Brexit
Gambling on the future
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson won his bet on the future
of Britain in a snap election on December 12. Voters woke up on Friday the 13th
to a thumping
Conservative majority, the resignations of both main opposition party
leaders – Labour’s
Jeremy Corbyn and the Liberal Democrats’
Jo Swinson, and a resurgent Scottish
National Party seeking the independence of Scotland. Johnson’s
Conservatives won the biggest Conservative majority – 80 seats - since
Margaret Thatcher in 1987 despite taking less than 44% of the national vote
and a mandate to deliver its simple election message of “Get Brexit Done”.
But their promise to leave the EU on January 31 followed by EU
trade negotiations with a deadline in December is only one of a raft of
questions facing the government – some
fairly obvious from the election campaign but others with deeper and
longer-term significance as outlined
here by Trisha de
Borchgrave, artist and daughter of prominent long-time U.S. journalist Arnaud
de Borchgrave. This includes the possible fragmentation of the United
Kingdom as Scotland’s First Minister Nicola
Sturgeon seeks a new referendum on independence and leads the SNP as the
third largest party in the UK Parliament with 48 seats - all but eight of
Scotland’s 56 seats. On the other hand, rumblings about increasing support
for a united Ireland leaving the UK may be on hold as Northern
Ireland’s voters seem to be supporting middle-ground politicians.
Meanwhile the Labour party faces a wrenching period of soul
searching and infighting
over both their leadership and political direction and the Liberal
Democrats look for their fifth leader in less than 10 years.
Please also see here for:
Election result
numbers
How Johnson’s Conservatives won:
https://www.ft.com/content/ab3692b0-2317-11ea-92da-f0c92e957a96
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/how-boris-johnson-became-britain-s-most-powerful-prime-minister-since-tony-blair-1.4120281
European Parliament
lookahead
Just days before British voters gave Boris Johnson's Conservatives a
green light to exit the European Union, delegates to the AEJ’s 2019 Congress
in Paris were treated to an assessment of the impact of the new European
Parliament from its Secretary-General, Klaus Welle. At Jean Monnet House outside
Paris – a complex devoted to the life and work of one of the fathers of the
EU – Mr. Welle analysed the May
2019 European Parliament elections held at the height of talks with the UK
about Brexit and after open resistance to EU policies on migration and the
rule of law in the four Visegrad states of central Europe. He said the
election results were mixed: fragmentation of the vote into more separate
party groupings meant that at
least three party groupings will be required to pass legislation. But he also
claimed the new parliament has increased democratic legitimacy because the elections reversed a
long-term downward trend in voter turnout. For more on this presentation please see this
report from Charles Jenkins, AEJ UK member and former Western
Europe editor of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
And AEJ UK member and former RTE journalist Brian O’Connell has this report on the
prospective agendas of the newly-elected political groupings, with Brexit
colouring debate but by no means dominating it.
The future after Brexit
Britain’s role in the world will require a new national
strategy if Brexit happens - and that needs a lot more attention says one of
Britain’s top diplomats. Lord Peter Ricketts, former UK National Security
Adviser and head of the diplomatic service, told an AEJ lunch on November
20th 2019 that’s just one of the multiple challenges facing the UK in a post
Brexit world. For more on his presentation please see this report from
former FT correspondent Peter Norman and this audio transcript.
Gambling on the future
UK politicians rolled
the dice on another election. Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the
snap election for December 12 – instead of leaving the European Union as
he promised to do on October 31. He wanted to make the election about getting
his Brexit. The Liberal
Democrats (with 20 MPs as the election started) and the Scottish
National Party (35 seats) also wanted to make it about Brexit – but about
stopping it. The main Opposition Labour Party wanted to make it about transforming
UK society.
So in a much divided UK, the first election days brought signals of a rocky
road ahead:
- a highly
controversial intervention by U.S. President
Donald Trump
- a £500,000 fine
accepted by Facebook for its involvement in the Cambridge
Analytica voter manipulation scandal in the last election in 2017
- a controversial finding
by an inquiry into the searing Grenfell Tower fire that same year blaming
the fire department in its first report rather than the government
authorities responsible for its
management.
Despite a healthy
but questionable lead in recent public
opinion polls Johnson faced a difficult job to keep a volatile electorate
focussed on Brexit. And it was by
no means clear it would end in any clearer political direction as a
minority government was possible. Before getting Parliamentary approval for
the vote – required because of a law setting fixed term elections every five
years – Johnson had lost
virtually every other vote he had sought since being forced to recall
Parliament on September 25 by a Supreme Court ruling. Although he did get
approval in principle for his surprise deal to withdraw from the EU – because
MPs opposed to it wanted to bring in amendments to make it acceptable to
them. Johnson withdrew the bill before it could be fully debated, leaving
both his deal and Brexit itself in limbo.
Will Brexit cause more civil unrest?
That’s one of the questions posed to – and by - Lord David
Willetts, a prominent Conservative Party thinker, former minister, and until
recently Executive Chair of the Resolution Foundation, an independent think
tank focused on improving living standards for people on low to middle incomes.
“Very polarised and volatile” is how the
current mood in England is described by the Archbishop of Canterbury –
and he’s advised prime minister Boris Johnson and other politicians to stop
stoking hate and using inflammatory language. At an AEJ UK meeting on October
23 Lord Willetts tried to bring some clearer perspective to the social,
economic and political issues increasingly polarised by Brexit. For more on
the former Universities and Science Minister’s in-depth analysis please see this report from
ex-FT correspondent Peter Norman and this audio transcript
of the meeting.
The view from Scotland
Three members of the Scottish Parliament, three different parties, three
differing perspectives on Brexit’s impact north of the border. All held with
passion. But instead of generating the heat and hate currently demonstrated
at Westminster those perspectives are articulated with thought and detailed
analysis not strident words and personal attack. It’s a tone that permeates
the very building they work in and extends even to First
Minister’s Questions – a tone reinforced by the semicircular
parliamentary chamber at the heart of Scotland’s modern parliament complex in
Holyrood. And a tone evident in this report
from AEJ member Charles Jenkins – and this audio transcript –
of views on Brexit, Scotland and independence from representatives of the
Scottish National Party, the Conservatives and Labour. For more please also
see this reflective piece from AEJ member and former FT Moscow and Rome
correspondent Anthony
Robinson and these blogs from Firdevs
Robinson, AEJ member and former BBC World Service editor, and Jonathan
Fryer, AEJ member and writer. This panel discussion followed a tour of
the Holyrood buildings and a session
of First Minister’s Questions organized for an AEJ-UK delegation by AEJ
member Rick Thompson in late September. For a snapshot of politics in
Scotland please see these links:
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17883854.scottish-parliament-vote-rejecting-no-deal-brexit/
https://www.parliament.scot/msps/12450.aspx
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-49556793
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scottish-tories-face-wipe-out-in-general-election-yougov-poll-shows-53pf0t5jq
The
State of Play
Confused about Brexit? Less
than two hours after the UK Supreme Court ruled that the government’s
suspension of Parliament was illegal, one of the leading experts on European
Union law, Catherine Barnard, gave an instant assessment of the landmark
ruling and clarified some of the possible ways forward. At the AEJ UK on
September 24 the professor of European Union and Labour Law at Trinity
College Cambridge and a senior fellow at The UK in a Changing Europe
explained the consequences of a no-deal Brexit and the other possible courses
of action by Boris Johnson’s government up to October 31st , as well as the
massive task ahead to negotiate a long-term treaty between the UK and its
major trading partners in Europe. Please
see here for a report
on the meeting from AEJ member and ex FT correspondent Peter Norman, an audio transcript of the
meeting and here for her Powerpoint slide
presentation.
UK Supreme Court overturns suspension of Parliament
The UK Parliament sat again after the country's highest court
ruled that the prime minister’s suspension of it was unlawful. All 11
judges of the UK Supreme Court declared Boris Johnson’s action was null and
void. He is widely suspected of seeking to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny or
questions by suspending
Parliament on Sept. 10 for five weeks – an action declared
unlawful by Scotland’s highest court the next day and subject to 3 days
of hearings in the UK Supreme Court the following week. He’s denied accusations he
lied to the Queen to get the suspension.
No Deal?
Before the suspension, the UK Parliament passed
an emergency law requiring Johnson to present a deal to withdraw from the
European Union for approval by Oct. 19 or ask the EU for an extension to the
current Brexit deadline of Oct.31. The prime minister has said he
will not request an extension and would rather “die in a ditch” - his
words. Given his actions since being elected he is expected
to seek any way possible to avoid complying with the law – ignoring it,
challenging it in court, resigning, calling an election, even getting an
apparent new deal. He also tried
to get Parliamentary approval for an election – needed because of the
UK's recent law on fixed 5-year term parliaments - and failed twice.
Opposition parties and even some senior members of his own Conservative party
suspect he would use an election to avoid challenges to leaving the EU on
October 31. In his campaign to win the Conservative party leadership Johnson
promised to take the country out of the EU by the Brexit deadline, with or
without a deal. After winning the leadership vote by 160,000 Conservative
party members he ramped up preparations for no deal with an extra two billion
pounds funding, put his pro-Brexit referendum sidekick Michael Gove in charge
of that, appointed the controversial pro-Brexit referendum campaign
strategist Dominic Cummings as his senior adviser, and appointed a strongly pro-Brexit
and right wing cabinet. He has said repeatedly he’s prepared to leave without
a deal although he claims that is a last resort, the chances of it are a
million to one, and he’s only using it as a bargaining tool with the EU. He
still keeps claiming he’s seeking a new deal with the EU and is making every
effort to get one although for the first weeks of his premiership he flatly refused
to talk with the EU unless and until they changed their position on
having an Irish backstop before finally sending his new representative to
Brussels for regular talks. The EU has consistently said they have received
no new workable proposals.
In the few days Parliament actually sat before the suspension,
MPs were able to take control of the agenda and come together in a rare
alliance that passed the legislation requiring Johnson to get a new deal or
request an extension to the Brexit deadline.
Weeks before this, only one day after winning his party
leadership, Johnson was suspected of planning a
snap general election and events since then have confirmed it. Within
days of his win he made a tour
of the UK nations – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – where he was
welcomed by hostile demonstrators and politicians while trying to claim he
wants to unite the country.
For a sense of how he divides opinion take a look at these two
opposing political columnists:
The
Guardian’s John Crace
Blogger
Guido Fawkes
And here’s a snapshot
of one early afternoon in the UK’s new political life.
Summer of elections
”Not another election” exclaimed
Brenda in 2017 about Prime Minister Theresa May’s snap election call. This
summer there were three for key leaders in the EU and the UK – all of whom
could change the shape of both European and UK politics and all with narrow
and sometimes questionable “selectorates." The EU chose new heads of the
European Commission and the European Council in an opaque and indirect
process in which even the system of selection is not certain as analysed here by AEJ member
Charles Jenkins, former Western Europe editor of the Economist Intelligence
Unit.
In the UK some 160,000 members of the Conservative party chose the country’s
next prime minister - members who are predominantly male, white, older and
conservative and reinforced by a recent
campaign to encourage right-wing supporters of UKIP (the UK Independence
Party) to join. The two final candidates – Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt
–both appealed to hard line supporters of Brexit and said they were prepared
to leave the EU without a deal.
