Chequers plan is dead, says Tusk as Macron calls Brexiters liars

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: The Guardian

Donald Tusk, the European council president, has ratcheted up the pressure on Theresa May by rejecting the Chequers plan and warning of a breakdown in the Brexit talks unless she delivers a solution for the Irish border by October – a deadline the British prime minister had already said she will not be able to meet.

The stark threat to unravel the talks came as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, broke with diplomatic niceties and accused those of backing Brexit of being liars. “Those who explain that we can easily live without Europe, that everything is going to be all right, and that it’s going to bring a lot of money home are liars,” he said.
“It’s even more true since they left the day after so as not to have to deal with it.”

The comments came at the end of a leaders’ summit in Salzburg, where May had appealed for the EU to compromise to avoid a no-deal scenario. She had been hoping to take warm words over Chequers into Conservative party conference.

Tusk, who moments before his comments had a short meeting with the prime minister, told reporters that he also wanted to wrap up successful talks in a special summit in mid-November.



Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/20/donald-tusk-demands-answer-to-irish-border-question-next-month

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This is a disaster for May - she was hoping to get EU leaders to be more sympathetic to her position than the EU negotiator Michel Barnier, but they seem even more opposed. Guardian live thread, and Twitter reactions from journalists:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit statement, issued this statement after the summit.

It has been clear for weeks that Theresa May’s Chequers’ proposals cannot deliver the comprehensive plan we need to protect jobs, the economy and avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland.

With just weeks to go until a deal must be struck, the prime minister cannot keep ignoring this reality. She needs to urgently drop her reckless red lines and put forward a credible plan for Brexit.

...
Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, issued this statement at the end of the summit. On Brexit he said:

Progress has been made, but we’re still far from done. The negotiators must push ahead and look for common ground. This includes on the withdrawal agreement itself – where the discussion on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is still a sticking point – and on the political declaration on the nature of the UK and EU’s future relationship.

The UK’s white paper on exiting the EU and our future relationship is a positive development. But much remains to be done. The challenge ahead of us will be to reach an as ambitious an agreement as possible without infringing the conditions set by the EU, including the integrity of the single market. It’s in everyone’s interest that we reach an agreement and that we avoid a no-deal Brexit. [Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator] has our full backing in that regard.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/sep/20/salzburg-eu-summit-brexit-theresa-may-polite-doing-her-job-eu-chiefs-non-committal-verdict-on-mays-brexit-appeal-at-salzburg-politics-live

[lagomorph777]

1. Is that any connection to the "Checkers Speech?"

[Canoe52]

4. My first thought was Checkers the dog also

[Javaman]

2. the brexit halfwittery is the stalking horse that will fuck England

and possible the worlds economy.

once this goes down and a deal is not agreed to with Europe, England will, in short order, start resembling itself from the 1980's

[lark]

5. PUtin is dancing for joy - his plan is working spectacularly,

He's destroying Britain's economy through Brexit (which he funded) and Americas ideals, laws & economy through his orange puppet. In less than 2 years, he's raised the deficit 2 trillion dollars, raised racial tensions & assaults by 300%, has 30% of the country believing pure lies & disbelieving science, kidnaps, cages & tortures thousands of children, destroying belief in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, has several criminals running for office as the repug rep., kissed up to PUtin on live tv, said he believed him over our intelligence services and showed what a weak puling fool he truly is.

[denvine]

6. Well said!

[Thyla]

3. Well Macron is not wrong.

Neither was de Gaulle.

[LiberalLovinLug]

7. Why does May insist on not holding a re-vote?

Considering the Russian interference. Backed up by the poison murders. She has more than enough to warrant it. I'm sure a more well aware Britain, at least enough of them, would re-consider their vote next time.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. She'd get sacked by her own party.

Too many of them are fanatical Brexiteers for them to give up the chance of getting out of the EU. A lot of them think a hard Brexit with no ties at all to the EU is the best outcome imaginable.

And the extreme Brexiteer voters would riot. I'm not kidding; I've had one insist (even after I point out the absurdity) that holding another vote would be the biggest threat to the country there's been in history. Literally, he said, worse than Hitler.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

9. Makes total sense. Just like "Obamacare" was worse than slavery...... See people?

We don't have a monopoly on abject stupidity!

[suffragette]

10. What is the "Tory conference" referenced in the first tweet?

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. UK political parties have conferences every year, around now

The Tory one is due in a couple of weeks. It's the most likely time for any attempt to topple her (each party has different ways of getting rid of a leader, and I'm not sure of all the possible ways the Tories can do it at the moment).

[suffragette]

12. Thanks for your response. That's very interesting, indeed. So if say, Boris were to try a power move

that would be the time he would do it.

[T_i_B]

14. Whilst I still think Johnson or Rees-Mogg might be a loony too far...

....grassroots Tories are fanatical Brexshitters and would more than likely elect somebody like Michael Gove or Liam Fox as the next Conservative leader.

Theresa May is the worst Prime Minister since Lord North, and yet there are many worse alternatives right now. And the Conservative Party is very capable of electing them. I dread to think what would have happened if Andrea Leadsom hadn't pulled out of the last Tory leadership contest.

[T_i_B]

13. Like everything else related to this subject in UK politics....

....the Chequers plan wasn't at all realistic and was never going to be accepted by the people the British government are negotiating with.

Mind you, a very major part of the British governments failures over this subject is the inability of the Tory cabinet to agree to any sort of plan. Something akin to Chequers (but reality based) should have been thrashed out before they triggered article 50 in the first place. Even when they did produce the Chequers plan (too little too late) it's been rejected by the hardcore ERG group fruitcake MP's on the government benches such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, which puts the government with it's tiny majority in an incredibly weak position to negotiate anything with the EU.

[GulfCoast66]

15. England is well and Truly Fucked.

If they go ahead with this Scotland will proceed to a revote on independence. Hell, maybe even Wales.

And they were depending on closer ties with the US! That means Trump who the people there hate and know is not trustworthy. And should we win the Presidency in 2020, which I am not as sanguine about as most members here, they will have a very pro-EU President.

Rock meets hard place.