Consistently voted against equal gay rightsShow votes 0 votes for, 7 votes against, between 2013–2014 Consistently voted against smoking bans Show votes 0 votes for, 3 votes against, between 2010–2015 Consistently voted against allowing marriage between two people of same sex Show votes 0 votes for, 6 votes against, in 2014 Generally voted against laws to promote equality and human rights Show votes 2 votes for, 10 votes against, between 2011–2018 Voted against allowing terminally ill people to be given assistance to end their life
Apologies for the slight tangent on Brexit Thread, I felt a bit of clarity needed on this’Man of the People’ to give some insight on his record of looking after ‘The People’.
How JRM voted on certain issues has nothing to do with Brexit , however if anyone wants to check how other prominent politicians voted on issues ..heres the link to Theresa Mays ( enter the name of the politician who you wish to check at top ) voting record ..kicking off with social issues:
How Theresa May voted on Social Issues # Voted a mixture of for and against equal gay rights Show votes 8 votes for, 10 votes against, 9 absences, between 2002–2014 Generally voted against smoking bans Show votes 0 votes for, 5 votes against, 7 absences, between 2002–2015 Almost always voted against the hunting ban Show votes 0 votes for, 6 votes against, 1 absence, between 2003–2004 Consistently voted for allowing marriage between two people of same sex Show votes 6 votes for, 0 votes against, 1 absence, between 2004–2014 Generally voted against laws to promote equality and human rights Show votes 2 votes for, 7 votes against, 6 absences, between 2009–2018 Voted against allowing terminally ill people to be given assistance to end their life
Her welfare and benefits voting , equally horrible How Theresa May voted on Welfare and Benefits # Generally voted for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the "bedroom tax") Show votes 10 votes for, 0 votes against, 8 absences, between 2012–2018 Consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices Show votes 0 votes for, 5 votes against, in 2013 Generally voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability Show votes 0 votes for, 8 votes against, 7 absences, between 2015–2016 Generally voted for making local councils responsible for helping those in financial need afford their council tax and reducing the amount spent on such support Show votes 2 votes for, 0 votes against, 2 absences, in 2012 Generally voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits Show votes 36 votes for, 0 votes against, 18 absences, between 2012–2016 Generally voted against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who have spent a long time unemployed
And nearly everyones favourite scapegoat ( unjustified in my opinion ) here is Corbyns voting record on social issues
How Jeremy Corbyn voted on Social Issues # Consistently voted for equal gay rights Show votes 23 votes for, 0 votes against, 4 absences, between 1999–2014 Consistently voted for smoking bans Show votes 9 votes for, 1 vote against, 2 absences, between 1999–2015 Consistently voted for the hunting ban Show votes 7 votes for, 0 votes against, between 2003–2004 Consistently voted for allowing marriage between two people of same sex Show votes 7 votes for, 0 votes against, between 2004–2014 Generally voted for laws to promote equality and human rights Show votes 12 votes for, 2 votes against, 1 absence, between 2011–2018 Voted against allowing terminally ill people to be given assistance to end their life
Theresa May ‘to quit this summer’: PM ‘hints to friends she will go at a time of her own choosing after Brexit in bid to prevent Boris taking over’
The Prime Minister will quit her job in the summer – just weeks after Brexit – according to members of her inner circle. The Conservative leader will call the leadership contest shortly after leaving the European Union, The Sun reports, but remains hopeful she can pick her replacement to prevent a successful Boris Johnson bid. According to Cabinet ministers the Prime Minister has hinted to them personally she will trigger a Tory leadership race to end at the party's annual conference in October.
Apologies for the slight tangent on Brexit Thread, I felt a bit of clarity needed on this’Man of the People’ to give some insight on his record of looking after ‘The People’.
Consistently voted against equal gay rightsShow votes 0 votes for, 7 votes against, between 2013–2014 Consistently voted against smoking bans Show votes 0 votes for, 3 votes against, between 2010–2015 Consistently voted against allowing marriage between two people of same sex Show votes 0 votes for, 6 votes against, in 2014 Generally voted against laws to promote equality and human rights Show votes 2 votes for, 10 votes against, between 2011–2018 Voted against allowing terminally ill people to be given assistance to end their life
Apologies for the slight tangent on Brexit Thread, I felt a bit of clarity needed on this’Man of the People’ to give some insight on his record of looking after ‘The People’.
