EU
Guardian
Dozens of MPs and peers, including some with vast inherited wealth, own or manage farms that collectively have received millions of pounds in European Union subsidies. An analysis by the Guardian and the environmental group Friends of the Earth identified 48 parliamentarians who claimed £5.7m in farming subsidies under the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) in 2017, the latest year for which figures are available. The largest single payment – £473,000 – was paid to a Sussex farming firm run by the 18th Duke of Norfolk, a large landowner whose estate dates from the middle ages.
Brexit
Mail
Theresa May fears rebel Tory MPs will this week write a ‘blank cheque’ to Parliament which could allow Brexit to be delayed for a year or longer – or even stopped entirely. The Commons is expected to vote tomorrow on various amendments – including one to seize power from ministers and hand it to backbench MPs so they can influence the timing of Britain’s departure. Supporters of the plan – led by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and former Tory minister Nick Boles – say the amendment is designed to stop a damaging No Deal exit, as it would postpone the March 29 leaving date by nine months if a deal is not secured by February 26.
Mail
Ministers today praised amendments tabled by senior Tories that would endorse Theresa May’s Brexit deal – as long as she can overhaul or time limit the Irish border backstop. Health Secretary Matthew Hancock welcomed the changes being pushed by 1922 chair Sir Graham Brady and former minister Andrew Murrison as a key part of ‘building a majority’ for the package. In a thinly-veiled appeal for Brexiteers to stage a show of support in crucial votes on Tuesday, Mr Hancock said he ‘understood the impulse’ behind the tweaks. Sir Graham has put forward a text calling for the Irish backstop to be replaced with ‘alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border’, but adding that the House would ‘support the Withdrawal Agreement subject to this change’.
Telegraph
Theresa May must commit to securing her Brussels deal within just two weeks if she is to avoid resignations over no-deal, Remain ministers have said during a secret conference call. The Telegraph has learned that a dozen pro-European ministers held a conference call on Sunday night to discuss their approach to a back-bench plan to force the Government to extend Article 50. Cabinet ministers on the call included Amber Rudd,the Work and Pensions Secretary, Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, and Caroline Nokes, the immigration minister.
Mail
Theresa May is poised to throw her weight behind a Tory ‘unity’ proposal designed to secure concessions from Brussels, it emerged last night. In a high-stakes gamble, she could back an amendment calling for the controversial Northern Irish backstop to be ditched in tomorrow’s crunch Brexit vote. The plan, which was put forward by influential Conservative grandee Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee, would instead call for ‘alternative arrangements’ to be put in place to avoid a hard border.
WTO rules
Sun
THERESA May has privately told Cabinet ministers that she will not take Britain out of the EU without a deal, The Sun has learnt. The PM told members of her top team that she is not yet prepared to rule out no deal in public because it would remove a key bargaining chip in negotiations with the EU. But a Cabinet source who has sat in meetings with the PM and ministers over the last week told The Sun: “The PM has made quite clear that she’s not going to go for no deal.” Another senior Tory told The Sun that Remainer ministers have succeeded in influencing the PM to privately oppose a no deal Brexit.
Express
A PLAN to avoid financial chaos if the UK leaves the European Union without a deal on March 29 has been revealed by a leading British economist. Roger Bootle, chairman of independent macroeconomic research consultancy Capital Economics, has said Britain and the EU should sign a temporary agreement committing not to impose tariffs on each other’s imports and exports while a new free trade agreement is negotiated. Mr Bootle argues the deal would be permissible under World Trade Organisation and has questioned why the government has not yet suggested this proposal to Brussels.
Morning Star
BRITAIN should leave the EU on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms to free a future Labour government from single market rule, the Communist Party declared at the weekend. The pro-EU Tory minority regime and the EU Commission “cannot be trusted” to strike a withdrawal deal that does not serve the interests of “big business and the capitalist class,” the party said at the first meeting of its new executive committee. The meeting concluded that any withdrawal agreement revamped by the government would continue to bind Britain to the single market.
