Ireland's deputy prime minister has ruled out any renegotiation of the Brexit withdrawal deal if Theresa May is replaced as UK prime minister.
Speaking on RTÉ, Tánaiste Simon Coveney said "the personality might change but the facts don't".
He described Mrs May as a "decent person" and strongly criticised Conservative MPs at Westminster.
Mrs May has promised to set a timetable for the election of her successor after the next Brexit vote.
Mr Coveney described political events at Westminster as "extraordinary", as he questioned the logic of politicians who believed a change of leader would deliver changes to the agreement struck by Mrs May.
He said Conservative MPs were "impossible" on the issue of Brexit.
"The EU has said very clearly that the Withdrawal Agreement has been negotiated over two-and-a-half years, it was agreed with the British government and the British cabinet and it's not up for renegotiation, even if there is a new British prime minister," he said.
He told RTÉ's This Week programme that many British politicians "don't, quite frankly, understand the complexity of politics in Northern Ireland".
"They have tried to dumb this debate down into a simplistic argument whereby it's Britain versus the EU, as opposed to two friends tying to navigate through the complexity of a very, very difficult agreement," he added.
Mr Coveney also said the Irish government would continue to focus significant efforts and financial resources towards planning for a no-deal Brexit scenario, following Friday's collapse of Brexit talks in the UK.
He said time was of the essence for the UK to get a deal through Parliament, adding that he was concerned Britain would not "get its act together over summer" and leave without a deal.
If the bill is not passed, the default position is that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October without a deal.
Brexit had been due to take place on 29 March.
But the UK was given an extension until 31 October after MPs three times voted down the withdrawal agreement Mrs May had negotiated with the EU - by margins of 230, 149 and 58 votes.
Ireland's deputy prime minister has ruled out any renegotiation of the Brexit withdrawal deal if Theresa May is replaced as UK prime minister.
Speaking on RTÉ, Tánaiste Simon Coveney said "the personality might change but the facts don't".
He described Mrs May as a "decent person" and strongly criticised Conservative MPs at Westminster.
Mrs May has promised to set a timetable for the election of her successor after the next Brexit vote.
Mr Coveney described political events at Westminster as "extraordinary", as he questioned the logic of politicians who believed a change of leader would deliver changes to the agreement struck by Mrs May.
He said Conservative MPs were "impossible" on the issue of Brexit.
"The EU has said very clearly that the Withdrawal Agreement has been negotiated over two-and-a-half years, it was agreed with the British government and the British cabinet and it's not up for renegotiation, even if there is a new British prime minister," he said.
He told RTÉ's This Week programme that many British politicians "don't, quite frankly, understand the complexity of politics in Northern Ireland".
"They have tried to dumb this debate down into a simplistic argument whereby it's Britain versus the EU, as opposed to two friends tying to navigate through the complexity of a very, very difficult agreement," he added.
Mr Coveney also said the Irish government would continue to focus significant efforts and financial resources towards planning for a no-deal Brexit scenario, following Friday's collapse of Brexit talks in the UK.
He said time was of the essence for the UK to get a deal through Parliament, adding that he was concerned Britain would not "get its act together over summer" and leave without a deal.
If the bill is not passed, the default position is that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October without a deal.
Brexit had been due to take place on 29 March.
But the UK was given an extension until 31 October after MPs three times voted down the withdrawal agreement Mrs May had negotiated with the EU - by margins of 230, 149 and 58 votes.
Ireland's deputy prime minister has ruled out any renegotiation of the Brexit withdrawal deal if Theresa May is replaced as UK prime minister.
Speaking on RTÉ, Tánaiste Simon Coveney said "the personality might change but the facts don't".
He described Mrs May as a "decent person" and strongly criticised Conservative MPs at Westminster.
Mrs May has promised to set a timetable for the election of her successor after the next Brexit vote.
Mr Coveney described political events at Westminster as "extraordinary", as he questioned the logic of politicians who believed a change of leader would deliver changes to the agreement struck by Mrs May.
He said Conservative MPs were "impossible" on the issue of Brexit.
"The EU has said very clearly that the Withdrawal Agreement has been negotiated over two-and-a-half years, it was agreed with the British government and the British cabinet and it's not up for renegotiation, even if there is a new British prime minister," he said.
He told RTÉ's This Week programme that many British politicians "don't, quite frankly, understand the complexity of politics in Northern Ireland".
