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Minggu, 08 September 2019

Amber Rudd quits government over Johnson's Brexit stance - BBC News

Amber Rudd has quit the cabinet and surrendered the Conservative whip saying she cannot "stand by" while "moderate Conservatives are expelled".

The work and pensions secretary said she no longer believed leaving the EU with a deal was the government's "main objective".

Ms Rudd described the sacking of 21 Tory MPs on Tuesday as an "assault on decency and democracy".

No 10 said it was "disappointed" by the resignation of a "talented" minister.

But a spokesperson added that "all ministers who joined the Cabinet signed up to leaving the EU on 31 October come what may".

A senior government source said "resignations to chase headlines won't change the fact that people want Brexit done so that government can deliver on domestic priorities".

Labour said Ms Rudd's resignation showed the government was "falling apart".

The MP for Hastings and Rye, who supported Remain in the 2016 referendum, said her resignation had been "a difficult decision".

"I will be considering my position - whether I will stand as an independent Conservative should there be an election coming up," she told the Sunday Times.

In her resignation letter to PM Boris Johnson she said: "I joined your cabinet in good faith: accepting that 'No Deal' had to be on the table, because it was the means by which we would have the best chance of achieving a new deal to leave on 31 October.

"However I no longer believe leaving with a deal is the government's main objective."

Her resignation comes after a week of setbacks for the prime minister, when a cross-party group of MPs seized control of the Parliamentary agenda.

They voted through a bill to block a no-deal Brexit - which Mr Johnson said "scuppered" his negotiating strategy with the EU - and rejected his call for a snap election on 15 October.

Following the rebellion Mr Johnson removed the whip from 21 Tory MPs - including two former chancellors and the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Nicholas Soames.

The government is also planning - in a breach of convention - to stand a candidate against the Speaker of the Commons, John Bercow, at the next election for allowing rebel MPs to take control of the Parliamentary timetable.

Ms Rudd described the expulsions as a "short-sighted culling" of "broad-minded and dedicated Conservative MPs".

"I cannot support this act of political vandalism," she added.

One of the rebel MPs, David Gauke, tweeted that Ms Rudd had been "extraordinarily brave" and her concerns "reflect the views of many of my (former) colleagues".

"One way or another, it is time for them to act," he added.

Fellow rebel Rory Stewart described Ms Rudd as a "true One Nation Conservative", adding: "we must unite to support a Brexit deal and get this done".

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the Conservative Party had "always been a broad church" and he was "gutted" to see Ms Rudd leave.

Prison threat

On Saturday, the prime minister was warned he could face prison if he followed through on threats to ignore the new law preventing the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

Mr Johnson wrote in the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express that on Monday he will offer Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn "one last chance" to agree to an early election.

If Mr Corbyn refuses, Mr Johnson said "this government will simply carry on".

He added that he would work "tirelessly" for a deal but the government would still prepare to leave the EU on 31 October "whatever happens".

Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, said "we are doing everything we can" to reach a deal.

But he said the EU were setting a test on the Irish backstop arrangement that is "impossible to meet".

The backstop - a position of last resort to maintain a seamless border on the island of Ireland - is proving a serious obstacle to Mr Johnson's Brexit plans.

Mr Barclay said the government is proposing "reasonable alternative solutions" but he objected to the EU's demand for "molecular detail" on how they would work before 31 October.

In response to Ms Rudd's resignation, shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer tweeted that Mr Johnson's government was "falling apart".

Labour Party chair Ian Lavery said the resignation was a sign that "no one trusts" Mr Johnson.

"The prime minister has run out of authority in record time and his Brexit plan has been exposed as a sham," he said.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford called on the prime minister to resign, arguing he had "no support or credibility left".

"Boris Johnson's Tory government is on the verge of collapse - with no majority, no mandate and no right to pursue its reckless plans to impose an extreme Brexit," he said.

Who is Amber Rudd?

