Theresa May held crisis talks with Angela Merkel today amid claims the EU wants to delay Brexit by two years to avoid no-deal chaos.
With no sign of a breakthrough in wrangling over the Irish border backstop and a Tory Remainer revolt threatening to spiral out of control, the PM met the German Chancellor for breakfast at a summit in Egypt.
The latest frantic diplomacy comes after Mrs May admitted she has yet to secure a revised deal - and said a final vote on a package might not happen until just 17 days before the UK is due to leave the EU.
She has been left pleading for Remainer ministers not to crash her strategy by joining efforts to force a Brexit delay in crunch votes on Wednesday.
But there are few signs that she can hold back the rebellion, after ministers openly threatened to defy her, warning that the 'dam is breaking'.
Amid the bitter standoff, senior EU officials are believed to be preparing for a longer extension to the Article 50 process than the few months being mooted by Remainers.
The idea could see the UK stay a member for another 21 months to avoid a 'cliff edge' and give more time for a deal to be reached - or better preparations to be made for no deal.
Mrs May will meet other leaders including Irish PM Leo Varadkar in Sharm El-Sheikh later, where she is attending a joint EU-Arab League summit.
Prime Minister Theresa May (left) has a breakfast meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (right) at the EU-League of Arab States Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. May embarked on a high-stakes gamble last night after revealing a final vote on her Brexit plan could be delayed until just 17 days before the EU exit date
Mrs May said she was making progress in talks but not enough to hold a second ‘meaningful vote’ this week
Prime Minister Theresa May is hugged by the Prime Minister of Bulgaria Boyko Borissov
European Union Council President Donald Tusk, right, speaks with Theresa May during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit
Overnight Mrs May said she was making progress in talks but not enough to hold a second ‘meaningful vote’ this week. Instead she set a new deadline of March 12 to win approval of a plan that suffered a shattering Commons defeat last month.
This means pro-Remain ministers will now have to decide whether to follow through with threats to defy Mrs May and vote for a backbench bid on Wednesday to postpone the Brexit date.
If the backbench motion is passed, Mrs May would have until March 13 to get her plan through Parliament or be forced to seek a delay in the process.
That would set up a showdown on March 12 when Eurosceptics could be asked to back a deal they dislike or face the possibility of Parliament forcing a postponement of Brexit the following day.
And last night it emerged that the EU may insist that Brexit is delayed until the start of 2021 if the UK requests an extension of Article 50.
It was also revealed that official advice to Mrs May warned her that delaying the vote to mid March would all but guarantee postponing Brexit day beyond March 29.
Civil servants have told the PM there is unlikely to be enough time to pass Brexit legislation, the Mail understands.
One minister told the Telegraph if the deal goes through at that point the PM would be likely to ask for a two-month extension to Article 50.
Another option presented to the PM by the No10 Europe Unit were to hold a vote on the deal this week - with the likely result it was lost.
A second option was of an indicative vote on whatever concession is likely to be secured from Brussels.
Mrs May’s dramatic gamble came 24 hours after Amber Rudd, David Gauke and Greg Clark signalled they could quit the Cabinet this week to back the backbench move themselves unless a withdrawal agreement is in place.
At least a dozen more ministers are considering their positions – potentially enough to allow the motion proposed by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Tory Sir Oliver Letwin to pass.
Writing in the Daily Mail at the weekend, the Cabinet trio warned that ‘if there is no breakthrough in the coming week’ there was a clear majority in Parliament to delay Brexit rather than ‘crash out’.
The ministers, who all campaigned for Remain, described No Deal as disastrous, saying it would ‘see us poorer, less secure and potentially splitting up’. Their intervention led Eurosceptic MPs to call for them to be sacked.
Speaking on a flight to an EU-Arab League summit in Egypt, the Prime Minister insisted she still believed that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’.
But she refused to criticise the rebel trio and ducked questions about whether the fragile state of her Government made the ministers ‘unsackable’.
