LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to lead Britain out of the European Union at the end of this month hit another roadblock Monday when the speaker of the House of Commons rejected his attempt to hold a new vote of lawmakers on his Brexit divorce deal.
The ruling by Speaker John Bercow plunged the tortuous Brexit process back into grimly familiar territory: grinding parliamentary warfare.
With just 10 days to go until the UK is due to leave the bloc on Oct. 31, Johnson’s government was seeking a “straight up-and-down vote” on the agreement he struck last week with the 27 other EU nations.
The request came just two days after lawmakers voted to delay approving the Brexit deal. Bercow refused to allow it because parliamentary rules generally bar the same measure from being considered a second time during the same session of Parliament unless something has changed.
Bercow — whose rulings in favor of backbench lawmakers have stymied government plans more than once before — said the motion proposed by the government was “in substance the same” as the one Parliament dealt with on Saturday. He said it would be “repetitive and disorderly” to allow a new vote Monday.
On Saturday — Parliament’s first weekend sitting since the 1982 Falklands War — lawmakers voted to make support for the Brexit deal conditional on passing the legislation to implement it.
Johnson’s Conservative government will now go to its Plan B: get Parliament’s backing for his Brexit blueprint by passing the legislation, known as the Withdrawal Agreement Bill. The government plans to publish the bill later Monday and hopes to have it become law by Oct. 31.
But it’s unclear whether Johnson has either the time or the numbers to make that happen.
Passing a bill usually takes weeks, but the government wants to get this one done in 10 days. Johnson needs a majority in Parliament to pass it, but his Conservatives hold just 288 of the 650 House of Common seats.
The process also gives lawmakers another chance to scrutinize — and possibly change— the legislation.
Opposition lawmakers plan to seek amendments that could substantially alter the bill, for example by adding a requirement that the Brexit deal be put to voters in a new referendum. The government says such an amendment would wreck its legislation and it will withdraw the bill if it succeeds.
Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay urged lawmakers to back the bill and — more than three years after British voters narrowly voted to leave the EU — “enable us to move onto the people’s priorities like health, education and crime.”
“This is the chance to leave the EU with a deal on Oct. 31,” he said. “If Parliament wants to respect the referendum, it must back the bill.”
With the Brexit deadline looming and British politicians still squabbling over the country’s departure terms, Johnson has been forced to ask the EU for a three-month delay to Britain’s departure date.
He did that, grudgingly, to comply with a law passed by Parliament ordering the government to postpone Brexit rather than risk the economic damage that could come from a no-deal exit. But Johnson accompanied the unsigned letter to the EU late Saturday with a second note saying that he personally opposed delaying the UK’s Oct. 31 exit.
Pro-EU activists, who took the government to court in Scotland to ensure that it complied with the law, said the second letter might amount to an attempt to frustrate the legislation. Scotland’s highest court said Monday it would keep the case open, retaining the power to censure Johnson’s government until its obligations under the law have been complied with “in full.”
The claimants’ lawyer, Elaine Motion, said the ruling meant “the sword of Damocles remains hanging” over the government.
The bloc said the fact Johnson had not signed the letter was irrelevant.
European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said Monday that European Council President Donald Tusk had acknowledged receiving the Brexit extension request and was now talking with the EU’s other 27 leaders about it.
Those 27 EU leaders are weary of the long-running Brexit saga but also want to avoid a no-deal British exit, which would damage economies on both sides of the Channel.
Germany’s economy minister suggested it could be a few days before the EU decided to respond to the Brexit delay request.
“We will have somewhat more clarity in the coming days, and we will then exercise our responsibility and quickly make a decision,” Germany’s Peter Altmaier said.
He told Deutschlandfunk radio that he wouldn’t have a problem with an extension by “a few days or a few weeks” if that rules out a no-deal Brexit.
But French President Emmanuel Macron, who had a phone call with Johnson over the weekend, called for a quick clarification of the UK’s position. In a statement, he said a delay “would not be in any party’s interest.”
