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The European Union Heads of Government, week ending 12 April, had good reason to throw the British out so they could get on with important business concerning their joint future.
As Lee Duffield reports, they took over, telling the United Kingdom to finally make a plan for leaving the EU and ruling on a timetable for that — to 31 October. … Read More »
The British parliament has voted to extend the deadline for seceding from Europe from Friday until mid-April – but has failed to vote for a consensus on what to do.
Lee Duffield says he stopped making a straw-poll of Australian observers after getting a very early consistency of comments: “silly pommie parliament”, “incompetent mob”, and so on.
In this up-date he says there is surprise and exasperation in Europe also. … Read More »
The British parliament has ended a week of big votes on leaving Europe with the battle lines more clear but still stuck in a stand-off.
Lee Duffield says the House of Commons has continued with a struggle to budge the Conservative Party Prime Minister Theresa May from the stand she has been taking.
He says it is a struggle also for journalists to make sense of the trouble, as he has worked through the details to get this explanation. … Read More »
The House of Commons has again on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected the Withdrawal Agreement for Britain to leave the European Union.
Lee Duffield writes that the vote came after a week of the usual confusion and bumble over so-called “Brexit”, which produced a revised agreement – in the end not revised-enough to satisfy hold-out MPs.
The vote was NO 391, YES 242.
Teresa May’s postponement of the show-down vote over leaving Europe, in the British parliament, has highlighted a full-scale conflict over ideologies and wills – and high risk for the country’s future.
Lee Duffield who has a long background reporting European affairs says walking out which looked simple has proved complicated and dangerous.
In the first of two articles he documents the agreement between the British government and European Union, and the fight over it which has paralysed politics in the United Kingdom. … Read More »
Debate in the British parliament over the Draft Agreement with Brussels, for Britain to leave the European Union, has produced above all fresh conflict, confusion and uncertainty.
In this second of two reports, Lee Duffield, a long-time specialist on European affairs, says British involvement with the EU has always been a love-hate liaison. … Read More »
It came to France, scene of the epic battles of the Great War (1914-18), to host the celebration of its centenary on 11 November.
Lee Duffield says it also fell to the French President, Emmanuel Macron, to post a reminder about the ideal of civilisation which the savagery of that war had jeopardised. … Read More »