LONDON – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday defended his plan to unilaterally rewrite Britain’s divorce deal with the European Union as an insurance policy against the bloc’s unreasonable behavior — even as his former attorney general joined the ranks of once-loyal lawmakers condemning the contentious move.

Johnson said a planned law designed to override portions of the Brexit withdrawal agreement was needed because the EU might “go to extreme and unreasonable lengths” in its treatment of former member Britain.

“I have absolutely no desire to use these measures,” Johnson told lawmakers as he introduced the Internal Market Bill in the House of Commons. “They are an insurance policy.”

Johnson’s Conservative government has acknowledged that the bill breaches the legally binding withdrawal treaty that Britain and the EU have both ratified. The legislation threatens to sink the already-foundering negotiations between Britain and the EU on a post-Brexit trade deal.

The U.K. formally left the bloc on Jan. 31, but existing trade rules remain in effect until the end of this year under a transition designed to provide time to negotiate a long-term trade agreement.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks in the House of Commons in London, Sept. 14, 2020, in a video grab from footage broadcast by the UK Parliament’s Parliamentary Recording Unit.

---

Ed Milliband, business spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, accused Johnson of “trashing the reputation of this country and trashing the reputation of his office.”

With an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons, Johnson is expected to have enough votes to push his legislation through Parliament despite opposition anger.

The bill easily cleared its first House of Commons vote by 340 to 263 on Monday. It will now face attempts to amend or overturn it during several days of detailed scrutiny by lawmakers before another vote.

Critics of move

There is wide unease within Johnson’s party about the law-breaking move.

Geoffrey Cox, who was the government’s top legal officer when Johnson negotiated the Brexit withdrawal agreement less than a year ago, said reneging on the deal would be an “unconscionable” breach of international law.

“I simply cannot approve or endorse a situation in which we go back on our word, given solemnly,” Cox, previously a strong supporter of Johnson on Brexit, told Times Radio. “The breaking of the law ultimately leads to very long-term and permanent damage to this country’s reputation.”

As part of the Brexit divorce deal, Britain and the EU agreed to keep Northern Ireland — the only part of the U.K. to share a border with the bloc — bound to some EU rules on trade, to avoid the need for border checks on goods moving between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Both sides accepted the compromise to protect the open border, which helps underpin the peace process in Northern Ireland.

The Internal Market Bill would give the British government the power to override the EU’s agreed role in oversight of trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

Johnson claims the EU has threatened to use “an extreme interpretation” of the withdrawal agreement to “blockade” food shipments from the rest of the U.K. to Northern Ireland unless Britain agrees to accept EU regulations.

The EU denies threatening a blockade and says it merely wants Britain to live up to the terms of the agreement. EU leaders are outraged at the prime minister’s proposal and have threatened the U.K. with legal action if it does not drop the proposal by the end of the month.

Two former Conservative U.K. prime ministers, John Major and Theresa May, have condemned the legislation. On Monday a third, David Cameron, said he had “misgivings.”

What mystifies some observers is that Johnson is repudiating a treaty that he himself negotiated and hailed as an “oven-ready” deal that would “get Brexit done.” That declaration of victory was key to Johnson’s successful December 2019 election campaign.

“There was a political imperative on the government to get an agreement and then to go to the electorate with the claim that they had, to coin a phrase, got Brexit done,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.

“I think it possibly was the case in some senses that it was ‘make the agreement in haste and then repent at leisure.’ And what we’re seeing now is the repentance.”

What’s next 

Johnson’s move has dynamited the dwindling trust between Britain and the EU as they try to negotiate a new trading relationship.

Talks are due to continue this week in Brussels despite the chill in relations. Both sides say any deal must be agreed by next month so there is time for it to be ratified by Dec. 31.

If there is no deal, tariffs and other impediments to trade will be imposed by both sides at the start of 2021.

That would mean huge economic disruption for the U.K., which does half its trade with the bloc. A no-deal exit on Jan. 1 would also hit some EU nations, including Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, especially hard.

