Pelosi’s warnings on Brexit and Irish peace pact trigger tense talks with British - Washington Post

DUBLIN — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s warnings about Brexit, the Irish peace pact and implications for U.S. trade with Britain have triggered some tense talks in private meetings between a congressional delegation and British conservatives seeking an exit from the European Union.

In an address to the Irish Parliament on Wednesday, Pelosi reiterated that Congress will block any U.S. trade pact if Britain’s divorce from the European Union undermines the 1998 Northern Ireland accord that ended 30 years of deadly conflict.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) had delivered the same message to British leaders during meetings in London earlier this week.

“We must ensure that nothing happens in Brexit discussions that imperils the Good Friday accord, including, but not limited to the seamless border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland,” Pelosi said in a speech to mark the lower house’s centenary. “Let me be clear: if the Brexit deal undermines the Good Friday Accords, there will be no chance of a U.S.-U.K. trade agreement.”

Pelosi’s tough words led to a “frank exchange of views” Tuesday between the U.S. lawmakers and members of the European Research Group, the pro-Brexit members of the British Parliament, said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.).

“It’s good to have discussions between people with honestly held opinions,” Boyle told The Washington Post on Wednesday. “There might have been one or two in the ERG who were extremely passionate and there might have been a few strong disagreements. It was a good, honest exchange, but there was no yelling or screaming.”

A report in the Irish Times had characterized the encounter as “forceful and at times heated,” prompting the ERG leader, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, to suggest there were a few “snowflakes” in the meeting.

“It seemed to me courteous and amiable,” Rees-Mogg said of the session in a statement to The Post.

He added: “It is also wrong to say the ERG members were in any way displeased with the lunch. It was, in its way, flattering that American politicians should take such an interest in our affairs.”

Boyle laughed when asked about Rees-Mogg labeling members of the congressional delegation “snowflakes.”

“Look, Speaker Pelosi is one of the toughest people I know and nobody could accuse her of being a snowflake,” Boyle said.

[Pelosi warns there will be no U.S.-U.K. trade deal if Brexit harms the Irish peace accord]

During the trip, Pelosi also met Irish President Michael Higgins and the two discussed opportunities for “deepening the long and enduring friendships” between Ireland and the United States, the future of European integration, Brexit and the Good Friday accord, according to a spokesman for the president.

In her speech to Parliament, Pelosi expressed support for Ireland’s membership on the U.N. Security Council, which has five permanent members, including the United States and the United Kingdom, and 10 nonpermanent members elected for two-year terms.

“You were an early pioneer on nuclear nonproliferation — sponsoring a vital resolution at the U.N. in 1961 to oppose the spread of nuclear arms. Early leaders, visionaries,” Pelosi said. “You have continued to take the lead on peace, in the global peacekeeping and humanitarian missions that are filled with and led by Irish men and women.”

The Democrat said that during the congressional visit, the lawmakers have heard “excellent arguments” about Ireland being a member of the Security Council.

“From the roots of heritage and history, a modern Ireland has blossomed,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi also praised the country for producing “some of the greatest writers of poetry and prose the English language has ever known,” such as William Butler Yeats, James Joyce and Seamus Heaney.

“And in modern times, another purveyors of the word from Ireland — Bono and U2 — one of Ireland’s most beloved exports and whose music and mission,” Pelosi said before realizing that Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, were in the visitors’ gallery listening to her speech.

“Oh, there you are,” she said as she burst out in laughter.

Pelosi said the rock band’s “music and mission of advocacy stirs the spirit of the world while embracing the pride of [the] Irish.”

Pelosi said she has probably attended more U2 concerts than any other member of Congress. She blew a kiss to Bono.

Michael is a freelance journalist in Dublin.

Read more at PowerPost

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2019-04-17 20:13:46Z
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Dr Robert Bailey: Body found in Alps search for British GP - BBC News

A body has been found in the search for a British GP who went missing after a hike in the French Alps.

Robert Bailey, 63, worked at a practice in Peterborough, but had not been seen since he went out walking in Les Houches, near Chamonix, on 22 March.

It has not been confirmed when the body was discovered, but the Mirror Online reports it was found on Tuesday.

The Foreign Office said it was "supporting the family of a British man who has died in France".

Dr Bailey had been hiking in an area at the foot of France's highest peak, Mont Blanc, which lies on the border with Switzerland and Italy, and is popular with skiers and climbers.

He was a senior partner at Minster Medical Practice in Princes Street, Peterborough, and was the clinical lead for end-of-life care at the Peterborough & Cambridgeshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

Dr Gary Howsam, clinical chair of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG, said: "Our thoughts are with Dr Bailey's friends and family at this sad time as well as his colleagues and patients.

