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UK General Election 2017 Aftermath
Topic Started: Jun 9 2017, 02:20 PM (66 Views)
Webster
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BBC News: May to form 'government of certainty' with DUP backing
Quote:
 
Theresa May has said she will put together a government with the support of the Democratic Unionists to guide the UK through crucial Brexit talks.

Speaking after visiting Buckingham Palace, she said only her party had the "legitimacy" to govern, despite falling eight seats short of a majority. Later, she said she "obviously wanted a different result" and was "sorry" for colleagues who lost their seats.

But Labour said they were the "real winners". The Lib Dems said Mrs May should be "ashamed" of carrying on.

The Tories needed 326 seats to win another majority but, with 649 out of the 650 seats declared, they fell short and must rely on the DUP to continue to rule.

In a short statement outside Downing Street after an audience with the Queen, Mrs May said she would join with her DUP "friends" to "get to work" on Brexit. Referring to the "strong relationship" she had with the DUP but giving little detail of how their arrangement might work, she said she intended to form a government which could "provide certainty and lead Britain forward at this critical time for our country".

"Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many years," she said. "And this gives me the confidence to believe that we will be able to work together in the interests of the whole United Kingdom."

It is thought Mrs May will seek some kind of informal arrangement with the DUP that could see it "lend" its support to the Tories on a vote-by-vote basis, known as "confidence and supply".
-Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-40219030
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Bradley refuses to say she wants May to lead Tories into next election
--Karen Bradley, the culture secretary, is on Ridge on Sunday now. Sophy Ridge asks how she feels doing a deal with a party that does not approve of abortion or gay rights. Bradley says she does not agree with the DUP on these things. But they are free vote issues, she says.

Q: You promised us strong and stable government. But we have got the opposite.
Bradley says everyone knew this was a gamble. It is not the result people wanted.

Q: Do you think Theresa May can fight the next election?
Bradley says she supports May. But she says that will be a matter for five years’ time.

**Bradley refuses to say she wants May to lead the Tories into the next election.

Q: How is May coping? She looks like a broken woman.
Bradley says she will find this very hard. She will find it “very deeply affecting” that colleagues have lost their seats. But she says she is a strong woman, and very resilient.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Lord Heseltine, the Conservative former deputy prime minister, told Pienaar’s Politics that Theresa May will never fight another election as Tory leader. Asked how long she would stay as leader, he replied: No one knows. She will never fight another election as leader of the Conservative party, that is for sure. The important thing is how we determine that the leader who takes her place and above all the policy that is going to stop Corbyn gaining power in No 10 Downing Street.

He also said he thought Brexit could be stopped. Asked if he accepted it had to happen, he replied: No I don’t accept it. I think one of the instabilities of the present situation is the parliamentary nightmare of trying to get the legislation through in a situation where self-evidently the House of Lords and the House of Commons are going to be a problem.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, is being interviewed on Peston on Sunday.

Q: You cannot say no deal is better than a bad deal now, because that would lead to a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, which the DUP would not accept.
Grayling says the UK and Ireland have had a common travel area, going back long before the UK joined the EU.

Q: But the border issue goes beyond that.
Grayling says all sides want a sensible deal on Ireland.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) SNP says full details of Tory/DUP deal must be published
--The SNP is demanding the publication of full details of the “confidence and supply” agreement the Tories are negotiating with the DUP. Referring to the confusion last night over whether or not there was an agreement, Deidre Brock, the SNP’s Northern Ireland spokesman, said: It is an absolute shambles that the Tories claimed to have struck a formal deal with the DUP, only to now admit that no such deal was in place. Theresa May’s government is in absolute chaos.

If the Tories do agree a confidence and supply arrangement, the public will have little confidence in it. We must have absolute transparency over what agreements will be reached for the supply of DUP votes.

It would be nothing short of scandalous if the Tory party jeopardised the return of government in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday process in order to cling on to power at Westminster.

At the same time there are very real questions to be asked over any suggestion that equal rights for LGBTI people or women’s rights could be diminished in any part of the UK by this deal. The PM’s private reassurances are worthless given her track record of U-turns and her clear desperation to cling to power.

SNP MPs will always work with other parties in support of progressive policies across the UK and we will demand full scrutiny and transparency over any confidence and supply arrangement.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) McCluskey says without Labour MPs opposing him Corbyn would have become prime minister
--Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary and one of Jeremy Corbyn’s most powerful allies in the Labour party, is on Pienaar’s Politics now.

Q: You never thought Corbyn would do this well, did you?
McCluskey says Corbyn was treated appallingly by the media, including by the BBC. He says he was worried what impact this would have. But he hoped people would listen to Corbyn’s ideas. He says that one of the key qualities in a leader is the ability to inspire. And Corbyn has done that, he says.

He says Corbyn is “a prime minister in waiting”.

