BASTA !! Este é o sentimento que domina a UE no confronto
com o labirinto do Brexit e a impotência patética de May.
Tanto mais que, por exemplo, o importante debate sobre uma
posição estratégica conjunta da UE perante a expansão comercial da China que
estava planeado para o jantar, não pode tomar lugar, pois o mesmo jantar foi
dominado pelo tema de Brexit que mantém a Europa refém e impede que a mesma
dedique a sua atençào a outras questões urgentes.
OVOODOCORVO
EU delays Brexit, gives UK new deadlines
Lack of clarity from Theresa May and leaders’ disagreements
over strategy set off tortured debate.
By DAVID M.
HERSZENHORN, JACOPO BARIGAZZI AND MAÏA DE LA BAUME 3/21/19, 11:49 PM CET Updated 3/22/19, 3:55 AM CET
With a no-deal Brexit imminent, May had little choice but to
agree to EU leaders' plan | Stéphanie Lecocq/EPA
EU leaders agreed to postpone Brexit day, imposing two new
dates — April 12 and May 22 — that will determine the course of the U.K.'s
departure.
Leaders devised the new plan at a summit in Brussels on
Thursday after quickly rejecting U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's request for
an extension of the Article 50 negotiating period to June 30.
Fierce disagreements among the EU27 over how best to respond
to May's extension request forced the leaders to upend their summit agenda and
put off a planned dinner discussion about China and the EU’s place in the
world. Instead, they took a break, and resumed the Brexit discussion over dinner
— a demonstration that despite their best efforts, Brexit to a large degree has
hijacked the EU’s more substantive policy agenda.
Both new dates in the EU plan come with conditions, but in
either event the original March 29 deadline — the so-called cliff-edge by which
Britain would leave the bloc with or without a divorce agreement — was put off,
if only for two weeks.
EU27 leaders said that if the U.K. parliament ratifies the
Brexit deal before the March 29 deadline, Britain will have until May 22 to complete
any technical steps, exit and begin a transition period. That is a day before
the European Parliament election begins.
“The U.K. Government will still have a choice of a deal,
no-deal, a long extension or revoking Article 50” — Donald Tusk
If the House of Commons fails to vote, or votes to reject
the deal for a third time — the outcomes leaders view as far more likely given
continuing political chaos in London, according to officials — the U.K. would
have until April 12 "to indicate a way forward."
European Council President Donald Tusk left the leaders'
meeting and presented the plan to May, who agreed — though with a potentially
disastrous no-deal Brexit imminent, she had little choice.
At a news conference shortly before midnight, Tusk said the
EU's plan left all options open to the U.K. — including a reversal of Brexit
altogether.
"The European Council agrees to an extension until the
12th of April, while expecting the United Kingdom to indicate a way
forward," Tusk said. "What this means in practice is that, until that
date, all options will remain open, and the cliff-edge date will be delayed.
The U.K. government will still have a choice of a deal, no-deal, a long
extension or revoking Article 50."
Tusk's initial proposal — to focus on a delay until May 22
in the event of a positive vote in London — was deemed too optimistic by other
EU leaders | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Too optimistic
A senior official said that Tusk's initial proposal — to
focus on a delay until May 22 in the event of a positive vote in London — was
deemed too optimistic by other EU leaders. They engaged May in an hour and
45-minute question and answer session where they found her replies
insufficient, and concluded that her failure to win ratification of the Brexit
deal would leave them under crushing pressure of the original deadline.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, appearing
with Tusk at the news conference, noted that EU leaders on Thursday had also
formally adopted additional reassurances regarding the backstop provision on
Northern Ireland that he had agreed with May in Strasbourg earlier this month.
Those reassurances were not enough to stop the U.K. Parliament from rejecting
the deal a second time.
"We have worked tirelessly to negotiate the Withdrawal
Agreement; we have done everything we could to get it over the finishing
line," Juncker said. "This closes and completes the full package.
There is no more that we can have."
Juncker also nodded at the frustration of EU leaders who
have had to focus so much energy on the U.K.'s departure.
“The clock is ticking not just on Brexit, the clock is also
ticking in other areas,” he said.
The leaders' decision came after hours of agonizing, at
times angry, debate. That came after May's appearance left colleagues
frustrated by her lack of clarity and inability to steer the Brexit process.