"Rob was a well loved and respected GP and all those who worked with him will miss him deeply."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "Our staff are supporting the family of a British man who has died in France, and are in contact with the French authorities.

"They have our sympathy at this deeply difficult time."

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2019-04-17 13:59:15Z
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The Human Wedge in a Fracturing Conservative Party - The New York Times

LONDON — Red-faced and almost vibrating with anger, Mark Francois rose from the green leather benches of the House of Commons after his fellow lawmakers had voted to delay Brexit, torpedoing his dream of a no-deal plunge out of the European Union.

“Forgive them, father,” he boomed, “for they know not what they do.”

Mr. Francois, until recently an obscure backbench lawmaker, has emerged as the id of the increasingly embattled and discredited hard-line Brexiteers in Parliament, an emblem of the wedge that has lodged itself in the heart of Britain’s Conservative Party.

He embodies the anti-Europe, working-class ethos that Prime Minister Theresa May once hoped would cement the Conservatives’ hold on power in the era of Brexit. Now, divisions over Europe look more likely to splinter the party, as it undergoes an epic falling out amid plunging poll numbers.

Arch-Brexiteers in Parliament are imploring Mrs. May to resign next month and are discussing a change in party rules to let them kick her out. Local Conservative leaders are promising to boycott upcoming European election campaigns. And a former cabinet minister defected over the weekend to a pro-Europe party because he said the Conservatives were being captured by “an English nationalist outlook.”

“This is now a rupture within the fabric of the Conservative Party,” said Alan Wager, a research associate at The U.K. in a Changing Europe, a research organization.

Even onetime allies of the anti-Europe absolutists in Parliament now blame them for what could turn into a generational slump in support for Conservatives. And no one currently speaks more loudly for them than Mr. Francois.

“It’s morphing from a battle between Leave versus Remain into a battle between the people and the establishment,” Mr. Francois said in an interview last week in his Westminster office, where a life-size target from a military firing range stood in the corner. “And the people increasingly just want to get out of Europe, and the establishment want to keep us in.”

With Britain’s divorce from the European Union knocked back until as late as October, some fear that Brexit — at least the complete break that the self-described “Spartans” in Parliament champion — may inexorably be slipping away. Lawmakers generally concede that Parliament would sooner reverse Brexit than let Britain crash out of Europe without a deal.

That has so dispirited some Brexiteers that they say they have given up on leaving the European Union at all. But it has also set the stage for the hardest of the hard-core pro-Brexit lawmakers, like Mr. Francois, to mount a high-profile campaign against what they describe as months of subterfuge by pro-Europe elements in Mrs. May’s office, the Civil Service and the news media, among others.

The anti-elite message is catching on among voters. More people are spurning the Conservative Party, turning instead to the far-right U.K. Independence Party or the single-issue Brexit Party, which together are pulling in more support than the Conservatives in polls for the coming European elections.

Image

Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain leaving a European Council meeting on Brexit last week in Brussels.CreditKenzo Tribouillard/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Things are looking just as dire on the domestic front. One projection showed the Conservatives would lose enough Parliamentary seats in a general election that the opposition Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, would become prime minister.

All this has left Brexiteers like Mr. Francois looking increasingly lonely, and searching for new ways — like threatening to muck up the European Union’s business — to achieve a no-deal exit.

A voluble 53-year-old who once served in the volunteer reserve force of the British Army, Mr. Francois resembles perhaps better than any other politician the boomer generation of pro-Brexit voters now stewing with anger over the delay.

He has stood outside Parliament and ripped up a letter from a German aerospace executive warning about the effects of Brexit. In the interview, he harked back to the wartime imagery that has become a touchstone for Brexiteers, saying of his father, a World War II veteran: “He never submitted to bullying by any German. Neither will his son.”

And he drew acclaim from Brexiteers and ridicule from left-wing journalists for getting into a staring match with a novelist on television over accusations of racism among Leave voters after the two of them squabbled offscreen about Mr. Francois’s manliness.

In recent weeks, seeing their Brexit dreams slipping away, even hard-liners like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson have expressed support for Mrs. May’s thrice-rejected Brexit plan. Not so Mr. Francois, who has spared no insult for the deal, describing it as “rancid” and “wretched,” and saying he would still refuse to vote for it “if they put a shotgun in my mouth.”

That has resonated in his constituency, about 35 miles east of London, where voters chose overwhelmingly to leave Europe in the 2016 referendum.

“He’s an Essex boy,” said John Hayter, a retired lawyer from the area who won almost a quarter of the vote as a candidate from the U.K. Independence Party in 2015. “He talks like an Essex boy.”