The 56-year old has been MP for Hastings and Rye in East Sussex since 2010
Her majority in the 2017 election was just 346 votes
In the 2016 referendum, she was a Remain supporter - her brother helped fund the campaign
Ms Rudd was appointed home secretary in July 2016
She resigned as home secretary in 2018 over the Windrush scandal, saying she "inadvertently misled" MPs
But an inquiry concluded she was let down by her officials and she returned to the cabinet as work and pensions secretary months later
Ms Rudd was married for five years to the late journalist and writer AA Gill
An Edinburgh University graduate, she previously worked in banking and recruitment
She was credited as a consultant on the 1994 hit film Four Weddings and a Funeral
In the 2016 Tory leadership debates, she described Boris Johnson as the "life and soul of the party but not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening".

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49623737

2019-09-08 05:34:36Z
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Sabtu, 07 September 2019

India loses contact with space craft shortly before moon landing | TheHill - The Hill

India’s historic attempt to complete a lunar landing appeared to fail on Friday, with the country’s space agency losing contact with the rover moments before it was supposed to land.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the scientists and who joined the effort after the news, saying Saturday that “we came very close” but added that “we will need to cover more ground in the time to come,” NBC News reported.

"In life, there are ups and downs. The country is proud of you,” Modi said, according to CNN. “And all your hard work has taught us something ... Hope for the best ... You have served the country well and served science and humanity well.”

Just before Chandrayaan-2 was supposed to land on the moon, the agency lost contact as images of the 3,200-pound lander, which carried a six-wheeled rover named Pragyan and scientific instruments, appeared to freeze on a computer screen, according to NBC.

"Vikram lander descent was as planned and normal performance was observed till the altitude of 2.1 km. Subsequently the communication from the lander to ground station was lost. The data is being analyzed," said K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation — the country's equivalent of NASA — CNN reported.

If it had been successful, India would have been one of four nations to successfully land an aircraft on the moon and the first to touch down near the lunar south pole. So far, the U.S., China and Russia are the only nations to land a spacecraft on the moon.

Israel attempted a lunar landing in April and also failed.

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https://thehill.com/policy/international/india/460354-india-loses-contacts-with-space-craft-shortly-before-moon-landing

2019-09-07 12:13:07Z
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Pakistan denies Indian president's request to use airspace - Aljazeera.com

Pakistan says it has refused a request by India's President Ram Nath Kovind to fly through its airspace due to New Delhi's recent "behaviour".

The decision on Saturday comes amid heightened tensions between the two neighbours over the disputed region of Kashmir.

"The Indian president had sought permission to use Pakistan's airspace to travel to Iceland but we decided not to permit him," Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in a statement, without giving further details.

"The decision has been taken in view of India's behaviour."

Such permissions are usually granted. There was no immediate comment by India.

Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian traffic after aerial dogfights in February raised tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi.

It reopened its skies for all civilian traffic in July, ending months of restrictions affecting major international routes.

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full, but administer separate portions of it. The nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours have fought two of their three wars over the region, and their forces regularly exchange fire across a 740km Line of Control, which is the de facto border.

On August 5, India's Hindu nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked a special constitutional status accorded to Indian-administered Kashmir, imposing a communications blackout and deploying thousands of troops to the Muslim-majority state, where a rebellion has been ongoing for 30 years.

Amid a strict lockdown, hundreds of activists and political leaders, including three former chief ministers, have been detained by Indian authorities in recent weeks.

Islamabad responded by downgrading its diplomatic ties with New Delhi in August, expelling the Indian envoy, suspending trade and calling back its ambassador in a deepening row over New Delhi's clampdown in its portion of Kashmir. It also called for the international community to intervene and vowed to take the matter to the United Nations Security Council.

New Delhi insists that the dispute over the territory is an internal matter and has long maintained that it can only be resolved bilaterally with Pakistan.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2019-09-07 11:38:00Z
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Hurricane Dorian's aftermath in the Bahamas: The latest - CNN

In a story of how residents came together to save one another amid dangerous conditions, Jensen Burrows and d'Sean Smith -- as well as a dozen other jet skiers -- rescued 100 people who were trapped in flooded homes in the Bahamas on Tuesday.

"They did a phenomenal job, not just with us. What we saw when we came out is that they continued to go back in and over and over again," Michael Pintard, the Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources in the Bahamas, told CNN on Friday.

A dozen jet skiers worked together to rescue 100 people on Tuesday.