Second referendum
Express
MPs seeking to delay Brexit claiming they are doing so to avoid a no-deal scenario are sneakily trying to overthrow the result of the 2016 referendum, a Tory has claimed. Nick Herbert, who led his party’s campaign to Remain, has accused MPs of keeping the public in the dark about their true intentions when demanding a delay in the UK’s divorce date from the European Union. The Arundel and South Downs MP said many of the 384 MPs who voted to trigger Article 50 in March 2017 seem to have forgotten that in doing so they vowed to stay true to the referendum result, even if that means leaving the EU without a deal.
Independent
Student backing for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has fallen amid growing support for a Final Say referendum on Brexit, a new poll has found. The survey revealed that backing for Labour among the core group of young supporters who have helped maintain Mr Corbyn’s power dropped 10 percentage points in a year. At the same time the group’s desire to see a new referendum take place on the outcome of Brexit has risen as the clock ticks down to 29 March. The poll commissioned by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) comes after a cross-party group of MPs, including several from Labour, accused Mr Corbyn of “standing in the way of the younger generation having a say” on Brexit.
Express
HOLDING a second Brexit referendum would show that politicians had “failed the public”, a top Labour MP has warned as she tore apart her party’s calls for a so-called ‘People’s Vote’. Angela Rayner said she is “really worried” about what a new Brexit poll would mean for the UK, warning that it would likely deliver a result the British public had not been expecting and place the country in a “very difficult” situation. The Shadow Education Secretary said while she would vote Remain if another vote took place, she advised against holding one at all.
Mail
Angela Rayner risked fuelling Labour’s Brexit civil war today by warning holding another referendum would be political ‘failure’. The shadow education secretary said she did not believe the public wanted a fresh national vote on the issue – despite dozens of her colleagues demanding one. The intervention comes as Jeremy Corbyn desperately tries to avoid being pinned down over how he would handle Brexit. The veteran left-winger was a Eurosceptic for decades, and is believed to be deeply resistant to the idea of another vote. But he has been forced to keep the possibility on the table as party activists and large numbers of MPs – including in the shadow cabinet – support it.
Mirror
A top Labour MP has shredded calls for a second EU referendum, saying she is “really worried” it won’t solve the Brexit crisis. Angela Rayner revealed she’d vote Remain if there is a new public vote – but warned holding one at all would show MPs had “failed the public”. And she said the public don’t want to delay Brexit – despite Labour being poised to do just that, and the Shadow Brexit Secretary warning it may be “inevitable”. The Shadow Education Secretary’s comments emphasise a split in the Labour party on whether Jeremy Corbyn should swing behind a so-called ‘People’s Vote’.
Conservative Party
Times
Conservatives who backed Theresa May’s Brexit plan when it was heavily defeated this month are preparing to abandon her and push for a softer agreement if parliament blocks a no-deal exit tomorrow. MPs who are loyal at present to the prime minister will get behind alternative plans for leaving the European Union if a proposal by the former Labour cabinet minister Yvette Cooper results in a delay to the withdrawal date. One MP who voted for the deal two weeks ago said that they could not afford to wait for Mrs May to try to secure more concessions on the Irish backstop before mobilising behind a softer Brexit.
Times
Jacob Rees-Mogg is holding dinners for MPs at his Westminster home in support of Boris Johnson. Mr Rees-Mogg, a leading backbench Brexiteer, said that he would back the former foreign secretary if there were a Conservative Party leadership election tomorrow. While Mr Johnson has a loyal following among the grassroots, the party’s leadership rules mean that he would first need the support of a significant number of his fellow MPs. In a Conservative leadership contest MPs whittle the number of candidates down to a final two who are voted on by the party membership.
