The Parties Manifesto Promises on Brexit and Devolved Government

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Parties Manifesto Promises on Brexit and Devolved Government The parties manifesto promises on Brexit and devolved government Colour indicates policy alignments Brexit Party Not ‘seeking election as a government’. Propose a ‘Contract with the People’. A ‘Clean-Break Brexit’: • ‘no extended ‘transition period’, • ‘no further entanglement with the EU’s controlling political institutions’. Conservative ‘Get Brexit Done’. ‘Keep the UK out of’: • the Single Market • any form of Customs Union • end the role of the ECJ No extension of the implementation period beyond December 2020. A trade agreement with the EU by December 2020. DUP ‘Want to see a sensible Brexit’ ‘No borders in the Irish Sea’. Do not consider the current deal in NI’s longer-term interests. Requirements for a revised deal are: • unfettered access from NI to GB market, • ‘one-nation approach’ to the customs and consent arrangements, and • ‘the principles of power-sharing ‘must be enshrined in any deal’. Would work to secure a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU. If no FTA, ‘the UK tariff schedule should ensure reciprocal tariffs are placed on all agri food products which are imported from the EU’. Would not support trade agreements that would allow goods that do not meet equivalent standards as required of NI farmers. Would also ‘place a much more sustainable Tariff Rate Quota and Tariff Rate on all imports from the rest of the world’. Green Party People’s Vote; ‘an immediate final say on the terms of any Brexit deal’. Remain as an option on the ballot paper. Would campaign for remain. Labour Rules out a no-deal Brexit. A ‘final say referendum’ on Labour’s new Brexit deal. Remain as an option on the ballot paper. Welsh Labour government would campaign to remain. A new Brexit deal 6 months post-election, to: • protect jobs, rights and the environment, • avoid a hard border in NI, • avoid a regulatory border down the Irish Sea, • protect the Good Friday Agreement, and • ensure no change in the status or sovereignty of Gibraltar. Labour’s new Brexit deal would also include: • a permanent and comprehensive UK-wide customs union, • close alignment with the Single Market, • dynamic alignment on workers’ rights, consumer rights and environmental protections, • continued participation in EU agencies and funding programmes, • clear commitments on future security arrangements, • a revised Withdrawal Agreement that provides legal protection for citizens’ rights, and • an appropriate transition period. Oppose a 2nd Scottish independence referendum. Liberal Democrats ‘Stop Brexit’ Revoke Article 50 and stay in the EU. A UK written, federal constitution. Home rule for each of the nations of a federal UK. Oppose a 2nd Scottish independence referendum. A permanent Scottish Parliament. National Assembly for Wales ‘to mature into a Welsh Parliament’. Plaid Cymru A ‘Final Say Referendum’ The ‘minimum’ needed to protect Wales’ economic interests, are membership of the: • EU Single Market, and • Customs Union. SNP Do not support the PM’s ‘Brexit deal’. Would support a 2nd referendum. Remain as an option on the ballot paper. Would support the revocation of Article 50, if it is the only alternative to a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Would always vote to protect Scotland’s place in the Single Market and Customs Union. Calls for an independence referendum; date to be set by the Scottish Parliament but wants it in 2020. Would campaign for the UK to remain aligned with EU environmental regulations. Is ‘willing to take part in a progressive alliance to lock the Tories out of office’. A ‘clean-break exit from the EU ‘complete and total withdrawal’. UKIP Do not support the current Brexit deal. Want to ‘take back full and immediate control of sovereignty, laws, money, borders, trade and fishing waters on 31st January 2020’. Do not support a ‘regulatory or customs border down the Irish Sea’. Supports a FTA with the EU with on terms: • tariff-free trade in goods and services, and • regulatory independence. If no FTA, support trade with the EU on WTO terms. womblebonddickinson.com © Copyright 2019 Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP. All rights reserved. Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority..
Recommended publications
  • It Could Get Much Worse Once Brexit Is Done!
