Category Archives: Britain

Britain, European Union, Government, Politics, Society

UK Government announces plans for Brexit negotiations

UNITED KINGDOM

David Davis MP, the Brexit Secretary, has set out the UK Government’s negotiating strategy in a Government White Paper.

David Davis MP, the Brexit Secretary, has set out the UK Government’s negotiating strategy in a Government White Paper.

BREXIT SECRETARY David Davis has set out the Government’s negotiating strategy for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU in a keenly-awaited white paper.

Launching the 77-page document in a statement to the House of Commons, Mr Davis said the paper confirmed Prime Minister Theresa May’s vision of ‘an independent and truly global United Kingdom’.

Confirming the UK’s strategy would be guided by the 12 principles set out by Mrs May in her Lancaster House speech last month (see article), Mr Davis said the Government was aiming for ‘a new, positive and constructive partnership between Britain and the European Union that works in our mutual interest’.

The white paper, entitled The United Kingdom’s Exit From And New Partnership With The European Union, was published a day after MPs voted overwhelmingly to permit Mrs May to press ahead with starting withdrawal negotiations under Article 50 of the EU treaties.

Mrs May’s foreword to the white paper was made up of extracts from her Lancaster House speech, in which she said that forging a new partnership with Europe and a ‘stronger, fairer, more global’ Britain would be ‘the legacy of our time, the prize towards which we work, the destination at which we arrive once the negotiation is done’.

In a preface to the document, Mr Davis said that Britain entered the negotiations which the Government intends to trigger by the end of March in ‘a position of strength’.

Stressing that the UK ‘wants the EU to succeed’, he urged the remaining 27 member states and European institutions to be guided in the upcoming negotiations by ‘the principles set out in the EU Treaties concerning a high degree of international co-operation and good neighbourliness’.

Mr Davis said the Government would not publish details of its plans that would undermine Britain’s negotiating position, but promised ‘extensive engagement with Parliament’ and a ‘high degree of public engagement’ as the process went forward.

‘This document sets out our plan for the strong new partnership we want to build with the EU,’ he said.

‘Whatever the outcome of our negotiations, we will seek a more open, outward-looking, confident and fairer UK, which works for all.’

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Britain, Donald Trump, European Union, Society, Terrorism, United States

America’s travel ban

UNITED STATES

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President Donald Trump’s executive order brought a 120-day suspension to America’s refugee program, and an indefinite end to its intake of Syrian refugees.

President Donald Trump has insisted that the U.S. would have been inundated by “bad dudes” if he had given any warning of his clampdown on visitors from terror-hit Muslim countries.

Mr Trump’s administration faces growing protests at home and abroad for closing the country to people from seven largely Muslim countries.

The abruptness of the executive order, which even the US Department of Homeland Security wasn’t warned about, has caused widespread chaos and confusion, with travellers left stranded at airports across the globe.

Mr Trump has, however, defended his decision and the way it was implemented. ‘If the ban were announced with a one-week notice, the “bad” would rush into our country during that week,’ he said on social media site Twitter.

The order, banning refugees from Syria and imposing a 90-day stop on most people from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen from entering the US, has prompted protests across America and provoked strong condemnation from many world leaders.

Even Barack Obama broke with the tradition that former presidents do not criticise their successor to say he ‘fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion.’

Mr Obama said he was ‘heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country’, saying it was ‘what we expect to see when American values are at stake’.

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The US President justifies his travel ban and uses social media site Twitter to disseminate his message.

Amid reports that customs and immigration officials struggled to interpret the new rules, Mr Trump instead blamed the chaos at US airports on a Delta Airlines computer outage and the presence of protesters.

He added: ‘Only 109 people out of 325,000 people were detained and instead held for questioning.’

Mr Trump, who has also signed a new executive order to cut back on business red tape, insists that the travel ban and new vetting procedures will be very good for national security. He said: ‘We had to make the move some day, and we decided to make the move.’

Mr Trump was unrepentant as he said there was ‘nothing nice about searching for terrorists before they can enter our country’, telling sceptics to ‘study the world’.

Despite the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson insisting that British passport holders will escape the ban, the exemption doesn’t appear to have protected all UK citizens.

Lukman Faily, for instance, a former Iraqi ambassador to the US and a British passport holder after spending 20 years in the UK, planned to travel to Washington for a conference on fighting Islamic State.

Trump supporters claim he was badly served by inexperienced advisers who pushed the order through without consulting government departments on how to enforce it.

Blame has chiefly fallen on Stephen Miller, his 31-year-old former speech writer and now Mr Trump’s White House policy adviser.