Jacob Rees-Mogg and a former school friend who has managed the MP’s multimillion-pound investments are mentioned fleetingly in the Paradise Papers leak. Rees-Mogg is referred to because of a $680,000 payment he received when the BVI-based investment firm he worked for was bought by a Canadian bank. Rees-Mogg held more than 50,000 shares in the BVI-based Lloyd George Management at the time it was bought by Bank of Montreal in 2011. There is no suggestion he avoided tax on any profit. Rees-Mogg’s finances are complex – and a matter of public record. He owns a company called Saliston, established in 1995 to hold property that originally belonged to his father. These days Saliston also holds his stake in Somerset Capital Management, an emerging markets fund he co-founded in 2007. Advertisement
Somerset is managed via subsidiaries in the tax havens of the Cayman Islands and Singapore. There is nothing illegal about this and the MP has defended offshore tax havens. But his vast wealth has left him open to criticism that he does not understand the concerns of ordinary people. He was roundly criticised in September for saying the growth in the use of food banks was “rather uplifting”. He told a newspaper this week that politicians condemning the tax scams exposed by the Paradise Papers were “hypocritical and not very bright”.
WTO sees 'devilishly complicated' Brexit challenge
Senior Brexiteers, including the International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, nd the former Brexit Secretary David Davis, have flagged the possibility of reducing some tariffs to zero in order to cut the price of imports and stimulate the economy. It's a suggestion that has been met by some raised eyebrows here in Geneva. Dimitry Grozoubinski, a former trade negotiator for the Australian government, told Sky News that such a move "will have very real winners and losers". He told me: "Under WTO rules you can't just reduce tariffs to help the European Union in the absence of a free trade, you have to throw open the doors to everyone. "Are the UK public and business really prepared to compete, one-on-one, with Chinese manufacturing, or US agriculture, or Australian beef and lamb? "It would be an unprecedentedly sharp step to take."
No-deal Brexit would leave many businesses facing ‘extinction’, warns food industry chief
A number of British businesses are at risk of “extinction” if a no-deal Brexit goes ahead, the head of the Food and Drink Federation has claimed. The warning comes after the UK food industry threatened to break off cooperation with the government because of the “catastrophic” risk of leaving the EU with no deal in place. On Monday, the heads of more than 30 trade associations told Michael Gove, the environment secretary, that they cannot “respond to non-Brexit-related policy consultations or initiatives”. Organisations including the FDF, the National Farmers’ Union and the Federation of Bakers said all attention should be focused on how to deal with a no-deal Brexit, which is becoming “ever more the likeliest outcome”.
On Tuesday, Ian Wright, the FDF’s chief executive, told the BBC: “A third of my staff on any one day are in conversations and discussions with government representatives to help planning for a no-deal Brexit. This is becoming all consuming and the dangers are huge. “Many businesses are threatened with extinction.”
No-deal Brexit would leave many businesses facing ‘extinction’, warns food industry chief
A number of British businesses are at risk of “extinction” if a no-deal Brexit goes ahead, the head of the Food and Drink Federation has claimed. The warning comes after the UK food industry threatened to break off cooperation with the government because of the “catastrophic” risk of leaving the EU with no deal in place. On Monday, the heads of more than 30 trade associations told Michael Gove, the environment secretary, that they cannot “respond to non-Brexit-related policy consultations or initiatives”. Organisations including the FDF, the National Farmers’ Union and the Federation of Bakers said all attention should be focused on how to deal with a no-deal Brexit, which is becoming “ever more the likeliest outcome”.
On Tuesday, Ian Wright, the FDF’s chief executive, told the BBC: “A third of my staff on any one day are in conversations and discussions with government representatives to help planning for a no-deal Brexit. This is becoming all consuming and the dangers are huge. “Many businesses are threatened with extinction.”
Why A No-Deal Brexit Is Now Theresa May's Fallback Plan To Save Her Party – And Herself
Almost exactly two years ago, Theresa May was sitting in her office in Downing Street, baffled by the stance of her pro-Remain rebel Tory MPs. “Dominic Grieve and these people need to calm down,” an exasperated Prime Minister told her colleagues. “I’m not going to do anything crazy. I’m not going to just jump off a cliff.” According to one of the people present, May was particularly indignant that Grieve and his small band of like-minded backbenchers were terrified by the prospect of a “hard” exit, or worse, a no-deal exit. As she tried to navigate the tricky obstacles within and without her own party, “pragmatism” had been her watchword, she told the private meeting.
