Irish backstop Archives | MelaniePhillips.com

Brexit signals now pointing all ways at once

August 28, 2019August 28, 2019 Melaniebrexit, Irish backstop, No Deal

Boris Johnson is causing otherwise sensible commentators to throw necessary caution to the winds. In the Telegraph a few days ago, Charles Moore wrote that Johnson has brought a “miraculous” change to the political weather. “Until Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, the governing classes saw Brexit as a nightmare from which they would quite soon awake… Now they watch it happening before their eyes, and they fear they cannot stop it.” A few days previously in the same paper, Allistair Heath wrote: “It is therefore absurd in the extreme to…

Britain Europe

Glad, confident morning for Britain’s battling Brexiteers? Er, not quite

August 22, 2019August 22, 2019 MelanieBoris Johnson, brexit, eu, Irish backstop

Suddenly Brexit has become possible, coo the newspapers this morning; and suddenly, this Brexiteer’s heart stops for the umpteenth time during this national crisis. For what they are saying has now suddenly become possible is not Brexit — which, after all, Britain’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, has been intoning like a stuck record will happen on October 31 even with no deal – but Brexit with a withdrawal deal with the EU. And that’s because the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has given Boris Johnson thirty days to come up…

Britain

Mrs May’s Chamberlain moment

March 12, 2019March 12, 2019 Melaniebrexit, democracy, Irish backstop, No Deal

This morning, Theresa May was reported to be talking up as a breakthrough the concessions she has obtained from the EU on the Irish backstop, saying MPs should therefore vote tonight for her Brexit withdrawal deal. At time of writing, she is expected shortly to address parliament. The UK’s requirement was that it should never find itself bound by the backstop with no means of escape unless the EU gives it permission – which by definition, in the event of a breakdown in the future negotiations over the UK/EU relationship,…

Britain

Is May’s dead parrot about to be resuscitated by MPs of straw?

December 23, 2018December 23, 2018 Melaniebrexit, Irish backstop, No Deal

Is the dead parrot about to stagger back onto its perch? Are the most steely Brexiteers really about to demonstrate that they are in fact people of straw? Today’s Sunday Times reports “growing confidence” in Downing Street that the prime minister, Theresa May, will get her widely excoriated Brexit deal through parliament. Her allies report a “significant improvement” in the number of MPs who are prepared to support it. “Speculation is swirling that the prime minister may be able to extract a meaningful concession from the EU on the Irish…