Brexiteers - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

Boris Johnson has run out of rope

Mujtaba Rahman — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 10:21:32 +0000

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is finding that the benefit of the doubt over Brexit and the coronavirus is finite after all | Leon Neal/Getty Images

UK prime minister’s aggressive tactics are undermining trust abroad and at home.

Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice and the author of POLITICO‘s Beyond the Bubble column.

There’s a reason Boris Johnson shows little respect for the traditional rules of the political game. After all, it’s the British prime minister’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach that got him where is today.

It’s an approach that served him well last year, when after six months spent battling parliament and the Supreme Court over Brexit, Johnson called an early election and swept back into power with an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons — his Conservative Party’s largest since Margaret Thatcher’s in 1987.

But while Johnson and his advisers seem to believe the prime minister’s governing style will continue to pay electoral dividends, the diminishing returns of repeatedly breaking with U.K. institutions and their long-established rules are now coming into sight.

Let’s start with Brexit. Johnson has had to beat a retreat from his government’s threat to break international law by overriding the Northern Ireland protocol in last year’s Withdrawal Agreement. He will now give the Commons the final say on using the controversial provisions in the Internal Market Bill.

Johnson’s style has provoked a series of rebellions by Tory backbenchers who feel he treats them, and parliament as a whole, with contempt.

But while hopes of a U.K.-EU trade deal are rising, the move has left a legacy of distrust in Brussels. EU leaders will want to nail down every last detail of an agreement to prevent any attempt by Johnson to wriggle out of it once the coronavirus pandemic has passed (a course favored by some hard-line Brexiteers on the Tory benches, who admit the government is unlikely to risk a no-deal scenario in January while business is suffering an economic hit).

The mistrust might also make it harder to secure U.K.-EU cooperation in other areas, such as security, criminal justice and asylum, to London’s cost. The threat to break international law will also likely be bad for his key aim of establishing a Global Britain, with lucrative trade deals around the world.

Meanwhile, at home, Johnson’s style has provoked a series of rebellions by Tory backbenchers who feel he treats them, and parliament as a whole, with contempt. A serious cross-party revolt, backed by more than 50 Tories, threatens to defeat the government Wednesday, when MPs will demand the right to approve national restrictions in advance. Although Downing Street is belatedly trying to woo Tory MPs, the relationship has been badly damaged.

And yet, despite all this, Johnson will not change his spots. Team Boris is determined to hang on to former Labour supporters in the leftist party’s heartland who voted Tory last December. Their strategy to do that is to continue to redraw the Brexit dividing line whenever possible. Thus, they will continue to happily tack to the right, wage culture war against the BBC or over the toppling of statues, or adopt a hard line on asylum and immigration, believing all this plays to the patriotism of these voters.

Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Third Way mantra was about doing “what works.” But Team Boris remains convinced its aggressive, no-nonsense approach works better than consensus and conciliation. They genuinely don’t care if other players in the political game don’t like it, as long as the voters are onside.

The jury is out on whether their gamble will pay off. In normal times, it might be needed to achieve Johnson’s “leveling up” agenda — to overcome blockages in Whitehall, another Johnson “enemy” and scapegoat for his government’s mistakes. One example is Treasury rules that previously favored infrastructure projects in the already rich London and southeast.

But permanent revolution must also be combined with competent government, and we’ve seen the opposite of competence since the election, notably on the coronavirus. Dividing the world into friend and foe doesn’t help the fight against the multiheaded monster of the pandemic or make easier the difficult judgments between prioritizing public health and the economy.

People no longer give the government the benefit of the doubt, as they did six months ago. And once you’ve lost the public trust, as Johnson may well have already done, reckless confrontation no longer looks like potency; it looks like an attempt to divert from a government’s woes.

The result: Labour has drawn level in the opinion polls, and more voters consider Labour leader Keir Starmer to be best suited for the job of prime minister. The bull in the china shop might soon discover he’s being handed a bill for everything he broke.

Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-has-run-out-of-rope-brexit-coronavirus-parliament/

[Disclaimer]

The post Boris Johnson has run out of rope first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Boris Johnson: ‘I’d rather be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit’

Dominic Yeatman — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 07:35:41 +0000

BORIS JOHNSON saw the Brexit civil war reach his own family yesterday as his younger brother resigned as an MP and minister.

The PM begged Jo to stay on during a late-night heart-to-heart at Downing Street but the universities minister could not be swayed. The MP for Orpington in Kent — who backed Remain in the 2016 referendum and supports a second public vote on Brexit — said he had felt ‘torn between family loyalty and the national interest’.

‘It’s an unresolvable tension and time for others to take on my roles as minister and MP,’ he tweeted.

Mr. Johnson faced questions over the desertion during an appearance at a police college in West Yorkshire, where he delivered a rambling speech in front of ranks of recruits.

He said: ‘Jo doesn’t agree with me about the EU because it’s an issue which divides families and everyone else. But what he would agree with is that we need to sort this out.’

The latest blow to the PM came after he abandoned attempts to derail an opposition bill that rules out a no-deal Brexit on October 31 and is now due to become law on Monday.

Brexiteers had been urged by the government to stop it passing through the Lords by debating it for so long that no vote could be taken before parliament shuts down next week. Peers armed with sleeping bags and Thermos flasks kept going until 1.30 AM yesterday but the bill’s backers then got their way after refusing to give in.

Mr. Johnson said he would rather be ‘dead in a ditch’ than ask the EU for another Brexit delay. He will now try again on Monday to persuade MPs to back holding a snap general election to break the deadlock.

Jeremy Corbyn ruled out agreeing to the request on Monday.

And he could continue to hold out unless the poll is delayed until after October 31. That would stop the PM from overturning the delay bill and going ahead with a no-deal if he wins the election and secures a majority.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: ‘We want an election as well but we want it when we have prevented a no-deal Brexit and, on that basis, we have got to determine the date.’

Mr. Johnson, who met the US vice-president Mike Pence (pictured with him) at Downing Street yesterday, attacked Labour. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it,’ he said at the police college. ‘Not only are they making it impossible to leave the EU, they are making it impossible for the people of this country to have an election.’

Jo Johnson became the first minister to have resigned twice over Brexit.

He quit over Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement in January last year but was brought back by Boris.

No.10 praised him and said the PM realized quitting again was a tough decision.

But his brother faced more anger over his ‘purge’ of 21 rebel Tories.

Sir John Major said the party was now a ‘mean-minded sect’. Ex-Tory Nick Boles said rebels had been sacrificed ‘on the altar’ of the prime minister’s ego.

Source: https://www.metro.news/boris-johnson-id-rather-be-dead-in-a-ditch-than-delay-brexit/1704008/

[Disclaimer]

The post Boris Johnson: ‘I’d rather be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

U.K.’s May Facing Challenge From Grassroots Tories Over Brexit

Thomas Penny — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 06:38:01 +0000

–Petition for premier to go meets threshold for special meeting
–Vote would be non-binding but potentially humiliating for PM

Theresa May speaks in Parliament in March Photographer: Mark Duffy/U.K. Parliament

Follow @Brexit, sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, and tell us your Brexit story.

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May will face a challenge from activists in her Conservative Party after enough signed a petition opposing her leadership and Brexit strategy to force an emergency vote on her future.

The beleaguered premier, who survived a confidence vote by members of Parliament in December, is set to face the judgment of local party leaders and other senior grassroots members at a special meeting of their National Convention — described as “the parliament of the voluntary party.”

May was told Monday by Andrew Sharpe, chairman of the convention, that more than 10 percent of chairmen and women of local parties had signed a petition calling for her to go — meeting the threshold for an emergency meeting, the Sun newspaper reported.

Tory activists and lawmakers angry at May’s handling of Brexit have been looking for ways to remove her from office as her premiership has lurched from crisis to crisis. The party’s constitution disallows another challenge by MPs until December — a year after their last attempt — forcing activists to take the issue into their own hands.