Burrows and Smith, two friends that are part of the GB Jet Ski Club, were the men that drove their jet skis to save the minister and his family. Jason Albury rode on board to navigate them to the minister's house and help with the rescue.

"The wind was pelting you, so it felt like rocks being pelted at you. I had his daughter and my friend, and the jet ski tipped over," Smith said. "Jensen had the minister and his wife and Jensen also flipped over. He insisted we take the daughter and wife to safety first, so we did and came back for him."

Before the dramatic rescue of the Pintard family, Smith and Burrows had tried to rescue Smith's cousin on Monday. Conditions were too rough to ride safely, but they had to try.

After a few failed attempts to ride out on Monday, the pair made it to Pioneers Way, a street south of the decimated Grand Bahama Airport. They say they saved dozens of people pleading for help, among them pregnant women and even a baby in a Styrofoam cooler.

Read more about their rescue mission here:

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https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/bahamas-hurricane-dorian/index.html

2019-09-07 11:27:00Z
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Is Xi Mishandling Hong Kong Crisis? Hints of Unease in China’s Leadership - The New York Times

BEIJING — China’s leader, Xi Jinping, warned a gathering of senior Communist Party officials in January that the country faced a raft of urgent economic and political risks, and told them to be on guard especially for “indolence, incompetence and becoming divorced from the public.”

Now, after months of political tumult in Hong Kong, the warning seems prescient. Only it is Mr. Xi himself and his government facing criticism that they are mishandling China’s biggest political crisis in years, one that he did not mention in his catalog of looming risks at the start of the year.

And although few in Beijing would dare blame Mr. Xi openly for the government’s handling of the turmoil, there is quiet grumbling that his imperious style and authoritarian concentration of power contributed to the government’s misreading of the scope of discontent in Hong Kong, which is only growing.

On Friday night, the protests and clashes with the police continued in Hong Kong, even after the region’s embattled chief executive, Carrie Lam, made a major concession days earlier by withdrawing a bill that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland, legislation which first incited the protests three months ago.

The Communist Party’s leadership — and very likely Mr. Xi himself — has been surprised by or oblivious to the depth of the animosity, which has driven hundreds of thousands into the streets of Hong Kong for the past three months. While it was the proposed extradition bill that sparked the protests, they are now sustained by broader grievances against the Chinese government and its efforts to impose greater control over the semiautonomous territory.

Beijing has been slow to adapt to events, allowing Ms. Lam to suspend the bill in June, for example, but refusing at the time to let her withdraw it completely. It was a partial concession that reflected the party’s hard-line instincts under Mr. Xi and fueled even larger protests.

As public anger in Hong Kong has climbed, the Chinese government’s response grew bombastic and now seems at times erratic.

Protesters in Hong Kong on Friday. — CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

In July, at a meeting that has not been publicly disclosed, Mr. Xi met with other senior officials to discuss the protests. The range of options discussed is unclear, but the leaders agreed that the central government should not intervene forcefully, at least for now, several people familiar with the issue said in interviews in Hong Kong and Beijing.

At that meeting, the officials concluded that the Hong Kong authorities and the local police could eventually restore order on their own, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

There are hints of divisions in the Chinese leadership and stirrings of discontent about Mr. Xi’s policies.

Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University and an expert on Chinese politics, said it appeared that there was debate during the annual informal leaders’ retreat in Beidaihe, a seaside resort not far from Beijing.

Some party leaders called for concessions, while others urged action to bring Hong Kong more directly under the mainland’s control, he said. Mr. Cabestan said he believed that “the Chinese leadership is divided on Hong Kong and how to solve the crisis.”

Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, said Mr. Xi’s government had in effect adopted a strategy to procrastinate in the absence of any better ideas for resolving the crisis. “It is not willing to intervene directly or to propose a solution,” he said. “The idea is to wait things out until there is a change.”

The upshot is that instead of defusing or containing the crisis, Mr. Xi’s government has helped to widen the political chasm between the central government and many of the seven million residents in a city that is an important hub of international trade and finance, critics say.

Another sign of the disarray within the government was the reaction to Ms. Lam’s withdrawal of the bill. On Tuesday, officials in Beijing declared there could be no concessions to the protesters’ demands. A day later, when Ms. Lam pulled the bill back, she claimed to have Beijing’s blessing to do so. The same officials were silent.

