UK Parliament opening date set, suggesting Tory deal reached

Attempts by May to secure the support of the DUP’s 10 members of parliament after her Conservative party lost its majority in a general election last week have caused anxiety and fear among Irish nationalists, one Sinn Fein deputy has said.

THE fallout of Theresa May’s snap election gamble resulted in some Conservatives arguing it is time to consider a soft Brexit.

“We are starting”, Barnier said on Twitter.

The fact Davis agreed to an agenda on Monday that will see him and British officials spend some seven hours in the European Union executive’s headquarters discussing who will talk to whom when and about what has come as a relief to some European Union negotiators.”The big clash that we feared isn’t there”, said one senior official involved.

On a visit to Paris on Tuesday evening where she met with French President Emmanuel Macron, May described the talks as “productive”.

Sinn Fein has said that if May makes concessions to the DUP that would disadvantage Irish nationalists, then a deal would be more hard to secure.

But pressure was mounting for May to change course on the type of Brexit Britain should pursue.

Norway is in the single market, in return for accepting free immigration from the EU, EU courts and budget payments. “I can’t negotiate with myself”, he told the Financial Times newspaper. “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”.

The Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU) said it had been “crystal clear” about its approach to Brexit talks.

But some opposition politicians say that May can no longer stick to her stance for a clean break with the European Union, characterising her election bid as a poor gamble that has left Britain a laughing stock. But like Alice In Wonderland, not all doors are the same.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood described the Downing Street meeting as “very positive” but said it would require a lot more to convince his party that “the DUP tail is not wagging the Tory dog”.

Guy Verhofstadt‏ suggested the United Kingdom will need to radically diminish itself to undo the triggering of Article 50, as Alice in Wonderland, in the Lewis Carol book, had to shrink herself to fit through a tiny door, he said.

Yet many of her lawmakers and party members favour a sharp break with the European Union – a sign of the divisions over Europe that helped sink the premierships of May’s predecessors Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Cameron.

A source close to the DUP said the talks would focus mainly on funding for Northern Ireland, but that concessions for the British military were likely to come up. It begs the question whether May’s government, apparently rudderless and without real power, can realistically hope for getting a deal out of Europe when its own social problems seem to have reached a boiling point at home.

“The main concern is going to be that if there is a Conservative-DUP deal, then can the British government continue to play the role of a honest broker in the restoration of a Northern Ireland executive?” said Simon Usherwood, senior politics lecturer at Surrey University.

Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists both agree a deal to restore a powersharing administration in Northern Ireland can be done by the end of the month.