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An EU Commission official was put in place when he spoke in Parliament’s LIBE committee last week.He used the term “illegal migration” repeatedly regarding people who come to Europe without legal basis. Claude Moraes, a British member and chairman of the group, gave him a reprimand. “The correct terminology is irregular, not illegal. You are not illegal until you are convicted,” he said. The Danish People’s Party member of the committee, Anders Vistisen, asked Claude Moraes to explain where it says that one must not say illegal. “The word illegal immigrant is used in the Lisbon Treaty, so why can’t...

... The prime minister does not believe any of the factions criticising her plan have enough support to get their own version of Brexit through Parliament. By allowing them to put forward their proposals and vote on them, she is hoping they will be defeated and her plan will emerge by a process of elimination as the best and only alternative to leaving without a deal.

BRUSSELS (AFP-Jiji) — The European Union’s foreign policy chief on Saturday asked Turkey to forgo any unilateral military action in Syria, where Ankara has threatened a fresh offensive against a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia. “The statements of a possible Turkish military operation in northeast Syria are a source of concern,” Federica Mogherini said in a statement. “We share the goal of ending violence, defeating terrorism and promoting stability in Syria and the wider region. We expect the Turkish authorities therefore to refrain from any unilateral action likely to undermine the efforts of the Counter-Daesh Coalition or to risk further instability in...

The ports will be clogged up with lorries. The shelves at Tesco will be empty. Doctors will be rationing antibiotics, and the army will be called out to deliver food. As we approach the deadline for our departure from the European Union, as the Prime Minister returns empty handed yet again from yet another catastrophic round of negotiations in Brussels, and as the cliff-edge gets closer and closer, the conventional wisdom is that the pressure on Britain to agree to something – anything! – becomes more and more intense. And yet, as so often in the through-the-looking glass world of...

<p>French police have pushed protesters off the Champs-Elysees in Paris with tear gas and water cannon, and re-opened the French capital’s famed avenue to traffic.</p> <p>Police were telling protesters to remove their yellow vests, symbols of a nationwide protest movement that began in November against economic injustice and France’s high cost of living.</p>

European Union leaders have said the Brexit withdrawal agreement is "not open for renegotiation", despite appeals from Theresa May. She wanted legal assurances on the Irish backstop to help her deal get through Parliament, after she delayed a Commons vote in anticipation of defeat. The PM said the deal was "at risk" if MPs' concerns could not be addressed. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said there could be clarifications but no renegotiation. He urged the UK to set out more clearly what it wants, adding that the commission will publish information on 19 December on its preparations for a no-deal...

Theresa May is heading to Brussels for an EU summit, less than 24 hours after surviving a vote of confidence. The prime minister is seeking legally binding pledges from EU leaders on the Irish backstop - a key obstacle for MPs who oppose her Brexit deal. The EU will not renegotiate the deal but may be willing to give greater assurances on the temporary nature of the backstop, the BBC understands. The PM won the ballot on her leadership by 200 votes to 117 on Wednesday night.

Theresa May says there is a "shared determination" among EU leaders to solve the Irish border problem preventing MPs from backing her deal. She was speaking after meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. The prime minister says there can be no EU withdrawal deal without a backstop plan for the Irish border. But she said she was seeking guarantees that it would be "only temporary" to address the concerns of her own MPs.

Europe’s commentators have not been kind to Theresa May after she delayed the meaningful vote on her Brexit deal and dashed to the continent in search of further concessions. “It’s like a long, slow agony,” wrote Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, the London correspondent for the French daily Libération. “You know the end is near, you expect the worst, then there’s a small flicker of light – before another collapse. And it always ends badly.” May “blew her last bet”, failing miserably to convince parliament to vote for the withdrawal agreement sealed barely two weeks ago. “Rather than suffer the humiliation, she suspended...

A LABOUR MP has been ejected from the House of Commons after picking up a ceremonial mace in a “symbolic protest” following the postponement of a vote on the proposed Brexit deal. Lloyd Russell-Moyle picked up the mace and walked towards the doors before being stopped by officials.

On Monday, the E.U.'s top court ruled that the United Kingdom can change its mind and forget the whole thing — if it wants to. Anti-Brexit campaigners heralded Monday's decision as a game-changer, boosting their hopes of reversing the divorce altogether.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon accused the British government on Monday of “pathetic cowardice” by postponing a key vote on Brexit in the UK parliament.

LONDON: UK Prime Minister Theresa May warned on Sunday if parliament rejects her Brexit deal, it could leave Britain in the European Union and bring the opposition Labour Party to power. The embattled leader's message came with her government fearing a heavy defeat in Tuesday's parliamentary vote on the draft withdrawal agreement she signed with Brussels last month. Media reports said May is under pressure from her cabinet to delay the vote and fly to Brussels to secure more concessions ahead of a planned summit with the other 27 EU leaders on Thursday and Friday. But Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay...

French President Emmanuel Macron will address the country on Monday as he seeks to placate "yellow vest" anti-government protesters who wreaked havoc in Paris this weekend. On Sunday, workers in Paris and other cities swept up broken glass and towed away burnt-out cars while the government warned of slower economic growth and the judiciary said it would come down hard on looting and attacks on police. On Saturday, protesters, for the fourth weekend in a row, threw stones, torched cars and vandalised shops and restaurants in a protest against Macron's economic policies. The Elysee palace said on Sunday that Macron,...

According to Belga news agency, young protesters blocked a highway linking Brussels to the town of Rekkem in Flanders, located near the French border. They also put up a barricade near the Franco-Belgian border close to Adinkerque, Belga said. The "yellow vest" movement in France originally started as a protest about planned fuel hikes but has morphed into a mass protest against President Emmanuel Macron's policies and top-down style of governing. It has spilled over to some other countries, including Belgium and especially in the country's French-speaking region. On November 30, a "yellow vest" protest by some 300 people in...

Theresa May has told BBC Radio 4's Today programme her EU deal delivers on the result of the 2016 referendum.

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, in a lecture at the University of Bonn on Monday, argued for a strong Europe composed of strong nation states. “If there is any country that needs a strong Europe, it is definitely Hungary,” he said, noting that Hungary, located in the middle of Europe with an open economy, has a history of losing out in conflicts between east and west. Szijjártó said some wanted weak EU member states within a kind of united states of Europe. Yet strong integration between weak countries is hard to achieve, he argued, adding that Hungary believes strong member states...

Up to 200 teenagers and twentysomething members of Generation Identity, including a large group from the UK, had gathered at a secret location in rural south-central France to formulate the next stage of its campaign to halt what the group calls the “great replacement of white people with black and ethnic minorities”. But the meeting, in the village of Saint-Didier-en-Velay, was disrupted after the Observer forwarded information to Generation Identity members revealing that a prominent figure in the pan-European far-right youth movement had neo-Nazi connections and had been linked to racist stabbings. Within an hour of the information being sent,...

A German TV show has ridiculed the state of Brexit negotiations - saying that like in football 'in the end England loses'. The show on the Das Erste channel mocked Theresa May, who is facing a titanic battle to get her deal passed by MPs amid overwhelming opposition from all political parties. And it poked fun at leading Brexiteers and Tory MPs Nadine Dorries and Dominic Raab, accusing them of massively underestimating the scale of the Brexit task. The show's presenter also mocked England's history of losing to Germany in football matches. Summing up Brexit, the presenter said: 'So to...

Donald Trump has suggested Theresa May's Brexit agreement could threaten a US-UK trade deal. The US president told reporters the withdrawal agreement "sounds like a great deal for the EU" and meant the UK might not be able to trade with the US.