Jean-Claude Juncker: Economic turmoil after Brexit will be UK's fault
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission chief, has warned that the UK would be "100 per cent" responsible if its decision to leave the EU caused economic turmoil, as he urged MPs to vote for Theresa May's Brexit deal. In an interview with a German newspaper, Mr Juncker urged the UK not to waste its six month extension to the Article 50 process and added that he did not have hopes of the UK eventually reversing Brexit.
Economists have warned that Brexit will damage the British economy regardless of whether a "hard" or "soft" approach is adopted as it will create trade barriers with the EU, which makes up 44 per cent of UK trade. In the same interview, the European Commission president deflected rumours in the British media of his alleged drinking problem, following several incidents where he appeared unsteady on his feet in public. "I still have sciatica. This is why I have some mobility problems, which the British press often likes to make a big thing about and attribute to other causes.," he said. "I often limp because I had a car accident. But I am not complaining."
Mr Juncker went on to say that the EU should stop campaigning for a "United States of Europe."Asked if the EU would ever become a United States of Europe, he responded: "I last used this term before puberty at the age of 14 years. We should stop using it. I do not believe that we will ever have a centralised state that is comparable to the U.S. I don’t want it either. "The European Union should not become a melting pot in which all differences disappear." One of the biggest criticisms of Mr Juncker's leadership is his response to the refugee crisis, which led to each EU member state being told to accept quotas on migrants to share the burden. In his interview with Funke, the 64-year-old stood by the policy but admitted that the EU needed to change its overall approach to migration.
"We need a better Europe on the issue of migration," he said. "Refugees, migrants and illegal immigrants are a pan-European issue. We need a solidarity-based response and a system of redistribution." Refugee quotas were abandoned by EU leaders in 2017 after fierce opposition from Poland and Hungary, with European Council president Donald Tusk admitting they were "divisive and ineffective." The UK, however, was never subject to the quotas as David Cameron chose to opt out from the scheme.
Disingenuous politicians have provided answers that are untrue in many cases, and only partly true in many others.
The Withdrawal Agreement covers the conditions under which we leave.
In particular the rights of EU citizens in the UK, UK citizens in the EU, the money we owe them, and the Irish border issue.
Taking the money first. This will have increased by a billion per month to cover the extension period.
Brexiteer MPs are still maintaining that leaving with no deal would mean not paying the bill.
The EU maintain that they would take us to court.
The bill would be reduced by a no deal Brexit, as the contributions relating to the transition period may no longer be applicable, but there would be a bill, and we would have to pay it.
We owe it to them.
The same Brexiteer MPs are suggesting that we could negotiate a trade deal with the EU, subsequent to leaving with no deal.
So we tell the EU we are not paying the bill, but we still want a trade deal.
The EU will not reopen the WA, Parliament wont vote for it, and no trade negotiations will start before it is passed.
So even on a no deal Brexit we will need to pass the WA, to move forward.
This is consistently glossed over by MPs.
The Irish border is a can of worms.
Ireland, as EU members will continue to allow Freedom of Movement.
A hard border would breach the Good Friday Agreement.
I wish someone could explain to me how "Taking Back Control" of our borders would mean that we would allow the citizens of all the EU member countries to stroll over the Irish border into the UK, without any checks.
Is that really how we "Take Back Control", and restrict immigration?
Because that seems to be the plan.
There is a choice of a hard border or treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK. Unless we remained in the Single Market and Customs Union.
Remaining in the SM will mean continuing with Freedom of Movement.
Customs Union membership would rule out an independent trade policy.
Incidentally NI is already treated differently.
However the PM and the DUP will not wear any of the solutions.
Is the answer to the threat of smuggling, just to ignore it?
The technological solutions put forward by the ERG, are 10 years away.
The ERG suggestion is no deal, don't pay the bill, ignore the WA, and then do a trade deal.
They drone on about trading on WTO rules, as if it was the be all and end all.
Yet Liam Fox the man in charge of our trade deals recently said, if WTO terms were so good, then why would anyone ever do a free trade deal?
Good point who can answer that one?
So this is the trade plan.
We would immediately trade under WTO rules.
Our future would be to negotiate free trade deals with all and sundry.
The main purpose of a trade deal would be to reduce or eliminate tariffs. That seems logical.
Trade deals take years to negotiate.
So other countries will be chomping at the bit to do a trade deal with us, to agree preferential trade terms, and reduce or eliminate tariffs.
So we plan to kick off post Brexit, trading on WTO terms. This involves tariffs, therefore increasing the cost of imports. Particularly on food.
Their answer is to immediately remove the tariffs.