Image

CreditPool photo by Dale De La Rey

On Friday, China’s premier, Li Keqiang, said during a news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who was visiting China, that the government supported Hong Kong in “halting the violence and disorder in accordance with the law.”

Mr. Xi, who is 66 and in his seventh year of his now unlimited tenure as the country’s paramount leader, has cast himself as an essential commander for a challenging time. He has been lionized in state media like no other Chinese leader since Mao.

This has made political solutions to the Hong Kong situation harder to find, because even senior officials are reluctant to make the case for compromise or concessions for fear of contradicting or angering Mr. Xi, according to numerous officials and analysts in Hong Kong and Beijing.

“Beijing has overreached, overestimating its capacity to control events and underestimating the complexity of Hong Kong,” said Brian Fong Chi-hang, an associate professor at the Academy of Hong Kong Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong.

The tumult in Hong Kong could pose a risk to Mr. Xi, especially if it exacerbates discontent and discord within the Chinese leadership over other issues.

“I think the danger is not that his standing will collapse, but that there is a whole series of slowly unfolding trends that will gradually corrode his position,” said Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney and author of “Xi Jinping: The Backlash.”

“Hong Kong is one, as the protests look set to carry on despite the concessions,” Mr. McGregor said. “The trade war is adding to the pain,” he added, referring to the current standoff with the United States.

Mr. Xi returned on Tuesday to the same venue as his speech in January — the Communist Party’s Central Party School — and reprised the warnings he raised in January without suggesting they were in fact worsening.

Image

CreditHong Kong's Information Services Department

“Faced with the grim conditions and tasks of struggle looming down on us, we must be tough-boned, daring to go on the attack and daring to battle for victory,” he said.

While he warned of “a whole range” of internal and external threats — economic, military and environmental — he mentioned Hong Kong only once, and then only in passing.

“By painting a dark picture of hostile foreign forces or even unrelenting internal challenges the Communist Party faces in retaining power, it helps justify his continuing strong hand,” said Christopher K. Johnson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Some analysts see a parallel between Mr. Xi’s handling of Hong Kong and the trade war with the United States, which, like the economy more broadly, seems to be the greatest worry for his government at the moment.

In Hong Kong, Mr. Xi’s government unwaveringly supported the extradition bill. And it stuck by that position, refusing to allow Mrs. Lam to withdraw it formally, even as the protesters’ demands grew broader. Her pledge to withdraw it now has been dismissed as too little, too late.

In the trade talks, China also balked at accepting President Trump’s initial demands for concessions. When the two sides came close to an agreement in the spring, outlined in an 150-page document, Mr. Xi appeared to balk, scuttling the process.

Now Mr. Xi faces an even bigger trade war, with much higher tariffs and greater tensions. The government appears to be hewing to a strategy of waiting out Mr. Trump, possibly through his 2020 re-election campaign, even as the dispute has become a drag on the economy.

It remains unclear how Mr. Xi’s government conveyed its approval for Mrs. Lam’s decision — or whether it did. Mrs. Lam’s sudden shift evolved in a matter of days after another weekend of clashes between protesters and the police, several officials said.

Image

CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

Mrs. Lam said the decision to withdraw the extradition was hers, but she also asserted that she had Beijing’s full support for doing so, suggesting more coordination than either side has publicly acknowledged.

The silence from officials and in state media about Mrs. Lam’s concession suggested that if Mr. Xi’s government did approve of the sudden shift, it wanted to stifle public discussion of it in the mainland.

Mrs. Lam herself described the tightrope she must walk during recent remarks to a group of business leaders that was subsequently leaked and published by Reuters.

“The political room for the chief executive who, unfortunately, has to serve two masters by constitution, that is, the central people’s government and the people of Hong Kong, that political room for maneuvering is very, very, very limited,” she said.

She also offered a candid assessment of Beijing’s views, even if one she did not intend to make public. She said Beijing had no plan to send in the People’s Liberation Army to restore order because “they’re just quite scared now.”

