Showing posts with label referendum. Show all posts

Friday, May 24, 2019

ANALYSIS: Race to replace May leaves Brexit in limbo

Date created : 25/05/2019 - 08:15 GMT/ZULU

With Theresa May politically fading away, contenders to succeed her as Britain's prime minister start lining up while the risk of crashing out of the EU rises AFP

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by Emily Straton and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts

Contenders to succeed Theresa May as Britain's prime minister prepared to launch their leadership campaigns on Saturday, leaving Brexit shrouded in uncertainty.

A tearful May announced her resignation on Friday, leaving the Brexit process for exiting the European Union in limbo and raising the risk of Britain crashing out of the bloc in a few months.

May's statement inevitably triggered the starting gun on a two-month contest to replace her.

May will step down as Conservative leader on June 7 but stay on as prime minister until party members have chosen her successor, which will happen by July 20.

Britain's EU departure date is currently fixed for October 31, although any new leader could ask for a further delay.

Conservative Party leadership contests are typically bloodthirsty affairs, with plot twists and betrayals.

Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is the bookmakers' odds-on favourite, ahead of former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab.

Both have embraced the prospect of a no-deal Brexit.

But whoever takes over from May will like her face the same razor-thin majority in parliament, an EU with no intention of changing the divorce offer that MPs have rejected three times, and proponents both for and against Brexit who will never compromise.

Main opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said whoever wins the contest should call an immediate general election.

That too would be a risky move, with the newly-formed, single-issue Brexit Party set to triumph in the European Parliament elections when the results become clear on Monday.

- Waiting in the wings -

Raab as well as Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Environment Secretary Michael Gove all held off from throwing their hats in the ring on Friday, but are widely expected to stand.

The next prime minister of the UK, a country of more than 66 million people, will be decided by the 100,000 or so paid-up members of the Conservative Party.

After Johnson and Raab, the next most likely winners are Gove, Hunt and former Commons leader Andrea Leadsom, bookmakers say.

They are followed by International Development Secretary Rory Stewart, Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt and Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

So far, only Johnson, Stewart and former pensions minister Esther McVey have declared their intention to stand.

"There's a lot of runners and riders in this particular race," Tony Travers, a politics professor at the London School of Economics university, told us at France24.

Johnson "would certainly be the party membership's choice but not necessarily members of parliament", he added.

With the House of Commons' arithmetic unchanged, "the question is, could a new prime minister go back to the EU 27 and get a different deal that would be more attractive to parliament," Travers said.

A snap YouGov poll of 2,200 adults on Friday found 67 percent thought May had made the right choice in standing down.

At the same time May told her local party branch that she would stay on in parliament and remain a MP.

Labour MP Chris Bryant, calling for a second Brexit referendum, said the new prime minister could not go for a no-deal Brexit.

"If they opt for confrontation, they will suffer Mrs May's fate, but in a matter of months and weeks, not years," he said.

- Deep regret -

In an emotional address outside her Downing Street Office on Friday, May ended a dramatic three-year tenure of near-constant crisis over Brexit.

May, who took charge in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum, was forced out following a Conservative mutiny over her ill-fated strategy to end Britain's near five-decade membership of the EU.

"It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit," said May.

"I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold.

"I do so with no ill-will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love," she said, her voice breaking and close to tears.

May was hastily pushed into the humiliating spectacle after a meeting with the Conservative Party's committee chief in charge of leadership elections.

Her fourth bid to get MPs to agree to her EU divorce deal, this time with changes seeking to woo the opposition, went too far for many key cabinet members and her last remaining authority had all but evaporated.

With her resignation, the manner of Britain's withdrawal from the EU appears more ambiguous than ever.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

ANALYSIS: Oh **UK! What next for Brexit?

A country in chaos
by Emily Straton and Biodun Iginla, The Economist Intelligence Unit News Analysts, London

Britain’s political crisis has reached new depths. Parliament must seize the initiative

Print edition | Leaders

Mar 14th 2019

When historians come to write the tale of Britain’s attempts to leave the European Union, this week may be seen as the moment the country finally grasped the mess it was in. In the campaign, Leavers had promised voters that Brexit would be easy because Britain “holds all the cards”. This week Parliament was so scornful of the exit deal that Theresa May had spent two years negotiating and renegotiating in Brussels that mps threw it out for a second time, by 149 votes—the fourth-biggest government defeat in modern parliamentary history. The next day mps rejected what had once been her back-up plan of simply walking out without a deal. The prime minister has lost control. On Wednesday four cabinet ministers failed to back her in a crucial vote. Both main parties, long divided over Brexit, are seeing their factions splintering into ever-angrier sub-factions. And all this just two weeks before exit day.