**McCluskey says Corbyn is “a prime minister in waiting”.

He says a “cabal of rightwing Labour MPs and grandees” deliberately tried to subvert the will of the Labour party. If only the unity that applies now had been there all along, Corbyn would be in Downing Street, he says.

**McCluskey says Corbyn would have become prime minister if it were not for the Labour MPs attacking him.

On the same programme, Tim Montgomerie, the pro-Tory journalist and ConservativeHome founder, says he covered Donald Trump’s election. He says the fact that Trump did not have the support of the Republican establishment helped him, and he suggests Corbyn also benefited from not having the backing of the Labour establishment.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP who was defeated for the Labour leadership by Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, is on Ridge on Sunday.

Q: Would you take a job in the shadow cabinet if offered one?
Cooper says it is up to Corbyn to decide who is in his shadow cabinet. She says he asked her to chair the refugee taskforce last year. She did that, and they got the Dubbs amendment accepted.

Q: But would you take a job?
Cooper says it would be presumptuous to assume she will be offered one.

Cooper says she thinks Theresa May’s position is untenable. She says she does not think May has the personal skills to cope with a minority government.

Q: So why should Corbyn stay, if he did worse?
Cooper says Corbyn did better than expected. She says May said the election was a choice between a coalition of chaos and strong and stable leadership. But it’s Labour that has ended up with strong and stable leadership, and the Tories that are offering a coalition of chaos, she says.

Q: Have the critics of Jeremy Corbyn lost the argument now?
Cooper says there is “broad consensus” behind the manifesto. People have accepted Corbyn’s views on policy, she suggests. But she says the leader has also had to accept Labour’s support for Trident.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) The ConservativeHome website has declared that Theresa May needs to be replaced before the next general election. Paul Goodman, the ConHome editor, says so in a lengthy post that gives a good insight into the turmoil in the Conservative party.

Here’s an extract.

May won the biggest Tory share of the vote since Margaret Thatcher, but the landslide she anticipated did not take place. Voters seem to have mulled her refusal to level with them over social care, her reluctance to debate, her lack of ease with campaigning and engagement – and, having weighed her in the balance, found her wanting. It is not certain that she has the flexibility and adaptability to share power with her cabinet and party and parliament, as she must now do to survive.

It is all very well to take refuge behind fixed terms plus hope in the DUP. David Cameron had a majority, and his government was crippled by rebellions. May was at mercy of the Commons even before the election: remember the budget and national insurance? Conservative MPs may not yet have grasped that we face the possibility of five years of a Do Nothing Government – with all that this implies for the proper management of the country’s finances. On paper, such an administration may be able to stagger on – at the mercy of tide and chance, with a party leader vulnerable at any moment to a leadership challenge via letters to Graham Brady. But in practice?

Finally, and perhaps most balefully, a handful of Tory dissidents may seek to sink the deal with the DUP: Ruth Davidson is unhappy about it, and she counts for quite a bit. We have no easy answers. Nor does anyone else. We must perhaps wait until the new parliament meets before the next act in this drama unfolds. But whatever it may bring, Tory MPs cannot pretend that May can lead them into the next election. They don’t believe it. Nor do our readers. Nor now, reluctantly, do we.

-Read more: http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2017/06/conservative-mps-do-not-believe-that-may-can-lead-them-into-the-next-election-nor-reluctantly-are-we.html
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Charlie Flanagan, the Irish foreign minister, told Peston on Sunday earlier that a Conservative/DUP deal would “not necessarily” undermine the Northern Ireland peace process.

People including Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff, and Peter Hain, the Labour former Northern Ireland secretary, have said a Tory/DUP deal would be a problem because, under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, the UK government is supposed to be a neutral arbiter between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland.

Flanagan conceded that this was a concern, but he said this was not necessarily an insurmountable problem. Asked if a deal would undermine Westminster’s impartiality, he replied: Well, not necessarily the case. Of course, it remains to be seen what the nature of that deal is. But this is an issue I did address the evening before last with secretary of state James Brokenshire.

I look forward to meeting with him again tomorrow if his appointment is reaffirmed, but yes I think it’s an important issue that you raise – the objectivity of both governments, and both governments working strictly in accordance with our legal responsibilities under the Belfast agreement, the Irish government as co-guarantor, indeed the British government as co-guarantor.
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Webster
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--3 qs on DUP deal. What effect on: 1 - NI peace/UK Gov neutrality? 2 - equal rights? 3 - getting Brexit deal/Irish Gov reaction/open border? (Tom Tugendhat, Conservative MP for Tonbridge, Edenbridge and Malling - 11 June 2017)
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Thornberry accuses May of 'squatting' in Downing Street
--Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, told Ridge on Sunday earlier that Labour was ready for a move into power. Theresa May was “squatting” in Downing Street, she said.

We’ve got Theresa May squatting in Downing Street, we’ve got a full rebellion going on in the Conservative party, we’ve got no idea as to what’s going to be in this Queen’s speech. They have a manifesto that’s been completely been repudiated by the public and indeed by Tory MPs themselves, and no idea what the DUP will agree to or not.