And the UK's Liberal Democrats also chose
a new leader who is expected to benefit from a recent surge in support from
voters who want to remain in the EU. About 105,000 party
members could vote – on average younger than Conservative or Labour party
members but not as young as Green supporters, most considered relaxed about
immigration, and 90% of them Remain voters in the 2016 referendum on the EU.
There has been no significant criticism of the fairness of this process but
it does mean just over 100,000 party members selected a leader who could ride
a voting
wave that further transforms British politics both in its effect on
Brexit and by reducing the power of the two main parties - Labour and the
Conservatives.
There were nearly 46 million registered voters in the UK as of the end of
2018.
European
populism is not “contained”
That at least is the view of
Brunello Rosa, CEO of Rosa and Roubini Associates and an analyst of strategic
country risks who closely monitors geopolitical trends and the economic
performance of countries across Europe. He told the AEJ UK on May 30 he
strongly disagreed with the idea that”populists have been contained” as expressed by
Martin Selmayr, secretary general of the European Commission, and other
observers. He noted the gains by right-wing populist parties in May’s
elections for the European Parliament and spelled out some of the impact they
may have. For more on his presentation please see this report from AEJ member
Charles Jenkins, this audio
transcript of the meeting, and these reflections on
populism and Brexit from AEJ member Tony Robinson, former FT correspondent in
Moscow and Rome.
Will Brexit happen?
Prime Minister Theresa
May resigned as Conservative leader and was replaced as prime minister in
late July.
Both the governing Conservatives and opposition Labour parties lost heavily
in late May’s elections
for the European Parliament with the big winner Nigel Farage’s new Brexit
party seeking a quick exit from the EU.
And 160.000 or so members of the Conservative party chose the next prime
minister. By early June, 11 Conservative Members of Parliament had said they
would stand for
election. All supported Brexit and all but a handful supported leaving
with no deal if necessary.
So the UK faced the same questions it has confronted for most of 2019. Will
Britain leave the EU? And when? And under whose leadership?
It is not clear what role Parliament will play in plans for Brexit despite
voting clearly against exiting without a deal. Because Theresa May’s
withdrawal deal – rejected three times - is currently off the table and how
the next prime minister will proceed is not known. And because it is not
clear how Parliament could exercise its will if the next prime minister is
determined to exit without a deal.
The Conservatives suffered their worst electoral defeat since 1832 in the European
Parliament elections, losing nearly 15% of their vote and coming fifth
among party results. Labour lost more than 11% and came third. Gaining votes
were the Liberal Democrats who leapfrogged to second and along with other
parties that support
remaining in the EU took a total of about 40%. But the big winner was
Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party which won nearly 32% of the vote, probably
taking it from the Conservatives and UKIP which all but collapsed. His win
is likely to worry Conservatives and encourage
leadership candidates to appeal to those voters.
Does the UK face a constitutional crisis?
Yes says constitutional expert Robert Hazell. And it pits popular
sovereignty against parliamentary sovereignty, and the four nations of the UK
against each other. But this is a failure of the political system not the
United Kingdom’s unwritten constitution the professor of government and the
constitution at University College London and founder of its Constitution
Unit told the AEJ UK on April 24. He says Brexit has triggered this crisis
and its origins lie in the British political system, Westminster’s
adversarial political culture, and serious failures of political leadership.
Please see this report on the
meeting from former FT correspondent Peter Norman and here for an audio transcript
of his presentation and following questions and answers.
Brexit deadlines – a shifting saga
The official deadline
for the UK to leave the EU is October 31, Halloween. That’s the date set
by an early April summit of 27 EU leaders after UK Prime Minister Theresa May
requested an extension to June 30.
It shifted
the political dynamics as ITV’s Robert Peston reported - leading the
prime minister to drop plans to get her withdrawal deal approved by the UK
parliament and ultimately forcing her resignation and subsequent leadership
contest. Members of Parliament had already rejected her deal three times and
opposition both to her deal and her leadership was reported to have hardened
during a two-week Easter break from Parliament. She continued cross-party talks
with the Labour opposition but there
was no sign she would get the support she wanted and ultimately Labour pulled out
of the talks. But not before the simple act of finally talking to Labour
party leader Jeremy Corbyn angered some
Conservative MPs and local party groups so much they sought ways to
replace Mrs. May. And two sets of elections threatened
Conservative politicians in particular – votes for local councils around
the country on May 2 and elections for the European Parliament on May 23. In
the local elections both the governing Conservatives and
opposition Labour parties lost seats across the country - the Tories
suffering their heaviest losses since 1995 under Prime Minister John Major
and Labour failing to make gains – in fact suffering losses - despite a divided
and vulnerable government. Pro-Remain parties and independent candidates
benefited. Local and national issues are always mixed in local elections so
the results can be difficult to decipher accurately and they unsurprisingly
sparked a new round of wildly
varying interpretations which tended to depend on who was doing the
interpreting.
Mrs. May’s request to the EU summit to delay the Brexit deadline came after Members of Parliament voted
narrowly – by a single vote – late on April 1 to approve
legislation that would legally require her to request a delay. The
legislation was quickly approved by the upper House of Lords. Very unusually
the legislation was proposed by MPs and not the government, and was passed in
a single day. A majority of MPs oppose leaving the EU without an agreement
and a significant number leaving the EU at all. After a marathon
7-hour cabinet meeting the next day the
prime minister said she would seek a further delay and surprisingly invited Labour leader
Jeremy Corbyn to discuss Brexit plans. After the first three days of
talks Labour was already describing them as “disappointing” and said Mrs. May
had not proposed
any changes to her Brexit deal
Crisis?
One of the
UK’s key political insiders for the last 20 years and the man who represented
the UK at the EU until January 2017 says the country is in the midst of a
political crisis - and potentially a constitutional and democratic crisis
with unknown economic implications. Sir Ivan Rogers, the UK Permanent
Representative to the EU from November 2013, resigned shortly before Prime
Minister Theresa May’s decision to trigger Article 50 on March 29 of that
year starting a two-year countdown to Brexit. Before serving at the EU Sir
Ivan was principal private secretary to Tony Blair from 2003-06 and David
Cameron’s main adviser for Europe and global Issues from 2012-2013. On the
day previously designated as the deadline for Brexit Sir Ivan provided the
AEJ UK with a uniquely qualified insider’s comprehensive and insightful
analysis of how we got here and what might be ahead. Please listen here for
an audio transcript of his
remarks and following questions and answers. Earlier the same day Sir
Ivan participated in a similar panel discussion at Chatham House which can be
viewed here.
Brexit Day….
When?
Only two days before the original Brexit Day, March 29, Parliament passed
government legislation to delay Brexit – possibly to May 22, possibly to
April 12. But that is likely to change again. The vote to delay - 441 to 105
- approved Prime Minister Theresa May’s acceptance of the EU’s dates given in
their response to her request for a delay.
The May 22 date depended on Mrs. May’s withdrawal agreement with the EU
getting approval in the Commons. Instead she lost 344 against
to 286 for. But she was widely reported to be trying for a fourth vote.
In
the meantime Members of Parliament voted twice on options for dealing
with the deeply divisive Brexit issue. They were unable
to find a majority in their second try on April 1 after narrowing the
options from eight to four from their
first votes on March 27 in a series of “indicative votes”. They lost a
vote allowing a third try although the prime minister has indicated she may
pursue her own agenda of indicative votes if her talks on Brexit with the
opposition Labour party failed.
Before her Brexit Day vote loss, Mrs. May spent the week scrambling to secure
support – even promising to resign once Brexit “is delivered” and widely
suspected of trying to offer more money to Northern
Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to get them on board. She did
convince several key Brexiters but not the DUP which has so far propped up
her government by providing a slight majority in Parliament. The Speaker of
the House of Commons has ruled she could not bring back the same deal which
lost twice for another vote, it had to show “substantial change” – so Mrs. May
offered only the withdrawal agreement half of her deal for the Brexit Day
vote, but not the political declaration which purports to lay out the future
direction of talks with the EU but is not in any way legally binding on
either side.
The latest political manoeuvring came after what many reporters predicted
would be a
historic week in Parliament. A look at both British
newspaper headlines and the European
press reflected the confusion.
In three key votes starting on March 12, Parliament:
- decisively rejected
Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal to withdraw from the EU.
- voted to stop withdrawal from
the EU without a deal, at any time but that vote was not legally binding.
- voted to delay Brexit past March 29 – but there was ambiguity about the
result.
The UK was required by law – Article 50 - to leave the EU on March 29 until
the government changed that law by requesting an extension or revoking it. So
even though Parliament narrowly voted – 312-308 – to reject withdrawing
without a deal that vote did not change the law. The vote overturned Mrs.
May’s plan to restrict this vote specifically to the March 29 date and leave
open the option of a no-deal Brexit at any other time. It forced a rewording
of the government’s motion to clearly reject no deal at any time and another
vote which then passed it 321-278.
The next day Parliament overwhelmingly voted to extend the
Article 50 deadline of March 29 – but again the Prime Minister chose her
words carefully. Her motion –approved
413-202 – called for a short extension until June 30 if her withdrawal
deal was approved. She said if her deal was rejected again she would need to
seek a longer extension. And in the end the EU gave her two new dates, both
earlier than she had requested.
So the prime minister kept trying to win support for her deal in a third
vote, hoping to keep the MPs who had so far voted for it and convince enough
more to get it passed. She needed another 75 in addition to all the MPs who
had voted for it last time and pressured hardline Brexiters in her own
Conservative party and the DUP to stop voting against her.
The votes came after two weeks of trying to get further changes to her deal
aimed at meeting the Brexiters objections. But that failed when her own attorney
general gave his legal opinion that the additions did not stop the UK
being "trapped" in an
Irish backstop arrangement although they did reduce that risk - and the hardline
Brexiters’ legal team said her deal was not substantially changed enough.
Brexit supporters have objected to the “backstop” – designed to keep an open
border in Ireland if the UK and the EU cannot agree on a trade deal in the
next few years - because they fear it could stop the UK from ever leaving the
EU. Both the DUP, which gives Mrs. May a working majority in Parliament, and
the European Research Group of Conservative Brexiters advised
their members to vote against the deal.
Other MPs from both the governing Conservatives and various opposition
parties have multiple and varied objections to the Prime Minister’s deal.
May and Corbyn change positions
At the end of February resignations from both the governing Conservatives and
opposition Labour parties forced both Prime Minister Theresa May and
Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn to change their stance on Brexit. The Prime
Minister again postponed a meaningful vote on her deal until March 12 but promised
that if it’s rejected Parliament would get separate votes in the
following two days on a no-deal Brexit and extending the Article 50
withdrawal process beyond the current deadline of March 29. And Labour leader
Jeremy Corbyn was forced into supporting another
public vote on Brexit. All of which made a no-deal
exit a bit less likely, a delay
to the March 29 deadline more likely, and a second referendum more possible.
The prime minister had previously insisted that no deal had to remain
possible and no deadline extension was possible. But she was forced into her
reversal by a threat from three senior cabinet ministers to resign unless
there was a vote on no deal and then actual resignations by three senior
Conservative MPs who support remaining in the EU. And Parliament
has all but locked in her latest promises by voting massively – 502 to 20
–to allow votes on leaving the EU without a deal and delaying Brexit.
