It was either ignorant or irresponsible for those campaigning for Brexit two years ago to claim that the Irish border would not be a problem. In fact, it may lead to a catastrophic ‘no deal’ Brexit in which the United Kingdom crashes out of the EU without an agreement of any kind.
The European Court of Justice will be asked if the UK can unilaterally stop Brexit after the UK Government was refused an appeal by Scotland’s highest court. The Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled in September to refer the question of whether the UK can unilaterally revoke its Article 50 request to leave the European Union to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) after a case brought by a cross-party group of politicians.
Theresa May has told the British Cabinet that she will not agree a withdrawal deal with the EU “at any cost”. The Prime Minister said any agreement will be dependent on an “acceptable” framework for future relations in areas like trade and security, expected to be covered in a separate political declaration.
Leaving the European Union without a deal would be “absurd” and the whole process of Brexit can still be stopped, Tony Blair has claimed. The former prime minister said the British people should be given the chance to vote again on whether to remain in the EU because otherwise they faced either a “pointless” or a “painful” version of Brexit.
A deal on the Irish border to break the Brexit deadlock is not close, the EU’s chief negotiator said on Tuesday. Michel Barnier was speaking as Theresa May briefed the Cabinet on her plans to achieve a breakthrough in time to secure a special Brexit summit to seal an agreement in November.
Pro-Brexit campaign group Leave.EU and an insurance company owned by its founder Aaron Banks face total fines of £135,000 over breaches of data laws. It follows an Information Commissioner investigation into the misuse of personal data by political campaigns.
Senior British ministers have agreed they want to reach a Brexit deal with the EU by the end of November, sources say. Everyone saw the difficulties of leaving it longer, a senior cabinet source told the BBC. Meanwhile, the BBC has seen a detailed suggested timetable of how the government could try to sell a deal to MPs and the public.
Irish premier Leo Varadkar has told Theresa May that he will not accept a Brexit deal which gives the UK the unilateral power to halt “backstop” arrangements for the border with Northern Ireland. In a phone conversation with the Taoiseach, Mrs. May said that any agreement would have to include a mechanism to bring an end to the backstop – designed to ensure there is no hard border in Ireland if the UK and EU fail to reach a broader trade deal.
Members of Parliament have been urged to back another Brexit referendum by 1,400 of the UK's top lawyers. They have written to Prime Minister Theresa May to say that Parliament should not be bound by the 2016 vote. “Democratic government is not frozen in time,” the letter said.
The United Kingdom and the European Union have made progress on a deal to give London’s dominant financial center basic access to EU markets after Brexit, two British officials said, but no agreement has yet been clinched.