But fast forward to today, and there is a growing fear among some MPs that May is now indeed preparing to do “something crazy”, and allow the UK to crash out of the European Union without a Brexit agreement. And with the clock ticking down to the planned exit day of March 29, some of those who know her best have told HuffPost UK that the PM is “thinking the unthinkable” of a no-deal departure.
May’s preferred option is to rescue her withdrawal agreement with the EU, by getting Brussels to agree a new legally binding form of words to assure both the Northern Irish DUP and restless Brexiteers that the UK won’t be tied indefinitely to EU trade rules. Yet with a second “meaningful vote” on Brexit not due until possibly sometime next month, several Tory and Labour backbenchers are sceptical about their chances of stopping no-deal. Government insiders and cabinet ministers believe that the PM has in recent weeks decided that jumping off the cliff may somehow have a softer landing than expected. The key moment came in the days after the crushing 230-vote Commons defeat May suffered last month, as Brexiteers and Remainers united to reject her planned deal.
Acutely aware that the bulk of the 118 Tory MPs who voted against were Leavers, she was urged in a cabinet conference call to make peace with her party. Chief whip Julian Smith and, crucially, party chairman Brandon Lewis made a forceful case that she had to find a way to accommodate her backbenches, rather than make a grand bargain with the official Labour opposition. Smith had warned her before the vote that she would lose if she didn’t address MPs’ concerns about the so-called backstop for Northern Ireland, the guarantee in the deal to keep the province’s border open with Ireland through continuing alignment of EU rules. A fortnight later, May was thrown a lifeline by her party after she agreed to ask Brussels for “alternative arrangements” that could win a parliamentary majority.
In recent days, May has more than ever bought into the Smith-Lewis argument that party unity has to come first, one source claims. “She’s thrown all of her weight behind the chief whip. He’s telling her ‘your party is f***** if you do anything other than hold strong’.” Despite a flicker of hope in recent days that May is reaching out to Jeremy Corbyn to seek common ground, few around her believe she will countenance the kind of “soft” Brexit – including some version of a UK-EU customs union – that Labour is demanding. Even in her letter to Corbyn released on Sunday night, May signalled she was not budging from her red line that any customs union would undermine the UK’s future ability to strike independent trade deals with non-EU countries.
Two years ago, May was keeping her options open, rather than closing them down. Her first big Brexit speech, in the grand surroundings of Lancaster House in central London, allowed some wriggle room in its content, even if it pleased Eurosceptics with its hardline tone. The man who wrote that speech was Chris Wilkins, the loyal aide who had 15 years earlier helped May draft her infamous “nasty party” speech that warned the Tories they had to reform and modernise to win back voters’ trust. “The language in Lancaster House was really careful and said what matters here is the end not the means,” Wilkins says. Most importantly, May said she wanted “a customs agreement with the EU”, possibly even becoming “an associate member of the customs union in some way” and stressed she could sign up to “some elements of it”. She had “no preconceived position”, she said, a phrase that reassured some Remainer Tories. “Lancaster House quite deliberately does not say ‘no form of customs union’ because that was always the area of compromise where you could get Labour votes,” Wilkins adds. “It was always clear you needed Labour votes, not just because you needed some kind of unified position, but also because the very thing Labour don’t want is any responsibility for Brexit. “Politically you absolutely want to dip their hands in the blood, that would have been the sensible thing to have done.” Even the party manifesto for 2017 still allowed room for manoeuvre on customs. One insider says that contrary to the belief of some at Westminster, May had privately hoped that a sizeable victory would give her a way to stand up to her Brexiteers, rather than be held hostage by them. “It felt quite clear where we were heading and that was the softest possible Brexit outside the single market, with a deal to be done was on a customs union. And it was merely a question of managing the process to get us there,” they say. “Part of the point of the election was that if we’d got a bigger majority, we would have been able to make the compromises more readily
In the end, the shattering loss of the Tories’ majority appeared to severely restrict any prospect of a “hard” Brexit, simply because Labour and a handful of Conservative Remainers wouldn’t allow it. And the enduring belief that May was heading in a pragmatic direction was constant, despite occasional licence given to Brexiteers in the cabinet. In January 2018, on a trip with May to China, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox made plain his own red line. It wasn’t just the customs union that was the problem, it was a customs union of any kind. “It is very difficult to see how being in a customs union is compatible with having an independent trade policy,” he told Bloomberg News. When No.10 said Fox was speaking for the government, there was serious disquiet back in London among Remainer cabinet ministers, as well as the business community. Ministers were calmed down, however, when May herself said she had “an open mind” about a customs “arrangement” with the EU. In fact that pattern, of talking tough on Europe while in reality tilting towards a more moderate approach, is what has given pro-EU MPs of all stripes hope in recent months and weeks.