The problem is that removing all tariffs would jeopardise some of our industries. The removal of tariffs on New Zealand lamb, would put our sheep farmers out of business, importing cheap ceramics would have an adverse effect on UK jobs.
So the Government has chosen to only remove 87% of tariffs in order to protect some UK businesses.
Under WTO rules you cant differentiate from country to country as far as tariffs are concerned. So if you removed tariffs on New Zealand wines, as Tim Martin would like, you couldnt charge tariffs on wine from elsewhere.
This policy in itself creates a number of questions.
One of the main benefits of the ERG pitch for leaving the EU was to agree free trade deals throughout the world. This has not proved to be successful so far.
The first question is why would anyone wish to negotiate a trade deal with us, after we had already removed the import tariffs?
Would the removal of tariffs automatically mean cheaper prices for consumers, or would businesses choose to increase their profits. Going back to Tim Martin, if we removed the tariffs from New Zealand wine, would suppliers drop the price, or continue to sell at the same price and increase profits?
I have an idea on which is more likely.
Would other countries reciprocate? If we have already removed nearly all tariffs on our imports, what pressure could we bring to bear on other countries to do likewise for us?
How do we expect to trade with the EU, without paying the bill, or passing the WA.
Behaving like ostriches cant be the Irish border solution.
It all seems a bit of a mess, and leaves more questions than answers.
The headline in the Mail on Sunday is "40% of Tory Councillors Back Farage". A survey in the paper suggests what it calls "an astonishing" number of councillors will support Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party in the European elections. Just over half - 52% - say they will back the Conservatives and 8% other parties. The poll also reveals that three-quarters of Tory councillors want Mrs May to resign and 96% believe the Tory party has been damaged by the Brexit impasse. The survey was carried out by Survation, which questioned 781 Conservative councillors last week.
Writing in the Observer, Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson warns that the party will lose out to what he calls the "far right" Brexit Party in the European elections - if it gives the impression it agrees with Mr Farage on Brexit and does not back another referendum. He stresses that Mr Farage is a real threat to both the Conservatives and Labour - and calls on his own party to offer a radical alternative, which demonstrates his party has a way forward out of the crisis. The paper says his comments reflect the frustration among senior Labour Remainers about Jeremy Corbyn's lukewarm support for a second referendum
The Sunday Telegraph says Tory voters want the next leader of the party to scrap HS2. It quotes a briefing produced by the US pollster Frank Luntz, which states that many Conservative supporters are "repulsed" by the high-speed rail project and view the £56bn scheme as an "expensive extravagance". The paper claims what it calls the "bombshell memo" has been seen by several potential leadership candidates - and adds that Boris Johnson publicly attacked HS2 after being shown the data.
Senior Brexiteer fuelling violence with 'vain and bitter' article about Theresa May, Tory MP says
Conservative MPs have accused senior Eurosceptic Sir Bill Cash of fuelling violence against politicians after he accused Theresa May of "abject surrender" and "capitulation" to the EU. Former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan said Sir Bill's words were "not helpful" while former Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt accused the veteran MP, a senior member of the European Research Group of anti-EU Tories, of a publishing "a vain and bitter article". MPs will return to Westminster after their Easter break on Tuesday with no solution to the Brexit crisis in sight. Cross-party talks have so far failed to reach an agreement and the UK is on course to take part in EU elections on 23 May, despite the government insisting it can pass a Brexit deal before then. With the House of Commons gripped by deadlock and her deal having been rejected by MPs three times, Ms May was forced to agree another Brexit delay with the EU earlier this month. The UK is now set to leave the bloc on 31 October.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Bill said this was an "abject surrender" and accused the prime minister of "capitulation" and "appeasement". The comments were strongly condemned by pro-EU Tories. Ms Morgan, a former education secretary, told BBC Radio 4's Today: "I understand that Sir Bill Cash has written an article in which there are all sorts of phrases about betrayal and capitulation and all the rest of it. "As my colleague Alistair Burt has pointed out, this kind of language is not helpful. It's not the kind of language that our councillors or frankly any normal people would use." The MP, who has received death threats, said she saw a link between the type of comments made by Sir Bill and violence directed against MPs.
Asked if she believed there was a connection, she said: "I do. I think it's been shown that the language that MPs or campaigners, mainly in favour of Brexit, are using is stoking up other people, often who are sitting at home watching all this stuff and it gets them really, really angry and fired up and then they say things that they would never say face to face."
She added: "Language is important and the One Nation group of MPs that I am co-chairing has said very clearly that we should all think about the language that we are using in these debates. We need to remember that politics is about much more than Brexit." Mr Burt, who resigned as a Foreign Office minister last month in order to vote against the government on Brexit, wrote to Sir Bill on Twitter: "A vain and bitter article focused on your prime minister, with your opinions expressed in words such as mendacity, surrender, betrayal, appeasement, bended knee...Does it ever cross your mind what you're contributing to?"