“Because they know that the price would be too huge to pay,” she went on. “Maybe they don’t care about Hong Kong, but they care about ‘one country, two systems.’ They care about the country’s international profile. It has taken China a long time to build up to that sort of international profile.”

Hong Kong’s unique status, with its own laws and freedoms, has long created a political dilemma for China’s leaders, especially for Mr. Xi, who has made China’s rising economic and political might a central pillar of his public appeals.

China’s recovery of sovereignty over the former British colony is a matter of national pride that reversed a century and a half of colonial humiliation. But the mainland maintains what amounts to an international border with Hong Kong.

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CreditLam Yik Fei for The New York Times

The government’s deepest fear now appears to be that the demands for greater political accountability and even universal suffrage heard on the streets in Hong Kong could spread like a contagion through the mainland. So far, there have been few signs of that.

As the crisis has grown, the government has dispatched thousands of troops from the People’s Armed Police to Shenzhen, the mainland city adjacent to Hong Kong, but the exercise was hastily organized and used an outdated plan drawn up after the protests in 2014, according to one official in Hong Kong.

Beijing also stepped up its propaganda, launching an information — and disinformation — campaign against the protesters and opposition leaders in Hong Kong.

Mr. Xi continues to barely mention Hong Kong. He has said nothing about the protests, even in his passing reference on Tuesday. He has not visited since 2017, when he marked the 20th anniversary of the handover from Britain.

After the traditional August holiday break, Mr. Xi’s public calendar of events has since betrayed no hint of political upheaval or threats to his standing. The media’s portrayal of him, already verging on hagiography, became even more fawning. State television and the party’s newspapers now refer to him as “The People’s Leader,” an honorific once bestowed only on Mao.

“The People’s Leader loves the people,” The People’s Daily wrote after Mr. Xi toured Gansu, a province in western China.

Mr. Xi’s calculation might be simply to remain patient, as he has been in the case of President Trump’s erratic shifts in the trade war. In his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Xi also gave a possible hint of the government’s pragmatism.

“On matters of principle, not an inch will be yielded,” he said, “but on matters of tactics there can be flexibility.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/world/asia/china-hong-kong-xi-jinping.html

2019-09-07 09:00:00Z
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Hong Kong protesters threaten new airport disruptions after street clashes with police - CNN

Saturday marks the beginning of the 14th straight weekend of planned protests in the Asian financial hub, despite attempts by the Hong Kong government to ease tensions across the city.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced on Wednesday that the controversial China extradition bill would be withdrawn, a longtime demand of demonstrators and one of the main catalysts of the protest movement.

But many high-profile protest leaders said the concession was too little too late, and heated clashes in the residential and shopping hub of Mong Kok on Friday night indicate demonstrators aren't backing down.

On Saturday, protesters were being encouraged to gather at the airport from about midday to demonstrate, resulting in a heavy police presence at the terminal and its approaching roads.

Passengers have been forced to present a boarding pass to enter the international airport since mass demonstrations shut down the transport hub in mid-August. On messaging groups, protesters were urging each other to blend in with travelers to try to enter the terminal undetected.

"Don't wear black-colored clothing, don't yell slogans. Participants can wear masks and no need to bring other equipment," a message on one of the organizing Telegram groups said.

The Airport Express train, which links Hong Kong island to the terminals, was running at reduced intervals on Saturday. Some passengers reported police were searching buses headed to the airport to check whether any protesters were aboard.

Many of those waiting at the airport said they had arrived for their flights very early to avoid disruptions, some of them by as much as 12 hours.

"We just want to go home," 33-year-old Dutch project manager Elger Vermeer said. "I do have sympathy for the demonstrators, but the way it's being pursued ... I have my doubts. it's going a bit too far."

Riot police patrol the Hong Kong MTR underground metro station in Hong Kong on September 7.

Fifth night of protests in Mong Kok

The planned demonstrations on Saturday follow another night of clashes between police and protesters in the crowded district of Mong Kok, with officers using tear gas to disperse crowds.

Mong Kok police station has become a focus for demonstrations in the past week after officers entered the nearby Prince Edward subway station on Sunday and forcefully arrested a number of people.

Videos from the scene, which were widely distributed online, appeared to show protesters crying and hugging each other while police officers chased them and threatened them with batons.