Cooper wins wider Tory support for new plan to allow MPs to block no-deal Brexit
Yvette Cooper unveils new plan to allow MPs to block no-deal Brexit The Labour MP Yvette Cooper has published details of her latest plan to ensure that MPs get the chance to vote to rule out a no-deal Brexit. Here are the key points.
Cooper says she will press for a vote on an amendment creating time for her bill on Wednesday 27 February, if Theresa May has not passed a deal by then. That means 27 February is the next crunch deadline for the PM. Tory pro-Europeans who have not rebelled on this issue yet are hinting that they will rebel then to vote for the Cooper plan. Cooper and her allies are not proposing a vote this week on an amendment creating time for a bill designed to rule out a no-deal Brexit. The new Cooper bill would give May until Wednesday 13 March to get a deal through parliament. Assuming the bill passes through parliament (a big if, given the difficulty it might have in the Lords, where bills cannot be rushed through), if the PM has not got a deal through parliament by 13 March, MPs would either have to vote to agree a no-deal Brexit - or else they would have to vote to require the PM to seek an extension of article 50. It would be up to the government to decide how long the article 50 extension it would request would be. (Cooper’s previous bill on this specified a nine-month extension.) Cooper is proposing the amendment and the bill with the Conservative MP Sir Oliver Letwin. Caroline Spelman, the Conservative MP who tabled the non-binding amendment rejecting a no-deal Brexit that was passed by MPs two weeks ago, has said she will back the bill. She did not vote for the Cooper amendment two weeks ago and her endorsement is significant because it suggests Cooper’s new amendment will get wider Tory support than her previous one, which was backed by 17 Tories. The original Cooper bill said that May should be given until Tuesday 26 February to pass a Brexit deal, and that if she did not get one through the Commons by then, at that point she should be obliged to seek an extension of article 50. The amendment that would have created time for that bill to be passed was defeated two weeks ago by 23 votes. This bill would create a new deadline, 15 days later than the one in the original bill.
In a statement Cooper said;
This bill would require the prime minister and parliament to take crucial decisions by the middle of March at the very latest on whether the UK is leaving with a deal, without a deal or seeking an extension to article 50.
It forces the prime minister to tell us whether she wants to leave with no deal or to extend article 50 if she still hasn’t got a deal in place by the middle of March. This bill creates a parliamentary safeguard to prevent us drifting into no deal by accident, and to prevent those crucial decisions being left until the final fortnight. The risks to jobs, the NHS and security from no deal are too great for us to stand back and let the government drift.
The prime minister needs to get a workable deal in place quickly and she has asked for more time. But there is a real danger of endless drift so if she can’t get a deal in place by 26th February, our cross party group will put forward this bill at that point to ensure that crucial decisions are made by the middle of March. That is the latest timetable to get the bill through the parliamentary process in time for decisions to be made in March.
Early evening summary Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP who has been leading cross-party moves to ensure that MPs get the chance to vote to block a no-deal Brexit, has revealed details of her latest plan to get this legislation through the Commons. She won’t put it to a vote this week, but plans a vote on Wednesday 27 February if Theresa May has not passed a Brexit deal by then. Significantly, this amendment/bill has wider Tory support than Cooper’s last one, which was rejected by MPs. Theresa May has appealed to MPs for more time to push Brussels into agreeing to changes to her Brexit deal, in an update to the Commons that contained no new announcements and reiterated her opposition to a Labour compromise plan. The Labour party has tabled an amendment to the government Brexit motion being debated on Thursday that would oblige the government to hold a new vote by Wednesday 27 February if May has not passed a Brexit deal by by then. Announcing the move, Jeremy Corbyn said: This amendment would stop the government from running down the clock on the Brexit negotiations, hoping members of parliament can be blackmailed into supporting a botched deal.