Even by the chaotic standards of the three years since the referendum, the country is lost (see article). Mrs May boasted this week of “send[ing] a message to the whole world about the sort of country the United Kingdom will be”. She is not wrong: it is a laughing-stock. An unflappable place supposedly built on compromise and a stiff upper lip is consumed by accusations of treachery and betrayal. Yet the demolition of her plan offers Britain a chance to rethink its misguided approach to leaving the eu. Mrs May has made the worst of a bad job. This week’s chaos gives the country a shot at coming up with something better.

Monday, November 5, 2018

Analysis: Close New Caledonia independence vote raises questions for France

05 November 2018 - 17H40 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts, NOUMEA. Elodie Bagnol was on assignment in NOUMEA for France24.

NOUMEA -

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe flew into New Caledonia on Monday hailing the Pacific territory's rejection of independence -- but the closer-than-expected referendum raises questions over France's grip on the strategic islands.

Final results show 56.7 percent voted to stay French in Sunday's closely watched referendum on the archipelago, which sits on a quarter of the world's known supplies of nickel, a vital electronics component.

The result was much tighter than the 63 to 75 "no" vote polls had predicted, prompting questions over support for France in one of its overseas territories dotted around the globe.

Geopolitical expert Pierre-Christophe Pantz said the results would "force the anti-separatists to look at their notes again".

"It's clear that we can't talk about things with a 43 percent vote (for independence) in the same way that we would if it was 30 percent," he said.

The pro-France campaign focused on the 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) Paris pours into local coffers every year, while some pointed to the need to balance rising Chinese ambitions in the Pacific.

Philippe, who arrived from Vietnam for talks with both sides in the independence debate, nonetheless hailed the vote as "a true democratic success" which saw communities discuss the issue "without tearing themselves apart".

French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed "immense pride" in the result, calling it "a sign of confidence in the French republic, in its future and its values".

Supporters of independence for the islands, fringed by stunning beaches, are mostly ethnic Kanaks, but they make up less than half of the population of 269,000 people.

White residents -- descendants of early European settlers as well as more recent arrivals -- overwhelmingly want to stay French, joined by other Pacific minorities.

The referendum was the culmination of a 1998 peace deal which followed a quasi-civil war between Kanaks and whites that left more than 70 dead in the 1980s.

The "Noumea deal" has also paved the way for the islands to become increasingly autonomous, with wide areas of policy under the control of local authorities.

Crucially for separatists, the deal allows for two further votes on independence before 2022 -- meaning, they insist, that they could still achieve their dream of splitting from France.

- Eyeing a second vote already -

On Sunday, pro-independence leaders vowed to "go all the way" in pushing for a new referendum.

Patrick Jean, a former law professor and expert on the 1998 deal, predicted that "positions are going to harden" on both sides.

"I wish Emmanuel Macron and Edouard Philippe the best of luck in trying to convince the FLNKS (the Kanak Liberation Front) to give up on the idea of further referenda ahead of the May 2019 elections," he said.

Those elections will see New Caledonia vote for new members of its local Congress.

Pro-independence factions currently hold 25 of the 54 seats, but just a third -- 18 votes -- are needed to trigger a new referendum on independence.

Philippe invited all political factions to Paris in December for talks with the government, "to collectively draw conclusions from the referendum".

Turnout reached 80.63 percent in Sunday's vote, the highest ever seen in the territory.

But analysts point out that the Kanak vote, while high, was weakened by the fact that one pro-independence faction urged voters to abstain rather than take part in a "joke" referendum.

In the eastern islands, where Kanaks form a large majority, voter turnout was 20 points below the overall turnout.

"The separatists are even more determined than before to seek a second and third referendum," said separatist congressman Louis Mapou.

"We'll start getting the bride ready tomorrow -- she'll be even more beautiful in 2020."