EU chief warns new Brexit delay might be ‘necessary’

Watson slams Labour

BRUSSELS, Dec 29, (AP): The European Union and Britain will struggle to seal an agreement on trade and other aspects of their future ties after Brexit next year and should consider extending the negotiations beyond 2020, a top EU official said in an interview published Friday.

The UK is scheduled to leave the EU on Jan 31. If it does, it will be the first time a country leaves the world’s biggest trading bloc. Negotiations between the remaining members and the British government on future trade, fisheries, education and transport relations can only begin after that date and must conclude by the end of 2020.

“I am very concerned about how little time we have,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the French business newspaper Les Echos. “It seems to me that, on both sides, we should seriously consider whether the negotiations are feasible in such a short time.”

“I think it would be reasonable to take stock in the middle of the year and if necessary, agree on an extension to the transition period,” von der Leyen said.

As the leader of the executive commission, von der Leyen heads the EU institution responsible for Brexit talks and negotiating trade deals on behalf of member countries.

Such trade pacts routinely take years to complete, and businesses fear that the UK could face a new “nodeal” Brexit scenario at the start of 2021 if questions about whether tariff-free trade with the country’s biggest trading partner remain unanswered.

But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has insisted he would not agree to any delays. Johnson who won a solid parliamentary majority in an election earlier this month, which helped him push a Brexit withdrawal deal through the lower house of Parliament,

Johnson

‘UK’s Labour Party brutal, hostile’:

The former deputy leader of Britain’s Labour Party says he left politics in part because of the nasty mood inside the left-wing party, which was soundly defeated in a national election earlier this month.

Tom Watson told the Guardian newspaper in an interview published Saturday that he found the atmosphere inside the party unbearable.

“The point is that the brutality and hostility is real and it’s day to day,” Watson said of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Labour’s response to anti-Semitism blamed:

A group of politicians from Britain’s opposition Labour Party have called for “fundamental change” within their party’s leadership.

The comments follow a parliamentary election earlier this month that gave Labour its worst election defeat since 1935 and made pro-Brexit Prime Minister Boris Johnson the most electorally successful leader of the Conservative Party since Margaret Thatcher.

In a letter that was published in The Observer newspaper on Sunday, the 11-strong group of former Labour legislators and candidates called for an “unflinching” review of the party’s failed campaign.