But Mr. Francois’s narrative of the people versus the elites has alarmed analysts who worry that the attacks on lawmakers and members of the Civil Service are doing long-term damage to British institutions.

Analysts say ideas about seeking consensus and drawing on a common set of facts are losing currency in Britain.

“A lot of people will buy into this ‘We were betrayed’ narrative, which will only become stronger as the crisis deepens,” said Nina Schick, a political commentator. “That’s the danger, that you undermine the fundamental conditions that are needed for a parliamentary democracy to thrive and work.”

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Nigel Farage, center, and Richard Tice of the Brexit Party during the first public rally of their European Parliament election campaign in Birmingham, England, last week.CreditDaniel Leal-Olivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mrs. May has been forced to shelve her Brexit plan, for now at least, by arch-Brexiteers in Parliament who believe that it would be a Brexit in name only, keeping Britain tied indefinitely to a customs union with the bloc, preventing it from making its own trade deals.

But analysts say Mrs. May herself opened the door to the arguments now being voiced by Mr. Francois and others like him, including Nigel Farage, the former U.K.I.P. leader who has just formed the hard-line Brexit Party.

In a recent speech to rally Britons behind her Brexit deal, Mrs. May pitted the public against their representatives, saying, “I am on your side.” And months after the 2016 Brexit referendum, she set the stage for negotiations by attacking what she described as the “citizen of nowhere,” a class of “international elites” at odds with “the people down the road.”

That, said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, has poisoned the discourse.

“She has really handled these negotiations through a series of slogans that have legitimized attitudes and language that otherwise, I think, would have been kept where they belong,” he said. “In other words, in a box that few responsible politicians would have wanted to open.”

Britain’s two main political parties have traditionally tried to placate lawmakers on the fringes. The last Conservative leader, David Cameron made Mr. Francois a lead lawmaker on European Union issues, despite the two holding radically different views.

But Brexit has broken that big-tent approach, forcing rival Conservative factions to confront the tangled reality of leaving the European Union. For hard-liners, any compromise amounts to humiliation.

“We voted to take back self-government,” Mr. Francois said, “and there are lots of people who are desperately trying to stop us.”

With that, Mr. Francois, who has taken to using solemn bits of oft-quoted poetry in his speeches, began reciting the last lines of a Robert Frost verse.

Then he pulled from his shelves thick, dog-eared copies of a European Union treaty and Mrs. May’s Brexit deal, tossing them theatrically onto the table before leafing through Post-its outlining his objections.

“Some people write me off as a bit of a hick from an Essex council estate, I realize that,” he said. “But I can read.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/world/europe/britain-brexit-mark-francois-theresa-may-conservatives.html

2019-04-17 09:00:10Z
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More UK women start families in their 30s now than their 20s - Quartz

We know intuitively that, in developed economies, birthrates are falling as people have fewer children and are waiting until later in life to start families. For some, that’s because of career commitments earlier in life. For others, travel and education play a role, while others are waiting until they’ve found someone with whom they want to co-parent.

Stats just released by the UK’s Office for National Statistics gives one of the clearest pictures yet of these shifts. For the first time since the ONS began collecting data, more women are getting pregnant at age 30 or older than in their 20s:

In 2017, the most recent year for which the agency has data, there were 398,284 pregnancies to women aged 30 or over, and 395,856 pregnancies to women of between 20 and 29. (Not all pregnancies, of course, end in childbirth.)

Pregnancy in women under 20, meanwhile, fell to its lowest ever level. Kathryn Littleboy, the statistician responsible for the ONS data, said that teenage pregnancy rates, which have been falling consistently for 10 years and have more than halved since records began in 1990, may have dropped because of improved sex education, better access to contraceptives, and more young women staying in education.

Total conceptions in all three of these age brackets fell, part of a trend of declining overall birthrate that keeps the UK in line with other developed economies. Only one age group saw a net rise in the rate of conception: women over 40, for whom total conceptions increased by 2.6% from the previous year. Littleboy said the reasons behind the rise in women over 40 having more children could include the effects of rising living costs.

The overall trend of women getting pregnant later, however, signals a bigger shift for women, away from early marriage and motherhood, and toward establishing their careers. Fertile years don’t last forever, which is why it makes sense to compare one decade—the 20s, when most pregnancies used to occur—to the total of both the 30s and 40s.

Using the UK as a proxy for global trends, it seems likely that women entering the workplace and staying in it even when they have kids will mean a continued shift to pregnancy in the third and fourth decades of life.