    It could get much worse once Brexit is done! By Dr. Steven McCabe, Associate Professor, Institute of Design and Economic Acceleration (IDEA) and Senior Fellow, Centre for Brexit Studies, Birmingham City University The current general election may be about Brexit. However, it is probably one of the most important since the second world war. It will undoubtedly have a profound influence on the way in which British society develops over not just the period until the next national vote, whenever that may be (depending on whether there is a majority for any party), but future generations. In any ‘normal’ general election, we’d be assumed to be voting on the basis of the range of promises made in the manifestos of political parties standing. Though each of the parties have floated a number of commitments, the one big question that still dominates debate is what approach they will take to the way in which the United Kingdom (UK) will, or will not, leave the European Union (EU). Assuming the opinion polls are correct, always dangerous, we cannot expect Jo Swinson’s LibDem Party to win enough seats to form a government. Accordingly, the notion that after 12th December the revocation of Article 50 which, following a majority vote by Parliament in March 2017, triggered the process for the UK’s departure from the EU, should be seen as utterly bizarre. Though surprises do happen, this would be off the scale of what is credible. Opinion polls suggest that Labour will probably not win a majority. Though, of course, the polls were wrong in the last election in 2017, Labour winning sufficient seats to form a majority government seems a stretch for the imagination.
    [Show full text]
  • Attitudes to Infrastructure in Brexit Britain
    Attitudes to infrastructure in Brexit Britain What do leave voters want from the government’s infrastructure revolution? Foreword The UK is going through a moment of change. But this leaves a number of questions: The election result indicated an ushering in of a new era. Austerity is making way for a post-Brexit • How is government going to use country where nations, regions, constituencies infrastructure to show that Brexit can make a and voters outside London and the South East real difference to people’s lives? play a greater role in political discourse. • What kind of infrastructure do people At no point in a generation have communities who voted to leave want? The vote across the UK played such a central role in leave demographic is one of the biggest government direction. constituencies and holds enormous power in the UK, having dominated the last election. The 2019 election debate was dominated by What does this group really want? Brexit and infrastructure, and how transformative forces can deliver change in seemingly forgotten • How is infrastructure going to address their parts of the UK. concerns and how should the industry build support amongst this demographic? People who voted to leave the EU in 2016 did so partly because of frustration with Europe, but also • What does the confluence of Brexit and in response to the sense that communities have infrastructure tell us about the UK in the been left behind. 2020s? Government now wants to take action and the In this report, we set out to consider these public is expecting to see results.
    [Show full text]
  • Article the Empire Strikes Back: Brexit, the Irish Peace Process, and The
    ARTICLE THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: BREXIT, THE IRISH PEACE PROCESS, AND THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW Kieran McEvoy, Anna Bryson, & Amanda Kramer* I. INTRODUCTION ..........................................................610 II. BREXIT, EMPIRE NOSTALGIA, AND THE PEACE PROCESS .......................................................................615 III. ANGLO-IRISH RELATIONS AND THE EUROPEAN UNION ...........................................................................624 IV. THE EU AND THE NORTHERN IRELAND PEACE PROCESS .......................................................................633 V. BREXIT, POLITICAL RELATIONSHIPS AND IDENTITY POLITICS IN NORTHERN IRELAND ....637 VI. BREXIT AND THE “MAINSTREAMING” OF IRISH REUNIFICATION .........................................................643 VII. BREXIT, POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND THE GOVERNANCE OF SECURITY ..................................646 VIII. CONCLUSION: BREXIT AND THE LIMITATIONS OF LAW ...............................................................................657 * The Authors are respectively Professor of Law and Transitional Justice, Senior Lecturer and Lecturer in Law, Queens University Belfast. We would like to acknowledge the comments and advice of a number of colleagues including Colin Harvey, Brian Gormally, Daniel Holder, Rory O’Connell, Gordon Anthony, John Morison, and Chris McCrudden. We would like to thank Alina Utrata, Kevin Hearty, Ashleigh McFeeters, and Órlaith McEvoy for their research assistance. As is detailed below, we would also like to thank the Economic
    [Show full text]
  • Alastair Campbell
    Alastair Campbell Adviser, People’s Vote campaign 2017 – 2019 Downing Street Director of Communications 2000 – 2003 Number 10 Press Secretary 1997– 2000 5 March 2021 This interview may contain some language that readers may find offensive. New Labour and the European Union UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE): Going back to New Labour, when did immigration first start to impinge in your mind as a potential problem when it came to public opinion? Alastair Campbell (AC): I think it has always been an issue. At the first election in 1997, we actually did do stuff on immigration. But I can remember Margaret McDonagh, who was a pretty big fish in the Labour Party then, raising it often. She is one of those people who does not just do politics in theory, in an office, but who lives policy. She is out on the ground every weekend, she is knocking on doors, she is talking to people. I remember her taking me aside once and saying, ‘Listen, this immigration thing is getting bigger and bigger. It is a real problem’. That would have been somewhere between election one (1997) and election two (2001), I would say. Politics and government are often about very difficult competing pressures. So, on the one hand, we were trying to show business that we were serious about business and that we could be trusted on the economy. One of the messages that business was giving us the whole time was that Page 1/31 there were labour shortages, skill shortages, and we were going to need more immigrants to come in and do the job.