"They have tried to dumb this debate down into a simplistic argument whereby it's Britain versus the EU, as opposed to two friends tying to navigate through the complexity of a very, very difficult agreement," he added.
Mr Coveney also said the Irish government would continue to focus significant efforts and financial resources towards planning for a no-deal Brexit scenario, following Friday's collapse of Brexit talks in the UK.
He said time was of the essence for the UK to get a deal through Parliament, adding that he was concerned Britain would not "get its act together over summer" and leave without a deal.
If the bill is not passed, the default position is that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October without a deal.
Brexit had been due to take place on 29 March.
But the UK was given an extension until 31 October after MPs three times voted down the withdrawal agreement Mrs May had negotiated with the EU - by margins of 230, 149 and 58 votes.
Extra protections for workers are expected to be among the proposals, with Mrs May trying to win over the support of some Labour MPs in a final attempt to get her Brexit plan passed.
Mrs May announced this week that MPs will vote on the bill - which would bring the withdrawal agreement into UK law - in the week beginning 3 June. If the bill is not passed, the default position is that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October without a deal.
In her Times piece, Mrs May said she will "not be simply asking MPs to think again" on the same deal that they have repeatedly rejected - but on "an improved packaged of measures that I believe can win new support".
The PM said she wanted MPs to consider the new deal "with fresh pairs of eyes - and to give it their support".
Meanwhile, a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday is to consider plans for a series of "indicative votes" by MPs to establish which proposals could command a majority.
Brexit had been due to take place on 29 March, but the UK was given an extension until 31 October after MPs three times voted down the withdrawal agreement Mrs May had negotiated with the EU.
This prompted negotiations between the Conservatives and Labour aimed at breaking the Brexit impasse, but they collapsed on Friday without an agreement.
The prime minister has also promised to set a timetable for her departure from Downing Street following the vote on her deal.
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Before the talks with Labour, the prime minister - whose Conservative Party does not have a majority in the House of Commons - failed to get her deal through three times, by margins of 230, 149 and 58 votes.
The DUP, which supports her government on certain issues, opposes Mrs May's agreement with the EU over its implications for Northern Ireland.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Sir Keir said Labour would vote against the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, accusing the government of attempting "an experiment" and bringing the UK to "a cliff edge".
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Labour's preferred plan is for changes to the government's Brexit deal or an election, but if neither of those are possible, it will support the option of giving the public a say on the deal agreed by Parliament.
Sir Keir blamed the collapse of talks with the government - which lasted six weeks - on the inability to "future proof" a deal against an "incoming Tory leader".
Mrs May has previously blamed the collapse on the lack of a "common position" within Labour.
Meanwhile, Tory grandee Michael Heseltine has said he will vote for his local Liberal Democrat candidate in the upcoming European parliamentary elections - in protest at the government's stance on Brexit.
Lord Heseltine, also writing in The Sunday Times, called on the Tories to back another referendum on Britain's EU membership in order to avoid what he called "the biggest act of economic self-harm ever undertaken by a democratic government."
Back in 2015, Tyler, the Creator was banned from entering the United Kingdom for three to five years by the Home Office, with officials citing offensive lyrics from his albums Bastard and Goblin as the reasons for his ban. Now, it appears that the ban has been lifted, as Tyler is currently in London, fresh off the heels of his new album IGOR. According to the Guardian, “the ban, which was originally imposed for three to five years, no longer applies and he is able to enter the UK legally.”
Tyler attempted to throw a pop-up show in London today, announcing he would be at the Bussey Building in Peckham. According to his tweets, police shut down the event due to overcrowding. Tyler’s initial ban was announced after he was forced to cancel four 2015 shows in the UK due to unspecified “circumstances.” Pitchfork has reached out to representatives for Tyler for comment.
LONDON — Britons go to the polls next week in one of the strangest elections of modern times.
It’s an election the country doesn’t want and possibly doesn’t need — whoever is elected could swiftly find themselves out of a job.
It has been almost three years since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, but by law it must take part in elections for the European Parliament as long as it remains a member.
With no imminent solution to the Brexit impasse, 43 of the 72 seats in the U.K. are up for grabs on Thursday.
Any existing members of the European Parliament from the U.K. would effectively be sacked if Prime Minister Theresa May finally pushes her plan for leaving the E.U. through a rebellious House of Commons next month. And any new European Parliament members may never take their seats, becoming obscure political trivia rather than actual lawmakers.