EU officials said they had little confidence in May, but
hoped that their plan would leave enough room for the U.K. to chart a path
forward, including if Parliament seeks to seize control of the process as some
officials have said could happen next week.
More importantly, they said, the pressure would now be in London to
choose a course of action before April 12, rather than having EU leaders back
in Brussels next week with the decision on their shoulders.
If the U.K. does not pass the Brexit deal, the onus would be
on London to come forward with an alternative plan.
"The European Council agrees to an extension until 22
May 2019, provided the Withdrawal Agreement is approved by the House of Commons
next week," the leaders wrote in the formal conclusion of their
deliberations. "If the Withdrawal Agreement is not approved by the House
of Commons next week, the European Council agrees to an extension until 12
April 2019 and expects the United Kingdom to indicate a way forward before this
date for consideration by the European Council."
In fact, although the formal conclusions demand approval of
the deal by next week, officials acknowledged that endorsement of it before
April 12 would be sufficient to activate the May 22 deadline. The April 12 date
was chosen because it reflects the last point at which the U.K., by law, must
state if it will participate in the European Parliament election.
If the U.K. does not pass the Brexit deal, the onus would be
on London to come forward with an alternative plan. If Britain refused at that
point to take part in the European Parliament election, it would face a no-deal
Brexit as soon as April 12. The exit date could potentially be delayed to May
22 or even June 30 but not any later, a senior EU official said.
May OK
U.K. officials said May was satisfied with the outcome. She
forestalled the immediate crash-out scenario and won a further window of
opportunity to save her Brexit deal and her job.
But one senior EU official said May’s answers were “not
always crystal clear” in her exchange with her fellow leaders. Another said:
“This discussion did not add much in terms of substance. For the leaders, they
didn’t get anything that they didn’t know.”
According to a senior official, at one point, French
President Emmanuel Macron told leaders that he had thought May had a 10 percent
chance of getting the deal through, but after listening to her, he had dropped
the number to 5 percent. Tusk told Macron he was being generous.
Other exchanges were heated, officials said.
Macron pushed to bring the proposed May 22 deadline forward
to May 7, and he also took a hard line in suggesting that the EU might need to
simply eject the U.K. without any agreement — a move that could prove
economically disastrous not just to Britain but to the EU, especially for
countries whose economies are closely linked to the U.K. such as Ireland and
the Netherlands.
Macron clashed with Tusk who had urged the May 22 date, with
an eye toward pressing Britain either to ratify the existing deal or
potentially request a far longer extension of up to a year or more. May,
however, expressed no interest in a long delay, and she even suggested she
might prefer a no-deal outcome — defying the House of Commons which voted last
week to prevent that scenario.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened, diplomats and
officials said, in order to push back on Macron about the no-deal result, which
she argued was irresponsible and must be avoided. But she also rebuked Tusk
over the chaotic and divisive debate, which the chancellor apparently felt
showed a lack of preparedness by European Council officials.
An EU diplomat said the French "were quite hard,
especially between Macron and May — he was hard on her and asked her: Are you
prepared for a no deal?"
The upcoming European Parliament election was a chief factor
in when to set the new deadlines. EU leaders fear that the bloc will face an
institutional crisis if somehow the U.K. remained a member state but refused to
participate in the election and send representatives to Brussels as required
under the EU treaties.
Lili Bayer, Charlie Cooper, Florian Eder and Zia Weise
contributed reporting.
Theresa May says she blamed MPs out of ‘frustration’
Prime minister acknowledges MPs ‘have difficult jobs to do.’
By CHARLIE
COOPER 3/22/19, 2:14 AM CET
Updated 3/22/19, 2:22 AM CET
Theresa May sought to limit the damage caused by her
controversial Downing Street statement blaming MPs for the Brexit impasse,
admitting that she had been venting "frustration."
Speaking at a midnight press conference in Brussels after
agreeing an extension to the Brexit deadline with the EU27, the U.K. prime
minister appeared to express a degree of contrition for the statement in which
she said she shared public impatience with "political games" in
Westminster.
"I know MPs on all sides of the debate have passionate
views, and I respect those different positions," she said. "Last
night I expressed my frustration. I know that MPs are frustrated too. They have
difficult jobs to do."
A number of MPs condemned the statement, which they said
risked heightening anger with MPs and exacerbating a febrile political
atmosphere in the U.K.
May said she would return to London on Friday to continue
attempting to persuade MPs to back her deal in a vote next week.
