met het oog op de nakende brexit. Zo zal Johnson na Argentinië ook Peru en Chili bezoeken.

Vooral dat laatste land is een erg belangrijk industrieland in Zuid-Amerika en Chili heeft ook een vrijhandelsakkoord gesloten met de Europese Unie. Het is belangrijk voor Groot-Brittannië om de voordelen daarvan te behouden na een brexit via een apart handelsakkoord.

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Op dinsdag 15 mei 2018 19:17 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Het Schotse parlement heeft tegen de withdrawal bill gestemd:

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bron

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Op zondag 20 mei 2018 18:29 schreef borisz het volgende:
Snap Election dit najaar?
https://www.huffingtonpos(...)5e40e4b0a046186cf939

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Ken Livingstone, voormalig burgemeester van Londen, neemt ontslag uit de Labour-partij. Hij was sinds april 2016 door de partij geschorst na beschuldigingen van antisemitisme.
Livingstone had in 2016 tijdens een interview gezegd dat Adolf Hitler oorspronkelijk de Joden naar Israël wilde sturen en dat Hitler “het zionisme steunde alvorens gek te worden en zes miljoen Joden te doden”.

De ex-burgemeester houdt vol dat hij niet schuldig is aan antisemitisme - zijn uitlatingen zijn naar eigen zeggen historisch correct -, maar hij neemt ontslag omdat de zaak in de weg staat van zijn partij en haar politieke ambities, aldus de Britse omroep BBC.

Partijleider Jeremy Corbyn liet weten dat het ontslag hem bedroeft, maar dat Livingstone de juiste beslissing nam.

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Commons Speaker John Bercow has said he "respects all his colleagues" after admitting using the word "stupid" during Commons exchanges.

He said he used the word, reported to have been directed at Commons leader Andrea Leadsom, as a "muttered aside".

He told MPs he had the highest regard for Mrs Leadsom's "political ability and personal character".

But he said he would continue to speak openly and, at times, "disagree" with ministers on their Commons management.

Mr Bercow has faced calls to apologise amid reports he used the phrase "stupid woman" in connection with Commons leader Mrs Leadsom during a row over the scheduling of a government statement on the nationalisation of the East Coast rail franchise last week.
(...)

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Op maandag 21 mei 2018 17:52 schreef J.B. het volgende:
Bij mijn weten stemden zowel Schotland en Noord-Ierland bij het referendum sowieso al vóór EU-lidmaatschap, enkel Engeland en Wales waren tegen. De meerderheid voor is in N-I dus alleen nog wat groter geworden, maar daar hebben ze nu toch niks meer aan.

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Op maandag 21 mei 2018 21:31 schreef borisz het volgende:
Twee berichten van over de plas van vandaag.

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https://www.hln.be/nieuws(...)isemitisme~a31f6206/

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http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44196297

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Op maandag 21 mei 2018 21:31 schreef borisz het volgende:
Twee berichten van over de plas van vandaag.

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https://www.hln.be/nieuws(...)isemitisme~a31f6206/

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http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44196297

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U.K. Admits Brexit Bill Will Be Paid Even Without Trade Deal

A leading Brexit minister in Theresa May’s government was forced into a painful political admission -- the U.K. is legally bound to settle its divorce bill even if it doesn’t get a future trade deal with the European Union.

To make the bitter pill of 39 billion pounds ($52 billion) easier to swallow for the public and Brexit cheerleaders, May has been insisting that the financial settlement and a free-trade deal are part of the same package. The EU has always been clear they’re separate.

After a grilling by lawmakers, Suella Braverman was forced to acknowledge that Parliament will vote on paying the so-called Brexit bill before the legal text of a future trade agreement is ready.