Corbyn had previously evaded calls for a second referendum on Brexit,
insisting that Labour’s priorities were a better deal with the EU and if
necessary an election – all in an attempt to keep both his party together and
his voters with Labour. But 8 MPs resigned from his Labour party to form what
they call The
Independent Group and were then joined by the three Conservative MPs who
resigned – all oppose the handling of Brexit by their former parties and want
to keep close ties with the EU. Along with continuing calls for a second
referendum from various groups of politicians, ex-politicians, and members of
the public Corbyn
was finally prompted to execute the plan his party agreed last autumn at
their annual conference. So Labour called for a vote in Parliament on their
five requirements for a better Brexit deal. That was rejected by Parliament
as expected and Labour’s move to force an election had failed in January. So
in line with Labour’s conference plan Corbyn was forced to say his party will
now support a second referendum.
There were other
Brexit votes in Parliament on February 27 including one calling for a
separate agreement with the EU on rights for both UK and EU citizens in each
other’s jurisdictions even in the case of a no-deal Brexit – this was
approved without a vote as there was no opposition to it.
Prime Minister May had narrowly kept her withdrawal
deal with the EU alive at the end of January – and at the same time moved
a step closer
to leaving with no deal. She said she would try to convince the EU to
change the backstop arrangement which is designed to avoid any return to a
hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic – a part of the
withdrawal deal adamantly opposed by hardline Brexit supporters. The EU
immediately said this
cannot be changed and maintained this position through February.
Parliament also voted to reject
leaving the EU with no deal but the vote was not binding on the
government and the prime
minister continues refusing to rule it out. As usual the main national newspapers
headlined the result in line with their positions on Brexit. The series
of Parliamentary votes on January 29 can
be interpreted as Mrs. May giving in to hardline Brexiters in her party
and moving
closer to their desire for no deal. Right wing pro-Brexit Conservatives
and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which props up her
government have objected to the backstop. She won their support on January 29
by 317 to 301 by pushing her party to vote for an amendment calling for
changes to the deal she negotiated and strongly promoted for the last two
months. Parliament also voted 318-310 to reject leaving the EU with no deal
but defeated
all other amendments, most either trying to prevent no deal or extending
the deadline for leaving the EU. Currently the law–
Article 50 – requires the UK to leave on March 29. It would have to be extended
or stopped to prevent that as a majority of all MPs prefer but there have
also been suggestions
from Brexit supporters inside and outside
Parliament to shut it down to ensure the UK leaves the EU on March 29.
Despite a massive rejection by MPs on Jan. 15 of her withdrawal agreement
with the EU, Mrs. May has persisted in pursuing her plan, continuing to claim
the only other option is leaving with no deal. She lost
the crucial vote in Parliament on her plan on Jan.15 by 230 votes - 432
against her deal to 202 for, the largest defeat of a sitting British
government ever. She immediately faced a motion of no confidence in her
government moved by Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn. She won
that vote 325 to 306 on the next day with the support of all her own
Conservative Party and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party. She then
immediately urged
MPs and opposition leaders to join her in reaching a solution. She had
not done this during two years of negotiating her rejected deal with the EU,
was told by the leaders of every opposition party she must abandon her
threat of exiting the EU with no deal for such talks to proceed, and
showed no immediate sign of changing anything in her position. Her direct
approach was reported
to be over two days later although she has continued to say she wants to
find agreement on Brexit. There is continuing and widespread opposition both
outside and inside her own party as MPs consider multiple other options –
none of which have yet gained a clear consensus from MPs. They include, as
they have since December:
– the UK leaves the EU with no deal as currently required by the Article 50
law which triggered the Brexit process.
- Extension or suspension of the Article 50 deadline for Brexit on March 29.
- Theresa May comes back yet again to Parliament with a deal – possibly
changed from her original one.
- Parliament votes to try for a different deal with the EU based on either
the Norway or Canada models or something new.
- Another referendum, an option pushed by a number of politicians and public
campaigns who support staying in the EU. The form and questions on the
referendum ballot are hotly debated, the government has to propose
legislation to allow it, and a majority in the Commons has to approve it.
- A general election – the Opposition Labour Party’s preferred option but
again it requires Parliamentary approval from a fractious and much divided
Parliament – and country.
- A Labour minority government formed without a general election if the
governing Tories fall in Parliament and the Queen invites Labour to try to
govern.
The January 15 vote came a month after Prime Minister May delayed
a crucial vote in Parliament. And instead of facing a “meaningful
vote” – and possible amendments - on her deal, she was suddenly
confronted by a vote of no-confidence in her leadership, mainly from
right-wing pro-Brexit supporters in her Conservative party. She won 200-117
and cannot face the same challenge for another year.
For more please see:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887
https://www.itv.com/news/meet-the-team/robert-peston/
https://www.ft.com/world/uk/politics
https://www.politico.eu/section/brexit/
https://news.sky.com/politics
https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/brexit
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/brexit/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum
http://time.com/5504210/theresa-may-brexit-deal-defeat/
Britain
in the EU
On the day
UK Prime Minister Theresa May faced a vote of no confidence in her leadership
from her own party, the official historian of Britain's membership in the
European Community told the AEJ UK that Britain’s issues with it date back to
the very beginning of the relationship in the early 1960s. Mrs. May won her
vote of confidence. But that did nothing to resolve the current UK political
impasse over Brexit. And at an AEJ lunch on December 11, Sir Stephen Wall,
retired senior UK diplomat and author of the official history of Britain’s
relations with the EU, reflected on the long and fraught history behind the
divisive vote in the referendum on the EU in 2016. Laying out some of the
highlights of this history, he attributed these long term factors as well as
the disruption of the 2008-9 global financial crisis to Britain's
"No" vote in 2016. He said political errors in the management of
Brexit had further contributed to the current crisis. What now then? That’s "anyone's guess"
says Sir Stephen. As a supporter of remaining in the EU he was more hopeful
of a second referendum but there were major issues over the wording of the
questions and even more the reaction of the British voters. And both Mrs.
May’s deal with the EU - which is still not expected to pass Parliament - or
any of the trade alternatives so far being suggested faced long and hard
bargaining without solving the problem of the EU-UK border in Ireland. He
predicts the UK is "destined for a decade or more of real
difficulty" before regaining the prosperity lost through Brexit. It removes Britain from policies and
institutions previously deemed important for maintaining peace and security
since the second world war and reduces Britain’s political clout in the
world. And, he added, it would be a real loss to the EU. The UK has
contributed to EU foreign policy cooperation; promoted the single market;
promoted reforms on agriculture, financial services, and digital plans; and
partly acted as a bulwark against Franco-German dominance of the EU. For more
on his informative presentation please see this report from
former FT correspondent Peter Norman and this audio transcript.
Bleak
outlook with Brexit says former top UK diplomat
Sir Nigel
Sheinwald, one of the UK’s top diplomats before he retired, is not hopeful.
In a meeting with the AEJ UK on November 22 to discuss Britain’s future after
Brexit he asked if there are grounds for optimism. And his conclusion was
very few. He said outside the EU, the UK would lose influence at a practical
level and would lose stature in the view of the rest of the world. And the
UK’s position is further weakened by two other factors he added - the fraying
of its relationship and influence with the United States under President
Donald Trump, and threats to the multilateral system of alliances and
institutions that has served much of the western world for 70 years since the
Second World War. Sir Nigel has 36 years experience as a UK diplomat
including his three final jobs as UK ambassador to the US from 2007 to 2012,
foreign policy and defence advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair from 2003 to
2007, and UK Ambassador to the EU from 2000 to 2003. Despite his pessimistic
view of the future he did have some advice for UK action after Brexit so for
more on his thoughts please
read this report from former FT correspondent Peter Norman.
AEJ UK
and Brexit – 50 years of dialogue
On the anniversary of its formation 50
years ago the AEJ UK hosted an open and substantial dialogue among figures
from opposing sides of the Brexit debate. Six months before the UK’s planned
departure from the European Union and at a time when the outcome of the
negotiations was shrouded in extraordinary uncertainty, close to 100
diplomats, officials, and professionals from many fields including more than
40 journalists from all corners of Europe engaged in the debate. In his
keynote speech (see link
here) on Friday September 28 Sir Martin Donnelly, who held senior posts
dealing with the EU inside the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office until 2017,
said that the UK government’s mishandling of the Brexit negotiations and
unrealistic expectations are likely to result in serious damage to the
country’s wealth and standing in the world. That could last years and would
require a sober re-think of Britain’s testy relationship with its closest
neighbours to achieve a recovery in its fortunes. Gisela Stuart, who played a
leading part in the Vote Leave campaign, contested that assessment. She said
the referendum had shown the settled mindset of a majority of British people,
she was confident that any second referendum would confirm the results of the
first one, and that in future people would look back on this period of
turmoil in the UK and ask themselves what all the fuss was about. The
day-long Colloquium tested common ground in the fierce divisions exposed by
the Brexit debate and included two panel discussions - The UK In and Out of
Europe: Politics, Identity, and Cultures and Whose Europe Is It Anyway? Media
and Public Opinion. Please see
here for a detailed report and these links for more:
Photos and more on AEJ UK Facebook page
Debate on
Twitter at #aejbrexitdebate
Agenda UK-EU Relations beyond
Brexit: the AEJ UK 50 years
Forum
Opening remarks from William
Horsley
Keynote speech by Sir
Martin Donnelly
Notes on panellist Gisela
Stuart
Notes from panellist Gina
Miller
Notes from panellist
Alexandre Holroyd
Notes from panellist James
Hawes
Notes on panellist Peter
Foster
Notes from panellist Imke
Henkel
Notes from panellist Quentin
Peel
Notes from panellist Stephen
Jukes
Speakers biographies
Illustrated brochure celebrating the
first fifty years of the AEJ UK
About the AEJ UK
Information on AEJ Membership
AEJ UK
50th Anniversary Dinner: then and now
At a dinner gathering in
London AEJ journalists from across the EU celebrated the birth of the UK Section
of the AEJ in 1968 -- five years before the UK’s accession to the EEC -- and
the Association’s present
existence as a pan-European network for independent journalism and press
freedom. Today the association is active in all corners of the continent,
from Portugal to Armenia and from Finland to Greece. Please see here for more
on this and following links to short speeches and references.
Recollections on the AEJ
UK and the EU from David Haworth
Speech by Otmar Lahodynsky,
AEJ International President
Speech by Miguel-Angel
Aguilar, a founder member of the AEJ Spanish section in 1981
Speech by Kevin d’Arcy,
former AEJ UK secretary
Roger Broad's account of the UK
Section’s 40th anniversary ten years
Speakers at AEJ UK monthly
meetings in 2018
No deal on Brexit?
