UK & other courts
In what is understood to be the first legal challenge to Northern Ireland’s anti-abortion laws, a mother who bought abortion pills for her 15 year old daughter is arguing against the Public Prosecution Service’s decision to prosecute her, claiming that it contravened her human rights.
UK and the UN
UN rapporteur on poverty, Philip Alston, has visited Newcastle, where universal credit began, to gauge the scale of hardship and hunger experienced by individuals in the UK.
Evaluation of UK’s international obligations
Senior barristers have claimed that Britain is leading the developed world in stripping its citizens of nationality.
UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU
Dominic Raab has urged Theresa May to insist the UK must be able to pull out of any backstop deal on the Irish border after three months and the Irish border issue is reportedly ‘a mess’ continuing to hamper Brexit’s progress.
More than 70 business leaders have backed calls for a referendum on the final Brexit deal the UK strikes with the EU.
It has been reported that Theresa May has clinched a Brexit deal that will allow her to keep the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU to protect the Irish border. Meanwhile the Prime Minister is to pile pressure on Eurosceptic Cabinet ministers to back a Brexit deal which could be signed by the end of the month following Leo Varadkar’s compromise on the Northern Irish border. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox has assumed a critical role in determining whether the UK should sign up to a compromise with the EU on Northern Ireland that would break the impasse in the Brexit negotiations.
Xavier Bertrand, president of the French region closest to the UK, has warned that a no-deal Brexit would cause many problems for much of northern Europe, calling for help from both Brussels and Paris to deal with the risk.
For The Times, Maria Caulfield MP has argued that the idea of a Norway style deal followed by a Canada one is ‘nonsense’.
Senior lawyers and campaigners have put the case for a People’s Vote on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, in a letter with more than 1,500 signatories.
The Channel 4/Survation study has found that 54% of people would now vote to stay in the EU, compared to 46% who would back Leave. Meanwhile a poll by Politico has found that barely one-in-ten voters want another EU referendum to be held if MPs reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
The BBC has published leaked notes of an apparent plan to sell Theresa May’s Brexit deal to the public, whilst the prime minister has ordered ministers to be available to meet at short notice as a Brexit break through is on the cards. She has given her Cabinet colleagues their first sight of the ‘95% completed’ withdrawal treaty; however the entire Cabinet has demanded the prime minister reveals the legal advice she receives on her proposed Brexit deal before they sign up to it, with Jack Simpson Caird arguing in The Times that this is necessary for ministers to have a meaningful vote.
Keir Starmer has stated that Labour will not vote for a “blind Brexit” which does not make clear what the UK’s future relationship with the EU will look like. Meanwhile, 92% of Momentum members want Labour MPs to vote down Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
Former minister Steve Baker has stated that Eurosceptic Conservative MPs will still vote down the Government’s Brexit deal even if Theresa May negotiates an exit clause from the Irish backstop.
The latest figures from Which’s consumer insight tracker show a sharp rise in the number of people aged 65 and over who are concerned about the consequences of Brexit, and with the possibility of a no-deal Brexit looming -the percentage having doubled since September 2016.
The Institute for Government has published a report on who will assume European Commission’s supervisory role after Brexit.
Arlene Foster has hit out at Theresa May after the Prime Minister appeared to concede that any Brexit deal with the EU will include the option of putting a border down the Irish Sea. The Times has published a leaked letter from the prime minister to the DUP discussing the Irish border.
Jeremy Hunt has attempted reassurance, stating that Brexit will not undermine Anglo-French relations.
Theresa May is to cajole ministers over the weekend to get behind her Brexit deal.
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