Source: https://www.voanews.com/europe/uks-johnson-defends-plan-rewrite-brexit-deal-says-eu-unreasonable

The post UK’s Johnson Defends Plan to Rewrite Brexit Deal, Says EU ‘Unreasonable’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Britain’s two main political parties are haggling over the nation’s withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit. The badly divided government is in crisis, unable to agree on an approach to the country’s biggest peacetime decision in decades. The deadline to come up with a plan is fast approaching.

The struggle has already cost one prime minister, Theresa May, her job; she announced on May 24 that she would resign after failing to come up with a plan that satisfied her party, her coalition partners and officials in Brussels, the seat of the European Union.

Now it is taking a toll on her successor, Boris Johnson. The Conservative Party chose Mr. Johnson, a brash proponent of withdrawal, to succeed Mrs. May and take control of the Brexit process.

It has not gone well.

Many lawmakers were outraged over Mr. Johnson’s insistence that if need be, he would pull Britain from the European Union even without a formal agreement — a move many warn could mean major economic damage. And his attempts to in effect shut Parliament out of the process did not win him many friends.

When lawmakers rose up, seizing control of the legislative process, and Mr. Johnson lost his majority in Parliament, he responded by tossing out rebels from his Conservative Party and demanding a new general election.

The deadline for withdrawal is currently Oct. 31. Mr. Johnson insists he can cut a deal with the European Union before then. But time is rapidly running out.

What ultimately emerges could determine the shape of Britain and its place in the world for decades. Following is a basic guide to Brexit, what it is, how it developed into the mess it is today and how it could ultimately be resolved.

What is Brexit?

A portmanteau of the words “Britain” and “exit,” Brexit is shorthand for Britain’s split from the European Union, changing its relationship to the bloc on trade, security, and migration.

Britain has been debating the pros and cons of membership in a European community of nations almost from the moment the idea was broached. It held its first referendum on membership in what was then called the European Economic Community in 1975, less than three years after it joined when 67 percent of voters supported staying in the bloc.

In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron promised a national referendum on European Union membership with the idea of settling the question once and for all. The options it offered were broad and vague — Remain or Leave — and Mr. Cameron was convinced that Remain would win handily.

Britons voted on June 23, 2016, as a refugee crisis made migration a subject of political rage across Europe and amid accusations that the Leave campaign had relied on lies and broken election laws. An ill-defined Brexit won 52 percent of the vote.

Not only did that not settle the debate, but it also saved for another day the tangled question of what should come next. After nearly three years of debate and negotiation, that remains unanswered.

How did the vote break down?

Most voters in England and Wales supported Brexit, particularly in rural areas and smaller cities. That overcame majority support to remain in the European Union in London, Scotland and Northern Ireland. See a detailed map of the vote.

Young people overwhelmingly voted against leaving, while older voters supported it.

---

Why is it such a big deal?

Europe is Britain’s most important export market and its biggest source of foreign investment, and membership in the bloc has helped London cement its position as a global financial center. An announcement, or at least a threat, from a major business to leave Britain because of Brexit is a regular occurrence. The list of companies that are thinking about relocating includes Airbus, which employs 14,000 people and supports more than 100,000 other jobs.

The government has projected that in 15 years, the country’s economy will be 4 percent to 9 percent smaller under Brexit than it would inside the bloc, depending on how it leaves.

Mrs. May had promised that Brexit would end free movement, the right of people from elsewhere in Europe to live and work in Britain, and vice versa. That was a triumph for some working-class people who see immigration as a threat to their jobs, but dispiriting for young Britons hoping to study or work abroad.

Mr. Johnson wants to strike an agreement of his own with Brussels by Oct. 31 — specifically one without the controversial Irish border provisions in Mrs. May’s deal — but that may not be possible.

What’s holding it up?

Undoing 46 years of economic integration in one stroke was never going to be easy, and the Brexit process has been bedeviled by the same divisions that led to the referendum in the first place. Both Britain’s main parties, the governing Conservatives and the Labour opposition, are divided over what to do, leaving Parliament so factionalized that there may be no coherent plan that would get a majority.