How likely is no deal with
the EU on Brexit? Prime Minister
Theresa says the only choice is between her Chequers plan or no deal – in a BBC interview
on the eve of an EU summit. EU
president Donald
Tusk said her plan won’t work at that EU leaders summit three days later
- and not
unexpectedly. Mrs. May stood by her plan,
taking a defiant stance in the face of Fleet Street
newspaper headlines that claimed she had been humiliated or even ambushed
by the EU. There are other options - another referendum on the outcome of the
EU talks, replacing her as prime minister, or a forced election – let alone
the possibility of a changed negotiating framework under any new prime
minister or government, Conservative or Labour led - none of which Mrs. May
wants. She says she wants her much-derided
Chequers plan which would keep the UK closely aligned with the EU but
outside its jurisdiction on issues such as immigration and the European Court
of Justice, while keeping EU rules on trade in goods but not on services,
which constitute about 80 per cent of UK trade. Donald
Tusk responded to the UK prime minister’s unusual live statement by
saying she had been too hardline in her most recent actions but the door was
still open to compromise. Months before, when the Chequers plan was announced
and formal negotiations resumed the EU
took her negotiating stance apart. But talks continued and had already
been extended to November, reinforcing a belief that the EU far prefers some
kind of deal to none at all. Mrs. May has kept insisting she doesn’t want a
“no deal”, “hard” or “cliff edge” Brexit. But her actions could mean this is
exactly where the UK is headed. So there has been much analysis of a no-deal
Brexit – what
it is from the anti-Brexit London Evening Standard, how
it might work from Politico, various
analyses from think tanks, what
the public thinks. Both the EU and the IMF
issued warnings about the consequences of leaving the EU without any
agreed deal.
No deal Brexit
will work …
says Lord Peter Lilley, former Conservative cabinet
minister and outspoken supporter of the UK’s exit from the European Union. He
outlined his arguments to the AEJ UK’s first autumn lunch meeting on
September 4 in a presentation he described as intentionally provocative. It
came as the UK government faced make or break negotiations with the EU on
their future relationship and widespread criticism of its negotiating plan
both inside Parliament and across the UK. Hardline Brexiters have opposed and
dismissed Prime Minister Theresa May’s “Chequers”
negotiating position as a betrayal of the referendum result in June 2016. More
moderate Conservative MPs outside the cabinet have been lukewarm at best and
openly critical in other cases, mostly opposing it as an unworkable and
ineffective compromise. The EU rejected it but kept the door open to further
talks. Peter Lilley says the Chequers plan is “moribund” and adds that the
May government looks like it needs lessons in trade negotiating and is giving
lessons in political suicide. Most important, says Lilley, is what the UK
does with the powers it takes back with Brexit. Ultimately he says Brexit is
a political issue and urged people not to exaggerate the importance of trade
deals. For more on his presentation please see this report on the meeting from
AEJ member and former FT correspondent Peter Norman and this audio transcript of the
meeting. And for more detail on the case for no deal made by Lord Lilley
and other Brexiters please
see this document published on Jan.7 2019, a week before the scheduled
Parliamentary vote on Mrs. May’s deal with the EU.
Brexit Checkers
In early July Prime Minister Theresa May forged an
agreement from her cabinet on Brexit
– an agreement that fell apart starting two days later with a series
of resignations, 10 in total including two of the three major cabinet
Brexit hardliners David Davis and Boris Johnson. Brexit hardliners further weakened
her negotiating plan in Parliamentary votes days later. For a longer more thoughtful look at
the Chequers plan try the BBC's
Briefing Room. On July 6 Theresa May gathered her cabinet at her country
retreat Chequers to get their agreement
on a Brexit negotiating position. When the day ended she said she had it
– reported overseas here
by the France 24 tv channel and the New
York Times. Two days later the minister responsible for negotiating
Brexit – David Davis – resigned, saying he could
not support her position on Brexit and potentially upsetting
her "delicate" balancing act of staying in power. He was replaced
within 12 hours by another pro-Brexit cabinet minister Dominic
Raab. Then Boris Johnson, the foreign minister and most prominent
Brexiteer, resigned – reported overseas here
by CNN and the
Washington Post. That was just 30 minutes before the prime minister was
scheduled to meet with her members of Parliament to seek their support. On July 16 and 17 she managed to get Parliamentary
approval of both her customs and trade legislation in preparation for
Brexit – by the narrowest
of margins and with
questionable tactics. In the process she accepted four
amendments to her plans from hard-line Brexiters and still managed to get
all but a handful of her Conservative party to support her.
Brexit meets fake
news
·
A UK Parliamentary committee says there
is a crisis in democracy because of fake news – as in a campaign of
disinformation and hate in the Brexit referendum two years ago.
·
Facebook has now released ads targeted
at specific groups of people during
the referendum – bought by the leave campaign for more than £2.7 million.
·
The UK Electoral Commission has fined
the official Vote Leave campaign for breaking spending limits in the
referendum and referred
two key leave campaigners to the police for false statements.
·
And the man who bankrolled Brexit and the UKIP
political party - Arron
Banks – is facing
questions over the source of his funds and possible
Russian involvement.
Fake news? Supporters
of Brexit in and out of the media
accuse the Electoral Commission of bias against Brexit. The commission was set up
by Parliament in 2001 as an independent body to regulate UK elections and
sought
enhanced powers in the wake of its investigation.
One of the men referred to police – Darren Grimes, head of the BeLeave
campaign – has launched
a crowd funding campaign to overturn the ruling.
And the Parliamentary committee doesn’t even like the term “fake news” and
prefers “disinformation” as more accurate. Even as it in turn is accused
of fake news – by leave campaign funder Arron Banks. The committee – the
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee chaired by Conservative
MP Damian Collins – highlights “the manipulation of personal data, and
targeting pernicious views to users” particularly during elections and
referenda. And it outlines a series
of recommendations to tackle the problem largely aimed at trying to make
social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google more accountable
for their content. The committee’s
interim report was officially released at the end of July, days after it
was leaked
by a key Brexit campaigner who had consistently refused to appear before
the committee. The official report will be released in the autumn but it has
already sparked
debate and this
interesting comparison with action on parallel issues in the United
States.
These latest developments follow a series of revelations about voter
manipulation in the spring of 2018 noted here.
Germany and the EU
Both supporters and opponents of Brexit might want to consider their
expectations of Germany’s role in the process. That was NOT the message to
the AEJ UK from Britain’s former ambassador to Germany - but it was inherent
in his wide ranging and in depth analysis of Germany’s role in Europe. Sir
Paul Lever, UK ambassador to Germany from 1997 to 2003 and author of a recent
book on the subject, says despite becoming Europe’s dominant power, Germany has
limited policy ambitions and no blueprint for Europe’s future. At the AEJ UK
on June 25, Sir Paul said Germany’s key
goals are supporting its national interests and economic strength
while preserving what has already been achieved in Europe. So it is unlikely
to show any appetite for grand EU integration plans as suggested by France's
President Emmanuel Macron - and has already shown constraints on any support
for adjustments to the EU’s trading relations with Britain under both UK
Prime Ministers David Cameron and Theresa May. For more on Sir Paul’s wide
ranging and in-depth analysis please see this report by AEJ member and
former FT correspondent Peter Norman and this audio transcript of his
remarks and following discussion.
UK Parliament
passes EU repeal law
The UK Parliament has approved the Conservative
government’s EU withdrawal bill, paving the way to Brexit by converting all applicable EU laws into UK law. Very narrowly.
Without clear language to allow detailed parliamentary scrutiny of whatever
deal – or no deal – is agreed with the EU. Without the support of 6 rebel MPS
from the governing Conservative party
- but with the support of 4 opposition Labour MPs who are longstanding
supporters of Brexit. Without complete cabinet solidarity on the government’s
approach to Brexit negotiations. Without clarity on a number of outstanding
key issues such as the UK’s future customs relationship with the EU and the
Irish border. And without even a hint of consensus on how to interpret all
the political manoeuvring. Prime Minister Theresa May has called a cabinet
meeting on July 6 at her country retreat Chequers to
seek agreement on a Brexit negotiating position. Opponents of Brexit held
a massive
protest march in London marking the second anniversary of the referendum
on 23 June - organizers said they drew 100,000 people. There was also a much
smaller rally nearby in support of Brexit which included members of UKIP (the
UK Independence Party) and far right groups such as White Pendragons and
Generation Identity.
In a week of high political drama the government
defeated a final amendment on June 20 to allow MPs a “meaningful vote” on the
final Brexit deal by 319 votes to 303. It was the second time in a week that
MPs voted on this issue. And it was the second time in a week that Prime
Minister Theresa May was forced to offer an assurance to a small group of
Tory MPs who threatened to vote against the government unless there was clear
language on a “meaningful vote.” The first time she headed off the revolt in
the final hours by personally giving assurances to the rebels – they said.
But almost immediately other cabinet ministers said no promises or
concessions were given – only a promise of further discussions. The second
time she headed off the revolt – again in the final minutes - after
convincing leading rebel Dominic Grieve with an assurance that the
parliamentary Speaker could decide if MPs get a “meaningful vote” on Brexit.
Again cabinet ministers immediately said no concessions were made. It was the
final act allowing the government’s withdrawal bill through. But it’s far
from the final act in the Brexit saga as Mrs. May faces a number of other
Commons votes on Brexit issues, one expected within just a month on possibly
the biggest core issue of Brexit – what kind of customs relationship to have
with the EU. For more, with varying interpretations, on the latest events
please see these sites:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu/may-faces-down-pro-eu-rebel-lawmakers-to-win-brexit-vote-idUKKBN1JF3AF
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/20/lead-tory-
rebel-dominic-grieve-accepts-brexit-meaningful-vote-compromise
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6585626/pm-theresa-may-survives-brexit-vote-with-pledge-to-rebels/
https://www.irishnews.com/news/brexit/2018/06/21/news/theresa-may-sees-off-brexit-rebellion-at-last-minute-1361061/
https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-negotiation-theresa-may-swerves-to-avoid-crunch/
https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-moves-from-procedure-to-substance-11411631
Please see here for more about debate on
this legislation.
Labour’s balancing
act
As Brexit continues
to divide both of the UK’s two major political parties and the British people,
Labour’s shadow deputy leader in the House of
Lords and spokesperson for exiting the EU walked the fine line between
Labour’s stance on Brexit and political realities. At a meeting of the AEJ UK
on 24 May 2018, Baroness Dianne Hayter of Kentish Town explained why she and
other Labour members of the unelected House of Lords had challenged the UK
government by forcing a series of amendments to the EU
Withdrawal Bill in the upper house. She says Labour is attempting to move Conservative
Prime Minister Theresa May away from her hard red lines in negotiations with
the EU and believes the final decisions on Brexit should be in the hands of
MPs in the House of Commons. She also thinks that the Lords votes for 15
amendments to the government’s withdrawal bill may influence public opinion
and debate on the kind of Brexit that will eventually happen. She
acknowledged there was no clear evidence of a shift in public support or
opposition to Brexit in most polling results since the referendum, including
Labour’s own private polling and her own contacts with voters. There is
however a recent
analysis of multiple polls by the YouGov polling organization that
questions this orthodoxy and suggests some possibly important shifts away
from Brexit. Baroness Hayter was walking her own fine line
inside Labour as a former strong supporter of Tony Blair now articulating a
position under EU-sceptic party leader Jeremy Corbyn. She personally
opposed Brexit and considers it a looming nightmare, but insists that the
Labour party will honour the result of the June 2016 referendum. Baroness
Hayter was Labour Party chairman from 2007-8, became a Labour
peer in 2010, and previously held senior posts in the legal, financial and
consumer affairs industries. For more on this meeting please see this article by AEJ member Nick
Hopkinson and this audio
transcript of her remarks and following discussion.