    [Show full text]
  • ENG304 the Rise of the Novel
    Easier Said than Done: The Brexit Saga from the Perspective of Northern Ireland Jan Jędrzejewski University of Ulster Lille, 23 January 2020 Britain in the EU: a brief timeline • 1973 – Britain joins the EEC during the premiership of the Conservative PM Edward Heath • 1975 – a referendum organised by Harold Wilson’s Labour government confirms Britain’s membership • 1985 – the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher ratifies the Single European Act • 1992 – the Conservative government of John Major ratifies the Maastricht Treaty Euroscepticism in Britain • early Labour opposition to joining the EEC • 1983 – Michael Foot’s Labour electoral campaign including a pledge to leave • increasing scepticism towards political unification in the Conservative Party • 1991 – the UK Independence Party founded by Alan Sked • 1994 – the Referendum Party founded by Sir James Goldsmith • 2010s – increasing support for UKIP under the leadership of Nigel Farage (from 2006) In the run-up to the referendum • increasingly strong presence of the Eurosceptic lobby within the Conservative party from the late 1980s onwards • pro-European Conservative PM David Cameron under increasing pressure from within the party, and from UKIP, to promise a referendum on Europe in his 2015 electoral campaign • Cameron’s 2015 victory and subsequent renegotiation of terms of Britain’s membership • date for the referendum set for 23 June 2016 23 June 2016 referendum campaign (1) • formal party support for Remain: Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens, Scottish Nationalists, Plaid
    [Show full text]
  • Brexit: What Are the Lessons?
    Brexit: What are the lessons? Frank Vibert* London School of Economics The political setting In June 2016 the electorate in the United Kingdom voted in favour of leaving the EU where the UK had been a member since 1973.Turnout was high (over 70%) but the margin was small (52% for leave and 48% for remain). The vote in favour of leaving ushered in a period of great instability in British politics, unprecedented since the end of the Second World War. It lasted until December 2019 when the Conservative party won a general election under a new Prime Minister (Boris Johnson) providing it with a decisive parliamentary majority that has enabled it to pass the Withdrawal Agreement. The UK is now no longer a member of the EU. During this same period, the EU itself has been under strain for reasons in addition to the UK’s exit. There has been a lack of agreement on the appropriate fiscal policy stance across countries belonging to the Eurozone. The construction of a more resilient single currency is seen as “unfinished businesses”. In addition, a number of member * Associate researcher at the Center for Risk Analysis and Regulation (carr) at the London School of Economics. Member of the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society at Wolfson College. Oxford. The author is grateful to professor Thierry Madies, University of Fribourg, for comments on an early draft, Temas de coyuntura and to John Madeley, Research Associate, Dept. of Government, London School of Economics. 705 states in Eastern Europe are seen to be in breach of the 1993 Copenhagen criteria relating to the requirement for member states to adhere to demo- cratic values, human rights and the rule of law.
    [Show full text]
  • Conservative Manifesto
    Get Brexit Done Unleash Britain’s Potential The Conservative and Unionist Party Manifesto 2019 My Guarantee If there is a majority of Conservative MPs on December 13th, I guarantee I will get our new deal through Parliament. We will get Brexit done in January and unleash the potential of our whole country. I guarantee: • Extra funding for the NHS, with 50,000 more nurses and 50 million more GP surgery appointments a year. • 20,000 more police and tougher sentencing for criminals. • An Australian-style points-based system to control immigration. • Millions more invested every week in science, schools, apprenticeships and infrastructure while controlling debt. • Reaching Net Zero by 2050 with investment in clean energy solutions and green infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and pollution. • We will not raise the rate of income tax, VAT or National Insurance. If Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP team up and take control on December 13th, we will have two referendums on Brexit and Scotland in 2020. Please support a majority Conservative Government so our country can move on instead of going backwards. 2 Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 2 Get Brexit Done ......................................................................................................................... 5 We Will Focus On Your Priorities ................................................................9 We Will Unleash Britain’s Potential ....................................................25 We Will Strengthen Britain In The World ................................. 51 We Will Put You First ......................................................................................................59 The Conservative and Unionist Party Manifesto 2019 Introduction For the last three and a half years, this country has felt trapped, like a lion in a cage. We have all shared the same frustration – like some super-green supercar blocked in the traffic.
