Britain faces thumbs down from EU and its own House of Lords as well

NewsBharati    19-Jun-2018
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London, June 19: Britain's House of Lords inflicted another defeat on the government today over its flagship Brexit bill, sending it back to MPs and setting up a fresh showdown between Prime Minister Theresa May and her pro-European rebels.


 

Unelected peers in the upper house voted by 354 to 235 to support a rebel amendment on the role parliament should play if the government fails to secure a deal with the European Union before Britain leaves the bloc in March 2019.

The amendment to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill was drawn up in consultation with pro-European MPs in the lower House of Commons, who will have a chance to vote on it themselves on Wednesday.

The EU (Withdrawal) Bill would formally end Britain's membership of the bloc and transfer more than 40 years of European law on to the British statute books.

On the other side, Brussels has banned their European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) from talking to Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) about any backstop scheme to keep planes in the air.

They say that the European Commission has refused to talk about a no-deal aviation scenario before talks are due to end next March. Thousands of flights from the UK to Europe could be cancelled if talks between our government and Michael Barnier’s team collapse before March 29, 2019.

Meanwhile, aviation leaders say they need at least nine months to create an emergency plan.