UK MPs will get a chance to do some thinking – lazy or otherwise – as they head into another parliamentary recess later this month. But it leaves them with even less time to do a new Brexit deal.
It has been six weeks since Brexit was supposed to happen. If the UK government wants to avoid holding EU elections, it has less than two weeks to get a rehashed Brexit deal through parliament. And if the government wants to avoid those MEPs ever taking their seats, it has a little over seven weeks in which to do it.
But the parliamentary arithmetic has not changed substantially, despite ongoing talks between the governing Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party. Prime minister Theresa May has promised to hold a(nother) series of indicative votes if she and her Labour counterpart can’t agree on tweaks to the existing Brexit deal.
Still, the Brexit deadlock has not dampened election spirits, with several campaigns kicking off in the UK this week. Labour’s manifesto made a big deal of its customs union plan and offered the possibility of a second referendum – which party leader Jeremy Corbyn said could be a “healing process” for the country. The Liberal Democrats took a profane turn with their ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ booklet, calling on the UK to abandon the entire enterprise. But the Brexit Party itself, along with the governing Conservatives, failed to issue any election manifestos at all, arguing that their positions on Brexit are already clear.
Neither did Brexit dampen the continent’s spirits on Europe Day, which saw EU leaders (minus the UK) meet in the Transylvanian town of Sibiu to draw up a post-election plan for the EU’s future (EUROPE 12251/1).
Also in Sibiu this week was UK Brexit minister, Stephen Barclay, who complained about “lazy thinking” on Brexit “and a failure to look at that longer-term relationship between the United Kingdom and Europe”. He also expressed his frustration at Brexit Party leader “Nigel Farage’s ‘little Englander’ portrayal of Brexit”, saying it did not match his own “global” outlook. While he was there, he met bilaterally with French Europe minister, Amélie de Montchalin, and Manfred Weber, the centre-right EPP’s lead candidate for Commission president.
The UK parliament goes into recess on 23 May. EU leaders will meet for an informal dinner on 28 May in Brussels to take stock of the results of the European elections. (Sarah Collins)