Mrs May said: ‘Collective responsibility has not broken down. What we’ve seen around the Cabinet table, in the party, in the country at large is strong views on the issue of Europe. That’s not a surprise to anybody.
‘We have around the Cabinet table a collective, not just responsibility, but desire to actually ensure we leave the EU with a deal. That’s what we’re working for, that’s what I’m working for.
‘We’ve been having positive talks with the EU. As you know we were in Brussels last week, my team will be back in Brussels again this coming week. They will be returning to Brussels this Tuesday.
If the backbench motion is passed, Mrs May would have until March 13 to get her plan through Parliament or be forced to seek a delay in the process
Mrs May is holding talks with Angela Merkel today in the hope the German chancellor can break the deadlock in Brussels
‘As a result of that we won’t bring a meaningful vote to Parliament this week, but we will ensure that happens by March 12. It is still within our grasp to leave the EU with a deal on March 29. And that’s what we’re working to do.’
Mrs May is holding talks with Angela Merkel today in the hope the German chancellor can break the deadlock in Brussels.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith last night said that by delaying the meaningful vote, Mrs May was effectively ‘calling the bluff’ of the Cabinet rebels.
‘They are smashing the whole concept of government,’ he said.
Mrs May speaks with Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, centre left, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, right
‘If they resign and this Brexit delay goes through then we will end up in a general election and these people need to be deselected because they are going to be responsible for delivering a Corbyn government.’
Miss Cooper’s plan would enable Parliament to take control and pass legislation requiring the Government to extend Article 50 if there is no agreement by March 13.
The timeline is almost identical to one set out by Mrs May’s chief Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins when he was overheard discussing the Government’s strategy in a Brussels bar this month.
A senior Brexiteer last night described this as ‘Hobson’s choice’ but added: ‘We are not there yet.’
Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit spokesman, described the latest delay as ‘the height of irresponsibility’ and accused the PM of ‘recklessly running down the clock in a desperate attempt to force MPs to choose between her deal and no deal. Parliament cannot stand by and allow this happen.’
EU Council president Donald Tusk is said to be resistant to the idea of a short extension, fearing the two sides could find themselves still deadlocked in a few months’ time. Mr Tusk, who held talks with Mrs May in Egypt last night, warned the PM that EU leaders remained concerned she could not command a majority for her deal in Parliament.
An EU diplomat told The Guardian: ‘If leaders see any purpose in extending, which is not a certainty given the situation in the UK, they will not do a rolling cliff-edge but go long to ensure a decent period to solve the outstanding issues or batten down the hatches. A 21-month extension makes sense as it would cover the multi-financial framework [the EU’s budget period]. Provided leaders are not completely down with Brexit fatigue, and a three-month technical extension won’t cut it, I would expect a 21-month kick of the can.’
Curb anti-Semitism or you’ll never be PM, deputy tells Corbyn
By Jack Doyle Associate Editor for the Daily Mail
Labour's deputy leader launched a savage attack on Jeremy Corbyn yesterday as he warned a failure to deal with anti-Semitism had plunged the party into crisis.
Could 3 more Labour MPs abandon ship?
Margaret Hodge, pictured, said deputy leader Tom Watson’s demand that Labour eradicate anti-Semitism was a ‘final wake-up call’
Three more Labour MPs are threatening to quit the party over anti-Semitism and Brexit.
The trio are considering joining the new Independent Group and one said last night: ‘We’ll see what happens this week.’
Margaret Hodge, pictured, said deputy leader Tom Watson’s demand that Labour eradicate anti-Semitism was a ‘final wake-up call’. Another Labour MP, Louise Ellman, is on the brink of leaving after more than 50 years.
A friend said: ‘Louise will not be in the party for much longer.’
The third MP, Siobhain McDonagh, said on Friday she had decided not to resign ‘this week’ – meaning a decision to go could come soon.