In his article, Sir Bill's wrote: "In the early hours of 11 April, Theresa May made a statement in Brussels after her abject surrender to the European Council – now a constant feature of her capitulation and of our humiliation throughout these withdrawal negotiations. "She stated that she had, “agreed an extension of time.” This was no agreement, it was appeasement on bended knee. Our ambassador to the EU even entwined it in his letter of submission to the decision of the European Council thus purporting to make it an international treaty. Under the so called, “agreement” we were tied down by conditions like Gulliver." He added: "How low can we sink with the prime minister making us crawl on our hands and knees, not only to the EU, but to Germany and France?"
Conservative MPs are plotting how to oust Ms May and on Tuesday will discuss proposals for changing party rules to allow another vote of no confidence in the prime minister. Under current rules, a confidence vote in the party leader can only be held once a year. Ms May saw off an attempt to topple her in December, meaning another vote cannot be held until the end of the year.
No confidence Prime Minister Theresa May will return from the Easter break facing a "triple assault" on her leadership, according to the Daily Express. The paper says she's likely to be confronted by Conservative MPs demanding she set a resignation date, increasingly angry cabinet members, and an unprecedented, albeit non-binding, confidence vote among grassroots party members. Several papers report that if Mrs May refuses to set a departure date the backbench 1922 committee might axe the rule preventing more than one confidence vote being held in a 12-month period. The Health Secretary Matt Hancock tells the Daily Telegraph that he's determined to end the injustice of NHS staff having to choose between the job they love and speaking the truth to keep patients safe. The Telegraph says Mr Hancock's pledge to ban non-disclosure agreements echoes a similar, unfulfilled vow made by his predecessor, Jeremy Hunt. The paper's leader column calls on Mr Hancock to do more than make empty promises.
The Daily Mirror reports that tens of thousands of patients are facing a wait of up to 16 months to see an NHS dentist. In Devon and Cornwall, 48,000 people are said to be on waiting lists with an average length of 477 days each - leading some to turn up at hospital desperate to have painful teeth removed. The British Dental Association tells the Mirror that underfunding by the government is to blame.
Theresa May warned her post-Brexit immigration strategy could close quarter of NHS services
NHS executives have described Theresa May’s post-Brexit immigration strategy as the “most destructive policy proposal for NHS recruitment” amid fears it could force some hospitals to close “25 per cent of services”, The Telegraph can disclose. Senior health officials have claimed the Government’s proposals for a £30,000 salary threshold on workers moving to the UK is “appalling” and could jeopardise efforts to attract the 50,000 nurses required by the health service. The Telegraph has been leaked the minutes and a transcript of a high-level meeting between NHS and Whitehall officials in January, which lays bare the opposition to Mrs May’s flagship immigration policy. During the meeting, officials...
Nigel Farage can’t escape the foul legacy of Ukip Hugo Rifkind The leader of the Brexit Party is riding high in the opinion polls but how long before his past catches up with him?
Brexiteer FIRES BACK at Kay Burley as he calls for May to RESIGN – 'Can't be compared!' BREXITEER Nigel Evans snapped at Sky’s Kay Burley as he demanded Theresa May resign from her role as Prime Minister over her Brexit failures.
Tory MP Nigel Evans clashed with Sky News host Kay Burley after she attempted to compare a second referendum to MPs wanting a second vote on ousting Theresa May. The Brexiteer MP revealed that he and members of the 1922 committee would be looking into ways to get rid of Theresa May despite calling a vote of no confidence in December. He argued that a new prime minister would allow the UK to better move into the next Brexit stage.
Mr Evans began by saying: “Well a number of MPs have asked to look again at the rules. “Two former chairs of the 1922 committee Archie Hamilton and Michael Spicer said it was within the realms of the 1922 committee ourselves to change those rules. “So we will be discussing a number of options today but there is another option again which is that the Chair of the 1922 committee Sir Graham Brady will go and speak to Theresa May. “He will have received a number of letters from MPs and he will be able to say to her Prime Minster we do now need a timetable, whether you get a deal or you don’t we need to know when you are going to leave Number 10. Ms Burley then clarified that Mr Evans would be looking at other ways to force Theresa May out of power.
She then directed to conversation towards a second referendum and drew comparisons between MPs having another vote to get rid of Theresa May and another vote on Brexit. Mr Evan’s replied: “I don’t compare a referendum of 35 million people where the British people were told that whatever you vote on we will deliver with what we are doing in within the Conservative party. “Remember we have had four date changes to Brexit and now are embarking on fighting European elections." The Sky News host interrupted and reaffirmed the idea that Mr Evan’s wanted a second vote on a vote of no confidence but was against a second referendum.