‘Not the Right Person’

May’s office played down the significance of the proposed meeting, saying any vote would not be binding and, in any case, it is not clear if it would be passed. There will also have to be a 28-day delay before any such gathering is held.

The petition, backed by more than 70 local party leaders according to organizers, says that “we no longer feel Mrs. May is the right person to continue as prime minister to lead us forward in [Brexit] negotiations.” It goes on to say that the signatories “ask therefore that she considers her position and resigns.”

While May would not be required to quit by the party’s constitution if she lost such a vote, it would make it harder for her to meet her pledge to remain as prime minister until Brexit is delivered.

May has failed three times to get the deal she reached with Brussels for Britain’s divorce from the European Union through Parliament — in part because it is opposed by hardline Brexiteers in her own party — and has faced an increasing backlash from rank-and-file members frustrated at her failure to deliver the divorce they want.

Nigel Farage — Photographer: Darren Staples/Bloomberg

Activists have refused to campaign for the party and some have even said they will vote for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in European Parliament Elections scheduled for May 23 after the premier agreed a delay in leaving the bloc until Oct. 31.

“There’s a lot of anger and despair among activists and chairmen,” petition organizer Dinah Glover said in a video posted on Twitter last week. May “is no longer the solution but is a sadly becoming the block to Brexit,” Glover said.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/u-k-s-may-facing-challenge-from-grassroots-tories-over-brexit

[Disclaimer]

The post U.K.’s May Facing Challenge From Grassroots Tories Over Brexit first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Former Tory leader outlines plan to SAVE Brexit that is sure to INFURIATE Brussels

Claire Anderson — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 19:28:09 +0000

BRITAIN could leave the EU on time if Theresa May reopened negotiations on the Irish backstop, according to a former Conservative leader.

Lord Howard claimed the House of Commons would support Prime Minister’s deal on the condition she renegotiates the Northern Ireland backstop. He wrote the Daily Telegraph: “Achieving this would not just win the support of Parliament but also create a coherent position around which a Conservative Party that appears dangerously disunited could begin to coalesce. The problems with the backstop arise solely out of the EU’s refusal to countenance any change to the wording of the Withdrawal Agreement.

“But in recent days there have been a number of developments which completely change the dynamics of these discussions.”

Mr Howard, who was leader from 2003 to 2005, added that Brexiteers have argued against the backstop believing alternative arrangements could be made.

He said: “This argument has now received complete endorsement from the leaders of the EU.

“Leo Varadkar, the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, told the Dail that under no circumstances would there be a border between the Republic and Northern Ireland.

Lord Howard claimed the House of Commons would support Prime Minister’s deal (Image: GETTY)

The Brexiteer added Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement has secured a majority in Commons before (Image: GETTY)

“An identical assurance was given to the European Parliament by Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission.”

The Brexiteer added Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement has secured a majority in Commons without the backstop.

Under Mrs May’s Brexit deal the UK will automatically drop into a customs union with the EU unless a new trading relationship is established during the implementation period.

Membership of a European customs union would mean the UK still has to follow a significant proportion of EU rules with very little say, whilst being unable to negotiate comprehensive free trade agreements with third countries.

Mr Howard, who was leader from 2003 to 2005, added that Brexiteers have argued against the backstop (Image: GETTY)

Lord Howard said: “I fully understand that this is not the only reason why some have refused to support the Withdrawal Agreement.

“But the Brady amendment shows that it is the backstop which is the crucial factor in the Government’s inability, so far, to obtain a majority for it.

“So there are now powerful reasons for those who have opposed the agreement on these grounds to think again.

“After all, if the Government proceeds with its declared intention of putting a further series of indicative votes to the House, we are quite likely to find that the amendment proposed by Kenneth Clarke, which would keep us in a full-blown customs union, will pass.

“This is the amendment which has come closest to passing in previous votes, but would make it impossible for us to enter into trading agreements with other countries.”

Source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1113692/brexit-news-latest-irish-backstop-leave-eu-no-deal-michael-howard-theresa-may

[Disclaimer]

The post Former Tory leader outlines plan to SAVE Brexit that is sure to INFURIATE Brussels first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.