Express
ONE of Britain’s top barristers, Paul Diamond, will be unveiled as the head of a legal team set up to help Conservative associations de-select Remainer MPs. The Campaign for Conservative Democracy confirmed it was establishing a legal fund for Tory associations across the UK to support association officers who want to hold their MPs to account. The move means that Remainer MPs including Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield), Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire), Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury), Anna Soubry (Broxtowe), Sarah Wollaston (Totnes), Nick Boles (Grantham), Sam Gyimah (East Surrey), Nicky Morgan (Loughborough), Phillip Lee (Bracknell) and Justine Greening (Putney) are under threat from being booted out by their associations.
Irish backstop
Express
THERESA May has sided with top Tory Brexiteers against the EU’s continual demands for a backstop and is plotting a return to Brussels with calls for them to drop the hated clause in the Withdrawal Agreement, the Health Secretary has hinted. Matt Hancock said ditching the backstop through an amendment tabled by the chair of the Conservative Party’s 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady is the only way the EU will be able to get a deal that works for the bloc too. Mr Hancock revealed Theresa May’s plan to the BBC, saying: “I think we have got to listen very carefully to people who are willing to vote for the deal subject to some amendments.”
Mail
Irish deputy PM Simon Coveney upped the stakes in the bitter Brexit battle today by warning that the EU will never allow the backstop to be ditched. Mr Coveney said even if member states agreed to abandon the mechanism for guaranteeing there will not be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, MEPs would veto it. But Health Secretary Matt Hancock accused him of negotiating tactics – pointing out that a no deal outcome would be the biggest risk of creating a hard border. The clashes came as Theresa May faces another gruelling week as she tries to keep her Cabinet together and fend off a bid by cross-party Remainers to force her to delay Brexit.
Express
THERESA May has been dealt a Brexit blow by Ireland’s foreign minister who has warned the Prime Minister there is no chance of changing the backstop. Mrs May was boosted last week as the eurosceptic ERG, who represent the vast number of Tory MPs who voted against the Withdrawal Agreement earlier this month, suggested they may be willing to support her deal if the backstop is removed. The backstop, which is designed to make sure there is no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland, has become the major sticking point and represents Theresa May’s final hurdle to avoid the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal.
BBC News
The backstop element of the Brexit plan is “not going to change”, Ireland’s deputy prime minister has said. The proposal – aimed at preventing a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland – played a major part in Theresa May’s deal being voted down by an historic margin last week. But Simon Coveney told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that the EU would not ratify a deal without it. Health Secretary Matt Hancock called the comments a “negotiating position”. Mr Hancock also denied reports that the government was “specifically” planning for martial law if the UK left without a deal – but he did not rule it out. He said that the government “looks at all the options in all circumstances,” but when pressed by Andrew Marr, the health secretary added: “It remains on the statute book, but it isn’t the focus of our attention.”
Telegraph
Theresa May is planning to fight for a “freedom clause” from Brussels in a move that will win the “full-throated” support of the entire nation if she succeeds, Boris Johnson says. Writing in The Telegraph, the former Foreign Secretary says he has heard “from the lips of very senior sources” that the Prime Minister is planning to go to Brussels and renegotiate the Northern Ireland customs backstop. Describing the plans as “unadulterated good Brexit news”, he says an exit mechanism or sunset clause will “defuse the booby trap” and give the UK a “way out” to negotiate a Canada-style trade deal with the EU.
ITV News
Theresa May’s bid to get EU concessions on the Northern Ireland Brexit backstop has been strongly rejected by Dublin. The Prime Minister has anchored her attempts to try and re-sell her Brexit strategy to Parliament on a push to change the backstop proposals which have been roundly condemned by prominent Leave supporters. However, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney firmly insisted the EU was not prepared to accept changes to the deal which is aimed at preventing the return of a hard border.