Will Brexit damage
human rights in the UK?
The chairman of the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission
says it could if the government’s Brexit withdrawal bill is not changed. At
the AEJ UK on 23 March 2018, David Isaac explained the basis for his concern
– backed by a number of NGOs working on human rights in the UK – that plans
for incorporating European into English (and Scottish and Northern Ireland)
law did not live up to the government’s promise that Brexit would leave our
rights unchanged. Please see this account from Hugh
Sandeman and here for an audio
transcript of the meeting.
UK and EU Brexit
transition deal
Britain and the European Union agreed on most of
the terms for the Brexit transition period in a deal announced on March 19
2018 showing concessions on both sides as well as remaining disagreements.
For instance the UK will be allowed to negotiate and sign its own trade deals
but will remain subject to EU rules including new ones implemented without a
UK vote. And both the deal and its interpretation will likely cause dissent
and disagreement for some time. For more please see these varying reports:
https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-what-has-been-agreed-between-the-eu-and-uk-for-a-transition-period-11297270
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-transition-period-deal-agreement-eu-uk-david-davis-barnier-latest-updates-a8263211.html
https://www.ft.com/content/f418a8b2-2b69-11e8-9b4b-bc4b9f08f381
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43456502
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/19/uk-and-eu-agree-terms-for-brexit-transition-deal
German business on Brexit
There will be a Brexit deal says the leading voice of German business in
the UK. Bob Bischof, vice president of the German British Chamber of Industry
and Commerce and chairman of the German British Forum, said German business
is confident of a Brexit deal and made his case at an AEJ UK meeting on
February 20 2018. See here
for a report on the meeting from AEJ member and former FT correspondent Peter Norman. And here for an audio
transcript of his remarks and subsequent questions and answers.
Stopping Brexit
Lord Andrew Adonis says it’s time to stop Brexit. And 7 weeks
after outlining concerns to the AEJ, he underlined them in Christmas week by resigning
as infrastructure tsar for the Conservative government of Theresa May. At
an AEJ-UK lunch meeting on Nov. 9 2017, the Labour peer and former Labour
minister for education and for transport offered even odds on reversing the
current political process to exit the European Union. Speaking while he was
still chair of the UK Infrastructure Commission, Lord Adonis said the next 18
months are crucial. For more on his analysis to the AEJ-UK please see this report from AEJ member and
former FT correspondent Peter Norman.
Brexit will not happen…
says Paddy Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal
Democrats and now the party’s leading elder statesman. As recently as July 2017, Lord
Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon – Liberal Democrat leader from 1988 to 1999 and
a bitter opponent of Brexit – expected Brexit to take place. But he has changed his mind and
thinks Brexit will not happen.
Speaking to the AEJ’s lunchtime meeting on 12 October 2017, he painted a grim picture of a dysfunctional UK
government that is incapable of negotiating a satisfactory withdrawal from
the EU and which could collapse next year. By a narrow margin, he believes
Britain will stay in the EU but retreat from an active international role and
lose global influence. Drawing on his many and varied experiences as a Royal
Marine, intelligence officer, diplomat, politician and international administrator,
Lord Ashdown also commented on a range of international issues in this “most
dangerous, volatile and frightening age” of his lifetime. Please see this summary of his
remarks from AEJ member and former FT correspondent Peter Norman.
Article 50 can be stopped or revoked
The
author of Article 50, Lord John Kerr of Kinlochard, says negotiators for both
the UK and the EU have made fundamental mistakes and become mired in public
disagreements. And he warned of a “precipice” in the UK’s relations with the
EU if the talks end without agreement. At a meeting of the AEJ UK on
September 15 2017 he
also said there is nothing in the law to prevent the UK from changing its
mind and stopping or revoking the process of UK exit from the EU. It’s by no
means the first time he’s said this but at the AEJ UK meeting he spelled out
his analysis of the Brexit process in forensic detail. A former head of the
UK Foreign Office and a cross-bench (independent) peer since 2004, Lord Kerr has emerged as a severe critic of the
UK government’s approach to Brexit. He has called for a halt to the Brexit
process and a national debate in the UK to think again about leaving the EU,
previously describing the UK government’s actions since the referendum as “a
completely wasted year while the Tories negotiated with themselves”. See this detailed report by AEJ UK
chairman William Horsley and an audio recording
of the meeting.
Known in Brussels as a wily and
effective negotiator, Lord Kerr held senior posts in the UK Treasury as well
as the Foreign Office. He was UK ambassador to the EU and the U.S. before
taking the top Foreign Office job in 1997. In 2002/3, after retiring as a UK
diplomat, he was secretary general to the European Convention, where he
drafted the EU exit clause that became Article 50. For more on his recent
positions please see:
http://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-article-50-lord-kerr-john-kerr/
http://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-john-kerr-uk-eu-have-both-made-blunders-says-article-50-author/
Theresa May’s election gamble backfires
The newspaper
headlines said it all on the morning after the 2017 UK election. Prime
Minister Theresa May lost 13 seats and in the coming months possibly her own
job. She was forced to lose
her two long-time key advisers who designed the Conservative election
manifesto, ran her office and in
effect her management of the government for the past year, leaving her
even more vulnerable to pressures inside her party. Her Conservative party
won the largest number of seats in Parliament – 318 – but lost its
Parliamentary majority.
Read more on the
election
UK
Parliament votes for Brexit
It was less than a month before the 2017 election call that Mrs. May’s
government won a complex political struggle in Parliament over launching its countdown
to leave the European Union. UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s letter
formally triggering Article 50 was hand delivered to Donald Tusk, president
of the European Council, on March 29 2017. It began a historic two-year negotiation that would
end
40 years of integration with the rest of Europe – and will rock the
foundations of both the European Union and the United Kingdom.
For more on the Brexit vote and background
information please see here.
AEJ plugs into reaction in Europe
As the UK
government was launching its exit from the European Union, the AEJ plugged
into a chorus of discordant voices at the European Parliament in Brussels.
AEJ journalists met with MEPs from all parts of Europe and all the political
groups for 2 days of lively debates in the run-up to the UK’s delivery of its
`Brexit letter’ on March 29 2017. The event took place
as the EU sailed into unknown territory beyond its 60th birthday
and the UK prepares its own lifeboat to disembark from the mother ship. AEJ
UK chairman William Horsley has this
detailed report on a range of European voices.
And AEJ UK member Tony Robinson has these “personal musings” on the
EU and its future after his participation in the European Parliament
seminar with AEJ journalists from across Europe.
MPs face rising levels of abuse and
threats
A survey by the BBC
has confirmed growing levels of abuse and death threats to MPs. This issue
was sadly highlighted by the killing of Jo
Cox, the MP for Batley and Spen, on June 16 2016 in Birstall, West Yorkshire. The Association of European
Journalists issued a statement condemning the murder of the 41-year-old
Labour Member of the British Parliament who was shot and killed in her
Yorkshire constituency. Jo Cox had reportedly received threats of violence
before the deadly attack. The AEJ said such acts of extreme violence can have
a chilling effect on the robust exchange of arguments, opinions and
information which are the essence of open democratic societies.
On Nov. 23 2016
Thomas Mair, a 53-year-old
unemployed gardener, was sentenced to prison for the rest of his life for the
murder. He had shot the MP twice
in the head and once in the chest with a sawn-off hunting rifle before
stabbing her 15 times. At the
sentencing hearing the judge described Ms. Cox as “passionate,
open-hearted, inclusive and generous” and a true patriot while the murderer
“affected to be a patriot”. The judge explained: “It is evident from your
internet searches that your inspiration is not love of country or your fellow
citizens, it is an admiration for Nazis and similar anti-democratic white
supremacist creeds.”
The French election…
was a recipe for
uncertainty even just 2 weeks before the vote said political scientist and
columnist Dominique Moisi. He said the presidential election was the most
unpredictable and most important that he could remember in a lifetime of
observing and analysing French politics and international affairs. At the AEJ
UK on 6 April 2017,
Moisi said that if Brexit is likely to damage the EU then a victory for
Marine le Pen and her far-right Front National would be far worse. For more
on Moisi’s outline of the French election campaign please see this report from AEJ member
Quentin Peel, this audio transcript
of Moisi’s presentation and following questions and answers, and Moisi’s own
recent article.
Brexit and globalisation
Donald Trump’s advisers are “stuck in the dark ages” and the
UK government of Theresa May has yet to “get real” about Brexit says the man
dubbed the high priest of globalisation. Jim O’Neill is the former chief
economist of Goldman Sachs who coined the term BRICs in 2001 for the rising
economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China; a former Treasury minister in
David Cameron’s Conservative government; and one of the world’s pre-eminent
proponents of globalisation. He says the populist politics of Brexit and
Donald Trump are hostile to further growth and out of sync with world
economic trends. Despite much
of the political rhetoric surrounding both Trump and Brexit –
and from other political leaders – he says world economic growth is not
slowing, noting that in this decade it is in line with performance in the
1980s and 1990 and “not as weak
as often perceived” by western leaders. For more on his nuanced
and informed briefing to the AEJ UK on March 13 2017 please see this report on the meeting from
AEJ member and former FT correspondent Peter Norman; and here for an audio transcript of
Lord O’Neill’s remarks and following questions and answers. And for more of his comments on Brexit see
this report on Politico.
On the wider issue of globalisation, Lord O’Neill of Gatley has recently been
arguing in
articles and on a BBC
radio series for a re-examination and urging business leaders to address
issues which have left vast numbers of industrial workers and regions in the
western world reeling and disaffected.
Brexit and cultural revolution
One of Britain’s foremost
constitutional experts says last year’s referendum vote for Brexit shows that
Britain is a totally different country from its continental neighbours. At a
meeting of the AEJ UK on Feb.15 2017 Vernon Bogdanor, a historian and constitutional
adviser to a number of governments around the world, explained the vote as
the result of a long-simmering cultural revolt. In a wide ranging
interpretation of the Brexit vote and its ramifications Prof. Bogdanor also
said that it endangers stability in Northern Ireland; Leave voters are likely
to suffer most from the consequences of Brexit; current political leaders in
England are deceived about the deal they can reach; and there is still a
possibility that the Brexit process can be aborted. For more on this meeting
please see this report from AEJ UK Chairman William
Horsley. Prof. Bogdanor is research professor at the Institute for
Contemporary British History at King’s College London, and former professor
of government at Oxford University and senior tutor and vice-principal at
Brasenose College. He was awarded a CBE for services to constitutional
history in 1998 and is a Fellow of the British Academy.
Scottish Brexit
Alex Salmond and two of his Scottish National Party MPs
provided a preview of SNP plans on Brexit as they treated us to one of the
more memorable meetings of 2016 on Nov. 29. While the former First
Minister of Scotland was trapped in a broken-down Heathrow Express and
running late, his two MPs – Stephen Gethins and Tasmina Ahmed-Shah –
valiantly tried for 45 minutes to answer a barrage of questions about their
plans for dealing with Brexit. When Salmond arrived he brought both calm and
some clear answers on SNP strategy: a desire to stay in the EU, retention
of trading and economic
relationships in Europe, and as necessary a referendum on independence for
Scotland. His clarity came weeks ahead of the official
SNP blueprint released on Dec. 20 by Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s
First Minister, setting out in detail how the SNP believes the Scottish vote
on the EU in/out referendum should be respected. For more on this enlightening – and
entertaining – meeting please
see these notes from AEJ members David Lennon and Rick Thompson.