Every night since there has been a gathering outside the subway, beside Mong Kok police station, with demonstrators calling on police to apologize for excessive violence. One of the exits of the subway station has even been turned into a memorial wall with flowers and messages of support.

Floral tributes close off an entrance at Hong Kong's Prince Edward MTR station, after protesters accuse police of using excessive violence in the station.

On Friday, peaceful protesters gathered inside the Prince Edward subway station for a sit in to call on the MTR transport corporation to release CCTV of Sunday's incident.

But after police moved to disperse them, the protesters rapidly became violent, building barricades and pulling bricks out of the sidewalk to throw at police. "Such acts seriously endanger public safety," Hong Kong police said on their official Twitter.

The ongoing demonstrations in Mong Kok come despite Chief Executive Lam announcing "four actions" to appease protesters on Wednesday, including the extradition bill's withdrawal and more communication by the government.

"We must find ways to address the discontent in society and look for solutions," Lam said in a a video statement Wednesday evening.

But with the protesters' four other demands unmet, including an investigation into police conduct and greater democracy in the city, the demonstrations look set to continue.

On the protesters' social media and communication groups, the rallying cry has been "Five demands, not one less." No further concessions are expected by the Hong Kong government in the near future.

Riot police stand in front a barricade set on fire by protesters after dispersing crowds outside the Mong Kok Police Station on September 7.

Airport chaos

Hong Kong's international airport has increasingly become a focus for protesters. Disruptions at one of the world's busiest passenger and cargo hubs can have a major impact and attract global attention.

Regular peaceful protests in the airport's arrival hall escalated on August 12 when a surge of demonstrators into Terminal 1 led to the cancellation all flights.

The next day demonstrators actively blocked passengers from heading to their departure gates, leading to more cancellations.

Both nights left thousands of passengers stranded and drew international headlines, leading Hong Kong's Airport Authority to get a court injunction blocking protesters from the terminal.

Unable to demonstrate inside the terminal, protesters moved instead to block access to the airport on September 1, barricading roads and throwing objects on the tracks of the Airport Express train.

For hours, all transport links to and from the airport were shut down, leaving passengers and plane crews forced to walk along roads to reach the terminal.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/07/asia/hong-kong-protests-0709-intl-hnk/index.html

2019-09-07 06:24:00Z
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Jumat, 06 September 2019

Boris Johnson’s statements about the state of Brexit negotiations bear little relationship to reality, E.U. officials say - The Washington Post

Andrew Parsons/Pool EPA-EFE/REX European Union Council President Donald Tusk and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson talk during the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, last month.

BRUSSELS — European Union officials were astonished this past week when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed to be “encouraged by the progress” of critical, last-ditch Brexit negotiations.

Nothing is under negotiation, they said, because he hasn’t bothered to make any suggestions.

Europeans listened to Johnson accuse the British Parliament of destroying his leverage by removing the threat of a no-deal withdrawal and pushing for another Brexit extension beyond the Oct. 31 deadline.

But Johnson undermined his own position by failing to follow through on promised proposals for discussion, the Europeans said.

And now, after wild weeks of political trench-fighting in London, many Brexit policymakers in the E.U. capital of Brussels and around Europe say Johnson’s take-no-prisoners political approach has torpedoed what little remaining trust they placed in the British political system.

“Perhaps it’s for domestic use. But everybody reads the British papers,” said Anne Mulder, a Dutch lawmaker who leads Brexit planning in his country’s parliament. “He’s totally unrealistic. He’s saying if you don’t do what I say, I’ll commit suicide. There are no negotiations with this government.”

The British House of Commons passed a bill Sept. 4 seeking to avert a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31 in another setback for prime minister Boris Johnson’s plan.

European officials are more than exasperated, according to eight diplomats and other officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive discussions. When Johnson came to power in July, many Europeans hoped he would be more adept than his predecessor, Theresa May, in getting Parliament to support a deal to manage Britain’s withdrawal from the trade bloc. Instead, Johnson has sought to sideline Parliament by suspending it for five weeks ahead of the Brexit deadline.

At the same time, he has told the British public that his Brexit negotiators have been hard at work — and making headway.