Guardian
Ireland has launched a last-minute effort to warn Theresa May off any attempt to unravel the backstop, two days before a crucial Commons debate that may decide the next move for the UK’s rudderless Brexit policy. Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister and deputy prime minister, insisted the backstop – the mechanism to ensure there will be no hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland if Britain and the EU fail to strike a free trade deal – was “part of a balanced package that isn’t going to change”.
Independent
Ireland has dealt a blow to Theresa May’s hopes of obtaining the changes to her Brexit deal needed to secure the backing of her own Conservative MPs. The country’s foreign minister Simon Coveney said the Irish backstop that Ms May wants to renegotiate “isn’t going to change” despite the prime minister’s deal being comprehensively rejected by the House of Commons. On Tuesday Ms May hopes to secure backing for a move to go back to Brussels and ask for changes to the backstop, in order to put it to another full vote in the coming weeks. Tory rebels and her DUP Northern Irish partners in government have both indicated they could back her deal if she can secure changes to the backstop
Immigration
Guardian
A cross-party group of MPs is confident it will be able to use an amendment to the immigration bill going through parliament to stop people being held indefinitely in immigration detention centres. Harriet Harman, the chair of the joint committee on human rights, has persuaded the former Brexit secretary David Davis and other former Conservative ministers to back the move, which would stop thousands of foreigners facing deportation every year being held in detention for more than 28 days. The Home Office has yet to approve the proposal but Harman, a former deputy Labour leader, said she was “very confident” her amendment would be accepted because of the strength of her case and the breadth of cross-party support.
Plastic
Telegraph
A major supermarket is to introduce US style paper bags as part of the escalation on war on plastic. Morrisons said it would charge 20p per paper bag as part of a trial which will also see it raise the cost of long-life plastic bags rise from 10p to 15p. The supermarket said the eight-week trial at eight stores was in response to customers saying that reducing plastic is their top environmental concern. Morrisons removed 5p carrier bags early in 2018 which led to a 25 per cent reduction in overall bag sales. The new US-style paper grocery bags have handles and are a similar capacity to standard plastic carrier bags.
Snow
Times
Heavy snow is expected to fall over much of the country this week and a snow warning has been issued for southern, central and eastern England for tomorrow night. The Met Office issued the yellow alert for most of Essex and the whole of London and East Anglia. It stretched almost to the Severn estuary in the west and as far north as Lincoln and Derby. Forecasters said that some villages could be cut off by snow that will fall from 9pm tomorrow to midday on Wednesday. “There is a small chance of travel delays on roads with some stranded vehicles and passengers, along with delayed or cancelled rail and air travel,” the Met Office said.
Sun
BRITAIN is set to be gripped in yet another icy blast as forecasters warn of four inches of snow in London and the South East combined with 70mph gale force winds. The Met Office has issued yellow weather warnings for snow across the south and southeast of England on Tuesday and Wednesday. Weather forecasters warn of sub-zero temperatures this week and freezing air blowing from the North Pole which will bring the most low-level snow the UK has seen this winter. The Met Office yellow snow warning says to expect heavy snow overnight on Tuesday, continuing into Wednesday. Snowfall could even hit the North East and North West as early as today, followed by widespread rain from Wednesday in northern areas.
The comment by Debbie about farming subsidies is a typical example of the politics of envy that gets us nowhere and merely tries to turn minds against wealthy people. Thanks God we have some or who else is going to pay our taxes that fund our NHS etc?. The subsidy regime is open to all farmers (I am not a farmer and have no connections with any big landowner) and the fact that big farmers get more is merely the maths. One of the joys of leaving the EU (I hope we do) is that we can set our own regime and stop subsidising French farmers who receive by far the largest chunk of subsidies.
The above is not a comment by Debbie, it is a report by Debbie of what is appearing in the press in this case the Guardian not exactly a Leave supporting paper.
The fact that so many MPs and Peers have a vested interest in the EU by way of farming subsidies is rightly a cause for concern for conflict of interest. Debbie has shown no politics of envy whatsoever and deserves an apology.