    [Show full text]
  • Brexit: the Manifestos Uncovered Brexit: the Manifestos Uncovered
    Brexit: the manifestos uncovered Brexit: the manifestos uncovered Foreword This is, according to several of the parties and at least one national broadcaster, a Brexit election. Assuming this is wholly – or even partially (as even Labour accept in their manifesto) – true, what the parties are saying about Brexit is therefore of crucial importance. This report represents our attempt to identify what they say, to compare the different pledges the parties make and to explain in straightforward terms what each of them is offering on Brexit. Our aim, simply stated, is to promote understanding so people can make up their own minds. Once again, we have been fortunate enough to be able to draw on the expertise of some of the country’s leading social scientists. Catherine Barnard, Matt Bevington, Charlotte Burns, Katy Hayward, Nicola McEwen, Jonathan Portes, Jill Rutter and Dan Wincott all contributed to this report. Alan Wager and John-Paul Salter edited the text. My grateful thanks to them all. I hope you find what follows enlightening and informative. Election campaigns produce endless amounts of heat. We have attempted in what follows to shed at least a little light. Professor Anand Menon, Director, The UK in a Changing Europe 3 December 2019 The UK in a Changing Europe is an impartial and independent organisation created to make the findings of academic research easily available to the widest possible audience. Credit in alphabetical order for images, as follows: Boris Johnson: Foreign and Commonwealth Office Boris Johnson: Eroactiv istockmax.co.uk images: all other images Jeremy Corbyn: Chatham House, Creative Commons © Jonathan Mitchell | Dreamstime.com ID 77222057 Nicola Sturgeon Jo Swinson: Shutterstock MPs in Parliament: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor Contents 4 Introduction 5 The Brexit process 9 The UK-EU relationship 13 Migration 15 Brexit, the economy and the public finances Annex 18 Fiscal impacts methodology 19 Summary table: What the Manifestos pledge on Brexit Introduction Manifestos are to elections as crackers are to Christmas.
    [Show full text]
  • Brexit Timeline: Events by Nigel Walker
    BRIEFING PAPER Number 7960, 24 January 2020 Brexit timeline: events By Nigel Walker leading to the UK’s exit from the European Union Contents: 1. Events leading up to the EU Referendum on 23 June 2016 2. Referendum – General Election 3. General Election – close of Phase 1 4. Close of Phase 1 – EU (Withdrawal) Act becomes law 5. EU (Withdrawal) Act becomes law – the ‘Meaningful Vote’ 6. The ‘Meaningful Vote’ – Boris Johnson becomes PM 7. Boris Johnson becomes PM – present (24 January 2020) 8. Future timetable www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library | [email protected] | @commonslibrary 2 Brexit timeline: events leading to the UK’s exit from the European Union Contents Summary 3 1. Events leading up to the EU Referendum on 23 June 2016 4 2. Referendum – General Election 6 3. General Election – close of Phase 1 16 4. Close of Phase 1 – EU (Withdrawal) Act becomes law 24 5. EU (Withdrawal) Act becomes law – the ‘Meaningful Vote’ 31 6. The ‘Meaningful Vote’ – Boris Johnson becomes PM 42 7. Boris Johnson becomes PM – present (24 January 2020) 62 8. Future timetable 75 3 Commons Library Briefing, 24 January 2020 Summary In a referendum held on 23 June 2016, the majority of those who voted chose to leave the European Union. On 29 March 2017, in writing to European Council President Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister formally triggered Article 50 and began the two-year countdown to the UK formally leaving the EU (commonly known as ‘Brexit’). The UK had long been expected to leave the European Union at 11pm on 29 March 2019.
    [Show full text]
  • Brexit: Where Do We Go from Here? February 2020
    BREXIT: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? FEBRUARY 2020 The UK general election which took place on 12 December 2019 was a pivotal moment in the long-running Brexit saga. Boris Johnson's primary objective in calling the election (or, more to the point, given the parliamentary super-majority required to call an early general election, managing to prevail on the other political parties to agree to one) was to break the parliamentary stalemate on Brexit. His rallying cry of "Get Brexit done" plainly resonated with the electorate, and the Conservative Party was returned with a resounding 80-seat majority. Before the election, Boris Johnson had been attempting to force Brexit through parliament with a wafer-thin majority, and then with a minority government once he had withdrawn the Conservative whip from those MPs who had voted in favour of delaying Brexit until 31 January 2020, rather than face a no-deal departure on 31 October 20201. Once the scale of his parliamentary majority became clear, obtaining parliamentary approval for the revised Withdrawal Agreement which Boris Johnson had negotiated with the EU in October 2019, and of passing the legislation to embed the Withdrawal Agreement into UK domestic legislation, became a foregone conclusion. Demonstrating the scale of Boris Johnson's victory, the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill passed through parliament without a single amendment (the House of Lords proposed five separate amendments, but these were all rejected by the House of Commons) on its way to becoming the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 20202. As part of the parliamentary stages of creating the new Act, the House of Commons voted to undertake the Committee stage and Third Reading stage of the bill in three days, a move described by the Hansard Society as "an extraordinarily reduced amount of scrutiny for a bill of the WAB's complexity and constitutional importance", and which reflects the speed and flexibly with which many parliamentary events can take place when a government commands a significant House of Commons majority.
