Posts by Richard Parry
Theresa May is on the retreat - from any attempt to promise and carry through no deal, from seeking changes to the Withdrawal Agreement, from not organizing European Parliament elections, even from the attempted reinstatement of the 22 May date that was the outcome of the marathon Cabinet of 2... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
Two essential skills of politicians are timing and counting. On each of the three votes on the EU Withdrawal Agreement the UK government has fallen short of expectations and further behind the game. The majority of 58 against on 29 March reflected the solidity of two small groups – six Conservative... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
Richard Parry assesses the convoluted Brexit developments after a dramatic evening in Brussels when EU leaders made policy in Theresa May’s absence.
To finally defuse the 29 March Brexit bomb Theresa May needs to get an order through Parliament under section 18 (4) of the European Union (... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
An MP reading the first eighteen paragraphs of Attorney General Geoffrey Cox’s legal advice of Tuesday 12 March might have imagined that the conclusion would be similarly upbeat, emphasising how the three new documents tabled after Theresa May’s voice-losing dash to Strasbourg the previous day were... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
‘Le moment est donc venu pour les britanniques de faire de choix’
Emanuel Macron’s words at his press conference with Angela Merkel in Paris on 27 February naturally sound a little more precise and elegant in French. He said the UK must choose; we don’t need more time, but decisions; a request... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
Theresa May is trying to buy time in two week instalments, but her grip on the Brexit process is faltering. If the last motion had been worded ‘this House welcomes the Prime Minister’s statement of 12 February 2019 and the ongoing discussions between the UK and the EU on the Northern Ireland... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
Shorn of the legal language required by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the motion agreed by MPs on Tuesday 29 January 2019 states that ‘This House….rejects the United Kingdom leaving the European Union without an Withdrawal Agreement and a Framework for the Future Relationship, and... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
The most dramatic night at Westminster since the Labour government’s defeat on a confidence motion in 1979 is writing itself as a sequel to James Graham’s 2012 play This House about events forty years ago. Labour’s Tulip Siddiq, unwell, pregnant, wheelchair-bound, played a cameo role, parked next... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
The deal (Withdrawal Agreement) ‘would be an uncomfortable outcome for the European Union: providing quota-fee, tariff-free access to the EU market without any accompanying financial obligations; without any access to UK fishing waters in the absence of further agreement; and without any... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
With the politics of the process changing almost by the minute, Richard Parry assesses the ‘stable text’ of the Brexit agreement.
The final phase of negotiating action in recent days was when the EU27 started to push back against some aspects of the UK-wide solution on Ireland upon realising... Read more
Post type: Blog entry