Thank you Jim. Your reply just shows how ignorant Tim Pope is of the way I pick out excerpts of what the press are reporting. I felt his comment was not worthy of a response. I’m used to people ‘shooting the messenger’.
Same conflict on interest as the biased BBC which receives £25 million a year from the EU …….!
Immigration:
If only they were to show a similar level of concern for their own people who suffer the effects of unwanted immigration every day of their lives.
I won`t go into chapter and verse here, but I cast my mind back to Nigel`s debates with the then leader of the Limpdems – NICK.
Nigel`s most telling accusation was that Nick was saying “We are not good enough”.
I believe that our whole parliamentary approach to the subsequent Brexit negotiations confirm Nigel`s accusation
Our Government and the whole of the elected parliament, with the exception of some honourable Brexiteers, the MSM, much of the establishment including the church and many of our overseas “friends” and would be advisers who profess to have our best interests at heart are infected with this poison.
They believe at base we are just not good enough to go it alone, they also believe the population en masse just do not even have the guts to envisage or picture a life free of the chains of servitude imposed by a malevolent totalitarian set of masters in Brussels.
I`m not going to rehearse all the fudge and waffle that our negotiators and “advisers” have perpetrated in order to prove we are not good enough and as a nation we “don`t deserve” to get out from under the derisory yoke of our friends in the EU and that it is evil even to think that Independent Nationhood is our birthright and indeed our duty not to cede it in the first place and overriding duty to regain full Sovereignty.
17.4 million know the score, they knew who the “enemy” were when they went to the polling stations and they now understand that the EU has not changed one whit.
17.4 (plus advisedly) million voters are already aware that whatever “deals” are agreed with the EU, there is one overriding demand from the EU that the UK should not be seen to prosper from their release, presently it is being postulated that the Withdrawal agreement will be OK if the backstop is removed or replaced, it won`t be (read the Spectator`s 40 points) we`ll still end up tied to the EU forever and with an even more subservient position of having to take all they throw at us without representation.
Time for the “Boston Tea Party” – throw the deal into the Channel, proceed directly to No Deal WTO and give back the British Nation its self respect.
WE ARE GOOD ENOUGH
Nigel hit on this point in his debates with Clegg. ‘They don’t think we are good enough to run our own affairs’ which led to ‘Believe in Britain’. I thought this was a genius slogan highlighting what is lacking in the liblabcon party. Not only do they not think we are good enough; they spend considerable time explaining how non-Brits work better, work harder and keep our economy from complete collapse. To spell it out. They not only don’t think were good enough. They really do HATE the people that don’t share their views.
I recomend everyone reads the Withdrawal agreement as shown by the UKIP website briefing.. I know it’s not the 580 odd pages. But it’s enough. Even if heavily slanted for leavers
This document is unbelievable. There are betrayals in every paragraph. This is exactly like being Jewish in Nazi Germany. First you just want to carry on. Then there are laws and you take no notice, Then there is propaganda . Then ignorant young males star Ganging up. Then Terrorising. Then you realise it is not stopping. Then if you can, Jewish or not, you leave. Then you starve first., then die.
I was 10. My Gran was crying, Something I had never seen before. When asked she pointed to pictures in the paper I think the Express,They were of Belsen. The living and the dead. She was German. That’s why her father sent her to England with her sisters. Uncle Otto Cousin Annie had to stay. She told me her story. Now I’m 85 and I recognise it… In England.
If you click on text you get page not found.
It beggars belief doesn’t it, but having WON TWO WORLD WARS against GERMANY, our traitorous, spineless Government and Establishment are sacrificing this country in the heinous (non) Withdrawal Agreement and handing VICTORY to Germany (the masters of the EU) in a bloodless coup!!
And the French Yellow Vests were out and about again at the weekend – the eleventh in a row.
Only TV show in Great Britain showing it? Russia Today, of course.