France’s junior minister for European affairs, Amelie de Montchalin, told French news broadcaster BFM TV there would have to be some reason for the delay, such as a parliamentary election in Britain or a new British referendum on Brexit.
UK Commons speaker deals new blow to Johnson’s Brexit plan
UK Commons speaker deals new blow to Johnson’s Brexit plan
- John Bercow plunged the tortuous Brexit process back into grimly familiar territory: grinding parliamentary warfare
- Johnson’s government was seeking a “straight up-and-down vote” on the agreement he struck with EU nations
Denmark sent Trump team private messages on Greenland, Axios reports
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment on the Axios report
COPENHAGEN: Denmark sent private messages to US President-elect Donald Trump’s team expressing willingness to discuss boosting security in Greenland or increasing the US military presence there without claiming the island, Axios reported on Saturday, citing two sources.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has described US control of Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, as an “absolute necessity.” He did not dismiss the potential use of military or economic means, including tariffs against Denmark.
Axios said that the Danish government wanted to convince Trump that his security concerns could be addressed without claiming Greenland.
A spokesperson for the Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment on the Axios report.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said earlier this week that she had asked for a meeting with Trump, but did not expect it to happen before his inauguration. Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede too said he was ready to speak with Trump but urged respect for the island’s independence aspirations.
Denmark has previously said that Greenland is not for sale.
Ukraine says questioning 2 captured North Korean soldiers
- “Our soldiers captured North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media
- The SBU security service gave some details of the men’s interrogation, saying both described themselves as experienced soldiers
KYIV: Ukraine said Saturday that investigators were questioning two wounded North Korean soldiers after they were captured in Russia’s Kursk region, saying they provided “indisputable evidence” that North Koreans were fighting for Moscow.
It is not the first time that Kyiv has claimed the capture of North Korean soldiers during its Kursk incursion but it has not reported being able to question any before.
In December it said it took several captive but they died from serious wounds.
“Our soldiers captured North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region. These are two soldiers who, although wounded, survived and were brought to Kyiv, and are talking to SBU investigators,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.
The SBU security service gave some details of the men’s interrogation, saying both described themselves as experienced soldiers and one said he had been sent to Russia for training, not to fight.
But Ukraine has not provided any evidence that the men are North Korean.
In video released by the SBU, two men with Asian features are shown in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands and the other with a bandaged jaw. A doctor at the detention center says the second man also has a broken leg.
Pyongyang has deployed thousands of troops to reinforce Russia’s military, including in the Kursk border region where Ukraine mounted a shock incursion in August last year.
Zelensky had said in late December that Ukraine had captured several seriously wounded North Korean soldiers who later died.
He said Saturday that it was difficult to capture North Koreans fighting because “Russians and other North Korean soldiers finish off their wounded and do everything to prevent evidence of the participation of another state, North Korea, in the war against Ukraine.”
He said he would provide media access to the prisoners of war because “the world needs to know what is happening.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on X that the “first North Korean prisoners of war are now in Kyiv,” calling them “regular DPRK troops, not mercenaries.”
“We need maximum pressure against regimes in Moscow and Pyongyang,” he wrote.
The men do not speak Russian or Ukrainian and communication is through Korean interpreters, the SBU said, adding that this was “in cooperation” with South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.
The SBU video does not show the men speaking Korean. AFP reporters in Seoul have contacted the NIS for comment.
The SBU said the men’s capture provided “indisputable evidence of the DPRK’s participation in Russia’s war against our country.”
It showed a Russian army ID card issued to a 26-year-old man from Russia’s Tyva region bordering Mongolia.
The SBU said that one POW carried this military ID card “issued in the name of another person” while the other had no documents at all.
Some reports have said Russia is hiding North Korean fighters by giving them fake IDs.
The SBU said the man with the Tyvan ID had told them he was given it in Russia in autumn 2024 when some North Korean combat units had “one-week interoperability training” with Russian units.