Brexit Trumped
For one - of many – analyses of the connection between the
election of Donald Trump and Brexit please see here
for a European perspective. And here is a quick
survey of media coverage of his victory on Nov. 8 2016.
AEJ UK member and
former FT correspondent Anthony Robinson has these reflections on the world
post Trump and post Brexit – from
the AEJ congress as well as the Brexit campaign
just last June.
Brexit dominates
AEJ congress
Perhaps unsurprisingly the issue of
Brexit was on every delegate’s mind and their lips at the AEJ’s 2016
Congress in Kilkenny in southeastern Ireland on 4 –6 November – and in
reporting of the event. The congress debated Brexit and the rise of
demagoguery, the threat to journalism in a brave new media world, and talk of
a so-called `post-truth era’, under the overall theme of `The changing face
of Europe and its media’. William Horsley,
AEJ Vice President and Media Freedom Representative, has this account of the
highly charged discussions.
Press coverage focussed on Brexit at the AEJ meeting can be
found here:
Stephen
Collins Irish Times
Miriam
Lord Irish Times
Colm
Kelpie and Cormac McQuinn The Independent
Also here and in these three articles from the Austria
Press Agency were written by Thomas Karabaczek, president of the
Austrian section, and quoted in Austrian dailies (edited translation via
Google)
On
another subject discussed at the Kilkenny congress see
this article by Bruce Clark in The Economist on threats to media freedom
in the Balkans.
Former prime minister
of Finland and EU insider on Brexit
Alexander Stubb told another packed AEJ-UK meeting he
believes Brexit is lose-lose for both the UK and the rest of the EU. And to
avoid further damage the former finance minister and leader of Finland’s
centre-right National Coalition Party has his own blueprint for a “soft
Brexit”. William Horsley made these notes on his
ideas discussed on 19 Sept 2016. Before stepping down
as finance minister and party leader, Stubb served Finland as trade and
Europe Minister, foreign minister, MEP and adviser to EU Commission President
Romano Prodi.
Retired senior UK civil servant and trade negotiator on
Brexit
Sir Simon Fraser, former permanent
under-secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, provided an insider’s
view of Brexit at one of the largest AEJ-UK meetings in recent years. The 5
Sept. 2016 lunch meeting was packed with members and invited foreign
correspondents to hear and question Sir Simon on the details, complications
and issues involved in the upcoming process of UK extraction from the
European Union. For more on this meeting please see this blog by AEJ member Jonathan
Fryer and this
report by BBC News. Sir Simon retired in July 2015 after a long career
with the FCO including secondment to the European Commission; he is now
managing partner at business consultancy Flint Global.
French Minister Axelle
Lemaire on Brexit
A French government minister provided the AEJ UK with a stark and critical
assessment of the UK referendum campaign, the UK government’s post-vote
strategy, and future prospects for both the UK and the rest of Europe.
Axelle Lemaire, Minister for Digital
Affairs in the French Ministry for the Economy and Industry since April 2014, spoke in July 2016 at the AEJ UK’s first
meeting since the referendum vote in which the British public voted 52% to
48% to leave the EU.
UK chairman William Horsley made these notes of an
animated and informative exchange on July 14, Bastille Day, 2016.
Latest
Briefings
A selection of AEJ-related writings and activities
AEJ member Charles Jenkins, former Western Europe editor
of the Economist Intelligence Unit, blogs on Europe at https://eupriorities.ideasoneurope.eu/
Firdevs
Robinson’s writing is now accessible on FirdevsTalkTurkey.com
William
Horsley blogs on BBC
Academy
Long-time AEJ member – and journalist, author and politician – Jonathan Fryer
is the Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman for London. Please see his blog here.
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Lunchtime meetings
Meetings
usually start at 12:15. AEJ meetings and are open to journalists, academics and Europe
specialists and guests. Pre-registration is necessary by email to margaret@aej-uk.org. A fee of £25 is charged to
cover the cost of refreshments - £10 for under-25s and free admission may be
extended to students on a discretionary basis.
29 January
Venue:
Herringham Hall, Regent’s University, Inner Circle Regent’s Park 1230-1415
(revised time)
Rory Stewart, former
Conservative MP and cabinet minister, who has declared his Independent
candidacy in the forthcoming election for Mayor of London. Contender
for Conservative party leader and then expelled for opposing Boris Johnson’s
plan to force a possible no-deal Brexit – as well as a former diplomat and
deputy governor of Iraq after the U.S. led invasion in 2003 - he will discuss
what’s gone wrong with UK national politics and how to tackle the local and
international issues facing a post-Brexit London.
20 February
Venue:
Herringham Hall, Regent’s University, Inner Circle Regent’s Park
1230-1430
Ciaran Martin, CEO of the
UK National Cyber Security Centre. He will outline the scale and nature of the threat to democratic
societies from cyber weapons and crime, political interference and
vulnerabilities in the infrastructures on which our daily lives as well as
national security depend.
9 March
Venue: Tuke
Common Room, Regent’s University, Inner Circle Regent’s Park 1230-1430
Prof
Jeff Kingston, author, columnist and Director of Asian Studies, Temple
University, Tokyo, will speak on “The China challenge and national rivalries
in the Asia-Pacific region”.
For
previous speakers’ details and a list of our recent lunchtime guests see Past Events.
The European
Parliament’s UK website gives details of its own events of
which visitors may be notified by email.
Latest News
Justice for Daphne?
Are we really going to get answers to the long-running and
repeated calls for justice
in the killing of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana
Galizia? AEJ UK member and former BBC journalist Firdevs Robinson has
this look at recent breaks in the story. On Nov. 20 one of the country’s
richest men, gambling and property entrepreneur Yorgen
Fenech, was arrested and in court two weeks later accused
of being the brains behind the killing. He’s denied the charges and
blamed allies of the prime minister. Two of them have since resigned and in
the face of major
street protests Prime Minister Joseph Muscat says he
will resign. However his government has spent two years stonewalling any
genuine investigation and far longer rejecting accusations
of widespread money laundering, political corruption and cronyism. The
AEJ has joined a
call to closely monitor a public inquiry into her assassination opening
on Dec. 6.
AEJ conference and call for media freedom
The international Association of European Journalists opened its annual
conference on Friday Dec. 6 in Paris. Europe is no longer a completely safe place
for journalists or media freedom and panel discussions will highlight the
acute threats and the vital role of the media in the democratic process with
conclusions and recommendations from the meeting to be communicated to the
relevant authorities in UNESCO, the Council of Europe and the European Union.
For one example of the issues being faced please see this presentation on
failing media freedoms in Poland from Krzysztof Bobinski of the AEJ Poland.
The conference is also leading a call to
respect press freedom and journalistic independence from all the national
sections of the AEJ, Reporters Without Borders,
the European Federation of Journalists, the European Centre for Press and
Media Freedom, and the South East Europe Media Organisation.
Bob Elphick
It was with sadness that the AEJ UK learned of the death of long-time
member Bob Elphick on 11 September at the age of 89. He had a long career
with Reuters and the BBC covering the old Soviet Union, central Europe and
north Africa before working for the European Commission as AEJ member Michael
Lake details here and is
noted
in this article. His life will be celebrated on September 26.
AEJ co-signs Open Letter for upgraded
efforts to protect media freedom
The AEJ has co-signed a letter to the new Council of Europe
Secretary-General for upgraded measures to stop criminalizing and demonising
journalists, counter the toxic atmosphere of hostility to the media, and
stamp out impunity. For more
please see here.
AEJ Bulgaria makes a Declaration for ethical
journalism
More than one hundred Bulgarian journalists and leading media
outlets have called on local
politicians to cease legitimising the yellow press that pours praise on
those in power and harms all who criticize them while receiving financial
incentives to do so.
AEJ joins call for
new European Commission President to prioritize press freedom
The AEJ joined the Committee to
Protect Journalists and others to ask the new President of the European
Commission to make key media issues a policy priority for the EU. The AEJ is
among 20 media and press freedom organisations urging Ursula von der Leyen to
take action on media freedom, journalists’ safety and access to public
information. For more please see
this on the AEJ International website.
Media Freedom
Promises Not Credible Without Action
The AEJ joined a total of 33 media freedom groups calling on governments
to ensure the protection and safety of all journalists and media workers as
the first
Global Media Freedom Conference opened in London. Please see this report on the
conference from AEJ member and former BBC World Service editor Firdevs
Robinson. The group including the AEJ, representing and working with hundreds
of thousands of journalists and media workers around the world, made their call on July 9 in
advance of the first major international conference on media freedom, hosted
by the foreign ministers of Canada and the United Kingdom. Several states
attending the conference currently have journalists in prison and unsolved
murders. The 33 media freedom groups demand all states hold themselves
accountable and show demonstrable progress on complying with their existing
obligations and international standards. The AEJ UK and the AEJ Bulgaria
attended the conference. For the conference agenda and participants please
see here and more at these links:
New threats
to journalism blog from BBC media editor Amol Rajan
The Canary’s take on Russian “news” outlets RT and Sputnik banned
from conference
More irony from The Canary on human rights lawyer Amal
Clooney v. Jeremy Hunt
BBC Director General Tony Hall re “Assault on
Truth”
China – traps in the way of dominance?
China’s development faces four
fundamental traps which could slow down or even derail the country’s widely
assumed march towards global economic dominance – traps that few people
outside the country recognise says economist George Magnus, author of “Red
Flags: Why Xi's China is in Jeopardy”. As China hit the headlines again with
a crackdown on protests in Hong Kong and a surprise twist on Huawei in the
trade war with the United States, it is these inter-related traps that form a
potential block to China’s development Magnus told the AEJ UK on June 25. Best known for anticipating the
financial crisis of 2008, Magnus has been travelling to China since 1992
and laid out his four traps – debt, currency, ageing, and income. Please see this full report on the
meeting from AEJ member Chris Cragg and this audio transcript.
World Press Freedom Day
AEJ Sections joined journalists across Europe to mark World Press Freedom
Day on May 3 paying tribute to courageous journalists and demanding safe
working environments. Please see the AEJ International site for
details on various events – in particular this report from Armenia a
year after the Velvet Revolution there and these notes about Bulgaria. In the
UK the AEJ has responded jointly with Index on Censorship to urge the British
government to rethink its proposals for new, wide-ranging regulation of
“online harms” which could have damaging impacts on media freedom. Please see
here for more.
Assange case raises major questions
The recent arrest in London of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has
far-reaching implications for press freedom, the public’s right to know, and
public trust in journalism writes
William Horsley, AEJ UK chairman and AEJ Media Freedom Representative.
RSF 2019 World Press Freedom Index – Increased Danger
The 2019
World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Sans Frontieres
(RSF-Reporters Without Borders) shows fewer countries are safe for
journalists and an increase in violence and danger. Norway is ranked the
safest for the third year running, Finland is second and Sweden is third. The
UK rose seven places to
number 33 but RSF notes: “Despite improvements in some areas and the presence
of a robust independent media, the UK remained one of the worst-ranked
Western European countries in the World Press Freedom Index, largely due to a
heavy-handed approach towards the press, often in the name of national
security.” And the United States
ranks 48th, down three places “as a result of an increasingly
hostile climate that goes beyond Donald Trump’s comments... Never before have
US journalists been subjected to so many death threats or turned so often to
private security firms for protection.” Please see here
for the full report.