When unsatisfied with the depth of his answer the news host snapped: “Yes or no is also fine.” Mr Evans shot back: “No, it cannot be prepared to a referendum. “No Kate, because David Cameron spent 9 million pounds on sending a leaflet to every household. “In it, he said that whatever you decide we will deliver, that is completely different.” With Brexit still seemingly in a standstill, the calls for a second referendum from Remainers has grown louder. Brexiteers remain sceptical however that this will not solve the current Brexit problem or offer any resolution as Leave would be expected to win once again.
The Conservative Party is already squandering the time the country does not have The only way the next six months are to not be wasted is if Westminster, and the rest of the country, do not allow the Brexiteers anywhere near Brexit. They are fundamentally malignant, and too useless to do anything
“Please don’t waste this time.” That was the advice of the European Council president Donald Tusk, handed out in the small hours of the morning a week and a half ago, as he announced a six-month delay to Brexit. Don’t fritter it away like you have the past two years, was the message. Don’t keep searching for the Brexit Philosopher’s Stone, the mystical thing that might turn all the hundreds and thousands of Brexit lies into the truth, and make the impossible possible.
Standing next to him was Jean-Claude Juncker, who could not have made any clearer that the first stage of progressing with Brexit is accepting the withdrawal agreement, Theresa May’s deal, in other words, including the dreaded backstop. There can be no Brexit without it, apart from no-deal Brexit, and in the event of no-deal Brexit, the starting point for negotiations on any future relationship will be – you’ve guessed it – the withdrawal agreement.
It is time, they said, to get real. And so we must wonder how they, and indeed the rest of us must feel, at news that the very first thing the Conservative Party will be doing with its six months is dredging its rulebook for new and arcane ways to get rid of Theresa May, a course of action that will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to anything.
Now, we learn, various Conservative grassroots associations will be holding a purely symbolic vote of confidence in May’s leadership, which they hope will put pressure on the prime minister to stand down. For the record, May recently lost the most important vote of her premiership by a margin of 230 votes, a historic record. She did not stand down then, because she did not have to. She is not a great one for yielding to the purely symbolic.
That the Brexit wing of the Conservative Party has brought both itself and us to this horrific juncture is mesmerising. It is six years since David Cameron agreed to hold the referendum, to put party before country in an act of singularly atrocious cowardice and stupidity. He has broken both things beyond repair.
Bill Cash has been writing in The Sunday Telegraph about May’s “abject surrender” to Europe. He and others remain of the view that a Brexiteer, an ERG-er, might have done things better. It is worth reminding Sir Bill and others that Theresa May is prime minister chiefly because the Brexit wing of the party, via Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom, were too craven, too vain and too plain useless even to get as far as the start of the leadership contest. More to the point, they are scrabbling about now for arcane ways to get rid of Theresa May because they were too dim to get it right last time. From the very moment their no-confidence vote in the prime minister was announced in November, other wiser voices were pointing out their extraordinary naivety.
There had not even been a vote on the withdrawal deal by that point. Had they just waited a bit longer, fought off the babyish thrill to hold little press conferences with their little no-confidence letters, they might not have accidentally burnt their trump card.
Should they get their way, we must imagine their hope is to put Boris Johnson in 10 Downing Street and all will then be right. The withdrawal agreement will be reopened, the backstop removed, for no greater reason than we have now asked them to do the one thing they consistently refuse to do. His two years as the worst foreign secretary in the nation’s history is a matter of no interest to them. That he is profoundly loathed by the people he would have to negotiate with is not a matter of concern.
Sir Bill, by the way, was happy to sit on the board of Vote Leave, three years ago, and look on as Dominic Cummings turned the referendum campaign into two things – payments into the EU budget (the £350m-a-week-for-the-NHS lie) and immigration (the Turkey-is-joining-the-EU lie).All the deranged stuff Sir Bill and the rest have been going on about for decades – Global Britain, out and into the world, and so on – was wisely ditched because it has always lost. Now Sir Bill and the rest are too stubborn to accept the terms of their own victory, too cowardly to make peace with their own lies. The only way the next six months are to not be wasted is if Westminster, and the rest of the country, do not allow the Brexiteers anywhere near Brexit. They are fundamentally malignant, and too useless to do anything.
Comments
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission chief, has warned that the UK would be "100 per cent" responsible if its decision to leave the EU caused economic turmoil, as he urged MPs to vote for Theresa May's Brexit deal.
In an interview with a German newspaper, Mr Juncker urged the UK not to waste its six month extension to the Article 50 process and added that he did not have hopes of the UK eventually reversing Brexit.