And the level of severe personal violence being shown against them by the authorities is shocking and increasing. It looks as if this is moving up a level.
In France 3000 injured, 80 critical, 12 blind, now 5 dead.
The Home Office (UK) have ordered 200 LBD40 “FlashBall” Riot guns and 200,000 rounds of 40mm baton rounds from the French manufacturers as part of “Operation Yellowhammer”
To fire at naughty Brexiteers.
I remember being told that rubber bullets were issued because a single rifle bullet could kill a number of people if fired into a crowd. Rubber bullets only hit the person being aimed at. I don’t think they’re regarded as being non-lethal or ‘harmless’..
Translated from French. Descriptions of injuries in France on Dec 8th alone. There are also reports coming in of French police sliding coins into the rubber baton rounds ( to cause death/severe injuries ) and aiming deliberately at the head. Judging from the numbers of eye injuries, this seems at least probable.
Cressida Dick will be allowed by the Home Office to deploy these weapons as part of “Operation Yellowhammer” We must assume with Khan’s approval, although that is not proven.
///On December 8, in Dijon , Antonin, 15, had jaw and mandible fractured. In Paris , Thomas, a 20-year-old student, had a fractured sinus and Denis had his jaw fractured and his lip torn out. Fiorina L., 20, lost her left eye. Antoine C. lost his left eye, Nicolas C. had his left hand fractured. Alexandre F. lost his right eye, Fabien had his cheekbone cracked and his nose fractured. Emeric S., 22, had a fractured wrist with displacement of the ulna . Hichem B. had his left hand fractured. Hannibal V. was injured in the eye. In Bordeaux , Jean-Marc M. lost his right eye. In MondevilleConstant had a broken nose, Marien had a double fracture of his right hand. In Toulouse , Yann had fractured tibia . At Nantes , Philip S. was critically injured ribs, with internal bleeding and fractured spleen 70 //.
Thank you for that Mr. Bav; it is good to know what we might be up against in the UK. I find it somewhat strange when police take the side of an evil government against their own people, who are simply expressing their dissatisfaction with that government.
Maybe they think that they will be treated better when the “elites” gain full control. They are more likely to realise that they have been used.
How soon before the yellow vests in France become armed in sheer self-defence against the brutality of the French police??
At which point, de facto, France is officially in a state of civil war.
Vive la France, ou Nous sommes Les Gilets jaunes?
France is not nearly as disarmed as the Brits, and they have a tradition of resisting authority. The Yellow Vests are only going to get stronger.
I have direct family in France, my Uncle and a whole French family who fought the Germans. They are really p**sed off.
He told me yesterday that the police are divided. The CRS ( Riot Squad ) are vicious and paid to crack heads ( think the equivalent of the Black and Tans ) but the Gendarmerie are more sympathetic. He said ‘ Remember what we did to the Milice ‘ ( In WWII, the FFI shot most of the para-military Milice recruited by the Vichy administration post D Day)
It really is getting serious.
UKIP has obviously been got at. Gerard has now lost my credibility. NEC, is, was, has, and always will be, useless…No committee has ever achieved anything, Unless pre- sorted. I find it hard to credit that UKIP is saying nothing. Or if it is it’s saying it to the useless, Hormone and drug addled, otherwise occupied Social media addicts captured by the latest unfunny contrived “Humerous ” utube, and will vote the opposite tomorrow…However I live in hopes.
.
Hurrah
The only channel/media outlet which will give Gerard a platform is RT – the SAME channel which is covering the true extent of the yellow vests protests in France. HURRAY FOR RT!
“THERESA May has privately told Cabinet ministers that she will not take Britain out of the EU without a deal, The Sun has learnt. The PM told members of her top team that she is not yet prepared to rule out no deal in public because it would remove a key bargaining chip in negotiations with the EU.”
Not much of a bargaining chip now is it?
Naive or working against us? No prizes for a correct answer!