Whatever the outcome, the election is likely to cost the U.K. at least 100 million pounds, or more than $127 million, in public money.
A European Union flag flies and a Vote European Election sign hangs from a house in south London, Britain, May 16, 2019.Hannah McKay / Reuters
Ashley Karmanski spent much of April knocking on doors and distributing leaflets in northwest England encouraging people to vote for him as a Conservative Party candidate in local council elections that took place this month.
But before next week's vote, he’s staying at home.
And not just because — like many party activists — he’s frustrated that the Conservative government hasn’t managed to make Brexit happen yet.
Karmanski also fears for his safety.
"Obviously to campaign you’ve got to speak to a lot of people," he told NBC News, "and the amount of abuse I was getting, literally just for representing the Conservatives, was just incredible.”
“People swearing at me, threatening me, telling me to get off their property.”
Karmanski, 30, said he also received abuse because of his Eastern European-sounding surname.
“I knew I’d need thick skin when I went into it," he added.
Karmanski lost his local election race, but he was far from the only representative for Britain's ruling party to bear the brunt of the public's frustration.
Thirteen-hundred Conservative councilors lost their seats.
The opposition Labour Party, which according to past trends should have made large gains, didn’t do much better.
Both look set to struggle next week.
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage rides on their bus during a visit campaigning for the European Parliament election in Pontefract, northwest England, on May 13, 2019.Oli Scarff / AFP - Getty Images
Meanwhile the brand-new Brexit Party is polling at 18 percent and looks set to win several seats in a European Parliament that it so despises.
Its leader, Nigel Farage, who is an ally of President Donald Trump, has capitalized on the angry public and struggling rivals.
The prime minister has said more than 50 times that the original March 29 deadline for leaving the E.U. would be met. It wasn’t.
Brexit supporters are frustrated there has been no progress, while remain supporters are frustrated there is no broader acceptance of the need for a second referendum, in which voters might be able to vote to stay in the E.U. after all.
Parliament, not the prime minister, has the final legal say on how to leave, and lawmakers have repeatedly rejected May’s withdrawal agreement, hammered out with the European Commission in Brussels over two painstaking years.
With the divorce date pushed back until Oct. 31, May entered cross-party talks with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to try to find a way out of the deadlock. Those broke down Friday without agreement.
May wants to bring her deal back for a fourth time in the first week of June and, facing ever-growing pressure from lawmakers in her own party, conceded this week that she may have to stand down if defeated again.
That would trigger a messy and time-consuming election to replace her as Conservative Party leader and prime minister. The prospect of a "no deal" Brexit, causing chaos in business and public services, would loom once again.
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits a charity providing support for victims of domestic violence in west London on May 13, 2019.Victoria Jones / AFP - Getty Images
The saga has not just roiled the ruling Conservatives, however.
Labour officially backs Brexit and some of its supporters voted Leave in 2016, but the party’s membership and parliament members tended to back remain and are keen on a second referendum. Senior figures within the party, including deputy leader Tom Watson and shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keith Starmer, explicitly back a new referendum.
But the party agreed at its policy-making annual conference last year that it would back another Brexit vote only if it was to prevent a "no deal" scenario or a "damaging Tory Brexit" — a somewhat vague pledge — and Corbyn and his inner circle are known to be Eurosceptic.
Jonathon Hawkes was a Labour councilor in southeast England for more than eight years. But that came to an end after voters seemed to punish the party for its equivocal stance on Brexit.
“What I found really, really hindered us in the local elections is that we’re not perceived to have a clear message on what our position was,” he said. “Labour has deliberately adopted this managed ambiguity, trying to appeal to people who voted leave and also people who voted remain — well, my experience is that this has just not worked. We are essentially seen as standing for nothing.”
Hawkes warns that Farage and the nationalist right are occupying political space previously inhabited by Labour and liberal Tories.
“I think we should have the bravery to be self-critical about this," he said, adding that mainstream parties have stopped addressing "the things that people are concerned about, whether that’s globalization, immigration, the changing nature of work.
“The two main parties stopped talking about this," he added. "Farage isn’t playing by our rules. And it seems like the populist narrative that he’s providing is almost going unchallenged at the moment, and that’s got to be fixed soon.”
While the elections may be of little immediate consequence, they have the potential to reshape the narrative around Brexit.
Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at the launch of Labour's European election campaign in Kent, Britain, May 9, 2019.Toby Melville / Reuters
The European Parliament uses a form of proportional representation. Smaller parties have traditionally performed well and it could be that disgruntled voters on all sides are more keen than usual to go against the main two parties.
But whatever is happening in U.K. politics, it’s not confined to next week's European vote, political experts say.
“Whatever excuses you come up with, the fact that a party that’s less than two months old is heading the polls in a national campaign is bloody remarkable,” said Anand Menon, professor of politics at King's College London.
Menon points out that Corbyn — a Marxist who spent decades on the outer fringes of British politics — was elected before the referendum, an early signal of a move toward a new political era.
“The referendum helped break the mold of British politics, but that mold was already cracked," Menon said.
"It’s a new politics, it’s all sorting itself out — one of the many reasons we don’t really know what’s happening," he added.
Patrick Smith
Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter from NBC News Digital.
LONDON — Even as fellow European countries worry about hardened Islamic State fighters returning from Syria and Iraq, Britain has another problem: the re-emergence of a homegrown militant cell, Al Muhajiroun, one of Europe’s most prolific extremist networks, which was implicated in the Londonbombings of 2005.
After those attacks, the British government passed a raft of counterterrorism laws and embarked on a crackdown against Islamist extremists. Many were sentenced to prison or restricted to halfway houses for 10 years and sometimes more.
But on Monday, a co-founder of Al Muhajiroun, Anjem Choudary, was photographed near his EastLondon home wearing a long white robe and a black electronic ankle tag. Government officials confirmed that Mr. Choudary, one of the country’s most notorious radical Islamist preachers, had been released from a probation hotel after serving more than half of a lengthy prison term for inciting support of the Islamic State.
He remains under close monitoring, but he has begun the gradual process of becoming a free man. And he is not the only one.
Having served their time, many members of Mr. Choudary’s old network are being released from detention. Far from chastened, they have begun to remobilize, vowing to take on far-right extremists and renew their decades-long campaign to eliminate democracy in Britain and establish a caliphate ruled by Shariah law, according to interviews with a handful of former members.
Founded in 1996, Al Muhajiroun, which has used various names over the years, has spent years effectively taunting the British security forces through its ability to continue operating despite being banned in 2006 for its links to terrorism. After a period of dormancy, the group is now remobilizing by continuing to change its name, adopting lower-profile tactics, using encrypted apps and meeting in secret locations.
According to former members, areas where the network is regrouping include East London; Luton, a town north of the British capital; and the surrounding county of Bedfordshire.
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The wreckage of a bus that was destroyed in a series of deadly explosions that targeted London’s transport network in 2005.CreditStephen Munday/Getty Images
“Muslims are being attacked all over the world,” said Laith, a former member of Al Muhajiroun who would only give his middle name for fear of prosecution. “Our mission is much more urgent now, and with Anjem and the other brothers out of jail, it’s time to regroup and come out harder than before.”
For the British authorities, the possibility of the group’s re-emergence is a deep concern. Last week, Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, Britain’s domestic counterintelligence and security agency, issued a rare public warning about the continued risks of extremist networks and emphasized the threat posed by groups sympathetic to the Islamic State.
“In the U.K., there remain individuals who are inspired” by Islamic State propaganda, he wrote in the newspaper The Evening Standard, “despite having shown no interest in traveling to Syria.”
The security services have expressed particular alarm at the prospect of a newly energized Al Muhajiroun network trying to recruit members as some ISIS fighters and sympathizers attempt to return to Britain after the fall of the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Britain has taken a tough line against potential returnees, canceling the passports of more than 150 people.
David Videcette, a British former counterterrorism detective, said British citizens who had joined the Islamic State would pose a clear risk if they got back home.
“Suddenly, we are going to have trained fighters who perhaps have the motivation to carry out martyrdom attacks, exposed to a historical network of radicals,” he said.
A rally for Al Muhajiroun in Trafalgar Square, London, in 2002.CreditOdd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Some activists have started to meet again and are testing the waters as they re-engage with their activism,” said Michael Kenney, an associate professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, who spent years embedded with the group as part of the research for his book, “The Islamic State in Britain.”
It is hard to overstate the role Mr. Choudary has played in motivating Islamic extremists. Just last week, for instance, the BBC reported that one of the attackers behind the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, was radicalized by Mr. Choudary after attending his sermons during a one-year study abroad program in 2006.