Economists have warned that Brexit will damage the British economy regardless of whether a "hard" or "soft" approach is adopted as it will create trade barriers with the EU, which makes up 44 per cent of UK trade.
In the same interview, the European Commission president deflected rumours in the British media of his alleged drinking problem, following several incidents where he appeared unsteady on his feet in public.
"I still have sciatica. This is why I have some mobility problems, which the British press often likes to make a big thing about and attribute to other causes.," he said.
"I often limp because I had a car accident. But I am not complaining."
Mr Juncker went on to say that the EU should stop campaigning for a "United States of Europe."Asked if the EU would ever become a United States of Europe, he responded: "I last used this term before puberty at the age of 14 years. We should stop using it. I do not believe that we will ever have a centralised state that is comparable to the U.S. I don’t want it either.
"The European Union should not become a melting pot in which all differences disappear." One of the biggest criticisms of Mr Juncker's leadership is his response to the refugee crisis, which led to each EU member state being told to accept quotas on migrants to share the burden.
In his interview with Funke, the 64-year-old stood by the policy but admitted that the EU needed to change its overall approach to migration.
"We need a better Europe on the issue of migration," he said. "Refugees, migrants and illegal immigrants are a pan-European issue. We need a solidarity-based response and a system of redistribution."
Refugee quotas were abandoned by EU leaders in 2017 after fierce opposition from Poland and Hungary, with European Council president Donald Tusk admitting they were "divisive and ineffective."
The UK, however, was never subject to the quotas as David Cameron chose to opt out from the scheme.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/brexit/jean-claude-juncker-economic-turmoil-after-brexit-will-be-uks-fault/ar-BBW732O?ocid=spartandhp
Disingenuous politicians have provided answers that are untrue in many cases, and only partly true in many others.
The Withdrawal Agreement covers the conditions under which we leave.
In particular the rights of EU citizens in the UK, UK citizens in the EU, the money we owe them, and the Irish border issue.
Taking the money first. This will have increased by a billion per month to cover the extension period.
Brexiteer MPs are still maintaining that leaving with no deal would mean not paying the bill.
The EU maintain that they would take us to court.
The bill would be reduced by a no deal Brexit, as the contributions relating to the transition period may no longer be applicable, but there would be a bill, and we would have to pay it.
We owe it to them.
The same Brexiteer MPs are suggesting that we could negotiate a trade deal with the EU, subsequent to leaving with no deal.
So we tell the EU we are not paying the bill, but we still want a trade deal.
The EU will not reopen the WA, Parliament wont vote for it, and no trade negotiations will start before it is passed.
So even on a no deal Brexit we will need to pass the WA, to move forward.
This is consistently glossed over by MPs.
The Irish border is a can of worms.
Ireland, as EU members will continue to allow Freedom of Movement.
A hard border would breach the Good Friday Agreement.
I wish someone could explain to me how "Taking Back Control" of our borders would mean that we would allow the citizens of all the EU member countries to stroll over the Irish border into the UK, without any checks.
Is that really how we "Take Back Control", and restrict immigration?
Because that seems to be the plan.
There is a choice of a hard border or treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK. Unless we remained in the Single Market and Customs Union.
Remaining in the SM will mean continuing with Freedom of Movement.
Customs Union membership would rule out an independent trade policy.
Incidentally NI is already treated differently.
However the PM and the DUP will not wear any of the solutions.
Is the answer to the threat of smuggling, just to ignore it?
The technological solutions put forward by the ERG, are 10 years away.
The ERG suggestion is no deal, don't pay the bill, ignore the WA, and then do a trade deal.
They drone on about trading on WTO rules, as if it was the be all and end all.
Yet Liam Fox the man in charge of our trade deals recently said, if WTO terms were so good, then why would anyone ever do a free trade deal?
Good point who can answer that one?
So this is the trade plan.
We would immediately trade under WTO rules.
Our future would be to negotiate free trade deals with all and sundry.
The main purpose of a trade deal would be to reduce or eliminate tariffs. That seems logical.
Trade deals take years to negotiate.
So other countries will be chomping at the bit to do a trade deal with us, to agree preferential trade terms, and reduce or eliminate tariffs.
So we plan to kick off post Brexit, trading on WTO terms. This involves tariffs, therefore increasing the cost of imports. Particularly on food.
Their answer is to immediately remove the tariffs.
The problem is that removing all tariffs would jeopardise some of our industries. The removal of tariffs on New Zealand lamb, would put our sheep farmers out of business, importing cheap ceramics would have an adverse effect on UK jobs.
So the Government has chosen to only remove 87% of tariffs in order to protect some UK businesses.