May has already promised that she will hold a new vote by 27 February if she has not got a deal by then. Labour’s amendment would just make this promise more binding, and the government is likely to accept it.
Labour MPs have told Theresa May that a fresh bill on workers’ rights, not just an amendment, would be the minimum they could accept in order to secure their backing for her Brexit deal.
Comments
How Jacob Rees-Mogg voted on Social Issues #
Consistently voted against equal gay rightsShow votes
0 votes for, 7 votes against, between 2013–2014
Consistently voted against smoking bans Show votes
0 votes for, 3 votes against, between 2010–2015
Consistently voted against allowing marriage between two people of same sex Show votes
0 votes for, 6 votes against, in 2014
Generally voted against laws to promote equality and human rights Show votes
2 votes for, 10 votes against, between 2011–2018
Voted against allowing terminally ill people to be given assistance to end their life
Apologies for the slight tangent on Brexit Thread, I felt a bit of clarity needed on this’Man of the People’ to give some insight on his record of looking after ‘The People’.
Man of the People.
How Theresa May voted on Social Issues #
Voted a mixture of for and against equal gay rights Show votes
8 votes for, 10 votes against, 9 absences, between 2002–2014
Generally voted against smoking bans Show votes
0 votes for, 5 votes against, 7 absences, between 2002–2015
Almost always voted against the hunting ban Show votes
0 votes for, 6 votes against, 1 absence, between 2003–2004
Consistently voted for allowing marriage between two people of same sex Show votes
6 votes for, 0 votes against, 1 absence, between 2004–2014
Generally voted against laws to promote equality and human rights Show votes
2 votes for, 7 votes against, 6 absences, between 2009–2018
Voted against allowing terminally ill people to be given assistance to end their life
That is definitely not snow white .
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10426/theresa_may/maidenhead/votes
How Theresa May voted on Welfare and Benefits #
Generally voted for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the "bedroom tax") Show votes
10 votes for, 0 votes against, 8 absences, between 2012–2018
Consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices Show votes
0 votes for, 5 votes against, in 2013
Generally voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability Show votes
0 votes for, 8 votes against, 7 absences, between 2015–2016
Generally voted for making local councils responsible for helping those in financial need afford their council tax and reducing the amount spent on such support Show votes
2 votes for, 0 votes against, 2 absences, in 2012
Generally voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits Show votes
36 votes for, 0 votes against, 18 absences, between 2012–2016
Generally voted against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who have spent a long time unemployed
How Jeremy Corbyn voted on Social Issues #
Consistently voted for equal gay rights Show votes
23 votes for, 0 votes against, 4 absences, between 1999–2014
Consistently voted for smoking bans Show votes
9 votes for, 1 vote against, 2 absences, between 1999–2015
Consistently voted for the hunting ban Show votes
7 votes for, 0 votes against, between 2003–2004
Consistently voted for allowing marriage between two people of same sex Show votes
7 votes for, 0 votes against, between 2004–2014
Generally voted for laws to promote equality and human rights Show votes
12 votes for, 2 votes against, 1 absence, between 2011–2018
Voted against allowing terminally ill people to be given assistance to end their life
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10133/jeremy_corbyn/islington_north/votes
I know which one of the three I prefer !
Now back to Brexit .
Another remoaner lying.
Another remoaner being made to look silly.
The Prime Minister will quit her job in the summer – just weeks after Brexit – according to members of her inner circle.
The Conservative leader will call the leadership contest shortly after leaving the European Union, The Sun reports, but remains hopeful she can pick her replacement to prevent a successful Boris Johnson bid.
According to Cabinet ministers the Prime Minister has hinted to them personally she will trigger a Tory leadership race to end at the party's annual conference in October.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/theresa-may-to-quit-this-summer-pm-hints-to-friends-she-will-go-at-a-time-of-her-own-choosing-after-brexit-in-bid-to-prevent-boris-taking-over/ar-BBTsYfn?ocid=spartandhp
And yet another lowlife mp scaremongering (project fear)
Another lying remoaner, a very silly woman.
