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Fernandez-Pardo was, I’m sure, signed to be a starter. He’s had time to settle into a new home and have a look at things; now it’s time to get to work. The sense is he’ll be on the top line, with Wissa behind him.
Alreet, I’ll write those down, then we’ll consider what we might see.
Continue reading...The vast sums given to Nigel Farage’s party in recent days must lead to action on political funding
The staggering sums gifted to Reform UK over the weekend have transformed the context for the representation of the people bill making its way through parliament. The announcement of two £36m donations from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne, both crypto billionaires who have lived abroad, makes Andy Burnham’s decision not to impose a limit on political donations – a move he supported before becoming prime minister – look even more misguided. Fortunately the House of Lords still has the chance to amend the bill. It should take it by imposing meaningful limits on both political donations and party spending.
It is unclear whether either man meets the criteria set out in the Rycroft review into foreign influence in politics. It set a maximum of £100,000 per annum for people who have not been in the UK for at least a year. Mr Delo previously lived in Hong Kong while Mr Harborne is based partly in Thailand; Nigel Farage said on Monday that he does not know the details of their movements. While ministers will view the prospect of a legal fight over eligibility with trepidation, they must do what it takes to ensure rules are met.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s blithe comments at the weekend were characteristically unhelpful. A careful and considered discussion on the subject has yet to begin
A decade ago, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) viewed Brexit as a potential gamechanger in the struggle to resist future pressure for a united Ireland. As the author and journalist Fintan O’Toole wrote in an essay published last year, the DUP hoped that the 2016 referendum would deliver “a double exit. Brexit would not simply mean the UK’s departure from the EU. It would also be an act of separation from the Republic. It would reverse the slow drift towards integration.” That proved to be, to put it mildly, a deeply flawed judgment.
The direction of travel since 2016 has instead been the opposite. Rather than leading to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, which would have disastrously undermined the Good Friday agreement, the UK’s divorce agreement from Brussels eventually placed one in the Irish Sea. The logic of further economic integration between north and south within the EU’s single market was reinforced.
Continue reading...BRUSSEL (ANP/RTR) - Het Europees Parlement gaat een kantoor openen in de Canadese hoofdstad Ottawa. In de aankondiging staat dat deze stap moet helpen bij het versterken van de relatie tussen de Europese en Canadese volksvertegenwoordigingen.
Brussel en Ottawa zijn al langer bezig met het aanhalen van de banden. De Canadese premier Mark Carney maakte dit weekend bekend interesse te hebben in een alternatieve vorm van lidmaatschap, met Canada als 'geassocieerd lid' van de Europese Unie.
De opening van het kantoor weerspiegelt het "nauwe en langdurige partnerschap" tussen de Europese Unie en Canada, aldus de verklaring van het Europees Parlement. Het besluit komt enkele dagen voor de toespraak van Carney in het Europees Parlement.
Het Europees Parlement heeft momenteel negen kantoren buiten de Europese Unie om banden met organisaties of landen te onderhouden, bijvoorbeeld in New York voor de Verenigde Naties, Londen voor het Verenigd Koninkrijk en Ethiopië voor de Afrikaanse Unie.