Under WTO rules you cant differentiate from country to country as far as tariffs are concerned. So if you removed tariffs on New Zealand wines, as Tim Martin would like, you couldnt charge tariffs on wine from elsewhere.
This policy in itself creates a number of questions.
One of the main benefits of the ERG pitch for leaving the EU was to agree free trade deals throughout the world. This has not proved to be successful so far.
The first question is why would anyone wish to negotiate a trade deal with us, after we had already removed the import tariffs?
Would the removal of tariffs automatically mean cheaper prices for consumers, or would businesses choose to increase their profits. Going back to Tim Martin, if we removed the tariffs from New Zealand wine, would suppliers drop the price, or continue to sell at the same price and increase profits?
I have an idea on which is more likely.
Would other countries reciprocate? If we have already removed nearly all tariffs on our imports, what pressure could we bring to bear on other countries to do likewise for us?
How do we expect to trade with the EU, without paying the bill, or passing the WA.
Behaving like ostriches cant be the Irish border solution.
It all seems a bit of a mess, and leaves more questions than answers.
The headline in the Mail on Sunday is "40% of Tory Councillors Back Farage".
A survey in the paper suggests what it calls "an astonishing" number of councillors will support Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party in the European elections. Just over half - 52% - say they will back the Conservatives and 8% other parties.
The poll also reveals that three-quarters of Tory councillors want Mrs May to resign and 96% believe the Tory party has been damaged by the Brexit impasse.
The survey was carried out by Survation, which questioned 781 Conservative councillors last week.
Writing in the Observer, Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson warns that the party will lose out to what he calls the "far right" Brexit Party in the European elections - if it gives the impression it agrees with Mr Farage on Brexit and does not back another referendum.
He stresses that Mr Farage is a real threat to both the Conservatives and Labour - and calls on his own party to offer a radical alternative, which demonstrates his party has a way forward out of the crisis.
The paper says his comments reflect the frustration among senior Labour Remainers about Jeremy Corbyn's lukewarm support for a second referendum
The Sunday Telegraph says Tory voters want the next leader of the party to scrap HS2.
It quotes a briefing produced by the US pollster Frank Luntz, which states that many Conservative supporters are "repulsed" by the high-speed rail project and view the £56bn scheme as an "expensive extravagance".
The paper claims what it calls the "bombshell memo" has been seen by several potential leadership candidates - and adds that Boris Johnson publicly attacked HS2 after being shown the data.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-48000582
Conservative MPs have accused senior Eurosceptic Sir Bill Cash of fuelling violence against politicians after he accused Theresa May of "abject surrender" and "capitulation" to the EU.
Former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan said Sir Bill's words were "not helpful" while former Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt accused the veteran MP, a senior member of the European Research Group of anti-EU Tories, of a publishing "a vain and bitter article".
MPs will return to Westminster after their Easter break on Tuesday with no solution to the Brexit crisis in sight. Cross-party talks have so far failed to reach an agreement and the UK is on course to take part in EU elections on 23 May, despite the government insisting it can pass a Brexit deal before then.
With the House of Commons gripped by deadlock and her deal having been rejected by MPs three times, Ms May was forced to agree another Brexit delay with the EU earlier this month. The UK is now set to leave the bloc on 31 October.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Bill said this was an "abject surrender" and accused the prime minister of "capitulation" and "appeasement".
The comments were strongly condemned by pro-EU Tories.
Ms Morgan, a former education secretary, told BBC Radio 4's Today: "I understand that Sir Bill Cash has written an article in which there are all sorts of phrases about betrayal and capitulation and all the rest of it.
"As my colleague Alistair Burt has pointed out, this kind of language is not helpful. It's not the kind of language that our councillors or frankly any normal people would use."
The MP, who has received death threats, said she saw a link between the type of comments made by Sir Bill and violence directed against MPs.
Asked if she believed there was a connection, she said: "I do. I think it's been shown that the language that MPs or campaigners, mainly in favour of Brexit, are using is stoking up other people, often who are sitting at home watching all this stuff and it gets them really, really angry and fired up and then they say things that they would never say face to face."
She added: "Language is important and the One Nation group of MPs that I am co-chairing has said very clearly that we should all think about the language that we are using in these debates. We need to remember that politics is about much more than Brexit."
Mr Burt, who resigned as a Foreign Office minister last month in order to vote against the government on Brexit, wrote to Sir Bill on Twitter: "A vain and bitter article focused on your prime minister, with your opinions expressed in words such as mendacity, surrender, betrayal, appeasement, bended knee...Does it ever cross your mind what you're contributing to?"
In his article, Sir Bill's wrote: "In the early hours of 11 April, Theresa May made a statement in Brussels after her abject surrender to the European Council – now a constant feature of her capitulation and of our humiliation throughout these withdrawal negotiations.