“Squatting” in Downing Street was the allegation levied against Gordon Brown immediately after the 2010 general election, when he refused to resign the day after the general election, despite losing. But May’s situation is different. She won the most seats; Brown didn’t, and within days he did quit, to make way for the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.
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Webster
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--Conservatives always put national interest first - vital the PM is given strong support for key Queen's Speech and Brexit talks (Michael Gove, Conservative MP for Surrey - 11 June 2017)
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(The Guardian) Former Northern Ireland secretary says May's Tory/DUP pact would be 'morally reprehensible'
--Shaun Woodward, the former Labour Northern Ireland secretary, has just told BBC News that nationalists in Northern Ireland will never see the Westminster government as neutral if the Conservative government strikes a deal with the DUP. If Theresa May did broker this deal, she would be putting at risk the prospect of restoring power-sharing at Stormont, he said. He said this would put the peace process at risk and that what May was doing was “morally reprehensible”.
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(The Guardian) In Northern Ireland, local focus is on the urgent need to restore power-sharing at Stormont. Talks resume on Monday, but local politicians are saying James Brokenshire, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, or his nominee can no longer be seen as an “impartial” chairman.

Nichola Mallon, the SDLP member of the Northern Ireland assembly, said the pact between the DUP and the Conservative party was “very serious” and said the “first task” in talks tomorrow was to agree “an impartial chair”.

This is not the first time the issue has arisen but she said it was now critical to have an independent person running the talks to ensure they don’t run into the sand. She told the BBC’s Sunday Politics Northern Ireland: How can you have a secretary of state sitting at the table as an honest broker when they are actually in an understanding, or an arrangement … with one of the parties round the table while also having the duty and responsibility of being the co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement.

She was responding to a recent assertion by the Irish minister for foreign affairs, Charlie Flanagan, that objectivity of both the British and Irish governments, guarantors of the GFA, was key. He told ITVs Peston on Sunday that Theresa May’s desire to team up with the DUP did “not necessarily” undermine the Northern Ireland peace process. (See 11.53am.)

However, local politicians say the chairing of talks by Brokenshire could jeopardise the deadline for an agreement within three weeks.

Stephen Farry, an Alliance member of the assembly, told the BBC that Brokenshire cannot be seen as impartial and said this was “a massive problem” for resuming power sharing, which collapsed in January. He said: The Conservative secretary of state and the UK government will have one hand tied behind the back. If they push the DUP on anything, or say something that will annoy the DUP, the DUP will pull the plug [on power sharing]. He [Brokenshire] cannot be objective in this particular context any longer.

Farry added that the Conservatives did not need “a cosy deal with the DUP” to run a minority government and could seek deals “across the spectrum on different issues as they come along”.

The DUP did not put forward a spokesman for the show.
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(The Guardian) SNP hints plan for second independence referendum may be shelved
--Mike Russell, the Scottish government’s chief Brexit negotiator, has hinted Nicola Sturgeon is likely to take a second independence referendum off the table to prioritise agreeing a comprehensive position on Brexit. Interviewed on the Scottish edition of BBC Sunday Politics, Russell said: First of all we need some stability; people everywhere are crying out for some stability. We’ve had from the Tories over the last 12 months nothing but chaos and instability.

Pressed on whether the Scottish National party, which lost 21 seats and nearly half a million votes in last week’s general election, should heed the 62% of voters who backed anti-independence parties on Thursday, Russell indicated that Sturgeon would do so.

We won this election but of course we will reflect on it. I’m not going to say any more this morning but of course we will reflect on it. The first minister said so absolutely immediately. To some extent everything is off the table in the sense that Brexit has to be sorted now and it has to be sorted or start to be sorted this week. So that’s the urgent priority to do.

Calling on Theresa May to stand down as prime minister, Russell said the urgency was compounded by the fact that Brexit talks with the EU were due to open in eight days. That meant the UK government had only days to agree a common position with the devolved administrations on what the UK position should be.

Russell welcomed a change of tack from Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, in favour of a softer Brexit that prioritised open trade and the single market. The UK government should now consider joining the European Free Trade Association or European economic area, which includes single market membership.

Hinting again at compromise with Labour and the Lib Dems over the constitutional debate, he said: I think there’s potential for a progressive alliance in the House of Commons still, and I’m sure the SNP would like to see that. But we need to sit down this week, I will go tomorrow if I’m asked, and look at the Brexit situation.
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Webster
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--Spoke w PM May -indicated my concern that nothing should happen to put GoodFridayAgrmt at risk & absence of nationalist voice in Westminster (Enda Kenny, Prime Minister of Ireland - 11 June 2017)

--Reshuffle expected to begin around 2pm. But given last 72 hours who knows (Steve Hawkes, The Sun - 11 June 2017)
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