“I’ve been negotiating over the past five weeks to get us a new deal,” Johnson said in a video posted Thursday on Twitter. “E.U. leaders were willing to negotiate a new deal because they knew we were willing to leave on October the 31st, deal or no deal.”

E.U. officials deny having offered a new deal — or even to substantially amend the deal negotiated over two years with May.

Johnson’s primary objection is to the so-called backstop — a last-resort provision designed to prevent the reemergence of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland and to maintain the commitments of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement. In an Aug. 19 letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, Johnson wrote that the backstop, which would keep Britain closely tied to the E.U. for an indeterminate time, is “anti-democratic and inconsistent with the sovereignty of the U.K.”

Johnson promised German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron last month to come up with an alternative means to maintain an open the border. He seemed earnest enough that the leaders came away thinking he did not want to leave the E.U. without a deal, according to advisers briefed on their assessments.

Pool

Reuters

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron attend the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, last month.

But so far, E.U. negotiators said, he has offered no ideas that would actually guarantee an open border.

Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, David Frost, met with his E.U. counterparts on Wednesday for more than five hours, but the only suggestions he made stripped away most of the backstop, leaving only a handful of bare-bones provisions including borderless travel and a single electricity market. But he offered no fresh ideas that would ensure that the border could remain open, E.U. diplomats said.

Although the two sides planned to meet again on Friday at Britain’s request, the E.U. diplomats said it was probably more for show than for substance, given the tone earlier in the week.

Johnson’s lack of engagement has led to puzzlement about his strategy. Does he genuinely want a deal, but simply doesn’t have realistic ideas about how to get one? Or is it a big bluff, and is he deliberately steering his country toward a Brexit without a safety net?

European policymakers increasingly believe the answer is the latter. And they worry about being set up to take the blame.

Neil Hall/Pool

EPA-EFE/REX

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, greet British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, last month.

“There is a lot of bluffing. Most of it is for internal consumption,” said a senior E.U. diplomat. “But the E.U. is not going to push them out.”

They also see little point in further discussions if Britain is headed for a general election, since any agreements made now could swiftly be repealed by the winner of the vote.

Johnson is pressing for a snap election ahead of a Brexit-focused summit of E.U. leaders that begins Oct. 17. He has argued that the British people should have their say on who represents them at the meeting.

But any agreement hammered out at the summit would almost surely come too late if Britain is leaving the E.U. on Oct. 31, European officials said. Both the British and the European parliaments would need to approve a deal, a process that would likely take several weeks.

E.U. officials said that if Johnson — or any British leader — asked for an extension beyond the Halloween deadline, he would almost surely receive one, if there were a clear rationale for doing so. Despite some tough talk from Macron and others ahead of previous extensions this year, no E.U. leader wants to be responsible for the chaos likely to be unleashed by a no-deal Brexit, diplomats said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Sept. 5 he would not delay Britain’s exit from the European Union, adding he would rather be ‘dead in a ditch’ than do so.

Johnson, though, said on Thursday he’d “rather be dead in a ditch” than request further delay.

Even setting aside the uncertainty about events, there is deep skepticism in Europe that Johnson can be held to his word, and there are concerns about the health of British democracy.

“A lot of the bridges have been burned. There is a real feeling within the E.U. that Britain cannot be trusted, because the British system cannot be trusted,” said Fabian Zuleeg, the head of the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based think tank. “It is difficult to imagine that any commitment that is made by the leadership can be trusted, because we have seen in the last month how quickly that can change.”

The problem, European officials say, is that the British discussion still bears little relationship to the reality of what the E.U. is willing to agree to.

“Some members of the British Parliament are living in a fantasy world,” said Mulder, the Dutch lawmaker. “They want to be outside the European Union and keep all the advantages. Which is impossible. And if you live in this dream, then it is very difficult to negotiate, because it is not realistic.”

Quentin Ariès contributed to this report.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/boris-johnsons-statements-about-the-state-of-brexit-negotiations-bear-little-relationship-to-reality-eu-officials-say/2019/09/06/2122453e-cfec-11e9-a620-0a91656d7db6_story.html

2019-09-06 11:01:10Z
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