Tag: Brexit

Boris Johnson’s resignation caps off tumultuous tenure

Peter Aitken , Anders Hagstrom – July 7, 2022

Boris Johnson announced plans to resign as prime minister of the United Kingdom on Thursday in a tumultuous end for a government that once enjoyed a strong democratic mandate.

Johnson’s roughly three-year tenure ended in disarray after he threatened a standoff with his party and a possible general election following the resignation of 42 ministers who deemed his position “untenable.” He says new leadership is “clearly now the will” of Parliament.

Johnson hopes to remain in a caretaker position as his Conservative Party elects a new prime minister, a process that may take roughly two months.

“I have appointed a new cabinet who will serve, as I will, until a new leader is in place,” he said. “When the herd instinct moves, it moves.”

Conservative ministers declared that they had lost confidence in the prime minister after news emerged he had elevated Chris Pincher to the powerful role of deputy chief whip despite allegations of sexual misconduct.

But it was not the only scandal that Johnson’s government had to wrangle with. It was merely the final one that ministers could tolerate, bringing an end to his sole ambition and goal in politics.

“Boris Johnson’s place in history is assured given his stewardship of Brexit, vaccine rollout during the COVID-19 crisis and staunch defense of the free world in Ukraine,” Alan Mendoza, co-founder and executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital.

https://www.foxnews.com

Warsaw’s step towards Polexit shows that West’s attempt to recreate Soviet Union in form of EU was doomed to failure

RT – October 8, 2021

Paul A. Nuttall is a historian, author and a former politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2019 and was a prominent campaigner for Brexit.

The Mexican standoff between Warsaw and Brussels has taken a turn for the worse as Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that some EU laws are in direct conflict with the Polish Constitution.
This represents a direct challenge to the principle that EU law is supreme in its member states.

The tribunal judgement on Thursday found that the EU institutions often “act beyond the scope of their competences.” Poland’s Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro welcomed the ruling as it “set the constitutional limits of European integration and permissible EU interference in Polish cases.” 

Naturally, this judgement has provoked outrage in Brussels. The European Commission responded in typical robust fashion, stating that “All rulings by the European Court of Justice are binding on all Member States’ authorities, including national courts.”

Moreover, the Commission made it clear that it would “not hesitate to make use of its powers under the treaties to safeguard the uniform application and integrity of union law.” In other words, Poland backs down or punishment is in the post.

And what will these punishments be? Well, as ever with the EU, the punishment will be financial reprisals. It’s a bit like when a naughty child has their pocket money withheld from an irate parent.

https://www.rt.com

Polish minister suggests country could quit EU due to ‘blackmail’ over judicial reforms

RT – August 6, 2021

Poland’s justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, has indicated that his government could consider leaving the EU bloc over “illegal blackmail” attempts by its top court amid a dispute over proposed judicial reforms.

Speaking to Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita, Ziobro slammed the EU ahead of an August 16 ruling to obey a decision from the Court of Justice or face potential financial repercussions, threatening that his country would not remain in the EU “at any cost.”

The warning to EU officials about their dictation of Poland’s domestic affairs was paired with a firm declaration that the government would not succumb “to the illegal blackmail of the European Union carried out by the Court of Justice.”

The belief that the EU is a good uncle and gives us money, and that we should accept all its demands at all costs, is propaganda and false.

Ziobro, who leads the United Poland party, the junior member of the governing coalition, has led the judicial reforms the EU have argued undermine the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law – a key principle of the bloc.

The disagreement between the EU and Poland centers on the member state’s judicial reforms, which began to be introduced after the Law and Justice Party took office in 2015. The reforms made changes to the retirement age of Supreme Court justices, resulting in the removal of 20 judges, changes to the term length of ordinary court judges, and the implementation of a measure allowing for justices to be investigated and punished for court rulings.

https://www.rt.com

Poland’s Tusk says conflicts with EU could eventually end the bloc

– July 16,2021

WARSAW, July 16 (Reuters) – Poland and Hungary’s conflicts with the European Union could start a process that results in the bloc falling apart, former European Council President Donald Tusk warned on Friday, amid a worsening standoff over democratic standards.