"She stated that she had, “agreed an extension of time.” This was no agreement, it was appeasement on bended knee. Our ambassador to the EU even entwined it in his letter of submission to the decision of the European Council thus purporting to make it an international treaty. Under the so called, “agreement” we were tied down by conditions like Gulliver."
He added: "How low can we sink with the prime minister making us crawl on our hands and knees, not only to the EU, but to Germany and France?"
Conservative MPs are plotting how to oust Ms May and on Tuesday will discuss proposals for changing party rules to allow another vote of no confidence in the prime minister.
Under current rules, a confidence vote in the party leader can only be held once a year. Ms May saw off an attempt to topple her in December, meaning another vote cannot be held until the end of the year.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/senior-brexiteer-fuelling-violence-with-vain-and-bitter-article-about-theresa-may-tory-mp-says/ar-BBWaFzi?ocid=spartandhp
No confidence
Prime Minister Theresa May will return from the Easter break facing a "triple assault" on her leadership, according to the Daily Express.
The paper says she's likely to be confronted by Conservative MPs demanding she set a resignation date, increasingly angry cabinet members, and an unprecedented, albeit non-binding, confidence vote among grassroots party members.
Several papers report that if Mrs May refuses to set a departure date the backbench 1922 committee might axe the rule preventing more than one confidence vote being held in a 12-month period.
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock tells the Daily Telegraph that he's determined to end the injustice of NHS staff having to choose between the job they love and speaking the truth to keep patients safe.
The Telegraph says Mr Hancock's pledge to ban non-disclosure agreements echoes a similar, unfulfilled vow made by his predecessor, Jeremy Hunt.
The paper's leader column calls on Mr Hancock to do more than make empty promises.
The Daily Mirror reports that tens of thousands of patients are facing a wait of up to 16 months to see an NHS dentist.
In Devon and Cornwall, 48,000 people are said to be on waiting lists with an average length of 477 days each - leading some to turn up at hospital desperate to have painful teeth removed.
The British Dental Association tells the Mirror that underfunding by the government is to blame.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-48018133
One commented: “The Labour Party has tweeted Happy St George’s Day on the wrong day. And they want to run the country!”
NHS executives have described Theresa May’s post-Brexit immigration strategy as the “most destructive policy proposal for NHS recruitment” amid fears it could force some hospitals to close “25 per cent of services”, The Telegraph can disclose.
Senior health officials have claimed the Government’s proposals for a £30,000 salary threshold on workers moving to the UK is “appalling” and could jeopardise efforts to attract the 50,000 nurses required by the health service.
The Telegraph has been leaked the minutes and a transcript of a high-level meeting between NHS and Whitehall officials in January, which lays bare the opposition to Mrs May’s flagship immigration policy.
During the meeting, officials...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/04/22/theresa-may-warned-post-brexit-immigration-strategy-could-close/
Sources say company has run seemingly independent pro-Brexit campaigns since 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/22/facebook-ads-by-lynton-crosbys-firm-part-of-push-for-hard-brexit
Hugo Rifkind
The leader of the Brexit Party is riding high in the opinion polls but how long before his past catches up with him?
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/nigel-farage-can-t-escape-the-foul-legacy-of-ukip-8xq8jp80r
BREXITEER Nigel Evans snapped at Sky’s Kay Burley as he demanded Theresa May resign from her role as Prime Minister over her Brexit failures.
Tory MP Nigel Evans clashed with Sky News host Kay Burley after she attempted to compare a second referendum to MPs wanting a second vote on ousting Theresa May. The Brexiteer MP revealed that he and members of the 1922 committee would be looking into ways to get rid of Theresa May despite calling a vote of no confidence in December. He argued that a new prime minister would allow the UK to better move into the next Brexit stage.
Mr Evans began by saying: “Well a number of MPs have asked to look again at the rules.
“Two former chairs of the 1922 committee Archie Hamilton and Michael Spicer said it was within the realms of the 1922 committee ourselves to change those rules.
“So we will be discussing a number of options today but there is another option again which is that the Chair of the 1922 committee Sir Graham Brady will go and speak to Theresa May.
“He will have received a number of letters from MPs and he will be able to say to her Prime Minster we do now need a timetable, whether you get a deal or you don’t we need to know when you are going to leave Number 10. Ms Burley then clarified that Mr Evans would be looking at other ways to force Theresa May out of power.
She then directed to conversation towards a second referendum and drew comparisons between MPs having another vote to get rid of Theresa May and another vote on Brexit.
Mr Evan’s replied: “I don’t compare a referendum of 35 million people where the British people were told that whatever you vote on we will deliver with what we are doing in within the Conservative party.