Mrs. May spent 18 months negotiating a divorce deal with the European Union, shedding one cabinet minister after another in the process. Her plan would have kept customs and trade arrangements at least temporarily, but ultimately envisioned cutting most of those ties. It did not detail what would replace them in Britain’s future relationship with the European Union.

When she presented her plan to Parliament in January, it was rejected by a historic margin of 230 votes. When she tried again in March, she fared less badly, but the pact was still soundly defeated, 391 to 242.

Some ardent Brexiteers, who would accept a no-deal withdrawal, came around to supporting Mrs. May’s deal — not because they liked it, but because they believed it might be their only chance to avoid a soft Brexit or remaining in the bloc. But a third attempt to pass her bill, also in March, failed 344 to 286.

That prompted Mrs. May to do something she had hoped to avoid: negotiate with Labour, which advocates a soft Brexit. Those talks failed to accomplish anything that would allow her to proceed, and she was eventually forced to abandon plans for a fourth vote. The revised plan was scorned by both Conservative and Labour lawmakers, and the decision not to publish the plan, let alone hold a vote, was a clear sign that Mrs. May’s days were numbered.

We keep hearing about the Irish border. What’s that about?

The single greatest hangup is the question of Britain’s only land border with the European Union — the invisible line between Ireland, another member state of the bloc, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

Mrs. May and her Irish counterpart, Leo Varadkar, want to prevent checkpoints from going up at the border; such barriers are generally seen as incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which brought respite from decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

But the method she agreed for guaranteeing that — called “the backstop” — has alienated much of Parliament.

The backstop would keep the United Kingdom in a trading relationship with Europe until a final deal to avoid a hard border could be agreed on, something that hard-line Brexiteers fear would never happen.

And it would bind Northern Ireland to even more European rules, to the dismay of those who reject any regulatory differences between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Most notably, that includes the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, whose 10 lawmakers give Mrs. May her parliamentary majority.

Mr. Johnson has promised to negotiate a new deal without the backstop arrangement, which he says would leave Britain in an “absolutely unacceptable” situation.

Read more: What Is the Irish Backstop, and Why Is It Holding Up Brexit?

How did we end up with an Oct. 31 deadline?

Just about the only clear decision Parliament has made on Brexit since the 2016 referendum was to give formal notice in 2017 to quit, under Article 50 of the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty, a legal process setting it on a two-year path to departure. That set March 29, 2019, as the formal divorce date.

When it became clear that Parliament would not accept Mrs. May’s deal by then, the European Union pushed the precipice back to April 12, to allow her to try again. The timing was dictated by the coming European Parliament elections, the thinking being that if Britain were to take part in that vote, it would need to begin preparing at least six weeks in advance.

Once again, the “cliff-edge” of a no-deal Brexit loomed, but the new deadline did not yield any more agreement in London, forcing Mrs. May to plead, again, for more time. European leaders insisted on a longer delay this time and set Oct. 31 as the date.

But in announcing her decision to step aside, Mrs. May acknowledged that lawmakers had yet to find a way to pass that deal or to agree on what they want instead.

The fantasy that Brexit would be easy has crumbled, and lawmakers who made lofty promises to their constituents are having to face hard reality.

Somehow, having the nightmare come to a head — again — on Halloween seems fitting.

What happens next?

On Aug. 28, Mr. Johnson announced that he would cut short the time lawmakers have to debate his Brexit plans before the Oct. 31st withdrawal deadline.

The move drew swift and fierce backlash from the opposition — and some lawmakers within Mr. Johnson’s own Conservative Party — and caused the British pound to plunge.

In the first week of September, Parliament blocked his plans to leave the union with or without an agreement. It then stymied his bid, at least for now, to call an election for Oct. 15, out of fear he could secure a new majority in favor of breaking with Europe, deal or no deal. But the government has said it would hold another parliamentary vote on Sept. 9th on an early election.

What are the alternatives?