Brussels is at loggerheads with Warsaw and Budapest over issues such as the independence of the judiciary and press freedoms, a conflict which deepened this week as Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled the country should not comply with demands from the EU’s top court, while the European Commission took legal action against both countries over LGBT rights. read more

“If more of these kinds of countries are found who insist on damaging… the European Union it may simply mean the end of this organisation,” Tusk, who has returned to domestic politics as leader of Poland’s main opposition party Civic Platform (PO), told private broadcaster TVN24.

Surveys show an overwhelming majority of Poles support EU membership, and there is no legal way to throw countries out of the bloc.

However Tusk, who helped steer the European Union through a tumultuous period marked by Brexit, said the risk of an eventual exit existed.

“We will not leave the EU tomorrow, and the EU will not fall apart the day after tomorrow. These are processes that can take years,” he said.

https://www.reuters.com

Anger boils in Northern Ireland despite attempts to end riots

Luke Butterly – April 12, 2021

Belfast, Northern Ireland – On Saturday, the 23rd anniversary of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended the decades of conflict that claimed over 3,000 lives, David Devlin was on the streets trying to keep the peace.

“Anything could happen, but we are hoping for peace, hoping tonight remains calm,” they told Al Jazeera.

Video footage of young people throwing petrol bombs at one of the gates that separate these areas – on which the words “There was never a good war or a bad peace” are painted – has been watched with horror across the world.

“Things this evening appear to be quite calm, there does not appear to be any other gatherings on either side of the interface,” Devlin said as they began their shift.

“Over the past few nights, we have been out on the ground trying to talk to young people, dissuade them from any risk-taking behavior, trying to get them go, stay safe, and not engage in anything that is going to put their safety at risk.”

Northern Ireland has been rocked by sporadic rioting in loyalist working-class areas, amounting to the worst violence seen in years.Loyalists back a Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, as opposed to a united Ireland.

https://www.aljazeera.com

‘Frexit’ on Horizon? Ex-Brexit Chief Negotiator Barnier Reveals What May Prompt France to Leave EU

– April 17, 2021

The remarks came after the latest poll conducted by the French think tank IFOP, which revealed that Marine Le Pen, who leads the party National Rally, would prevail over Emmanuel Macron by two percentage points in the first round of the 2022 presidential election in France.

Macron himself told the BBC in 2018 that the French people would probably vote to secede from the EU if they were to hold an analogue of the Brexit referendum.

He argued that “you always take a risk when you have such a [Brexit-like] referendum, just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in a very complicated aspect”, adding at the same time that since the context in the UK and France “was very different” he doesn’t want to “take any bets”.

Macron also made it clear he would also welcome Britain’s hypothetical return to the EU, stating that he both respects and regrets the Brexit vote.

https://sputniknews.com

Court Rules Against Campaigner’s Bid to Hold Scottish Independence Vote Without UK Govt’s Consent

Sputnik News – February 5, 2021

The claim comes ahead of parliamentary elections in May, pending the Scottish National Party remains in power and pushes for a second vote on independence after failing to receive backing from UK prime minister Boris Johnson.

A Scottish Independence campaigner has lost a bid to seek backing from a top civil court in Edinburgh, Reuters reported on Friday.

Scotland’s Court of Session ruled against campaigner Martin Keatings, who sought legal support for his claim the Scottish parliament could hold a fresh vote on independence from the United Kingdom without approval from Downing Street.

The Court of Sessions dismissed the case, stating Keatings argument was hypothetical and premature, and did not express a view concerning the legality of the case, Reuters added.

The news comes amid calls for a second referendum on Scottish independence, namely after Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, Europe and External Affairs, Michael Russell, said a vote could take place in June after Holyrood unilaterally passes further legislation to approve the process.

https://sputniknews.com

In outright defiance of UK PM, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon’s party promises second independence referendum after pandemic

RT – January 23, 2021

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is standing by her threat to hold a fresh referendum on independence if her party wins the May elections, despite Boris Johnson saying another one should not take place until at least 2055.