At the summit, the EU27 rejected her suggestion of an
extension until June 30 if the deal passes, instead shortening the timetable to
May 22. If the deal falls — currently the more likely scenario — the U.K. will
have until April 12 to present an alternative plan or leave without a deal. If
the alternative plan requires a further extension, the U.K. must take part in
the European Parliament election in May.
May said she was still believed firmly that it would be
"wrong" to make U.K. voters participate in the election, three years
after voting to leave the EU. However, she said that if her deal was rejected,
the government would "need to work with the House [of Commons] to decide
how we proceed."
Earlier in the day May had refused to rule out taking the
U.K. out of the EU without a deal if MPs rejected her agreement again. But she
appeared to strike a softer tone in her late-night press conference.
"If Parliament does not agree a deal next week, the EU
Council will extend Article 50 until 12 April. At this point we would either
leave with no deal, or put forward an alternative plan," she said.
May returns to Westminster facing opposition on all sides,
with the Labour party seeking to build a majority for an alternative Brexit
plan focused on changes to the Political Declaration on the future relationship
with the EU, to mandate a softer Brexit, with the U.K. remaining in a customs
union and close to the single market.
The House of Commons will have the chance to hold votes on
Monday on a government motion, with one plan already put forward which would
allow MPs to seize control of the parliamentary timetable from the government.
Within her own ministerial ranks, May also faces the risk of
revolt from one or other faction if she steers the U.K. either toward or
decisively away from a no deal Brexit. One Cabinet minister, Liz Truss, told
the Sun newspaper she would far prefer no deal to a long extension, involving
participation in the European election.
Meanwhile ITV reported that the Conservative Chief Whip,
Julian Smith, the lead enforcer of May's authority within the parliamentary
party, was angered by her Wednesday statement blaming MPs for the impasse.
This article is part of POLITICO’s premium Brexit service
for professionals: Brexit Pro. To test our our expert policy coverage of the
implications and next steps per industry, email pro@politico.eu for a
complimentary trial.
 |
| We are an international laughing stock at the moment. |
Brexit is not the cause of Britain’s political breakdown.
It’s a symptom
Gary Younge
We are an international laughing stock at the moment. But
something like this has been coming for decades
@garyyounge
Thu 21 Mar 2019 15.26 GMT Last modified on Thu 21 Mar 2019
18.50 GMT
The French EU minister, Nathalie Loiseau, has called her new
cat Brexit. “He wakes me up every morning meowing to death because he wants to
go out,” she says. “And then when I open the door he stays put, undecided, and
then glares at me when I put him out.” The Dutch prime minister has compared
Theresa May to the knight in Monty Python who has all his limbs lopped off and
insists “It’s just a flesh wound” and calls it a draw. “She’s incredible,” says
Mark Rutte. “She goes on and on. At the same time, I do not blame her but
British politics.” Italian friends tell me Brexit now comes on at the end of
the news, in that wacky slot just before the sport and weather.
Everybody is laughing at us. Why wouldn’t they? We look
ridiculous. If we weren’t so busy feeling betrayed, bored, enraged or
bewildered, we’d be laughing at ourselves. Brexit, according to many of its
advocates, would give us the chance to stand tall and independent again: to
fulfil the potential, as May put it two years ago, to become “a great, global
trading nation that is respected around the world and strong, confident and
united at home”. Instead we look like a cross between a beggar and basket case.
Yesterday, May pleaded for more time, and the EU said: only if you can get
parliament to agree to your deal. May, displaying all the skills of
brinkmanship and diplomacy that has got us to this point, then went and
insulted parliamentarians, making them more hostile and fearful for themselves
than ever.
Two crises have been revealed by these events. The first
relates exclusively to Brexit. With eight days to go, we have a deal few want
and a timetable that can’t be changed without agreeing to it. The EU may soften
its terms; MPs may change their minds. We have just over a week to either find
a unicorn or convince ourselves that the donkey we got for Christmas was a
unicorn all along. This awful game of chicken was May’s plan all along – waste
time until the “choice” was between her deal and no deal. This would be a
breathtaking gamble in the hands of the most gifted or charismatic politician.
She has proven herself to be neither of those things.
