“Deal or no deal, the Withdrawal Agreement must be respected,” European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic told the European Parliament.

Sefcovic said the EU is committed to reaching a deal on the trade agreement and other aspects of their future relationship, but that the two sides remain “far apart” on the issues of fisheries and the so-called level playing field of fair competition.

“Our objective is still to reach an agreement that will pave the way for a new fruitful relationship between the EU and UK. We will continue to work for such an agreement, but not at any price,” he said.

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It has been a long time coming. But now, with the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal looming large, Jeremy Corbyn has come up with a plan. Finally.

He envisages a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Boris Johnson as soon as possible. Should Johnson lose, Corbyn would take over as a caretaker prime minister for a short period of time during which he would seek to delay Brexit and call a general election.

After sitting on the fence for so long, Corbyn has now said he would campaign to hold a second Brexit referendum which would include the option to remain.

Even those with a scant interest in Brexit would be forgiven for wondering why it took the leader of the opposition Labour party so long to try and take advantage of what’s been handed to him on a silver platter amid the chaos of Brexit.

But it’s not that simple. To understand why Labour under Jeremy Corbyn has been unable to cash in on the way [former Prime Minister] Theresa May and now Johnson are dealing with the Brexit saga, it’s worth looking at Corbyn’s background and progression within Labour and how he managed to initially galvanize a party still stuck in the post-Tony Blair era.

Read more: Brexit: What’s gone wrong for the UK’s Labour Party?

String of victories

From what many observers perceived to be Labour’s golden years under Blair, the party went into free fall under his successor, Gordon Brown. In the 2010 general election, it lost 91 mandates in Parliament — the party’s biggest loss of seats since 1931. Brown’s successor, Ed Miliband, fared even worse. Labour were voted out of power in 2015.

Enter Corbyn. Against the odds, he managed to pull off three quite remarkable victories in a row. In 2015, with the party in disarray after a disastrous election result, he was elected party leader thanks largely to young activists who paid £3 (€3.25; $3.62 at current rates) to register as Labour supporters and take part in the leadership contest as nonmembers.

Read more: Germany’s SPD rank and file seek Labour’s ‘Corbyn factor’

Once Corbyn was on the ballot, his campaign manager coined the phrase “straight-talking honest politics,” portraying him as an alternative to the career politicians who were his opponents. Having been a Member of Parliament since 1983 and a local councilor before that, it could, of course, be argued that Corbyn, too, was in that mold.

In the wake of the EU referendum in 2016, the party establishment tried to ditch Corbyn for his perceived lukewarm opposition to Brexit. Again, he managed to mobilize young registered supporters, who carried him to another leadership victory. In 2017 he pulled off arguably his biggest coup when Labour won 40% of the vote in the general election.

But that is essentially where the fairy tale ends. While some observers praise Corbyn for sticking to his political principles, others say it’s exactly this kind of perceived stubbornness on Europe that has left Labour as an unfeasible alternative to the Conservatives.

Read more: Opinion: The wrong man at the wrong time

Corbyn’s EU stance

In a nutshell, Corbyn has always been a euroskeptic, as his track record shows:

Corbyn voted for Britain to leave the European Economic Community (EEC) in the 1975 Referendum Act. He opposed the creation of the EU under the Maastricht Treaty and voted against the Lisbon Treaty on more than one occasion in Parliament in 2008.

The day after the referendum in 2016, Corbyn was out of the starting blocks quicker than former Prime Minister May, calling for the immediate implementation of Article 50 — the two-year notice to leave the EU. In December 2016, he voted in Parliament in favor of the UK’s leaving the EU and for the process to start no later than March 31, 2017. In February 2017 he voted in favor of May starting the process of leaving the EU. In the summer of 2017, Corbyn opposed Britain remaining in the single market, even sacking from his team Labour MPs who favored the single market.

A delay to Brexit?

Even now, with a fresh campaign to oust Johnson and prevent a no-deal Brexit, Corbyn’s perceived tepid position on Europe could be his undoing.

Leaving aside the fact that several Tory rebels and other party leaders would struggle to endorse Corbyn (indeed, the leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, has already ruled out Corbyn leading an emergency government), the Labour Party itself is split over Brexit and there is no guarantee that it would win a snap election. An election would risk exposing the bitter tensions still further within the party.

Despite Corbyn’s stated intention to campaign for a second referendum, he has never made a secret of the fact that he is, in fact, a “lexiteer” — a leftist who wants to the leave the EU.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/brexit-cometh-the-hour-cometh-jeremy-corbyn/a-47092781

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LONDON — British voters want Theresa May to resign as prime minister following the humiliating defeat of her Brexit deal, and for MPs to block no deal while voting to extend Article 50, according to an exclusive snap poll.

The POLITICO-Hanbury poll of 500 Britons, carried out in the hours after the U.K. prime minister’s deal was overwhelmingly rejected for a second time Tuesday evening, reveals widespread discontent with the amended agreement May brought back to the Commons. The survey also shows growing support for no-deal and a second referendum — as well as for remaining in the EU.

Most strikingly, there is now clear public support for the prime minister to quit. After Tuesday night’s events, 50 percent of respondents said May should resign, compared to just 32 percent who indicated she should stay. Even a quarter of Tory voters now think the PM should go, the poll suggests.

The public narrowly also favor — by 42 percent to 38 percent — a general election to break the deadlock. But on this question they are split along party lines, with Conservative voters opposed 76 to 16 percent and Labour voters in favor by 67 to 18 percent.

MPs are due to vote Wednesday on whether or not to pursue a no-deal exit from the EU. If the House of Commons rejects leaving the EU without an agreement, MPs will be asked to vote on Thursday on whether to ask the EU for an extension to the Article 50 negotiating period.

According to the snap poll, there is clear support for MPs rejecting no-deal Wednesday and then extending Article 50 the following day in a bid to find a better negotiated settlement with Brussels.

Forty-seven percent of the public say parliament should vote to rule out no deal, compared to 35 percent who want MPs to vote in favor of leaving without an agreement with the EU, the poll suggests.

There is also support for an extension of the Article 50 negotiating period, with 44 percent in favor and 39 percent against. This support drains away, however, the longer the proposed extension. The public clearly finds an extension of one month acceptable — 52 percent to 34 percent in favor. Support for a three-month delay is wafer thin: 44 percent to 43 percent.

While the poll results will make tough reading for May’s team in No. 10 Downing Street, there are a few glimmers of hope for those pushing for the prime minister to tough it out for a third meaningful vote.

While 41 percent of the public said parliament was right to reject the prime minister’s deal Tuesday night, compared to 33 percent who said they were wrong, this is reversed among Tory voters.

According to the poll, Conservative voters have rallied to the PM’s deal with 56 percent of Tories insisting the House of Commons was wrong to reject the deal and just 27 percent saying it was right.

In terms of what the prime minister should do after that, the country remains as divided as ever. Just under a third — 29 percent — want the PM to come out for a second referendum, while a quarter want her to come out for no deal. Overall 35 percent still want some form of negotiated deal, even if that means with Labour support.

When asked about future options, 38 percent said they favor remaining in the EU. When this question was asked in a POLITICO-Hanbury poll in February, 31.5 percent said they wanted to retain EU membership.

Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/poll-half-of-uk-voters-want-theresa-may-to-resign/

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