    [Show full text]
  • WHY ARE WE ALWAYS INDOORS? (...Unless We’Re Off to Barnard Castle)
    PAUL ARMSTRONG PAUL PAUL ARMSTRONG ALWAYS INDOORS? ALWAYS WHY ARE WE ARE WHY OR EW D R BY FO DICK CLEMENT WHY ARE WE ALWAYS INDOORS? (...unless we’re off to Barnard Castle) Contents Author’s Note 9 Foreword by Dick Clement 11 Week One Saturday, 14 March 2020 14 Sunday, 15 March 2020 20 Monday, 16 March 2020 25 Tuesday, 17 March 2020 39 Wednesday, 18 March 2020 47 Thursday, 19 March 2020 56 Friday, 20 March 2020 66 Week Two Saturday, 21 March 2020 78 Sunday, 22 March 2020 87 Monday, 23 March 2020 96 Tuesday, 24 March 2020 102 Wednesday, 25 March 2020 113 Thursday, 26 March 2020 118 Friday, 27 March 2020 126 Week Three Saturday, 28 March 2020 132 Sunday, 29 March 2020 140 Monday, 30 March 2020 150 Tuesday, 31 March 2020 156 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 168 Thursday, 2 April 2020 171 Friday, 3 April 2020 177 Week Four Saturday, 4 April 2020 184 Sunday, 5 April 2020 192 Monday, 6 April 2020 198 Tuesday, 7 April 2020 203 Wednesday, 8 April 2020 209 Thursday, 9 April 2020 217 Good Friday, 10 April 2020 222 Week Five Easter Saturday, 11 April 2020 228 Easter Sunday, 12 April 2020 232 Easter Monday, April 13 2020 237 Tuesday, 14 April 2020 243 Wednesday, 15 April 2020 247 Thursday, 16 April 2020 252 Friday, 17 April 2020 259 Week Six Saturday, 18 April 2020 266 Sunday, 19 April 2020 271 Monday, 20 April 2020 277 Tuesday, 21 April 2020 284 Wednesday, 22 April 2020 288 Thursday, 23 April 2020 294 Friday, 24 April 2020 299 Week Seven Saturday, 25 April 2020 308 Sunday, 26 April 2020 312 Monday, 27 April 2020 318 Tuesday, 28 April 2020 323 Wednesday, 29
    [Show full text]
  • Brexit Interview: James Schneider
    James Schneider Co-founder of Momentum Spokesperson & Head of Strategic Communications, Office of the Leader of the Opposition. October 2016 – January 2020 11 January 2021 The referendum UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE): How engaged was Momentum with the referendum campaign in 2016? James Schneider (JS): Initially, we didn’t have a position on the referendum and weren’t doing anything, but myself and some others thought that was a completely unsustainable position. We suspected that the overwhelming bulk of our members and supporters would want us to campaign for Remain. So, we conducted an internal poll and found that this was the case, with around 80% wanting us to campaign for Remain, and used that as our reasoning with the Steering Committee to shift into campaigning for Remain. Then, very quickly, we began working with Another Europe is Possible, who moved into Momentum’s offices. We worked together closely on canvassing, we did some stunts, and had some involvement with the disastrous ‘Battle of the Thames’. I wasn’t on a boat. I was on a bridge, but others were on boats. It was quite a bad moment. When there’s Bob Geldof giving two fingers to fishermen, it’’s like that Mitchell and Webb sketch where they ask: ‘Are we the baddies?’ Is Bob Geldof and a bunch of poshos on his big boat, telling fishermen to get fucked, really good? No, probably not. It was quite a bad day and felt like we were losing. Then the next day Jo Cox was killed. Page 1/33 UKICE: Did you have any other reservations about the way Labour approached the whole referendum campaign? JS: I thought the main Labour campaign – the Alan Johnson, Hilary Benn one – was very limp, and quite establishment, and, therefore not terribly effective.
    [Show full text]