The second crisis is more enduring. It can be seen in the
complete breakdown in Tory party discipline, with cabinet ministers voting
against the government and backbenchers in uproar. It is evident in the
disintegration of party loyalty. Conservative MP Nick Boles quit his local
association while remaining a party member, claiming the people who selected
him have “values and views … at odds with [his] own”. Eight Labour MPs left the
party to form the Independent Group. Both parliamentary parties stand terrified
of their membership. Many Tory MPs are saying they will resign the whip if
Boris is elected leader; it has taken three and half years, a failed coup and a
successful election campaign for the parliamentary Labour party to come to
terms with Jeremy Corbyn, and the threat of further mutinies still lurks. We
have a hung parliament in which it is difficult to find a majority for
anything, in which the Speaker had to invoke a four-century-old precedent to
stop the prime minister bringing the same question to the house until she got a
different answer. That breakthrough lasted all of one day.
This is a crisis in our polity – the norms of our political
and electoral culture that has parties at its centre. It is now approaching
full-scale collapse. Conventional wisdom has it that Brexit has precipitated
this crisis. The crude question of remain or leave was always going to create
divisions, embolden renegades and undermine moderates. Depending on your
prejudice, once the country opted to leave by a narrow margin, it presented the
political class either with the challenge of committing an irresponsible act
responsibly or fulfilling the will of the people. Either way, our politics has
proved inadequate to the task. Brexit has broken us.
But by ignoring what was going on in the country before June
2016, and trends beyond our shores, this gives too much credit to the Brexit
vote. That didn’t create this dysfunction and dislocation, it all too
powerfully illustrated it. Up until that point, the two most persistent trends
in postwar electoral politics were the decline in turnout and waning support
for the two major parties. Between 1945 and 1997, turnout never went below 70%;
since 2001, it has never reached 70%. Meanwhile the two-party landscape that
once dominated our first-past-the-post system has frayed. Fewer people want to
vote and even fewer wanted to back the two main parties (these trends have
reversed slightly since 2001 but are nowhere near where they were). In 1950,
Winston Churchill won 38% of eligible voters and still lost. The year before
the referendum, the Tories got a majority with just 24% of the eligible vote.
This is how we got to a place where all the mainstream
parties, the unions and business representatives could back remain and the
country could vote leave. It’s not Brexit that’s caused the crisis in our
politics; it’s the crisis in our politics that’s made Brexit possible.
That crisis is by no means unique to Britain. Since the 2008
economic crash, most countries across the west have seen electoral fracture,
the demise of mainstream parties, a rise in nativism and bigotry, a marked
increase in public protest, and general political dysfunction. The gilets
jaunes are still out every Saturday in Paris; the European parliament has
concluded that Hungary poses a “systematic threat” to democracy and the rule of
law, and the conservative bloc has expelled Hungary’s ruling party; Estonia’s
ruling party is contemplating inviting the far right into government; Italian
humanitarians are being threatened with jail for saving drowning refugees and
bringing them home when the government wouldn’t; antisemitism is on the rise
across Europe with a 60% rise in the number of violent attacks in Germany;
protesters in Serbia stormed national TV calling for media freedom. All of this
before we mention the preening authoritarianism of Presidents Donald Trump of
the US and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.
The broad narrative arc in most places is similar, and in
some cases even more pronounced, than the one that brought us Brexit. The key
difference is that Brexit comes complete with a timetable, a deadline, and an
entity – the EU – that has thus far escaped these trends because it is subject
to the diplomatic pressure of governments rather than the popular pressure of
voters.
It is difficult to imagine a scenario where Britain does not
continue looking ridiculous for some time to come. We deserve to be laughed at.
But those who laugh hardest should beware they do not choke on their own
hubris. This virus that made this madness possible is highly contagious. We
may, as yet, be the worst affected. But we will not be the last.
• Gary Younge is a Guardian columnist
May’s attack on MPs is the dangerous act of a desperate
politician
Polly Toynbee
The prime minister’s angry refusal to countenance any Brexit
plan but her own has left her looking petulant, defiant and doomed
Thu 21 Mar 2019 09.38 GMT Last modified on Thu 21 Mar 2019
13.36 GMT
‘Attempting to turn voters’ anger against parliament is the
dangerous and despicable act of a prime minister thrashing around in her
terminal desperation.’ Photograph: CHRIS J RATCLIFFE//EPA
Attempting to turn voters’ anger against parliament is the
dangerous and despicable act of a prime minister thrashing around in her
terminal desperation. Tantamount to calling for insurrection against democracy,
the only saving grace of her extraordinary late-night eruption of bad temper
was its futility. Unlikely to gain traction with the people, she lost yet more
respect from her own MPs.