“No other British citizen has had so much influence over so many terrorists as Choudary,” said Nick Lowles, the chief executive of a British anti-racist watchdog group, Hope Not Hate, which he says has identified 120 Islamist militants with links to the imam.
A representative of the British Home Office, which has responsibility for monitoring extremist groups, said that the government was aware of the potential threat posed by Mr. Choudary and Al Muhajiroun, and had rigorous procedures in place to handle it.
“When any terrorist offender is released from prison, we know about it and have robust covert and overt powers to investigate and manage any threat they may pose,” the government representative said. “Those released on license remain subject to close monitoring and strict conditions, which if breached can see them go back to prison.”
Most of those who were senior members of Al Muhajiroun said that they remained under strict surveillance, with their electronic communications monitored, which was confirmed by the Home Office. As a result, they say they carry out their activities discreetly, and avoid any mention of or association with the group’s former name.
The activists say they have shifted their recruitment tactics from provocative public preaching and demonstrations to secret internet forums and smaller group meetings in inconspicuous locations. If the group uses a name that has not been identified as that of a terrorist outfit, then the gatherings are legal.
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A memorial for the victims of the London bombings on the steps of a church in the city in 2005.CreditYannis Kontos for The New York Times
Most members of the group abide by what they call a “covenant of security” that prohibits attacks on non-Muslims in their country of residence. But it is a matter of individual choice.
In recent years, group members have become increasingly influenced by foreign radical groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, inspiring them to carry out the attacks on and near London Bridge in 2017 and the murder of a British soldier, Lee Rigby, in the capital in 2013.
For many years, Mr. Choudary, a former lawyer whose preaching emphasized a jihadist ideology in which the West was accused of victimizing Muslims, managed to stay out of prison even as the authorities shut down many members of his broader network.
“Decrease and destruct, that was their tactic, and I have to admit it worked,” said Mohammed Shamsuddin, who was recruited to Al Muhajiroun by Mr. Choudary more than 20 years ago.
Sipping on a latte at a juice bar in a town in northwestern England, Mr. Shamsuddin said that the authorities could no longer crack down in the same way.
“Now, all the guys you arrested 10 years ago are being released into the open,” he said, “and they are healthier and stronger than before, and it’s come at a time when the police are stretched and Brexit is destroying the country.”
Many of the senior activists of the network who are now regrouping were monitored under the government’s Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act of 2011. That legislation provides the framework for a program that restricts the movements of individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism-related activities, through the use of electronic tags and overnight house arrest.
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A neighborhood in Luton, north of London. According to former members of Al Muhajiroun, the town is one of the areas in which the network co-founded by Mr. Choudary is regrouping.CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times
Some, however, said that being placed under the program’s restrictions had been more like a long vacation.
“It was amazing,” said a man who was subjected to the restrictions, flashing a picture of a brick property with a garden. “I was placed in a four-bedroom house by myself in the nicest part of Ipswich,” a town in eastern England.
“If anything, I got a good rest after years of hard work, got my energy back,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not legally allowed to talk about the program. “They spent all that money to achieve what in the end? I’m back on Twitter, back on Facebook, back with my brothers. I’m back in society, doing my thing.”
Some activists in the network denied that Mr. Choudary had encouraged acts of terrorism, claiming that he had directed their energy into an ideological struggle, not a violent one.
“The British government made a big mistake by putting Anjem in jail,” said Abdulla Muhid, a 42-year-old former member of Al Muhajiroun. “He believes in the covenant of security and was able to control the youth as they were getting their education from a learned person. Now, everyone is freelancing, getting radicalized through the internet.”
It is not clear how many activists belong to the network formerly known as Al Muhajiroun. Even during the group’s peak years in the late 1990s to early 2000s, it never had more than 200 dedicated members, according to Mr. Kenney of the University of Pittsburgh.
It is also unclear whether Mr. Choudary will reassert his leadership when his license conditions end in 2021. There have been group members who have challenged his leadership in the past, and some of those who are still active in the network suggested that he had been replaced. Still, many said that they were eagerly awaiting his return.
“People are waiting for Anjem to come out; they are waiting for that spark,” the activist who recently emerged from the restriction program said.
“These monitoring programs will do one of two things to you,” he added. “Either they will break you or make you hard-core. For me, I’m now rested and feeling more hard-core. I’m ready.”
