UK’s May faces calls to soften Brexit as political limbo drags on

Prime Minister Theresa May and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster met yesterday in London, discussing the terms for the DUP’s 10 MPs propping up a crisis-ridden Tory government.

Sources said Mr Davis is determined to get started and wants to offer a package giving the European citizens all rights they now enjoy.

Mr Brokenshire, who will also attend the Downing Street exchanges, characterised the meetings as a contribution to the three-week process to restore devolution.

The Prime Minister was meeting separately with representatives of Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP and the Alliance Party, as well as the DUP, in Downing Street in an attempt to allay growing concerns.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that “the door remains open” for the United Kingdom to ditch plans for Brexit and stay in the EU.

“It’s a unity of objective, having voted to leave the European Union, that their government gets on with that and makes a success of it”. Barnier speaks of a willingness to look at various options but EU officials also stress that greater access to EU markets will mean accepting greater costs, closer to EU membership, and question whether Britain can find a political consensus on that.

It comes after Mrs May told Tory MPs: “I’m the person who got us into this mess and I’m the one who will get us out of it”. “The reality is that where we stand follows logically from leaving so, if we’re leaving, what we need to do is do it smoothly and successfully and gain economic benefit”.

– Britain is welcome to change its mind and stay in the European Union, but it should not expect to keep getting its EU budget rebates or complex opt-outs from EU rules, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator said on Wednesday, June 14, Reuters reports.

Her failure to win a majority has put May under pressure over her Brexit plans from inside and outside her party and has prompted complaints about her choice of partner due to the DUP’s stance on social issues such as gay marriage. “But like in Alice in Wonderland, not all the doors are the same”, he added.

Northern Ireland’s largest nationalist party Sinn Fein said it would oppose any deal that undermines a peace deal known as the Good Friday Agreement, with President Gerry Adams telling Britain: “We want to govern ourselves”. Divisions over Europe helped sink the premierships of Margaret Thatcher, Major and Cameron, and many of her lawmakers and party membership support a sharp break with the EU.

Colin Talbot, a professor of government at the University of Manchester, said the Paris trip is part of May’s strategy to improve her position at home.

She mocked Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a socialist, as incompetent and unrealistic, but his electoral campaign energised the youth vote and wiped out the Conservatives’ majority in parliament.

JOHN Major has said he is “concerned” about the impact a deal between the DUP and the Tories could have on the Northern Ireland peace process. “I can say I don’t disagree with him”.

Though Foster supported Brexit, she also might demand that May pursue a cushioned exit from the European Union, given her party’s wish that a soft border remain between Northern Ireland and Ireland, an European Union member.

He added: “The danger is that however much any government tries they will not be seen to be impartial if they are locked into a parliamentary deal at Westminster with one of the Northern Ireland parties”.