Apologies for the slight tangent on Brexit Thread, I felt a bit of clarity needed on this’Man of the People’ to give some insight on his record of looking after ‘The People’.
Jacob Rees-Mogg and a former school friend who has managed the MP’s multimillion-pound investments are mentioned fleetingly in the Paradise Papers leak.
Rees-Mogg is referred to because of a $680,000 payment he received when the BVI-based investment firm he worked for was bought by a Canadian bank. Rees-Mogg held more than 50,000 shares in the BVI-based Lloyd George Management at the time it was bought by Bank of Montreal in 2011. There is no suggestion he avoided tax on any profit.
Rees-Mogg’s finances are complex – and a matter of public record. He owns a company called Saliston, established in 1995 to hold property that originally belonged to his father. These days Saliston also holds his stake in Somerset Capital Management, an emerging markets fund he co-founded in 2007.
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Somerset is managed via subsidiaries in the tax havens of the Cayman Islands and Singapore. There is nothing illegal about this and the MP has defended offshore tax havens. But his vast wealth has left him open to criticism that he does not understand the concerns of ordinary people. He was roundly criticised in September for saying the growth in the use of food banks was “rather uplifting”. He told a newspaper this week that politicians condemning the tax scams exposed by the Paradise Papers were “hypocritical and not very bright”.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/09/brexiters-put-money-offshore-tax-haven
WTO sees 'devilishly complicated' Brexit challenge
Senior Brexiteers, including the International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, nd the former Brexit Secretary David Davis, have flagged the possibility of reducing some tariffs to zero in order to cut the price of imports and stimulate the economy.
It's a suggestion that has been met by some raised eyebrows here in Geneva.
Dimitry Grozoubinski, a former trade negotiator for the Australian government, told Sky News that such a move "will have very real winners and losers".
He told me: "Under WTO rules you can't just reduce tariffs to help the European Union in the absence of a free trade, you have to throw open the doors to everyone.
"Are the UK public and business really prepared to compete, one-on-one, with Chinese manufacturing, or US agriculture, or Australian beef and lamb?
"It would be an unprecedentedly sharp step to take."
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/wto-sees-devilishly-complicated-brexit-185900166.html
A number of British businesses are at risk of “extinction” if a no-deal Brexit goes ahead, the head of the Food and Drink Federation has claimed.
The warning comes after the UK food industry threatened to break off cooperation with the government because of the “catastrophic” risk of leaving the EU with no deal in place.
On Monday, the heads of more than 30 trade associations told Michael Gove, the environment secretary, that they cannot “respond to non-Brexit-related policy consultations or initiatives”.
Organisations including the FDF, the National Farmers’ Union and the Federation of Bakers said all attention should be focused on how to deal with a no-deal Brexit, which is becoming “ever more the likeliest outcome”.
On Tuesday, Ian Wright, the FDF’s chief executive, told the BBC: “A third of my staff on any one day are in conversations and discussions with government representatives to help planning for a no-deal Brexit. This is becoming all consuming and the dangers are huge.
“Many businesses are threatened with extinction.”
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/no-deal-brexit-leave-many-101500879.html
Almost exactly two years ago, Theresa May was sitting in her office in Downing Street, baffled by the stance of her pro-Remain rebel Tory MPs.
“Dominic Grieve and these people need to calm down,” an exasperated Prime Minister told her colleagues. “I’m not going to do anything crazy. I’m not going to just jump off a cliff.”
According to one of the people present, May was particularly indignant that Grieve and his small band of like-minded backbenchers were terrified by the prospect of a “hard” exit, or worse, a no-deal exit.
As she tried to navigate the tricky obstacles within and without her own party, “pragmatism” had been her watchword, she told the private meeting.
But fast forward to today, and there is a growing fear among some MPs that May is now indeed preparing to do “something crazy”, and allow the UK to crash out of the European Union without a Brexit agreement.
And with the clock ticking down to the planned exit day of March 29, some of those who know her best have told HuffPost UK that the PM is “thinking the unthinkable” of a no-deal departure.
May’s preferred option is to rescue her withdrawal agreement with the EU, by getting Brussels to agree a new legally binding form of words to assure both the Northern Irish DUP and restless Brexiteers that the UK won’t be tied indefinitely to EU trade rules.