Sturgeon likened UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to a “cowering tim’rous beastie” – a line from the poem ‘To a Mouse’, about a scared mouse, by Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns – during an interview with the BBC on Sunday. The Scottish leader also accused Johnson of being “frightened of democracy” by opposing another Scottish referendum until at least 2055 – just over 40 years after the last referendum in 2014, when a 55 percent majority of Scots voted against independence.

“The polls now show that a majority of people in Scotland want independence,” Sturgeon declared, adding, “If the SNP win the Scottish election in a few months’ time on a proposition of giving people that choice, then what democrat could rightly stand in the way of that?”

She added, “Boris Johnson clearly just fears the verdict and the will of the Scottish people.”

Various polls have repeatedly showed that a majority of Scots now support independence, with the most recent placing the number at around 52 percent. It was the 20th poll in a row to show that a majority of Scots support independence.

On Saturday, the SNP revealed in its “roadmap to a referendum” that a draft independence referendum bill “would be enacted if an SNP Scottish Government is re-elected with a majority to do so” in the May 2021 elections. The party claimed that such a referendum would be beyond any “legal challenge” from the UK government, though it stressed that any referendum would only be held after the Covid-19 pandemic.

https://www.rt.com

New Year brings final Brexit split between EU and UK

DW – January 1, 2021

Britain saw a major reset to its relations with the European Union on January 1, the first day after the end of the 11-month transition phase which served to smooth its exit from the bloc.

The UK officially left the bloc on January 31, 2020, but it effectively remained tied to it in terms of customs and commercial arrangements while it sought a free-trade agreement.

At the stroke of midnight in Brussels and 11 p.m. in London on Thursday, the UK quit the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market. The New Year also ended freedom of movement between the UK and nearly all of the EU states, except for Ireland.

However, special rules are now in place for Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on the southern Spanish coast. Talks between the governments in London, Madrid, and Gibraltar on Thursday came down to the last hours to scramble a deal that sees Gibraltar enter the Schengen zone.

The first post-Brexit truck carried goods across the border on Friday. The driver pulled in at the new pit stop at the exit of the Channel Tunnel with a new array of documents which will now become standard practice for those passing between the UK and the EU as a result of Brexit.

DW correspondent Barbara Wesel, reporting from Calais, in northern France, said that there was very little traffic on the morning of January 1, but she explained that this was because the bigger companies had had time to prepare and accustom themselves to the new rules.

However, “it is going to hit a lot of the smaller transport companies that carry mixed loads … For them, life is going to be much more difficult.”

She added that the delays might be more noticeable on Monday, after the long weekend and the New Year’s day holiday. “Then we might see those traffic jams that everybody has been warning about,” Wesel said.

https://www.dw.com

Brexit deal is finally DONE as Boris Johnson hails ‘immense moment where we have taken back control of our destiny’

– December 25, 2020

BORIS Johnson hailed “glad tidings of great joy” in a Christmas message last night after sealing his £660billion Brexit trade deal.

The PM gave the nation an early Christmas present yesterday as he secured a historic agreement which finally sees the UK take back control from the EU and ends four years of bitter wrangling.

Mr Johnson last night punched the air as he proudly showed off the 500-page trade deal.

Speaking in a video on Twitter, the PM said: “Tonight, on Christmas Eve, I have a small present for anyone who may be looking for something to read in that sleepy post-Christmas lunch moment.

“And here it is, tidings, glad tidings of great joy because this is a deal.

“A deal to give certainty to business, travelers, and all investors in our country from January 1.

“A deal with our friends and partners in the EU.

“You remember the oven ready deal by which we came out on January 31, that oven ready deal was just the start – this is the feast, full of fish, by the way.

“And I believe it will be the basis of a happy and successful and stable partnership with our friends in the EU for years to come.

https://www.thesun.co.uk