Negotiations

With the Conservative and Labour leaders now under internal pressure, MPs on both sides of the chamber move to take control

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. The moment of Brexit decision has shifted yet again – closer and closer to default crash out of the EU on 29 March. Theresa May has confirmed that plan B is plan A – basically the deal that was so massively rejected a week ago. But the dynamics have changed. Next Monday she will move a neutral motion to the Withdrawal Bill taking note of her statement today. This will allow amendments to be moved with alternative  proposals for …

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Varadkar offers a way out of deadock – or a hedge against failure?

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The UK national papers are united in hopelessness over May’s latest strategy, tempered only by disbelief.  Plan B is Plan A. Even the cheerleader for Brexit the Daily Telegraph is not impressed. The Europe editor slaps down the  chief political correspondent’s “ exclusive.” Theresa May is considering amending the Good Friday Agreement as part of a fresh attempt to unblock the Brexit logjam, The Daily Telegraph understands. Peter Foster But the mere suggestion that a British government wants to ‘amend’ the Good Friday Agreement should …

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Brexiteers at bay after the first day of May talks widens internal party splits

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As Paul Waugh aptly says in Huffpost.. The lectern moment’ really is wearing thin as a useful dramatic device for Theresa May. She’s stood on the steps of No.10 so many times now that she’s devalued the currency of its impact. And after this week’s shattering defeat of her Brexit plan, more than ever it seems like her Downing Street announcements are all words and no action. May rightly said the nation needs to ‘come together’, but showed little flexibility or humility needed to make …

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Break-up of the parties or No Deal Brexit – the looming choice

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As matters stand, we’re either heading for crash out No Deal or the main parties are heading for break-up. The Conservative and Labour leaders are dolally.  Theresa May is listening but not  to anybody who wants  a customs union or a second referendum.  Jeremy Corbyn will not only not meet her but has urged all Labour MPs not to meet her either.  But this request in a letter to his MPs came too late to stop former ministers Yvette Cooper and …

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In spite of a day without precedent, it’s still party before country from the Conservatives and Labour

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At the very moment Conservative and Labour MPs are passionately proclaiming the need to work together, the two parties are locked in the elemental struggle for power after a major defeat, a vote of confidence in the government. This is Labour’s ritual act to stave off having to commit to a policy. For  theirs is a unicorn with a mighty horn, a customs relationship that allows unilateral free trade negotiations and a single market relationship that restricts  free movement. On …

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Nothing new to offer as Theresa May misfires the last shot in her locker in support of her deal

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With her back to the wall Theresa May exposes  her own and her speech writers’ monumental ignorance of  UK devolution by bizarrely invoking the  creation of the Welsh Assembly based on a squeakingly narrow referendum result. as a killer argument   against calling a second referendum on Brexit.   What a pity that that she is such a poor  advocate  of what would otherwise be a viable proposal.  Extracts from May’s speech released by Downing Street last night show she will invoke …

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Plan for a border poll certainly, but as part of new British- Irish and North-South relationships

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Deep in the last ditch before Tuesday’s meaningful vote, the UK government are warning that the DUP’s refusal to back Mrs May’s deal brings a border poll nearer. The warning was put into the mouth of Karen Bradley who political anoraks may just remember is the minister with nominal responsibility for Northern Ireland affairs. No 10 put out one of their coy little  briefings to say that she  “told the Cabinet” that a border poll on the reunification of Ireland …

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The shape of the final deal actually looks promising- if only we can get over the hump of the backstop. London now needs Dublin’s help to get there

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 “Cosmetic and meaningless.” On behalf of the DUP, Nigel Dodds’ rejection of the government’s latest bunch of concessions and clarifications is entirely predictable. The legal text containing the backstop of the Ireland/ Northern Ireland Protocol has indeed not been changed as everybody knew it wouldn’t be and won’t be.  Many will shrug and say that’s that. But it’s nothing of the sort. If there’s to be any middle way between No Deal and No Brexit, it’s hard to see how …

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The DUP are the crucial “dominoes” in May’s bid to win a second meaningful vote

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Theresa May’s strategy to try to win MPs’ endorsement of the withdrawal agreement is a little clearer, arising out of hints she gave to Andrew Marr yesterday. The strategy  is classic if conventional  politics, before a fundamentally divided, incoherent opposition, however formidable it now seems. It involves  narrowing  the gaps, wearing down opposition by a mixture of  project Fear (miles of traffic jams and English police on Ulster streets ) and project Farce (the shipping company with no ships), and …

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Wobbles on the backstop and an eventual Fianna Fail- SDLP merger are new features of the countdown to the day of Brexit reckoning

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As Sammy Wilson was among the first to remind us, Brexit wars have resumed again after the Christmas pause.  Theresa May has just promised no delay to the meaningful vote scheduled for the week after next. But she declined to speculate on extending Article 50 if as expected MPs finally vote down the withdrawal agreement with the Irish backstop. According to  the Irishman who is professor of Constitutional and EU law at University College London, Ronan McCrea..    the UK …