The man said he believed he was “going for training, not to fight a war against Ukraine,” the SBU said.
The man said he was a rifleman born in 2005 and had been in the North Korean army since 2021.
The other man wrote answers because of an injured jaw, saying he was born in 1999, joined the army in 2016 and was a scout sniper, the SBU said.
The SBU said the men were captured separately — one on Thursday — by special forces and paratroopers.
They are being provided with medical care and “held in appropriate conditions that meet the requirements of international law,” the SBU said.
Russia’s army said Saturday that it had gained territory in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region northwest of the logistics hub of Kurakhove, which it claimed to have captured Monday.
The defense ministry said troops had “liberated” Shevchenko, a rural settlement about 10 kilometers (six miles) northwest of Kurakhove.
Shevchenko, a large village, is located west of the reservoir near Kurakhove and “is necessary to take under control, to protect the town from shelling,” the RIA Novosti state news agency reported.
“Now Russian troops can move further toward the western border of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” it said.
Russia claims to have annexed the Donetsk region, which it refers to as the Donetsk People’s Republic, though it does not control the whole region.
Ukraine has not confirmed the loss of Kurakhove, which had around 18,000 inhabitants before Russia launched its 2022 offensive.
The Ukrainian military’s General Staff said Saturday that troops had stopped Russia’s offensive actions in the area, including around Kurakhove.
Russia is also moving close to taking the vital frontline city of Pokrovsk north of Kurakhove.
Donetsk’s regional governor Vadym Filashkin said Saturday that one person had been killed and another wounded in Pokrovsk over the last day.
In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a Russian drone attacked a car in a village near the front line, killing a 47-year-old woman on the spot, its governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
Top Indian university hosts special course on Saudi transformation, Vision 2030
- Indian Ministry of Education-sponsored program will take place at Jawaharlal Nehru University on Jan. 20-25
- Key speaker will be Prof. Joseph Albert Kechichian from King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies
NEW DELHI: One of India’s most prestigious educational institutions will host a special course this month about Saudi Arabia’s transformation programs and Vision 2030, as relations between the countries deepen.
The five-day course is organized by Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in cooperation with the Ministry of Education under the Indian government’s Global Initiative of Academic Networks program to encourage exchanges with the world’s top faculty members and scientists.
Scheduled to start on Jan. 20, the course will be led by Prof. Joseph Albert Kechichian, senior fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, who specializes in West Asian politics and foreign policy, especially of the Gulf region.
About 70 participants, including scholars, professionals and young researchers are expected to attend the sessions, said Prof. Sameena Hameed form the JNU’s Centre for West Asian Studies, who coordinates the course.
“It’s a Ministry of Education program, it’s a highly prestigious ... Saudi Arabia is one of our key partners in the Gulf region, where India has key energy trade investment and remittance interest,” she told Arab News.
“We have about 2 million Indians working there. India and Saudi Arabia are looking at each other with keen interest: How to harness this partnership for mutual development, for trade investment and other educational engagements.”
Saudi-Indian ties have steadily gained prominence over the past three decades, and reached a new level of engagement in 2019, following Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to New Delhi and the establishment of the Strategic Partnership Council.
This foundation set the stage for further collaboration, which gained momentum when Saudi Arabia presided over the Group of 20 largest economies in 2020, followed by India’s presidency of the bloc in 2023. The evolving relationship has not only deepened strategic ties but also fostered cooperation in trade, security, new technologies and regional stability.
The upcoming course at JNU aims to equip the participants with knowledge about key transformation programs underway in the Kingdom under its Vision 2030, and to understand its position at the local, regional and global levels.
“The rapid transformation the Kingdom has gone through under King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is important and needs greater academic discussions and understanding,” said Md. Muddassir Quamar, associate professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies.
