MPs get another 11 days off
First we failed to leave EU on March 29, then Westminster took the whole of Easter off... now it’s holiday time again
MPs have been handed another 11-day break – despite their failure to solve the Brexit crisis. Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom yesterday announced the dates for the Whitsun recess, which will run from May 24 to June 3.
After the EU agreed a six-month delay to Brexit last month, European Council president Donald Tusk pleaded with Britain: ‘Please do not waste this time.’ But MPs are now due to have four recess periods lasting 83 days over this time.
Mr Tusk was yesterday asked if he believed the UK was wasting time as he attended a meeting of the leaders of the other 27 EU states in Romania. He said: ‘It’s a good question.’
The Whitsun recess will come only a month after MPs returned to Parliament following their 11- day Easter break. The break will mean MPs will not be in Westminster in the aftermath of the European elections on May 23.
This could give Theresa May protection against efforts to oust her if the Conservatives perform as badly as expected. Mrs Leadsom yesterday told MPs the Commons would rise again later this month ‘subject to the progress of business’.
she added: ‘It is the Government’s intention to seek crossparty agreement to get a Bill that the whole House can support.
‘It is absolutely essential that we leave the European Union, and it is utterly unacceptable that we have not done so three years after the referendum.
‘I say to all honourable members who are worried about the impact on businesses and on people going about their everyday lives that if they support the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, we can put such issues to rest and get on with the important matters that our constituents are concerned about.’
Jeremy Corbyn yesterday claimed a second referendum on Brexit could be a healing process for a divided country. Launching Labour’s European elections campaign, he called on voters to abandon Leave and Remain labels to stop the Brexit debate becoming an ‘endless loop’. He claimed that a ‘People’s Vote’ could be good for the country, insisting: ‘I would want that to be seen as a healing process and bring this whole process to a conclusion.’
speaking in Chatham, Kent, he said Labour would never accept the Government’s ‘bad deal’ or a ‘disastrous’ No Deal.
Labour sources warned last night that cross-party Brexit talks are doomed to failure. No 10 yesterday said Theresa May was hoping to bring forward legislation to take the UK out of the EU within the next fortnight – if agreement can be reached with Labour.
But Opposition sources said the talks, which have been running for more than a month, had almost no chance of success.
MP Andrew Murrison has been appointed to a ministerial role in the Foreign Office by Theresa May. As part of the minor reshuffle, Robert Buckland moves from solicitor
general to a minister of state role at the Ministry of Justice. Lucy Frazer, formerly a junior minister at the MoJ, replaces Mr Buckland. Paul Maynard, previously a Government whip, replaces Miss Frazer.
Former defence secretary Gavin Williamson, who was sacked for allegedly leaking from the National Security Council, posted a picture of himself yeserday having lunch with Chancellor George Osborne. He wrote: ‘The upside of not being in government is more time to catch up with old friends.’
A MONTH ago, after making Theresa May grovel, EU chiefs agreed to a six-month Brexit delay, warning: ‘Do not waste time.’ How did our MPs (who begged for the extension) react? By awarding themselves a holiday. Now, with the impasse still unbroken, they’ve arranged another. What a pathetic shower! For their failure to deliver Brexit, the Tories will get a hiding from angry voters in the European elections.
Instead of retreating to the beach, the party’s MPs must hit the doorsteps to drum up support. It’s a tough task. But away from Brexit, the Tories have an excellent story to tell. Employment is at a record high, joblessness is at its lowest level since the 1970s and wages are strong. Why does nobody bellow this from the rooftops?
Meanwhile, public debate has coarsened. The Lib Dems have called their manifesto ‘B******s to Brexit’. It shouldn’t induce a fit of the vapours, but do we really need foul expletives on campaign literature?
And a Jewish Brexit Party candidate, whose father survived the Holocaust, had a 30ft swastika sprayed on his business HQ.
Jeremy Corbyn, the anti-Semites’ friend, yesterday bemoaned the ‘ toxicity’ in modern politics. So why, we wonder, hasn’t he condemned this vile Jew-hating attack?