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2019-04-17 08:17:00Z
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Orkney Islands Are Key To Renewable Energy In The UK - CleanTechnica

Clean Power

Published on April 16th, 2019 | by Steve Hanley

April 16th, 2019 by Steve Hanley 

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There’s theory and then there’s reality. In theory, renewable energy could meet all of humanity’s needs for electricity. In reality, there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle that have to fit together before that can happen. First there’s generation, then there’s distribution, and finally comes storage. Making them work together reliably and at the lowest possible cost is a daunting task.

Credit: Orkney.com via YouTube

ReFLEX & VES

In the UK, the Orkney Islands, located off the northern tip of Scotland, are being used as a laboratory to learn how to make all the components of a fully renewable energy network function together in harmony. Funded by a £28.5 million grant from UK Research and Innovation, the Responsive Flexibility (ReFLEX) and Virtual Energy System (VES) programs will link local renewable energy generation with transportation and heating networks on the islands.

Claire Perry, energy and clean growth minister for the UK, tells Forbes, “What we are seeing here on Orkney is a test bed for the energy system of the future. These smart systems are a key part of our modern Industrial Strategy and will provide cheaper, greener and more flexible access to energy for everyone. What we learn from these innovations could one day be rolled out across the UK and exported around the world and we’ll be able to say it was ‘Made in Orkney’.”

The ReFLEX system will consist of

• Up to 500 domestic batteries
• Up to 100 business and large-scale batteries
• Up to 200 Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) chargers
• Up to 600 new electrical vehicles (EVs)
• An island community-powered electric bus and e-bike integrated transport system
• Up to 100 flexible heating systems
• A Doosan industrial-scale hydrogen fuel cell

The VES and ReFLEX systems will help insure high quality, affordable energy services to Orkney Island inhabitants. UK minister Lord Duncan points out that “Scotland is at the forefront of smart energy which is key to the UK Government’s modern Industrial Strategy. With £14.3 million of UK Government funding going to the ReFLEX project in Orkney, we are helping to establish the Scottish Islands as an energy powerhouse. We need cheaper, cleaner and flexible energy and Orkney will be at the heart of this.”

Job Growth & Investments

Not only will the ReFLEX and VES programs reduce carbon emissions in the Orkney Islands, they will have a secondary benefits as well — more jobs and more investments in the renewable energy and smart software sectors. Rob Saunders, deputy director of UK Research and Investment, tells Forbes “We all need energy systems that are cheaper, cleaner and consumer friendly. We have a great opportunity with the ReFLEX project to show just how innovation can deliver this energy ambition for the future. Supported by the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, ReFLEX can drive investment, create high-quality jobs and grow companies with export potential.”

The lessons learned in Orkney can later be applied to the rest of the UK and other places around the world that want to participate in the renewable energy revolution. For more on the ReFlex program, check out the video below.

 
 

 

Tags: Battery Storage, electric transportation, Orkney Islands, ReFlex, Renewable Energy, smart grid, Solar power, Virtual Power System, wind power

About the Author

Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his home in Rhode Island and anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. His motto is, "Life is not measured by how many breaths we take but by the number of moments that take our breath away!" You can follow him on Google + and on Twitter.

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https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/orkney-islands-are-key-to-renewable-energy-in-the-uk/

2019-04-16 18:33:14Z
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Change UK party approved for European elections - BBC News

The Electoral Commission has approved The Independent Group's application to register as a political party.

The group - made up of 11 former Labour and Tory MPs who quit their parties in February - will become Change UK.

The approval means they can put forward candidates in the European elections due to take place on 23 May - if the UK has not left the EU by then.

But the Commission rejected the party's logo, saying it was "likely to mislead voters".

Two Conservative MEPs, Julie Girling and Richard Ashworth, confirmed they were joining Change UK and hope to stand as candidates in the European elections.

Ms Girling said she was "fully committed to a People's Vote on Brexit" and was "looking forward to being able to use my extensive experience as part of the Change UK team".

The party began to form when seven Labour MPs resigned the whip due to an ongoing row about the leadership's handling of anti-Semitism, and its position on Brexit.

Two days later, another Labour MP, Joan Ryan, joined the ranks, followed by three Conservative backbenchers, who criticised the government for letting the "hard-line anti-EU awkward squad" take over their party.

Since then, the group has been a vocal supporter of the "People's Vote" campaign, calling for another referendum on Brexit.

The 11 MPs sat as a grouping in Parliament called "The Independent Group", but applied to become a party at the end of March in case European elections went ahead.

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It did not meet the deadline for local elections in England, which are taking place at the start of May.