During the wait for her delayed speech, rumours grew wild.
What would she do? Resign unless her deal passes? Call a general election? Call
a referendum? Press the revoke button, her nuclear option? But no, none of
those. Instead, she gave us just another ill-judged diatribe against
parliament, achingly lacking in remorse or self-awareness.
Listening to her outburst, you heard the mood music of an
angry farewell, a croaky swan song. As she nails her dead parrot of a plan to
the perch again next week for yet another vote, she surely knows that battering
on with her way or no way, petulantly obdurate to the last, she will be
rejected yet again. Appealing over the heads of parliament to her imaginary
friends among the people was sadly delusional. “I’m on your side,” she pleaded,
but they are not on hers. A new poll reports that 90% see her handling of
Brexit as “a national humiliation”. Successive polls have long shown that only
around 12% of voters support her plan.
On her kamikaze mission, with we the people strapped on
board, Donald Tusk helped propel her on her way: if parliament refuses to vote
for her deal next week, that’s it, curtains, the end. Was it orchestrated? He
offers a short extension but only if the Commons submits. Later, between the
lines, some suggested that just possibly, if the Commons balks at this
bullying, Tusk was not ruling out a long extension. Who knows? With “patience
and goodwill”, as ever the Europeans are embarrassingly courteous in the face
of boorish British insults: they have more urgent anxieties at gathering clouds
of populism threatening upcoming elections.
On May ploughed throughout yesterday; her way or no way, the
unspeakable choice. She refuses to test if parliament would coalesce around
other any of the softer options she rejects. Causing an uproar, she bludgeoned
them with “the House has indulged itself on the question of Europe for too
long” and “must now face the consequences”.
That only spurred the Commons into the most eloquent debate
in this agonising saga. It was parliament at its best. One MP after another
rose in spirited indignation to demand the House hold indicative votes to find
a compromise to command a majority for staying in the customs union and single
market: it looks as if MPs may seize back control. She is the “roadblock”, said
Ed Miliband. “Stop this madness!” said Heidi Allen. In a killer speech Dominic
Grieve declared he had “never felt more ashamed to be a member of the
Conservative party”. Why? Because her refusal to seek a softer option is purely
to avoid splitting her cabinet and party. As Grieve said in his damning
denunciation, even in crisis she still puts party before country.
You wonder why she cleaves to this abominable crew who
detest and torment her: at Tuesday’s cabinet she abandoned applying for a
longer extension to give time for alternatives. In caving in to the unsavoury
likes of Andrea Leadsom, Liam Fox and Chris Grayling, she handed power to the
deranged no-dealers. Nightly on TV the thuggish Mark Francois struts the ERG’s
bully-power, holding her to ransom. ERG fantasies wafted through yesterday’s
debate as the bone-head Owen Paterson claimed no-deal fears were like the
millennium bug panic: there would only be “a bit of disruption”, “a hiccup”.
Her historic miscalculation has been to appease these
extremist infiltrators while chasing away the decent people – Sarah Wollaston,
Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry, Nick Boles. The likes of Dominic Grieve, Ken Clarke
and others soldier on, the good people she treats as rejects while she casts
her lot with the bad, who rat on her all the same. The party is irreparably
split already, the upcoming leadership election will sever it further; she well
deserves her fate. But what next? It’s tempting to secretly want a no-deal crash
to serve them right and prove them wrong. But mercifully that won’t happen:
even in extremis, she won’t take us into what Grieve called the no-deal “spiral
of oblivion”. She hasn’t taken leave of her senses, so let MPs call her bluff.
Imagine if she had a sudden epiphany. She would wake up and
abandon her rotten party: she owes them nothing, but she does owe the country.
She could call a national conclave, find a settlement outside her party, not
helped, it’s true, by Jeremy Corbyn’s frivolous stomp-out from her meeting last
night.
All other options are better. Call a general election to end
this paralysed parliament. Better still, seize the face-saving Kyle-Wilson
amendment whereby the House would nod through her plan on condition it’s put to
the public vote for confirmation. Odd how those who call “the will of the
people” sacred dare not ask the people if this is what they voted for. On Saturday,
expect a gigantic march to demand the voters get a hearing. As for May, her
time is up. The removal van is driving towards No 10, but the terrible truth is
that whoever her extreme party chooses to replace her is destined to be yet
worse.
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