Yet with a second “meaningful vote” on Brexit not due until possibly sometime next month, several Tory and Labour backbenchers are sceptical about their chances of stopping no-deal.
Government insiders and cabinet ministers believe that the PM has in recent weeks decided that jumping off the cliff may somehow have a softer landing than expected.
The key moment came in the days after the crushing 230-vote Commons defeat May suffered last month, as Brexiteers and Remainers united to reject her planned deal.
Acutely aware that the bulk of the 118 Tory MPs who voted against were Leavers, she was urged in a cabinet conference call to make peace with her party.
Chief whip Julian Smith and, crucially, party chairman Brandon Lewis made a forceful case that she had to find a way to accommodate her backbenches, rather than make a grand bargain with the official Labour opposition.
Smith had warned her before the vote that she would lose if she didn’t address MPs’ concerns about the so-called backstop for Northern Ireland, the guarantee in the deal to keep the province’s border open with Ireland through continuing alignment of EU rules.
A fortnight later, May was thrown a lifeline by her party after she agreed to ask Brussels for “alternative arrangements” that could win a parliamentary majority.
In recent days, May has more than ever bought into the Smith-Lewis argument that party unity has to come first, one source claims.
“She’s thrown all of her weight behind the chief whip. He’s telling her ‘your party is f***** if you do anything other than hold strong’.”
Despite a flicker of hope in recent days that May is reaching out to Jeremy Corbyn to seek common ground, few around her believe she will countenance the kind of “soft” Brexit – including some version of a UK-EU customs union – that Labour is demanding.
Even in her letter to Corbyn released on Sunday night, May signalled she was not budging from her red line that any customs union would undermine the UK’s future ability to strike independent trade deals with non-EU countries.
Two years ago, May was keeping her options open, rather than closing them down. Her first big Brexit speech, in the grand surroundings of Lancaster House in central London, allowed some wriggle room in its content, even if it pleased Eurosceptics with its hardline tone.
The man who wrote that speech was Chris Wilkins, the loyal aide who had 15 years earlier helped May draft her infamous “nasty party” speech that warned the Tories they had to reform and modernise to win back voters’ trust.
“The language in Lancaster House was really careful and said what matters here is the end not the means,” Wilkins says.
Most importantly, May said she wanted “a customs agreement with the EU”, possibly even becoming “an associate member of the customs union in some way” and stressed she could sign up to “some elements of it”. She had “no preconceived position”, she said, a phrase that reassured some Remainer Tories.
“Lancaster House quite deliberately does not say ‘no form of customs union’ because that was always the area of compromise where you could get Labour votes,” Wilkins adds. “It was always clear you needed Labour votes, not just because you needed some kind of unified position, but also because the very thing Labour don’t want is any responsibility for Brexit.
“Politically you absolutely want to dip their hands in the blood, that would have been the sensible thing to have done.”
Even the party manifesto for 2017 still allowed room for manoeuvre on customs.
One insider says that contrary to the belief of some at Westminster, May had privately hoped that a sizeable victory would give her a way to stand up to her Brexiteers, rather than be held hostage by them.
“It felt quite clear where we were heading and that was the softest possible Brexit outside the single market, with a deal to be done was on a customs union. And it was merely a question of managing the process to get us there,” they say.
“Part of the point of the election was that if we’d got a bigger majority, we would have been able to make the compromises more readily
In the end, the shattering loss of the Tories’ majority appeared to severely restrict any prospect of a “hard” Brexit, simply because Labour and a handful of Conservative Remainers wouldn’t allow it.
And the enduring belief that May was heading in a pragmatic direction was constant, despite occasional licence given to Brexiteers in the cabinet.
In January 2018, on a trip with May to China, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox made plain his own red line. It wasn’t just the customs union that was the problem, it was a customs union of any kind.
“It is very difficult to see how being in a customs union is compatible with having an independent trade policy,” he told Bloomberg News.
When No.10 said Fox was speaking for the government, there was serious disquiet back in London among Remainer cabinet ministers, as well as the business community.