Mr Miller has argued that the imposition of the ban has been an ‘efficient, orderly, enormously successful challenge’ to a ‘failed orthodoxy’ and was bound to attract protests. He has refused to say whether the US was soon planning to add other countries, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, to the list.

Amid claims his order may breach the US constitution by targeting people on the basis of their religion, Mr Trump has insisted his travel ban is not anti-Muslim.

But German chancellor Angela Merkel said the fight against terrorism ‘does not in any way justify putting groups of certain people under general suspicion’.

And Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit negotiator, accused Mr Trump of working with far-Right groups on the continent to engineer the EU’s disintegration. He identified President Trump as one of three threats to the EU, along with radicalised political Islam and Vladimir Putin.

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Britain, NATO, Russia, United States

US-UK relations on NATO and Russia

WASHINGTON-LONDON

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Ties between the US and Britain have “never been stronger”, US President Donald Trump said as he welcomed British Prime Minister Theresa May to the White House.

President Donald Trump is 100 per cent behind NATO, Theresa May has declared.

Following their first talks in the White House, the Prime Minister has said that the U.S. and UK were united in their “unshakeable commitment” to the alliance, and that both leaders recognise NATO as the “bulwark of our collective defence”.

However, the pair are set for a collision course on how to handle Vladimir Putin after President Trump said he hoped to have a “fantastic relationship” with the Russian leader. The British Prime Minister said she strongly supported continuing sanctions against Russia, but Mr Trump’s newly assembled administration said the lifting of sanctions was on the table.

Earlier this month, the president caused alarm across Europe as he dismissed NATO as “obsolete” and expressed a desire for warmer ties with Mr Putin. During his election campaign Mr Trump even suggested he could withdraw the US from the military alliance if other European members did not spend more money on defence.

Mrs May has pledged to work in persuading other EU leaders to meet their NATO commitment of spending 2 per cent of national income on defence. She has said that member states need to make sure they are equipped to fight terrorism and cyber warfare, as well as combatting conventional forms of war.

But, there are clear differences between the US and UK on Russia. In comments that would have been alarming to No 10, the president said of Mr Putin: ‘I don’t know the gentleman. I hope we have a fantastic relationship. That’s possible and it’s also possible that we won’t. We will see what happens.’

President Trump, said: ‘I have had many times where I thought I would get along with people and I don’t like them at all… And I have had some where I didn’t think I was going to have much of a relationship and it turned out to be a great relationship.’

Mr Trump has also said that he hoped for a ‘great relationship’ with China.

Mrs May said the UK would not back down on Russian sanctions amid suggestions Mr Trump could agree to lift them.

The Prime Minister said: ‘As far as the UK is concerned on sanctions for Russia in relation to their activities in the Ukraine, we have been very clear that we want to see the Minsk agreement (aimed at resolving the conflict between Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels) fully implemented.

‘We believe the sanctions should continue until we see that Minsk agreement fully implemented, and we’ve been continuing to argue that inside the European Union.’

Mr Trump has not answered directly whether he would remove the measures. A senior adviser to the U.S. President said that US sanctions against Moscow, and other issues, would be on the table.

Barack Obama’s administration and the EU hit Moscow with sanctions for sending in troops and supporting pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine. Earlier this month Mr Trump suggested his administration could lift them in return for a nuclear arms deal – irrespective of whether Mr Putin withdrew troops from the Ukraine.

The comments have sparked fears that an emboldened Russia could launch a full-scale invasion in the Ukraine or Baltic States.

Responding to the possibility of sanctions being lifted, the former head of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said: ‘I would urge strong caution against reversing any sanctions on Russia without concrete concessions.

‘Easing sanctions will only embolden Russia’s aggression in the region, putting the security interests of Ukraine and the United States in jeopardy.’

The U.S. softens its stance on torture

Donald Trump has dropped his controversial threat to revive the use of torture. This follows a warning from Theresa May who said it would force Britain to curb intelligence sharing.

In what will be seen as a dramatic about-turn, the US President has indicated that he would not now order secret service interrogators to use torture despite maintaining “it works”. Mr Trump said he would defer to his security advisers who are overwhelmingly opposed to the use of torture.

Mr Trump sparked an angry backlash when he first spoke out in favour of waterboarding, saying the West had to “fight fire with fire” in the war on terrorism.

His comments sparked alarm in the British intelligence community, with sources warning rules banning intelligence sharing with states that use torture would prohibit vital co-operation with the US. The U.S. President said he was bowing to the advice given to him by his Defence Secretary, General James Mattis, who has seen active service in the Middle East and who is opposed to torture.

Protagonists argue that extreme interrogation methods should be used if it saves lives.

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