The UK Parliament
should reject the EU offer and send a team of hardliners back to Brussels to
demand immediate sovereignty. If the EU refuses, the UK Parliament should
announce UK independence from the EU and fight all lawsuits. If the UK has
trade deals lined up, the EU should release the UK.
EU seals
Brexit deal as May faces a hard sell at home, 11/25/18, By LORNE COOK, JILL LAWLESS, RAF CASERT,
Associated Press.
BRUSSELS — After months of hesitation, stop-and-start
negotiations and resignations, Britain and the European Union on Sunday finally
sealed an agreement governing the U.K.'s departure from the bloc next year. So
much for the easy part.
British Prime Minister Theresa May must now sell the deal to her
divided Parliament — a huge task considering the intense opposition from
pro-Brexit and pro-EU lawmakers alike — to ensure Britain can leave with a
minimum of upheaval on March 29.
It's a hard sell. The agreement leaves Britain outside the EU with
no say but still subject to its rules and the obligations of membership at
least until the end of 2020, possibly longer. Britons voted to leave in June
2016, largely over concerns about immigration and losing sovereignty to
Brussels.
EU leaders were quick to warn that no better offer is available.
"I am totally convinced this is the only deal possible,"
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said. "Those who think
that by rejecting the deal that they would have a better deal will be
disappointed the first seconds after the rejection."
For once, May was in complete agreement. "This is the deal
that is on the table," she said. "It is the best possible deal. It is
the only deal." Acknowledging the vast political and economic consequences
of Brexit, May promised lawmakers their say before Christmas and said that it
"will be one of the most significant votes that Parliament has held for
many years." She argued that Parliament has a duty "to deliver
Brexit" as voters have demanded.
"The British people don't want to spend any more time arguing
about Brexit," she said. "They want a good deal done that fulfils the
vote and allows us to come together again as a country."
Not all agree. Main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn
called the deal "the result of a miserable failure of negotiation that
leaves us with the worst of all worlds," and said his party would oppose
it. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party is
the third-largest in Parliament, said lawmakers "should reject it and back
a better alternative."
Pro-Brexit former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said May
should insist on new terms because the deal "has ceded too much
control" to Brussels.
On the EU side, the last big obstacle to a deal with Britain was
overcome Saturday when Spain lifted its objections over the disputed British
territory of Gibraltar.
So it took EU leaders only a matter of minutes at Sunday's summit
in Brussels to endorse the withdrawal agreement that settles Britain's divorce
bill, protects the rights of U.K. and EU citizens hit by Brexit and keeps the
Irish border open. They also backed a 26-page document laying out their aims
for relations after Brexit.
Still, the event was tinged with sadness on the European side at
Britain's departure, the first time a country will leave the 28-nation bloc. German
Chancellor Angela Merkel said her feelings were "ambivalent, with sadness,
but on the other hand, also some kind of relief that we made it to this
point."
"I think we managed to make a diplomatic piece of art,"
she said.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the deal — the product of a
year and a half of often- grueling negotiations — was regrettable but
acceptable. "I believe that nobody is winning. We are all losing because
of the U.K. leaving," Rutte said. "But given that context, this is a
balanced outcome with no political winners."
May said she wasn't sad, because Britain and the EU would remain
"friends and neighbors." "I recognize some European leaders are
sad at this moment, but also some people back at home in the U.K. will be sad at this
moment," she told reporters, but insisted that she was "full of
optimism" about Britain's future.
The European Parliament, meanwhile, will be in full campaign mode
a few months ahead of the EU elections when Europe's lawmakers sit to endorse
the agreement, probably in February, but perhaps as late as March, according to
the assembly's president, Antonio Tajani.
Still, Tajani said a "large majority" of European
parliamentarians support the deal.
Many predict it will fail in the British Parliament. No one can be
sure whether that would lead to the fall of the government, a new referendum, a
postponement of Brexit or a chaotic "no deal" exit for Britain.
But Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he thought May's
chances of getting the agreement through Parliament were strong. He said
British lawmakers would see that "the alternative is a no deal, cliff-edge
Brexit, which is something of course that we all want to avoid." "Any
other deal really only exists in people's imaginations," he added.
Associated Press writers Gregory Katz in London and Kirsten
Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.
See the AP's Brexit coverage at: https://www.apnews.com/Brexit
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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