Ministers were calmed down, however, when May herself said she had “an open mind” about a customs “arrangement” with the EU. In fact that pattern, of talking tough on Europe while in reality tilting towards a more moderate approach, is what has given pro-EU MPs of all stripes hope in recent months and weeks.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/brexit/why-a-no-deal-brexit-is-now-theresa-mays-fallback-plan-to-save-her-party-–-and-herself/ar-BBTsiaY?ocid=spartandhp
Yvette Cooper unveils new plan to allow MPs to block no-deal Brexit
The Labour MP Yvette Cooper has published details of her latest plan to ensure that MPs get the chance to vote to rule out a no-deal Brexit. Here are the key points.
Cooper says she will press for a vote on an amendment creating time for her bill on Wednesday 27 February, if Theresa May has not passed a deal by then. That means 27 February is the next crunch deadline for the PM. Tory pro-Europeans who have not rebelled on this issue yet are hinting that they will rebel then to vote for the Cooper plan.
Cooper and her allies are not proposing a vote this week on an amendment creating time for a bill designed to rule out a no-deal Brexit.
The new Cooper bill would give May until Wednesday 13 March to get a deal through parliament. Assuming the bill passes through parliament (a big if, given the difficulty it might have in the Lords, where bills cannot be rushed through), if the PM has not got a deal through parliament by 13 March, MPs would either have to vote to agree a no-deal Brexit - or else they would have to vote to require the PM to seek an extension of article 50.
It would be up to the government to decide how long the article 50 extension it would request would be. (Cooper’s previous bill on this specified a nine-month extension.)
Cooper is proposing the amendment and the bill with the Conservative MP Sir Oliver Letwin.
Caroline Spelman, the Conservative MP who tabled the non-binding amendment rejecting a no-deal Brexit that was passed by MPs two weeks ago, has said she will back the bill. She did not vote for the Cooper amendment two weeks ago and her endorsement is significant because it suggests Cooper’s new amendment will get wider Tory support than her previous one, which was backed by 17 Tories.
The original Cooper bill said that May should be given until Tuesday 26 February to pass a Brexit deal, and that if she did not get one through the Commons by then, at that point she should be obliged to seek an extension of article 50. The amendment that would have created time for that bill to be passed was defeated two weeks ago by 23 votes. This bill would create a new deadline, 15 days later than the one in the original bill.
In a statement Cooper said;
This bill would require the prime minister and parliament to take crucial decisions by the middle of March at the very latest on whether the UK is leaving with a deal, without a deal or seeking an extension to article 50.
It forces the prime minister to tell us whether she wants to leave with no deal or to extend article 50 if she still hasn’t got a deal in place by the middle of March. This bill creates a parliamentary safeguard to prevent us drifting into no deal by accident, and to prevent those crucial decisions being left until the final fortnight. The risks to jobs, the NHS and security from no deal are too great for us to stand back and let the government drift.
The prime minister needs to get a workable deal in place quickly and she has asked for more time. But there is a real danger of endless drift so if she can’t get a deal in place by 26th February, our cross party group will put forward this bill at that point to ensure that crucial decisions are made by the middle of March. That is the latest timetable to get the bill through the parliamentary process in time for decisions to be made in March.
Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP who has been leading cross-party moves to ensure that MPs get the chance to vote to block a no-deal Brexit, has revealed details of her latest plan to get this legislation through the Commons. She won’t put it to a vote this week, but plans a vote on Wednesday 27 February if Theresa May has not passed a Brexit deal by then. Significantly, this amendment/bill has wider Tory support than Cooper’s last one, which was rejected by MPs.
Theresa May has appealed to MPs for more time to push Brussels into agreeing to changes to her Brexit deal, in an update to the Commons that contained no new announcements and reiterated her opposition to a Labour compromise plan.
The Labour party has tabled an amendment to the government Brexit motion being debated on Thursday that would oblige the government to hold a new vote by Wednesday 27 February if May has not passed a Brexit deal by by then. Announcing the move, Jeremy Corbyn said:
This amendment would stop the government from running down the clock on the Brexit negotiations, hoping members of parliament can be blackmailed into supporting a botched deal.
May has already promised that she will hold a new vote by 27 February if she has not got a deal by then. Labour’s amendment would just make this promise more binding, and the government is likely to accept it.
Labour MPs have told Theresa May that a fresh bill on workers’ rights, not just an amendment, would be the minimum they could accept in order to secure their backing for her Brexit deal.