Mr. Johnson has said he would be prepared to lead a no-deal withdrawal, but that he will work toward a better deal. A less strident leader might have tacked to the center by committing to a customs union with Europe — a close trading relationship that would prevent the imposition of tariffs and quotas. That would solve the Irish border dilemma and possibly win votes from Labour lawmakers.

Mr. Corbyn has worked hard not to commit Labour to a distinct course on Brexit. But under pressure from many of his members, he has moved toward supporting a second referendum on the eventual withdrawal agreement.

But a referendum could take many forms, and even among its backers, there is no agreement on that, either. Nor is it certain that a rerun of the vote would deliver a different result.

Still, other pro-Europe voters want Parliament to kill Brexit on its own, or at least delay it for years, by revoking Article 50.

With the suspension of Parliament and a shorter time to come up with a plan, exiting without a deal remains a real possibility, one that that hard-line pro-Brexit forces in the Conservative Party, including Mr. Johnson, insist would be preferable to a long delay.

Visit our more detailed guide to what could happen next.

The post What Is Brexit? What Does ‘No-Deal’ Mean? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May told fellow Conservative Party lawmakers on Wednesday that she was prepared to resign before the next round of Brexit negotiations with the European Union, offering up her leadership post in an effort to persuade hard-liners to support her unpopular plan to exit the bloc.

May’s offer to curtail her political career to save her vision for Brexit was a desperate gambit. Whether it will be enough to pass her withdrawal plan was not clear.

What was obvious was that Parliament still does not know its own mind on Brexit.

In a special late-night session of “indicative votes,” an effort to find new ways to break the impasse, the House of Commons could not produce a majority for any of eight Brexit proposals put forth by members.

The closest vote was for a “soft” Brexit based on a new customs union with the E.U. It lost by eight. A call to stage a second Brexit referendum was defeated by 27 votes.

On a day when Parliament thought it would take control of Brexit, May and her deal still dominated.

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay told the House that members’ go-nowhere voting demonstrated that “there are no easy options here. There is no simple way forward.”

Barclay said the best deal on offer was still the one May negotiated, and he urged the House to reconsider it. “If we do not do that, then there are no guarantees about where this process will end,” he warned.

Approving a withdrawal deal is necessary before Britain and the E.U. can negotiate their future relationship.

May offered no timetable for her possible departure. Some Tory lawmakers said a leadership election within the party could happen over the summer, with May leaving 10 Downing Street by the autumn. Other reports suggested a new leader could be in place by July. Swapping prime ministers within the party would not require a general election.

May’s announcement was made behind closed doors, at a meeting of Tory backbenchers — rank-and-file Conservative Party members — at the Palace of Westminster. There were no reporters in the room.

“I have heard very clearly the mood of the parliamentary party. I know there is a desire for a new approach, and new leadership, in the second phase of the Brexit negotiations, and I won’t stand in the way of that,” May told the lawmakers, according to excerpts released by Downing Street.

“I am prepared to leave this job earlier than I intended in order to do what is right for our country and our party,” she said.

While May’s offer to step aside encouraged a number of Conservative rebels to say they now will support her twice-defeated Brexit deal, she still may not have enough votes for the deal to pass this divided Parliament.

Crashing out of the European Union without a deal as well as a long delay, a general election or a second referendum all remain options as the chaos of Brexit continues.

The prime minister’s surprise announcement was seen as key to getting dozens of hardcore Brexiteers, including Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, to back her Brexit play.

Johnson, May’s former foreign secretary, suggested to colleagues that he will now support May’s Brexit deal, this after months of condemning it as a treaty that would make Britain “a vassal” to Brussels.

Rees-Mogg, a Conservative House member who is a power broker in these negotiations, said he would back May’s deal as long as Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists did. He tweeted that “half a loaf is better than no bread.” He fears losing Brexit entirely.

But on Wednesday night, the Democratic Unionist Party said it still could not back May’s Brexit plan, citing a too-great risk that Northern Ireland would be trapped by the arrangements made over how to keep the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland open.

Without the DUP, May’s deal faces tough odds.

