Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

Dublin has rejected Boris Johnson’s suggestion that Britain could agree a broad Brexit deal with the EU next month but sort out some of the details covering the vexed question of the Irish border after leaving the bloc. The UK prime minister has told colleagues he does not expect to be able to reach a full “legally operable” deal covering the Irish border at a crunch meeting of EU leaders on October 17-18 and that some of the details might have to be filled in later. But Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, stressed on Friday that Dublin wanted the Irish border question put to rest now and not left open for months or years in the hope that a resolution could be found later. “We have a commitment from the British government over and over and over again — in writing and verbally — that they would work with us to put the issue and the anxiety around the Irish border question to rest now,” Mr Coveney told the BBC. He was speaking the day after the UK’s Brexit secreta...

Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, has opened the door to a possible Brexit deal, saying he was ready to scrap the controversial Irish “backstop” if Boris Johnson came up with a viable alternative.  Mr Juncker’s comments on Thursday were a clear invitation to the UK to come up with new ways of achieving the aims of the backstop — which seeks to avoid a hard Irish border — following warnings from EU politicians that talks were foundering. He was explicit that Brussels was ready to rewrite the most sensitive parts of the Brexit deal it agreed with Mr Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, confirming a marked softening of the EU’s position from this summer, when it said that the withdrawal agreement was not up for renegotiation.  Crucially, Mr Juncker said he was open to British suggestions that a hard Irish border could be averted by conducting customs and regulatory checks elsewhere and by aligning Northern Ireland with EU agriculture and food rules. “It...

The positioning of the parties is now almost clear, and therefore I believe that a General Election in November or December is much more likely that a government of national unity and a gerrymandered second referendum. The parties appear to have made it easy for the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats The Liberal Democrats have decided to go full throated for revoking A50 and have already stated they would not respect the result of a SR if it was not the answer they wanted. The Liberal Democrats have much more chance in Con/LD marginals, but pushing their message so hard to the extremes may well play badly with remain leaning Tories and therefore makes their chances against the Tories worse than they would be with a softer message. The message plays well to Labour remainers and they have more success with this message against Labour but there are almost no Lab/LD marginals and therefore the LD's would require a huge surge to win any Labour seats. The fact is, that ...

The so-called “Rebel Alliance” of MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit have expressed concern that Boris Johnson could exploit a legal loophole to bypass legislation aimed at preventing the UK from crashing out of the EU on October 31. Two weeks ago, the alliance of opposition MPs and Conservative rebels passed a law which requires Mr Johnson to seek an extension to the UK’s EU membership if he fails to secure a Brexit pact at a pivotal EU Council meeting on October 17-18. Under the Benn Act — proposed by veteran Labour MP Hilary Benn — Mr Johnson must demand such an extension if he fails to secure parliamentary approval for a Brexit deal on or before Saturday October 19. However, Phillip Lee, the former Tory minister who recently joined the Liberal Democrats, said MPs were ready to amend the Benn Act when parliament returns after October 14 to close down potential loopholes. “The bill is amendable,” he said, adding that MPs would take control of the Commons order paper and cha...

Luxembourg's PM has attacked Boris Johnson's approach to Brexit, calling the situation a "nightmare". Xavier Bettel said the British government had failed to put forward any serious proposals for a new deal. But Mr Johnson, who pulled out of a joint press conference with Mr Bettel because of noisy protesters, said there was still a good chance of a deal. A government source said the gap the UK and Brussels needed to bridge to achieve a deal "remains quite large".Mr Johnson was visiting Luxembourg to hold talks with the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, as well as Mr Bettel. After the working lunch with Mr Juncker and Mr Barnier, Mr Johnson said he had been encouraged by the EU's willingness to engage with the UK in their shared desire to avoid a no-deal exit - but there had not been a "total breakthrough". However, the European Commission said the PM had yet ...

There are many in Sedgefield who did much for Tony Blair during his 24 years as MP for the County Durham constituency. But it was only Stephen Elliott who agreed to sacrifice his spare bedroom window for the then prime minister, his neighbour in the former mining village of Trimdon Colliery. “When George Bush landed his helicopter here in 2003, I let the American secret service take over the back bedroom. They took the glass out and had snipers up there when the president and his wife went in to see Tony and Cherie,” said the 60-year-old builder as he ate sausage and mash in his garden on Thursday. Elliott, whose late father was on the local Labour party executive during the Blair era, saw Nigel Farage on Wednesday’s news telling a marquee full of Brexiters at Sedgefield racecourse that he was declaring an “all-out political war” on the Labour party. It was a threat greeted with cheers by several hundred local Brexiters, many former Labour voters, who had all paid £5 for thi...

With two months left until we are scheduled to leave the European Union – with or without a deal – the question of what the voters want to do about Brexit is a key question. However, different people have many different interpretations of what the public actually thinks. The Telegraph claimed earlier this year that “ Every region of England and Wales happy to leave the EU without a deal - except London if extension refused ”; one prominent Remain campaigner, meanwhile,  claimed that Leave voters don’t support No Deal . But what do the numbers say? And what does this tell us about how a potential second EU referendum might go? Let’s take a look. “Maybe”: would the public vote Leave again? After the 2016 referendum, pollsters began asking voters how they would vote in a re-run of that “Remain” / “Leave” referendum. They continue to ask this question (which I like to call the “generic” referendum question) today. Sometimes the question varies slightly (YouGov often asks voters whe...