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Crisp advice to Parliament on what to ponder over Christmas

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Perhaps the most celebrated of constitutional experts Vernon Bogdanor, has no doubts about what should happen next. The irony is that there is a much greater consensus among MPs than is apparent from the posturing of May’s opponents. Kenneth Clarke believes that about 80% of MPs are against a no-deal Brexit, while nearly all MPs accept that there should not be a hard Irish border, which would be incompatible with the spirit of the Good Friday agreement of 1998. The withdrawal agreement achieves …

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Theresa, No Deal Project Fear is a cruel insult to our intelligence

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The latest Project Fear is a UK government analysis of the impact of No Deal   on the Republic’s trade. It says that 80% of their trade with Europe passes over the British land bridge to ports such as Dover. No deal barriers causing expected congestion there  would have a catastrophic effect on the Irish economy. The aim is to soften up Varadkar’s apparently implacable support for the backstop. Project Fear is accompanied by Project  Puff up and Soothe the DUP, …

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Brexit has reversed the stereotypes of Britain and Ireland

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Brexit has turned British, Irish and continental stereotypes on their heads,   historian Arthur Aughey has observed in a brilliant essay in the Belfast Telegraph One long-standing explanation is that the British and continental Europeans (especially the French) approach political problems with very different mindsets… On the one hand, Michel Barnier’s style – and the European Council’s – considers British reluctance to define principles as either proof of poor preparation or as inability to clarify its objectives. That, more or less, …

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May’s desperate tactics are unworthy and will fail to give her victory

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Tactically Theresa May is being astute. But then she has always run Brexit as a party strategy.  Strategically in the national interest, she’s risking a disaster. By continuing to face MPs with a binary choice as late as mid January – My Deal or No Deal – she’s squeezing the time available for any Plan Bs to emerge but she’s raised her immediate chances of staying in office.  This of course assumes the divided cabinet will play along and the …

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“I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.” Theresa May in Brussels? Answer. Worse: humiliation

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What was Theresa May actually expecting  from the EU 27 leaders in Brussels? There was always the desperate hope for one of those last minute rush to settle against the declared odds. Instead… headlines… Daily Telegraph ( Brexiteer) Theresa May was humiliated once again by EU leaders last night as her attempts to improve her Brexit deal were thrown back in her face. The Sun (Brexiteer) and coiner of  dreadful puns BRUSSELS ROUT  Theresa May told to get stuffed by …

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No sign of Ireland blinking over the backstop, as Theresa May races around Europe raising the bogey of No Deal

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Theresa May  at bay  threw down one effective challenge to  the massed ranks of her critics. “Come clean: do you want Brexit or not? “No”, chorused the SNP and she rolled her eyes. For as long as  Parliament cannot settle on an agreed  alternative she holds a narrow initiative. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen. In her whistle -stop tour of continental capitals, her ploy now is to seek  “reassurances”, a time honoured feature of …

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Keep your eye on the glimmer of light in the Big Picture. But first we need to re-examine the backstop, sooner rather than later.

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Although the sight of it is darkly occluded, the shape of things to come is emerging through the fog. Whatever immediate  political strategy  Theresa May chooses today, the dream of the hard line Brexiteers is in process of disintegration.  Whatever the political turmoil today, the UK will retain some sort of close relationship with the EU.   In Northern Ireland, unionists will have a closer relationship with the Republic and with nationalists generally – and I would argue with only slightly …

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The DUP would be fools to vote for no confidence in the government and boost the chances of a No Deal default

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Politics is in a vortex of fast moving events over which the government has little control. According to the likely scenario, Theresa May will lose the meaningful vote badly next Tuesday night.  What happens next is in uncharted waters. But this is how  the meaningful vote fits into the prescribed  timetable, courtesy of the FT: The vote is a legal obligation under the UK’s 2018 EU Withdrawal Act, which says such a vote must take place “before the European Parliament decides whether …

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DUP are threatening May with collapse unnecessarily, even in their own cause

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It looks worse and worse for Theresa May as a crucial week begins. The Times reports:   Theresa May was under fresh pressure last night as the DUP threatened to abandon her in a confidence vote if she failed to get her Brexit deal through parliament. Party sources said that they were considering the move, which would leave the prime minister without a Commons majority, over fears that her plan would create a border between Northern Ireland and the rest …

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Game of chicken is hotting up

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Brexit tensions are rising towards fever pitch. The Times story puts it neatly : If you step back from the noise surrounding Theresa May’s struggle to get her deal through parliament there are really only four Brexit options left on the table: Mrs May’s deal (possibly tweaked); no deal; a second referendum; and a Norway-style soft Brexit. Each option has its advocates in the Commons but none yet has enough backing to command majority support in the House. Ultimately MPs …

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