UK lawmakers electing new speaker

Union rejects strike offer as UK election looms

LONDON, Nov 4, (Agencies): British lawmakers were electing a new House of Commons speaker on Monday to replace the influential but controversial John Bercow.

Bercow retired last week after a decade as speaker that saw him become a central player in Britain’s Brexit drama.

Like Bercow, the new speaker will run the daily business of the Commons, keeping lawmakers in line with robust cries of “Order!”

Some politicians, however, want to see a more cautious approach than that taken by Bercow, who prided himself on making the government answer to Parliament. The speaker is supposed to be an impartial arbiter of Parliament’s rules, but critics accused Bercow of favoring anti-Brexit politicians at the expense of those supporting Britain’s departure from the European Union.

He clashed with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, and strongly opposed Johnson’s attempt to suspend Parliament for five weeks as an Oct 31 Brexit deadline approached. The UK Supreme Court overturned Johnson’s shutdown.

With Parliament divided over the best way ahead, the EU has granted Britain an extension to its impending departure until Jan. 31.

There are seven contenders to succeed Bercow, including his three deputies – Lindsay Hoyle, Rosie Winterton and Eleanor Laing – and long-serving Labour lawmaker Harriet Harman. An eighth, Conservative legislator Shailesh Vara, dropped out of the race Monday morning, saying he did not have the numbers to win.

The candidates will each get five minutes to address legislators before Monday’s secret-ballot vote. If no candidate gets majority support, there will be rounds of voting, with the lowestplaced contender dropping out each time, until one candidate does have a majority.

The choice of a new speaker comes a day before Parliament is dissolved for a Dec 12 national election in which all 650 seats in the House of Commons are up for grabs. Johnson’s Conservatives are hoping to win a majority that could unblock Britain’s political deadlock and let Johnson fulfill his pledge to take Britain out of the EU.

The opposition left-of-center Labour Party is trying to shift the campaign’s focus from Brexit to domestic political issues such as schools, health care and Britain’s social inequities.

Voters

The centrist Liberal Democrats, who want to cancel Brexit, and the single-issue Brexit Party, which favors a no-deal exit from the bloc, are battling for British voters with strong views on whether the UK should quit the 28-nation EU.

In other news, Royal Mail said the Communications Workers Union (CWU) had rejected its offer aimed at avoiding strike action for the rest of the year, a move that could affect mail deliveries ahead of a general election in December.

Royal Mail wrote to the CWU to say that if the union provided a binding commitment to remove the threat of strike action for the rest of 2019, the company would enter into discussions without preconditions.

“The CWU has said it is not prepared to take up this offer made by Royal Mail,” a Royal Mail statement on Monday said.

The CWU did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its plans ahead of the election.

On Twitter, it said its strike ballot was called well before the election, and that if a previous coalition government led by the Conservatives “hadn’t forced the outrageous privatisation of Royal Mail we wouldn’t be here”.

The union said last month that its members voted by 97% in favour of a nationwide strike because the company had failed to adhere to a pension deal agreed last year.

An early general election is set for Dec 12 after Prime Minister Boris Johnson was unable to get his deal for Britain to leave the European Union through parliament by a deadline of Oct 31.

“In the event of industrial action in the run up to a General Election, election mail will be our number one priority. We will invest significant resource to seek to ensure a seamless process for the handling of postal election material,” Shane O’Riordain, Royal Mail managing director of regulation and corporate affairs, said.

Royal Mail volunteers would work on processing and delivering election mail, he added.

“A binding commitment from the CWU to remove the threat of strike action during the period of any general election is vital to ensuring a seamless electoral process in relation to postal votes,” O’Riordain said.

Royal Mail said it was meeting the CWU to discuss the union’s request for an increase in payments postal workers receive for delivering poll cards and mail sent by parliamentary candidates. The former British monopoly faces the threat of renationalisation from the opposition Labour Party, which plans to return utilities including National Grid and SSE , train companies and Royal Mail to public ownership.

Labour moved sharply to the left under its leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is hoping to exploit turmoil over Brexit to win power.

and proposing bloc-wide laws on a range of topics including the environment and migration.

Should Orban lose the vote, the country’s president would have to nominate a new premier, likely further delaying Romania’s pick for the Commission – jeopardising the timely approval of the entire new team.

Orban’s opposition Liberal Party spearheaded the no- confidence vote which led to the collapse of the Social Democrat government on Oct 10.

While Orban said late on Sunday he was confident his government would be approved, the vote yet might be postponed because the ousted Social Democrats and smaller Pro Romania grouping have said they will boycott the meeting.

Without them, not enough lawmakers would be present and the vote would have to be postponed until after a two-round presidential election on Nov 10 and Nov 24.

“We do not understand the PSD boycott,” Orban told reporters late on Sunday. “Despite it, I am confident that tomorrow we will give Romania a legitimate government.” The two-house parliament is due to start the debates at 1200 GMT, followed by the voting session.

Aides to Orban told Reuters on Tuesday he would name his country’s candidate for the Commision after the vote, if successful.

If Orban’s cabinet is not approved, some analysts expect President Klaus Iohannis and the outgoing Prime Minister Viorica Dancila to compromise on a Commission proposal.

“I would expect the two main political forces in Bucharest to try to reach a compromise on this issue in order not to damage the country’s image,” said Paul Ivan, a policy analyst in Brussels at the European Policy Centre (EPC).

“Blocking the rest of the EU is not a desirable position for Romania and Bucharest knows this.”

If approved, Orban’s cabinet would be in place until a parliamentary election next year but is likely to struggle to gain support from opposition lawmakers for its measures. (RTRS)