It was unclear whether May’s promise to resign would be honored if lawmakers do not approve her exit deal.

Critics were quick to note the vagueness of her vow to step down.

“If I were them, I’d want it in blood,” Margaret Beckett, a Labour Party politician, told the BBC. “I’ve lost track of how many times she’s promised she won’t lead them into the next election and suddenly it’s turned out that she might after all.”

May was also criticized as focusing on her party and its fractious naysayers.

“Theresa May’s pledge to Tory MPs to stand down if they vote for her deal shows once and for all that her chaotic Brexit negotiations have been about party management, not principles or the public interest,” tweeted opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. “A change of government can’t be a Tory stitch-up, the people must decide.”

The Conservative Party has a long history of leaders being felled by issues concerning Europe. David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher and John Major were all toppled in part because of issues relating to Britain’s relationship with the continent.

But many lawmakers — of all parties — think May has made a shambles of the exit process.

Her right-wing critics say May’s Brexit plan could leave Britain too closely tied to European rules and regulations, failing the test of “taking back control” from Brussels. Those who want a softer Brexit say May set down too many red lines during negotiations.

May says the withdrawal agreement, negotiated with her European counterparts over the past two years, is the best possible option and honors the results of the June 2016 Brexit referendum, in which voters opted to leave the E.U. by 52 percent to 48 percent.

With the news that May could be stepping down, the British chattering class quickly pivoted to speculation over who might replace her.

[Meet the five men who could replace Theresa May as British prime minister]

The top contenders, at least on Wednesday, included Johnson and the government ministers Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, ­David Lidington and Sajid Javid.

Before May’s announcement, the votes in the House of Commons had been expected to be the main event of the day. Speaker John Bercow opened the debate on different flavors of Brexit by saying he hoped it would “give the House a chance to start the process of positively indicating what it wants.”

The House’s answer was a mush.

There was neither a clear majority for a “soft” or “hard” exit from the E.U.

The Labour Party’s plan for an “alternative” Brexit also failed.

At the end of the day, the House managed only to continue to convey what it does not want, which includes Britain’s leaving the continental trading bloc without a deal.

The votes were nonbinding. Another round of such “indicative” voting could occur next week.

After the results were announced, Oliver Letwin, the Conservative member of Parliament who helped pave the way for the indicative votes, said he had not expected any option to garner a majority, and he said Parliament should hold another round of votes Monday.

Some lawmakers in the chamber jeered at him and could be heard saying “that’s ridiculous” and “crazy.”

On the other side of the English Channel, the Europeans wait and wait. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, told legislators Wednesday in Brussels that the E.U. should be open to a long extension if Britain wanted to “rethink” its strategy.

“You cannot betray the 6 million people who signed a petition to revoke Article 50 — the 1 million people who marched for a people’s vote or the increasing majority of people who want to remain in the European Union,” Tusk said.

The general division in the British Parliament gave no clear indication to the Europeans what London might favor. Still, European leaders who gathered last week to give Britain a brief respite from its initial Brexit departure date also said they could extend the clock even further — if only the Britons would hold late-May elections for the European Parliament.

Thus far, Prime Minister May has refused.

E.U. leaders also would embrace a British move to stay in the European Customs Union. Although that possibility was among the proposals rejected Wednesday, it was still one of the more popular choices. Some negotiators have said that arrangements for Britain to stay in the customs union could be made within hours — not days or weeks — and that doing so would ensure that the Irish border remains open. But Britain would be stuck without an independent trade policy, a disappointment to ardent Brexiteers.

Michael Birnbaum and Quentin Ariès in Brussels contributed to this report.

Read more:

Brits pretend they’re sick of Brexit. But truth is they’re obsessed.

Britain will not leave on March 29 after E.U. allows a short Brexit reprieve

What is Brexit? Britain’s political drama, explained.

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/brexit-votes/2019/03/27/d044bb28-4fcc-11e9-bdb7-44f948cc0605_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.902d610b806f

The post Theresa May suggests she will resign if her Brexit deal passes, while Parliament fails to pass anything of its own first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.