Planning is already taking place for the European parliamentary ballot after the EU agreed to push back the Brexit deadline to 31 October.

However, Theresa May has insisted the UK could still leave by 22 May and avoid taking part in the elections.

There was some controversy over the choice of Change UK as the party name, with online petitions website Change.org saying it was "seeking guidance on the proposed use of our brand name".

But the Electoral Commission has approved the application, with former Tory MP Heidi Allen as interim leader, and the party's description as "The Change UK Candidate".

The Commission - which is responsible for overseeing elections in the UK - rejected the group's proposed emblem, however, which was a black square with white writing, saying: "TIG #Change."

A spokeswoman from the Commission said: "The emblem contained a hashtag, and we cannot assess the material linked to a hashtag, which will change over time, against the legal tests.

"The emblem also contained the acronym TIG, which we were not satisfied was sufficiently well known."

Change UK has yet to say whether they have submitted a new logo.

But in a press release, the party confirmed it would launch its European election campaign on Tuesday, 23 April after receiving 3,700 applications from people wanting to stand in its name.

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2019-04-16 11:43:52Z
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Shamima Begum: IS bride 'given legal aid' for citizenship fight - BBC News

Shamima Begum - who joined the Islamic State group aged 15 - is set to be granted legal aid to fight the decision to revoke her UK citizenship.

The 19-year-old, who left east London in 2015, was stripped of her citizenship in February, after she was found in a Syrian refugee camp.

Her family has previously said it planned to challenge the decision.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the idea of the provision of legal aid to Ms Begum made him "very uncomfortable".

Mr Hunt added, however, that the UK was "a country that believes that people with limited means should have access to the resources of the state if they want to challenge the decisions the state has made about them".

Legal aid is financial assistance provided by the taxpayer to those unable to afford legal representation themselves, whether they are accused of a crime or a victim who seeks the help of a lawyer through the court process.

It is means-tested and availability has been cut back significantly in recent years in England and Wales.

Civil servants at the Legal Aid Agency, which is part of the Ministry of Justice, are responsible for making decisions about who receives legal aid.

Earlier, the BBC reported Ms Begum's case had been approved - but sources now say it will be formally signed off in the coming days.

The legal aid that is expected to be granted covers a case before the semi-secret Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which adjudicates on cases where the home secretary has stripped someone of their nationality on grounds of national security.

Cases before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) are among the most complicated legal challenges that the government can face.

This is because they typically involve a complex combination of MI5 intelligence reports, which cannot be disclosed to the complainant, and long-standing law on achieving a fair hearing.

It is not yet clear when the expected case will be heard but the Siac process can take years to complete - and granting of legal aid in these circumstances is not unusual.

Over the last decade or so there have been many other people stripped of nationality on the basis they are linked to terrorism who have been legally-aided during the SIAC process.

Ms Begum left the UK in February 2015 alongside fellow Bethnal Green Academy pupils 15-year-old Amira Abase and 16-year-old Kadiza Sultana.

Ms Begum was found in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019 and said she wanted to return home.

Soon afterwards, she gave birth to a boy called Jarrah. He died of pneumonia in March at less than three weeks of age. She had two other children who also died.

In the wake of the boy's death, Home Secretary Sajid Javid was criticised over the decision to strip Ms Begum of her British citizenship.

Three weeks prior to the death, Ms Begum's sister, Renu Begum, had written to Mr Javid asking him to help her bring the baby to the UK.

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On Monday, the Daily Mail first reported that legal aid had been granted in response to an application made on 19 March.

Mr Javid said the granting of legal aid was a decision for legal aid organisations and it was "not for ministers to comment".

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn argued Ms Begum had the right to apply for legal aid.

"She is a British citizen," he said. "She's therefore entitled to apply for legal aid if she has a legal problem just like anybody else is."

He added: "The whole point of legal aid is that if you're facing a prosecution then you're entitled to be represented and that's a fundamental rule of law, a fundamental point in any democratic society."

'Not a political decision'

Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent in the Metropolitan Police and a friend of the family, said Ms Begum should have legal aid to make sure the correct process is followed.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think legal aid is a principle of the British legal justice system."

Under the 1981 British Nationality Act, a person can be deprived of their citizenship if the home secretary is satisfied it would be "conducive to the public good" and they would not become stateless as a result.

It was thought Ms Begum had Bangladeshi citizenship through her mother - although Bangladesh's ministry of foreign affairs said she had been "erroneously identified" as a Bangladeshi national.

Human rights group Liberty said granting legal aid in this case was "not just appropriate but absolutely necessary to ensure that the government's decisions are properly scrutinised".

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2019-04-15 17:26:15Z
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