Dame Margaret, a former minister who has faced months of abuse from hard-Left activists, said: ‘This is the final wake-up call for Jeremy Corbyn. The leadership has so lost trust but I don’t believe any of the figures they come out with on the cases they’ve dealt with. I’ve had pretty horrific abuse on Twitter. It absolutely doesn’t feel to me like there is zero tolerance on anti-Semitism.’ Dame Louise said: ‘I am still fighting with the party’s failure to deal with anti-Semitism.’
An unpublished Labour Party report into Dame Louise’s Liverpool Riverside constituency found she was physically threatened by one member and ‘there have been CLP meetings during which anti-Semitic incidents are alleged to have taken place’.
The report said: ‘These have arisen as a result of “obsessive interrogations” of the MP over the Israel-Palestine conflict. Some members have felt that others are holding the MP – a Jewish woman – personally accountable for the actions of the Israeli government.’
The 11 members of the Independent Group will meet today to discuss organisation, including how to elect a leader. Yesterday Chuka Umunna called on voters to ‘join us, and help us forge a new, different kind of politics’.
A poll for The Observer puts the group’s support at 6 per cent, ahead of the Lib Dems. It has also emerged that Sir David Garrard, once one of Labour’s biggest donors, is supporting the new group.
Tom Watson said Mr Corbyn had to ‘change very, very rapidly’ to stop more MPs from following the nine who quit the party last week.
He also revealed he had handed the party leader a dossier of 50 cases where no adequate action had been taken over racist comments on social media about Jewish individuals.
In a TV interview, he demanded Mr Corbyn take personal charge of rooting out anti-Semitism because the ‘party machine’ had failed. And he urged him to change tack on Brexit and push for a second referendum.
‘The departure of our colleagues is a real blow, and we need to understand why they felt the need to go. Because if we’re going to be in government we need to address those concerns.
‘For us to hold this party together, things have to change. There’s almost a crisis for the soul of the Labour Party now. I absolutely fear that we will lose more parliamentary colleagues. We may lose peers from the House of Lords, and we may lose members and councillors and I don’t want that to happen.’
Mr Watson said Luciana Berger, the Liverpool Wavertree MP who left for the Independent Group last week, had been ‘bullied out of the Labour Party by a small number of racist thugs’ and he was ‘very very sad to see her go’.
Hard-Left activists, he said, were causing irreparable harm by ‘pouncing’ on MPs, and bullying them on social media. Details of the anti-Semitism dossier, seen by the Mail, show it included vicious racist abuse. One said of Jewish Labour MPs: ‘I don’t know what runs through their veins, not human blood.’
Mr Watson said Labour general secretary Jenny Formby’s attempts to combat anti-Semitism had ‘very patently not been adequate’ and Mr Corbyn should take a personal lead.
On Brexit, he said Mr Corbyn needed to ‘reunify our party’ and move towards a second referendum.
He also called for more centrist Labour MPs to be given jobs on the front bench and said he was going to set up a new ‘social democratic’ group of moderates to develop policies. In an interview with Sky News on Friday night, Mr Corbyn said he did not believe bullying existed in Labour on a wide scale.
When confronted with quotes from prominent Jews accusing him of not doing enough, he said there were ‘very many other people in the Jewish community’ who were happy.
A Labour Party spokesman said: ‘The Labour Party takes all complaints of anti-Semitism extremely seriously and we are committed to challenging and campaigning against it in all its forms. All complaints about anti-Semitism are investigated in line with our rules.’
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2019/02/25/may-meets-merkel-at-egypt-summit-amid-brexit-scramble/
Main photo article Theresa May held crisis talks with Angela Merkel today amid claims the EU wants to delay Brexit by two years to avoid no-deal chaos.
With no sign of a breakthrough in wrangling over the Irish border backstop and a Tory Remainer revolt threatening to spiral out of control, the PM met the German ...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/02/25/07/10245298-6740395-image-a-1_1551080968893.jpg
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий