Withdrawal Agreements gets the green light from EU27

Today in Brussels, the EU27 approved the Withdrawal Deal that is the result of 20 months of negotiations between the UK and the EU. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said it was a “sad day.” Theresa May said she was not sad, but “I recognise that some European leaders are sad at this moment.” Prior to the EU27 vote, the UK reassured Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez that future trade deals would not necessarily cover Gibraltar. Spain had threatened to vote against the agreement over the issue of Gibraltar, as it wants to open direct talks with the UK on joint sovereignty of the British overseas territory.

The Withdrawal Deal must now pass in the UK Parliament. Currently, Labour, the Lib Dems, the DUP and some Conservative MPs have said that they will oppose the Withdrawal Bill. The Prime Minister said that the deal “allows the country to move forward together into a brighter future” and that the British public “do not want to spend any more time arguing about Brexit.”

 

DUP hosts annual party conference in Belfast

The DUP held their annual conference  Crowne Plaza hotel in Belfast, with such notable guests as Boris Johnson and Philip Hammond. The party said it will review the confidence and supply agreement with the Conservative Party if the Withdrawal Bill is voted through Parliament. Boris Johnson’s speech criticised Theresa May’s plan and said that the Prime Minister has allowed Northern Ireland to be used as a “bargaining chip”—but also warned that a Jeremy Corbyn premiership would be disastrous. Some have argued his presence at the DUP conference was an appeal for the party to back him in a bid for No 10. (Somehow, Johnson’s speech also mentioned light sabres, bendy buses, the Titanic, Bond films and Van Morrison).

Gibraltar government minister Samantha Sacramento spoke to the conference, warning that Gibraltar would not be “bullied” by Madrid. Her remarks came before Theresa May offered assurances to Spain — and Chief Minister of Gibraltar Fabian Picardo publicly stated his support for May’s Withdrawal Agreement and his belief that it “works for Gibraltar.”

Notably, Arlene Foster apologised for the RHI scandal. “Today as leader of the party I apologise,” Foster said, “As a party we are deeply, deeply, sorry for the mistakes we made, and for the things we got wrong during that period. . . . I am determined our party will learn the lessons from RHI and how government business was conducted at Stormont more generally.”

 

The Serjeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons, in a more familiar role

UK Parliament collects internal Facebook documents (without their consent)

The UK Parliament seized internal Facebook documents after Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly refused summons to UK parliament. The chair of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee, Damian Collins, used a little-known parliamentary mechanism and sent a serjeant-at-arms to the London hotel of an American businessman. The individual, a founder of US software company Six4Three, had possession of internal Facebook documents that were subject to a San Mateo Superior Court order that restricted their disclosure. However, since the UK Parliament has jurisdiction in London, the businessman was informed that he risked fines and imprisonment if he did not comply and hand over the documents. Collins said that, despite the California court order, UK law and parliamentary privilege allow the committee to publish the documents as part of their inquiry if they choose to do so.

The documents allegedly show that Facebook was actively exploiting the loopholes in its privacy policy that allowed Cambridge Analytica to collect users personal data without their permissions, rather than simply being unaware of the privacy issue as the company previously claimed. This comes just after an explosive New York Times story about how Facebook hired an opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters and spread misinformation (and, most controversially, to attack Jewish philanthropist George Soros), and acknowledgment by the company that Facebook was used to perpetuate genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar.

 

Amber Rudd returns, dismisses UN report on poverty in the UK

Last week, UN rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston issued an excoriating report on the levels of poverty in the UK inflicted on people through austerity. He called austerity “not just a disgrace but a social calamity and an economic disaster.” The report said that poverty in the UK is “a political choice,” that austerity in the UK was in breach of four UN human rights agreements, that limits to benefits payments to first two children “was in the same ballpark as China’s one-child policy,” and called for the elimination of the five-week delay in receiving benefits under the universal credit system. Alston said that “it is obvious to anyone who opens their eyes to see the immense growth in food banks and the queues waiting outside them, the people sleeping rough in the streets, the growth of homelessness, the sense of deep despair that leads even the government to appoint a minister for suicide prevention and civil society to report in depth on unheard-of levels of loneliness and isolation.”  According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a fifth of the population of the UK live in poverty, and 1.5 million are destitute.

Amber Rudd, who resigned as Home Secretary following the Windrush scandal, had recently returned to cabinet as work and pensions secretary after Esther McVey resigned in protest over the Brexit deal. In her first appearance in Parliament, Rudd said, “I have seen the report by the rapporteur, I’ve read it over the weekend, and I must say I was disappointed to say the least by the extraordinary political nature of his language … We look forward to working with experts in the area, to make sure we get the right outcome for the people who we want to look after … We strongly disagree with the analysis.”

 

Protests in France turn violent

In the second weekend of demonstrations by the ‘yellow vest’ movement in France, protests on the Champs-Elysées turned violent after clashes with police. The protests center around rising fuel prices and highlight the economic divide in France, with rising taxes and living costs. The ‘yellow vests’, who call French President Emmanuel Macron the ‘President of the Rich’, see the rising fuel costs as the result of the Green initiatives that the wealthier, metropolitan elite have imposed on the country.

Police arrested 130 people and 24 people were injured, as protestors threw stones and lit fires and police used teargas and water cannons to disperse the crowds. French President Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating slipped to 26% on Wednesday (although some commentators have pointed out, for the French presidency, this is not that bad—François Hollande’s approval rating was once recorded at 4%).

Also published on Medium.