Safety for journalists?
The UK House of Commons has hosted a key event on growing concerns about
safety for journalists ahead of a planned international conference later in
the year on media freedom. On 25 March, the Foreign Policy Centre and the Justice
for Journalists Foundation invited four panellists to examine the issue of
safety and justice and possible solutions - chair John Whittingdale MP,
former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, panellists
Maria Ordzhonikidze, Director of Justice for Journalists Foundation,
Professor Philip Leach, Director, European Human Rights Advocacy Centre,
Rebecca Vincent, UK Director of Reporters Without Borders, and Joy Hyvarinen,
Head of Advocacy at Index on Censorship.
For more please
see this report from AEJ member Firdevs Robinson.
Vladimir Putin’s “Number 1 Enemy”
Bill Browder characteristically starts his presentation with an escapade
in Spain in May 2018 when he was arrested on an Interpol warrant
requested by Russia. It was another chapter in the
story of a man proud to call himself Putin’s number one enemy. At a
crowded AEJ meeting of UK-based journalists on February 26 he described his
personal journey from American capitalist making a huge fortune in
post-Soviet Russia to campaigner exposing corruption and abuse – a story that
ironically goes back to his grandfather who led the Communist Party in the
USA in the 1940s. Browder is CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, was thrown
out of Russia in 2005, and is the man behind the Magnitsky Act – named after
his now dead Russian lawyer – which is aimed at rooting out money laundering
and bans gross abusers of human rights from visiting or holding assets in the
USA. Given the number of accusations that Browder throws out it might seem
surprising that he’s still alive and fighting but he says keeping a high
public profile is probably what keeps him alive. For more on this meeting
please see this report
from AEJ UK chairman William Horsley and this audio transcript of
his presentation and following question and answer exchange.
AEJ calls for justice and investigation in Slovakia
murder
The AEJ has joined nine other international organisations concerned about
press freedom and freedom of expression to call for an investigation into the
state authorities in Slovakia over the failure to prevent the murder of a
Slovak investigative journalist. The appeal marks the first anniversary of
the mafia-style killing of Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova on 21
February 2018. The European
Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee has adopted
a resolution calling for the Slovak government to ensure the safety of
journalists and expressed concern about “allegations of corruption, conflict
of interest and impunity in Slovakia’s circles of power”. The media freedom
organisations representing thousands of journalists and human rights
activists across Europe have welcomed the arrests of suspects who have been
charged in connection with Kuciak’s and Kusnirova’s murder but have urged the
Slovak authorities to examine their responsibility in failing to prevent the
assassinations. A few months before he was killed Kuciak reported threats
against him. The state is obliged to protect the life of journalists under
Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the media freedom
organisations say so far there has been no adequate investigation of possible
state breaches of its protective obligation. They are calling for answers to
the following questions:
- whether Slovakia knew, or ought to have known, of a present and immediate
threat to his life;
- which steps, if any, have they taken to protect Kuciak from that threat;
- and what will be done to protect Slovak journalists in the future.
The full text of the appeal
and list of signatories is here.
Press Freedom more fragile than ever
Even inside the EU. The latest
annual report from the Council of Europe Platform to Promote the Protection
of Journalism and Safety of Journalists – which includes the AEJ - paints a
disturbing picture of media freedom:
Across Europe journalists are intimidated and attacked.
Murders of journalists go unpunished.
Freedom of media - a cornerstone of democracy - is under threat.
The report blames an atmosphere of impunity, weakened institutions and lack
of accountability - and calls for urgent action by the Council of Europe, the
European Union and their Member States. Please see here
for the report, this link to the
Platform, and this report
and commentary from the AEJ International representative for media
freedom William Horsley.
The 12 partner organisations in the platform are: European Federation of
Journalists, International Federation of Journalists, Association of European
Journalists, Article 19, Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect
Journalists, Index on Censorship, International Press Institute,
International News Safety Institute, Rory Peck Trust, European Broadcasting
Union and PEN International.
A Journalistic Lesson from Malaysia
For those who may have missed it a recent book exposes the world’s
biggest financial heist, in Malaysia, – and offers journalists everywhere
a lesson
in the value and impact of determined investigation into malfeasance. The
book is The Sarawak Report published last autumn and former AEJ UK Secretary
Kevin d'Arcy brings attention to it in this review. The author
is Clare
Rewcastle Brown, a reporter for BBC, Sky News and ITV in the 1980s and
90s and sister in law to former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.
She began a blog about
corruption and deforestation in her birthplace of Sarawak in Malaysia in
2010. She ended
up exposing the theft of billions of dollars from a key Malaysian
government fund, 1Malaysia
Development Berhad known as 1MDB. Hers is not the only book about the
scandal – there are three
so far – but her
years of blogging also unearthed international links in some of the key
journalistic issues of our times. Her work on the Sarawak Report blog has
reported connections between the former Malaysian government of disgraced
prime Minister Najib Razak and companies - British and international
companies - with significant influence on mainstream journalistic media in
the UK and USA. For instance FBC
Media, a British public relations company working directly on behalf of
the Malaysian government, provided
"documentaries" to BBC World News and similar material to CNBC
and CNN in the USA as well as a number of elite print media. BBC World
News broadcast these for two and a half years before having
to apologize to its viewers in 2011 and ending
its relationship with FBC Media. Sarawak Report has also detailed links
between the Razak government and another British company - the SCL Group - which it
says provided political help. SCL, formerly Strategic Communication
Laboratories, was the parent company of Cambridge
Analytica, now closed but controversially involved in harvesting Facebook
data and using it to influence the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit
referendum. Neither FBC nor SCL are known to be involved in the misuse of
1MDB funds. But Clare Brown's years of journalistic digging and determination
have illuminated a web of dealings that all journalists can value in the
current climate of fake news, media manipulation, and vote distortion.
Lord Paddy Ashdown
AEJ members were shocked and saddened to learn of the death on December 22 2018
of Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub Hamdon after a short illness. The generosity
and goodwill of Lord Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal Democrats and
diplomat, stretched to being an AEJ UK lunch guest at short notice in October
2017. He spoke then with passion (as a famous
Europhile) about the ‘folly’ of Brexit and his part in the campaign to try to
stop it from happening. Please see AEJ member Jonathan
Fryer’s personal tribute to one of the most engaging and versatile public
figures of his generation.
AEJ president on the future of Europe
As the European Union is poised to lose a key member through Brexit, AEJ President Otmar Lahodynsky
writes that now is the time for the citizens of Europe to stand up and
safeguard the basic values of the EU.
AEJ Turkey survey shows more restrictions on the media
The AEJ Turkey’s annual survey of press freedom with other
members of the joint G-9 press freedom Platform says 145 journalists are still
in jail for their work in Turkey, and another terrible year in 2018 saw a
series of deliberate actions by the government that have further stifled the
ability of the media to inform the public. Please see the full report here.
Press freedom solidarity mission to Slovakia
calls for full justice over Jan Kuciak’s murder
The AEJ joined eight other partner organisations on the safety
of journalists to press the Slovak government to bring all those responsible
for the murder in February 2018 of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and
his fiancée to justice. The AEJ and partner organisations publish regular
press freedom alerts on the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists website
visited the Slovak capital Bratislava on Dec.6. They also urged the Slovakian
government to counter the hostile working environment for investigative
journalists and to make legal and policy reforms to ensure the personal
safety of journalists as well as their contacts or sources. Please see the full joint statement here.
AEJ joins call for justice for Jamal Khashoggi
The Association of European Journalists International has
joined the Journalist Support Committee (JSC) to call for justice and a full
investigation into the death of Saudi
Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey.
His death has turned a spotlight on the Saudi regime’s pivotal role in a
number of key issues – the Yemen civil war, western arms sales to the Saudis,
international terrorism, its actions as one of two key Western allies in the
Middle East, and its financing and trade particularly in relation to the USA
and western European countries. In its statement the AEJ and JSC decried
Khashoggi’s death and called for disclosure of all information in the Turkish
investigation and for a thorough, independent review of the human rights
record of the Saudi authorities. They join other
journalist and human rights groups in their alarm as Saudi activists
remain in jail. Jamal Khashoggi disappeared inside the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul on Oct.2 2018. He was one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent
journalists, once an advisor to the country’s intelligence chief, but left in
2017 to the USA where he wrote
a regular column for The Washington Post in which he criticised the
direction of his country under Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman,
profiled in this BBC Radio 4 program.
Dennis Kiley
Denis Kiley’s “full and outrageous life” was celebrated on July 13 2018.
Exiled nearly 60 years ago from apartheid South Africa for reporting
on deaths and abuse at the Modder B prison near Johannesburg, Kiley ended
up in England by way of Kenya and the Congo, continuing to write and publish
reports on Africa for many years. The colourful story of his
adventures is detailed with fondness by friend and colleague Raymond Whitaker, Dennis’ deputy at FT
syndication and later founding member of the Independent’s foreign staff and
foreign editor of the Independent on Sunday. Dennis died peacefully in a
North London care home on June 29. A long-time AEJ member, Dennis celebrated
his 85th birthday in May but soon afterwards was diagnosed with an
advanced form of prostate cancer. And although he had also suffered from a
rare form of dementia since 2012 he had continued to enjoy life with his
family and friends including trips to Japan and Sardinia before going into
care in January.
Rule of law failing in Europe?
The AEJ has raised questions about how well the rule of law is working
inside Europe in the wake of the killing of two journalists - in Malta and
Slovakia. And it’s wondering if a ‘climate of impunity’ is developing, as AEJ
Vice President and media freedom representative William Horsley writes in this report on a
press seminar organised by the Association of European Journalists at the
European Parliament in Brussels.
AEJ joins plea for media freedom in Turkey
The AEJ is one of 17 press freedom and media organisations that have
signed and published an Open Letter to the president of Turkey. The letter is
a 6-point appeal to reverse the drastic decline in freedom of expression and
press freedom there and was published on June 23 2018 just before the hotly
contested presidential and parliamentary elections in which President
Erdogan and his party won re-election on June 24, extending his 15-year
domination of the Turkish political landscape. See this link on the AEJ International
website.
Spotlight on Turkey’s breach of international
obligations
Reporters Without Borders challenged the UK prime minister to hold Turkey
to its democratic obligations as protests marked President Erdogan’s London
visit in May 2018. And the latest AEJ reports and commentaries set out the
mountain of evidence showing that Turkey is trampling on press freedom and is
systematically violating the rule of law by jailing journalists and silencing
opposition voices. Please see this round-up on the AEJ International
website.
Turkey faces further loss of independent media
Turkey’s
largest media group has sold its outlets to a business group close to
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in March 2018. Dogan news outlets were among
the few relatively independent media in a country dominated by TV stations
and newspapers allied to Erdogan. The
sale further curtails independent journalism as Turkey takes an
increasingly authoritarian turn under his leadership. Dogan Holding sold its
outlets — including flagship Hurriyet newspaper, the mass-circulation daily
Posta, CNN-Turk and Kanal D television channels and Dogan News Agency — to
Demiroren Holding.
