Brexit thread - rest of April/May/June/July... until something new happens

Not at all.

The European Commission is selected by the Council, i.e. the heads of government of each country. Every country will get one commissioner but not all are equally important. There are 5 key posts, the most important being the Commission President.

The Council will propose the President and Parliament will vote on this. Next the Council will fill all the other posts in the Commission, and Parliament will approve or reject this as a single body.

The negotiations on who gets what currently happening is between member states, not political blocks in Parliament.

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Whilst that is all true, @TheWZA is right that the source of the conflict is that the EPP believes its candidate should get the Presidency because it won the most seats (as happened with Juncker), while the socialists, greens and liberals think it’s high time someone else got a turn, especially as the EPP lost seats.

The EPP shot itself in the foot by choosing Weber as its lead candidate, imo. If it had chosen Stubb or Barnier their would probably have been less resistance from member states.

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That sounds very much like calling the shots to me. As in final say (rather than a direct role in the actual negotiation).

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There is a second source of conflict in that a bloc of East European countries want (and have been promised) one of the 5 top positions, but refuse to approve (centre-left) Timmermans as the Commission President due to his harsh criticism in the past of some of these East European countries.

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Just realised I’d genuinely forgotten about Brexit until 10 seconds ago.

The latest proposal for the 5 top posts is rumoured to be:

  • Commission President - Ursula von der Leyen (Germany, centre-right)
  • Central Bank - Christine Lagarde (France, centre-right)
  • Council President - Charles Michel (Belgium, liberal)
  • Foreign Policy - Josep Borrell (Spain, centre-left)
  • Parliament President - Sergei Stanishev (Bulgaria, centre-left)
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tfw people nominate a convicted criminal to manage a central brank.

Some interesting takeaways from the International Trade Committee meeting today

https://twitter.com/CommonsIntTrade/status/1146344431899070465

@ AngusMacNeilSNP asks @ LiamFox to respond to the news that Canada is refusing to roll over its EU trade agreement for the UK. He responds that the Canadian position has been caused by mixed messages from @ UKParliament and the perceived benefits of zero tariffs if no deal.

@ nigelmp asks whether Article 24 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) could be used to continue trading with the # EU in the case of # NoDeal . @ LiamFox responds that the idea of invoking Article 24 unilaterally is not credible.

@ LiamFox tells the Committee that a trade continuity deal with the EU in the case of no deal depends on the political willingness of the EU entering into such agreement - and that this willingness isn’t present.

I guarantee this won’t stop Boris banging on about Article 24 though.

Does anyone else think that Liam Fox has suddenly started sounding like he’s read up a bit on trade agreements recently?

I think he’s picked up on the fact since that both candidates for PM seem genuinely willing to consider a no-deal scenario he might need to get up to speed with trade agreements quicker than he thought.

Is there a July Brexity thread or we sticking with this one?

“In those circumstances, I want to make it clear that Labour would campaign for Remain against either no deal or a Tory deal that does not protect the economy and jobs.”

I thought he’d said pretty much the same before?

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I think he did. But the BBC have deemed this worthy of their main headline. :man_shrugging:

Tbf tLabour sent an email out to all members today making it sound like a big shift in policy and you’ve got the likes of Owen Jones making a point of making it known they’re shifting from reluctantly supporting soft Brexit to fully supporting a second referendum. I think now the unions have voted on a policy this is Labour’s big pitch to win back the remainers who have lost faith in them.

2nd half of the ‘agreed policy’ is more interesting:

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1148274041456930816

Don’t think I’d want to be a middling MP explaining that to their constituents during election time. Or a lacklustre Shadow Minister explaining it on TV.

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So they could end up backing their deal in a confirmatory referendum, to support leaving the EU (if they think they’ve nailed the deal), instead of remaining?

OR actively campaigning against the deal they will have invested a lot of effort in agreeing with the EU?

Oh well, the GE is almost certainly not gonna happen so not worth thinking about this too much I guess.

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That’s quite interesting… We’ll hold a referendum in which we may oppose ourselves :smiley:

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brexit is fucking stupid, eh

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Think a more charitable reading is it allows flexibility in their messaging in different parts of the country during an election. Written down at time of writing it does look like typical design by committee fudge mind, but I don’t know how they could’ve completely avoided that in fairness.