“Remember we have had four date changes to Brexit and now are embarking on fighting European elections."
The Sky News host interrupted and reaffirmed the idea that Mr Evan’s wanted a second vote on a vote of no confidence but was against a second referendum.
When unsatisfied with the depth of his answer the news host snapped: “Yes or no is also fine.”
Mr Evans shot back: “No, it cannot be prepared to a referendum.
“No Kate, because David Cameron spent 9 million pounds on sending a leaflet to every household.
“In it, he said that whatever you decide we will deliver, that is completely different.”
With Brexit still seemingly in a standstill, the calls for a second referendum from Remainers has grown louder.
Brexiteers remain sceptical however that this will not solve the current Brexit problem or offer any resolution as Leave would be expected to win once again.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1117816/Brexit-news-latest-Theresa-May-resign-Nigel-Evans-1922-committee-Kay-Burley
The only way the next six months are to not be wasted is if Westminster, and the rest of the country, do not allow the Brexiteers anywhere near Brexit. They are fundamentally malignant, and too useless to do anything
“Please don’t waste this time.” That was the advice of the European Council president Donald Tusk, handed out in the small hours of the morning a week and a half ago, as he announced a six-month delay to Brexit.
Don’t fritter it away like you have the past two years, was the message. Don’t keep searching for the Brexit Philosopher’s Stone, the mystical thing that might turn all the hundreds and thousands of Brexit lies into the truth, and make the impossible possible.
Standing next to him was Jean-Claude Juncker, who could not have made any clearer that the first stage of progressing with Brexit is accepting the withdrawal agreement, Theresa May’s deal, in other words, including the dreaded backstop. There can be no Brexit without it, apart from no-deal Brexit, and in the event of no-deal Brexit, the starting point for negotiations on any future relationship will be – you’ve guessed it – the withdrawal agreement.
It is time, they said, to get real. And so we must wonder how they, and indeed the rest of us must feel, at news that the very first thing the Conservative Party will be doing with its six months is dredging its rulebook for new and arcane ways to get rid of Theresa May, a course of action that will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to anything.
Now, we learn, various Conservative grassroots associations will be holding a purely symbolic vote of confidence in May’s leadership, which they hope will put pressure on the prime minister to stand down. For the record, May recently lost the most important vote of her premiership by a margin of 230 votes, a historic record. She did not stand down then, because she did not have to. She is not a great one for yielding to the purely symbolic.
That the Brexit wing of the Conservative Party has brought both itself and us to this horrific juncture is mesmerising. It is six years since David Cameron agreed to hold the referendum, to put party before country in an act of singularly atrocious cowardice and stupidity. He has broken both things beyond repair.
Bill Cash has been writing in The Sunday Telegraph about May’s “abject surrender” to Europe. He and others remain of the view that a Brexiteer, an ERG-er, might have done things better. It is worth reminding Sir Bill and others that Theresa May is prime minister chiefly because the Brexit wing of the party, via Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom, were too craven, too vain and too plain useless even to get as far as the start of the leadership contest.
More to the point, they are scrabbling about now for arcane ways to get rid of Theresa May because they were too dim to get it right last time. From the very moment their no-confidence vote in the prime minister was announced in November, other wiser voices were pointing out their extraordinary naivety.
There had not even been a vote on the withdrawal deal by that point. Had they just waited a bit longer, fought off the babyish thrill to hold little press conferences with their little no-confidence letters, they might not have accidentally burnt their trump card.
Should they get their way, we must imagine their hope is to put Boris Johnson in 10 Downing Street and all will then be right. The withdrawal agreement will be reopened, the backstop removed, for no greater reason than we have now asked them to do the one thing they consistently refuse to do. His two years as the worst foreign secretary in the nation’s history is a matter of no interest to them. That he is profoundly loathed by the people he would have to negotiate with is not a matter of concern.
Sir Bill, by the way, was happy to sit on the board of Vote Leave, three years ago, and look on as Dominic Cummings turned the referendum campaign into two things – payments into the EU budget (the £350m-a-week-for-the-NHS lie) and immigration (the Turkey-is-joining-the-EU lie).All the deranged stuff Sir Bill and the rest have been going on about for decades – Global Britain, out and into the world, and so on – was wisely ditched because it has always lost. Now Sir Bill and the rest are too stubborn to accept the terms of their own victory, too cowardly to make peace with their own lies.
The only way the next six months are to not be wasted is if Westminster, and the rest of the country, do not allow the Brexiteers anywhere near Brexit. They are fundamentally malignant, and too useless to do anything.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-theresa-may-bill-cash-donald-tusk-house-of-commons-withdrawal-agreement-a8881476.html