China and the world
AEJ UK members received some wide-ranging insight into Chinese thinking at a meeting on April
19 2018. Dr Yu Jie, head of China Foresight at the London School of Economics
foreign policy think tank, said President Xi Jing Ping’s immediate plans are
to eliminate factions inside the Chinese Communist Party and establish China
as a global power. Yu Jie has advised Chinese state-owned companies on
European investment and leading European firms seeking to forge strategies
for the Chinese market. For more on her thoughts please see
this report from AEJ member and former FT correspondent Peter Norman and here for an audio
transcript of her remarks.
Fake news, Facebook, and
Democracy
It could have been a plotline straight out of the U.S. TV series Homeland
– allegations of an illegal data grab used to manipulate national votes
through social media. But this was life once again imitating art – sparked by
an investigative
report published in mid-March 2018 by The Observer newspaper and shared
with the UK’s Channel 4 television and the New York Times. The company at the
centre of this story – Cambridge Analytica - said in early May it’s
shutting down and starting insolvency proceedings – but the reporter who
first broke the story raises
major doubts about whether this either ends the questions or closes the
issue. For the latest developments see here in The
Guardian, here at BBC
News, as well as in many other media. The stories report how a
UK data analytics and election consultancy firm – Cambridge
Analytica – used data
harvested from 50 million Facebook users to influence both the U.S.
presidential election and the UK referendum on leaving the European Union.
That soon turned into 87 million users as Facebook founder and CEO Mark
Zuckerberg was called
to answer questions in the U.S. Congress – and has
again been urged to testify at a UK Parliamentary committee. Facebook and
Cambridge Analytica have denied any wrongdoing. Facebook lost around $50
billion in share value on the stock markets in two days – but recovered all
that within two months. Facebook changed its internal rules. Facebook suspended
its relationship with Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge
Analytica suspended its chief executive Alexander Nix after he was shown
on TV boasting about his company’s influence in the American election. UK
Information Commissioner officials raided Cambridge Analytica offices to
search for records. The
U.S. Federal Trade Commission and EU regulators are looking at possible
breaches of the law.
By way of perspective on the latest revelations, parts of this story have
actually been reported previously – as Wired
magazine notes here and this earlier
report on the Brexit vote shows. The Observer reporter breaking these
stories – Carole Cadwalladr – even got a
pat on the back from Alastair Campbell, former Prime Minister Tony
Blair’s spin doctor. And for a look at what can happen with Facebook data and
some of the issues raised see this New
York Times piece.
World Press Freedom Day
AEJ journalists have noted an intensifying struggle to save independent
media as they marked World Press Freedom Day on May 3 2018 across Europe.
This year saw anti-media violence during Armenia’s popular uprising against a
repressive government; new actions to silence independent journalism in
Hungary and Turkey; and multiple protests against the murder of two
journalists in the past year in Malta and Slovakia and ‘vicious ties’ between
some governments and criminal elements.
There is also this
special report from the UNESCO 2018 World Press Freedom Day conference in
Accra, Ghana on May 2-3 – Out of Africa: the winning ways of the enemies of
press freedom. This UNESCO report and the round-up of events here was
compiled by AEJ UK chairman and AEJ international media representative
William Horsley.
Can Canada’s largest newspaper save itself with fact checking Donald
Trump?
The Toronto Star was the
inspiration for Clark Kent’s Daily Planet – and like nearly every mainstream
newspaper and broadcaster in the western world it’s desperately trying to
save itself. Having its star reporter in Washington spend a lot of his time
fact-checking the American president is part
of a survival strategy in a maelstrom of digital media, a puzzled public
confounded by fake news, and shrinking revenues.
Is Anywhere Safe?
Two new reports highlight ongoing
concern about erosion of media freedom where you might expect it to flourish
– in Europe and the (former British) Commonwealth. William Horsley, AEJ UK
Chairman and AEJ international media freedom representative, has this report on how
Commonwealth leaders meeting in London in April 2018 have turned a blind eye to
journalists being threatened or killed with impunity in member states. And this article on the latest
world press freedom index
from Reporters Sans Frontieres/Reporters Without Borders showing the
“traditionally safe environment for journalists in Europe has begun to
deteriorate”.
Fake News undermines democracy...
and even confuses expert researchers
Two new reports try to examine the difficult phenomenon of
fake news. The AEJ has issued
a road map on how to respond after a detailed consultation by Irina
Nedeva, its adviser on fake news issues, with input from the AEJ-UK’s William
Horsley, former BBC Europe correspondent, and Rick Thompson, former BBC News
executive. The AEJ report
recommends: invest in media literacy, boost professional journalism, create
incentives for ethical media, and increase awareness of political misuse of
news.
Across the Atlantic in the USA, Nieman Labs has a disturbing report on how
difficult deciphering false information from reality is even for expert
researchers. Please see
the article here.
Poland, media freedom and Lech Walesa
Poland, the cradle of the Soviet Union collapse, is once again
a frontline in the fight for press freedom in Europe. And Lech Walesa –
former Solidarity leader, president of Poland, and Nobel Prize winner –urged
a gathering of journalists in February 2018 to hold fast to press freedom and
free speech. He was addressing a meeting in Gdansk of journalists and civil
rights activists from across Europe who debated strategies for fighting back
against reverses for press freedom across Europe. William Horsley, AEJ UK
chairman and AEJ International vice president and representative for media
freedom, was in Gdansk and has this
account of the event.
Roger Broad
Friends and colleagues commemorated AEJ UK founder member Roger Broad at the
Reform Club in London on 2 February 2018. It was with enormous sadness that the AEJ UK learned of
his death on Aug. 17 2017 from complications following heart surgery. Please see here for more about Roger and this story of his career
from former colleague Michael Berendt.
Democracy and
populism
The European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development’s chief economist says populist government
benefits corrupt elites. And Sergei Guriev, linking the rise of nationalist
populism in western countries with “reform reversal” in some post-communist
countries, argues that populist governments remove political checks and do
not create free markets and democracy whereas states which consolidate democracy
do well. He was speaking at the AEJ’s first meeting of 2018 on January 17
about the political economy of reform in Europe and its neighbourhood. Dr.
Guriev is a former senior Russian economic policy advisor now in exile and
working for the EBRD. His bank’s Transition 2017-18 report shows economic
performance in many parts of the former Soviet Union has fallen behind other
global emerging markets because of excessive state controls and weak
corporate governance. His remarks before he
went off the record are here – and they prompted these personal
reflections from AEJ member Anthony Robinson, a former east Europe editor
of the Financial Times.
Concern about investigation into Maltese
journalist’s murder
The AEJ joined its
partners in January in the Council of Europe Platform for the Promotion of
Journalism and the Protection of Journalists to express deep concern over the
lack of progress in the investigation into the murder of Maltese
journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
The media freedom
groups “… join Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family in calling on the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to appoint a special
rapporteur to monitor the ongoing murder investigation and make an assessment
of the contextual circumstances that led to her murder.”
Croatia Mission
The AEJ international
president Otmar Lahodynsky joined a fact-finding media freedom mission to
Croatia in January 2018. After talks with politicians, journalists, and trade
unionists the participating organisations agreed that the major problems to
be addressed include political pressures on the public broadcasting station
HRT, the lack of transparency of media ownership and the destructive
influence of hate speech on the society. Please see more here on the international AEJ website
Mediating Trump
U.S. President
Donald Trump, fake news, and post truth.. for some reflections at the
beginning of 2017 please see:
Open letter from White House
press corps – from Columbia Journalism Review (courtesy of AEJ member Andrew
Dobbie as is the CJR article below)
www.cjr.org/covering_trump/trump_
white_house_press_corps.php
The Coming Storm for Journalism
– from Columbia Journalism Review
http://www.cjr.org/special_report/trump_
media_journalism_washington_press.php
The New
York Times on fake news.
Who to blame for fake news -
http://billmoyers.com/story/whos-reallyto-blame-fake-news/
Prospects for the American press
under Trump:
http://pressthink.org/2016/12/winter-coming-prospects-american-press-trump/
http://pressthink.org/2016/12/prospects-american-press-trump-part-two/
And prospects for journalism in
2017 from Nieman Labs:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/12/the-aberration-of-20th-century-journalism/
http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/01/whats-the-big-journalism-trend-for-2017-fear-oh-and-voice-news-bots/
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The
AEJ is an independent network of journalists, writers and specialists active
across Europe, part of a Europe-wide network of national sections. In the UK we host regular meetings
for journalists which provide a forum for open-minded exchanges with public
figures of all backgrounds to promote informed debate on European and
international affairs. Our lunchtime meetings are open to bona fide
journalists and an entry fee must be paid to cover the costs of food and
drink. Pre-registration is essential. Journalists, writers and specialists in
European affairs may also apply to join the Association of European
Journalists – please see here for
more about the benefits of membership or contact the AEJ UK Secretary.
You can also follow us on our Facebook
page.
We are
independent of any institutional or political group and are recognised by the
Council of Europe, the OSCE and UNESCO. Our goals are to advance knowledge
and debate on European affairs and to uphold media freedom.
Internationally, the AEJ has an active programme of professional activities
and the annual AEJ Congress is a forum for debate on matters of common
concern to journalists across the continent. A high priority is given to the
AEJ's Media Freedom Project.
Individual members of other AEJ national sections are very welcome to attend
our meetings, by prior arrangement.
AEJ Media Freedom Project
The
AEJ works to protect freedom of expression and independent journalism by
bringing issues to the attention of governments and advising
inter-governmental organisations on behalf of our members. The AEJ's Media
Freedom Representative and Vice President is William Horsley, a former BBC foreign
correspondent and the current chairman of the UK section.
Since the AEJ Media
Freedom Survey in 2007 (Goodbye to Freedom?), the AEJ has published Europe-wide
surveys and reports that reveal the erosion of press freedom through physical
assaults, wrongful imprisonment, oppressive laws, and unacceptable political
and commercial pressures.
The AEJ is an observer at the Council of Europe. Since 2 April 2015, it has been one of the
eight partners in the Council's online platform
for early warning of and rapid response to attacks on the
media. For more information, see Media
Freedom.
The AEJ actively supports
the ongoing efforts of UNESCO, the UN Agency with a mandate to safeguard media
freedom, to implement the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity. The AEJ
Media Freedom Representative authored the OSCE's Safety of Journalists Guidebook setting out the obligations of participating states to protect
the security of journalists, including those using the Internet.
Our campaigns and activities can also be tracked on the Media
Freedom and News pages of the international AEJ website, www.aej.org
AEJ and the Council of Europe
The
AEJ takes part in the policy work of the Council of Europe (CoE) on key issues of media freedom as a participant in the steering committee on
Media and Information Society and the Platform
to Promote the Protection of Journalism
and the Safety of Journalists. It works on
behalf of its members across Europe to hold the CoE and its 47 member states
to their commitments on media freedom and freedom of expression.
To
read further, please go to Media
Freedom.
Media visits to the European Parliament
The EP's
London Office has a small budget to offset some of the travel and hotel costs
incurred by journalists when visiting the European Parliament. Only a limited
number can be helped in this way, so you must first be invited by the UK
Office before seeking reimbursement (see EP website).
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