“Vision 2030 promises not only to transform the Kingdom but also set the benchmark for developing societies that are working towards sustainable development with care for people, peace, prosperity and environment. India, in particular, is interested in a peaceful and stable West Asia given its deep and historic relations with the region and its strategic interests in the stability of the region. With Vision 2030 Saudi Arabia is set to take a leap forward in its developmental goals, and India views it as significant in ensuring a stable West Asia.”
British Muslims plan MCB alternatives to represent communities
- New bodies to provide civil, political support to Muslims in UK
- Successive governments have refused to fully engage with established Muslim bodies
LONDON: A number of British imams are in the process of establishing new organizations to represent the UK’s Muslim communities, The Times reported on Saturday.
A series of governments have refused to engage with established Muslim bodies, including the Muslim Council of Britain, creating a “vacuum” between politicians and British Muslims, according to community leaders.
Other groups — such as the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, the British Board of Imams and Scholars, and Tell Mama, an organization monitoring Islamophobia — are deemed too small to effectively lobby for or represent the UK’s 3.8 million Muslims.
The MCB represents around 500 mosques, schools and charities in the UK on social issues, but does not issue religious declarations.
The Labour government under Tony Blair had ties with it, but saw those severed in 2009 under Gordon Brown after the MCB’s then-deputy leader signed a declaration that was viewed as a call for violence against the Royal Navy and Israel.
The current Labour government talks to various Muslim groups on an “ad hoc” basis, said Qari Asim, senior imam at the Makkah Mosque in Leeds.
A source told The Times that rather than “simply a new entity to replace the MCB,” a “series of new initiatives” would be established “focused on increasing connection between British Muslims and the British government and trying to better represent and engage British Muslims.”
Another source told the newspaper: “It is a group of people from broad civil society who happen to be Muslim, from lawyers to doctors to economists to accountants.
“It’s a huge community (but) there is a lack of serious engagement (from government) and a whole load of expertise and experience not being tapped into by policymakers and others.”
Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, professor in the sociology of Islam at Coventry University, told The Times that the government is “missing a trick” by not engaging with the MCB, warning that there is “a lot of suspicion within Muslim communities of new initiatives.”
UK must weigh repatriating Daesh members in Syria, terror adviser says
- Jonathan Hall KC: ‘It wouldn’t prevent them from potentially being prosecuted for what they’ve done’
- Trump’s counterterrorism adviser has also urged Britain to take back citizens who joined Daesh
LONDON: The UK must consider repatriating British members of Daesh held in Syrian detention camps, the government’s independent terrorism adviser has said.
“Repatriation would not be moral absolution. If someone came back it wouldn’t prevent them from potentially being prosecuted for what they’ve done,” Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told the BBC.
The incoming Trump administration’s counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka has also urged the UK to follow the US lead and take back its citizens who joined Daesh.
“Any nation which wishes to be seen to be a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment,” Gorka said.
“That is doubly so for the UK which has a very special place in President (Donald) Trump’s heart, and we would all wish to see the ‘special relationship’ fully re-established.”
One high-profile Briton who traveled to Syria to support Daesh is Shamima Begum, who left London as a teenager in 2015.
Her citizenship was stripped in 2019. Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said Begum “will not be coming back to the UK.”
Hall said: “It could be quite a pragmatic decision in the overall interests of national security to bring someone back.
“There is obviously some national security benefit of leaving people there because you don’t have to monitor them.
“On the other hand, there haven’t yet been any attacks in Europe by anyone who has been repatriated in this way and if they are left there ... and then they escape, they would be much more dangerous, actually, to the UK.”
The US and some European countries have repatriated their citizens from Syrian camps. Many have been put on trial and imprisoned.
Lammy said Begum’s case has been reviewed in court and the 25-year-old is “not a UK national.”
Many of the detainees are “dangerous, are radicals,” he told the “Good Morning Britain” show on Thursday.
Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has also said Begum should not be allowed to return to the UK.
“Citizenship means committing to a country and wanting its success. It’s not an international travel document for crime tourism,” Badenoch said.
