United Kingdom: Support continues to shift in favour of Second Referendum

The UK folks need to come to their senses before too much more damage and Revoke Article 50

Sterling sinks ahead of European Parliament elections

Rise of Brexit party puts currency traders on edge and sends pound to four-month low

https://www.ft.com/content/c1e35a76-7bd7-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560

Bollocks to Brexit

https://www.euronews.com/2019/05/09/b-ks-to-brexit-uk-s-lib-dems-launch-campaign-for-eu-elections

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/21/british-steels-workers-at-scunthorpe-feel-sick-and-petrified-really

Great job Brexiters!

British Steel collapse: Thousands of jobs at risk as firm becomes ‘first major Brexit casualty’

Company put into official receivership after talks with government over £30m rescue package break down

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/british-steel-collapse-insolvency-administration-job-losses-scunthorpe-a8924821.html

Obviously the Referendum was a huge mistake. The question is what is the quickest and best way to reverse it.

George Osborne's Evening Standard backs Lib Dems for EU elections

Editorial in former chancellor’s paper is latest breakaway by Cameron-era Tories over Brexit

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/22/george-osbornes-evening-standard-backs-lib-dems-in-eu-polls-european-elections 

Nigel Farage's tweet about voting for Brexit to save the steel industry hasn't aged well

Nigel Farage‏Verified account @Nigel_Farage

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If we vote to Remain on June 23rd it is the end of the steel industry in this country. Simple as that. We must Leave EU.

1:45 AM - 2 Apr 2016

https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/716184709496180736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-338633467930782063.ampproject.net%2F1905091827220%2Fframe.html

https://www.indy100.com/article/nigel-farage-british-steel-brexit-party-tweet-8925651

The Remain forces are too splintered and they need to get together under one banner as it will be the only successful way to fight the right-wingers.

PM says MPs have 'one last chance' to back her deal

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48357017

European parliament elections: The Brexit effect

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image captionWhile these May Day marchers wanted to leave the EU, it is no longer policy for Marine Le Pen's far right National Rally in France

Remember that domino effect Brexit was predicted to trigger back in 2016?

Frexit (France leaving the EU), Italexit (Italy walking out the door), Nexit (the Netherlands following suit) and so on?

Fast-forward almost three years and here we are, on the eve of the European parliamentary elections - and although Eurosceptic parties are expected to make a strong showing at the polls, there's not a peep amongst them (UK parties remaining the exception) about leaving the EU.

Why have European voters gone off the idea?

In part, this is down to a growing awareness that the world out there is downright unpredictable: with President Trump in the White House; Russian President Putin at large around the European corner; looming trade wars; the environment in a mess; and the threat of mass migration to this continent from poorer parts of the globe.

• A really simple guide to the European elections
• Why European vote is moment of truth for nationalists

The conclusion amongst many in Europe is that it's safer to stick together. According to opinion polls, the EU is now more popular than it has been since the early 1980s.

Image copyrightREUTERS

Image captionIn France, many of the billboards outside polling stations have not been filled ahead of the election

But there's another big reason that leaving is no longer so appealing: Brexit.

Europeans have been shocked, and quite frankly put off, by the social divisions driven through British society by the 2016 referendum, and by the destructive political tangle in what is traditionally revered across the continent as "the mother of parliaments".

Alice Weidel, one of the leaders of Germany's Eurosceptic AfD party, said recently that she regretted her group's flirtation with "Dexit" (an EU exit for Deutschland, the German word for Germany). Her feeling was that it lost them potential voters.

So, ahead of this week's election for the European Parliament, Europe's right-wing nationalists - including Marine Le Pen of France, Italy's firebrand deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, and the AfD - have been calling to "change the EU from the inside" rather than walk away from it altogether.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image captionEuropean economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici has warned of the dangers of a populist "breakthrough" for the EU's future

After the vote, they hope to become the third largest faction in the European Parliament. And they have the EU establishment rattled.

EU Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici describes these elections as the "most delicate and most dangerous ever". He told me the nationalist Eurosceptics threatened to "destroy the EU as we know it".

Marine Le Pen wouldn't disagree.

After she and her European colleagues had finished with the EU, she told me, she was sure that those who had voted Leave in the UK would want to join their new "European Union of independent nations".

• What the European Parliament has been up to
• How does voting work in European elections?

But opinion polls, plus relations between all these nationalist groups (some are warm towards Moscow, others hostile; some want a distribution system for migrants arriving in Europe, others hate the idea) suggests Mrs Le Pen and her colleagues may find it difficult to get enough votes to transform the EU as they wish, never mind being able to work together effectively enough in European Parliament.

Rather than the screaming headline "surge of the far right" to define these elections, I'd opt for: "Hunger for change".

Change is something you hear voters calling for across the EU right now: change in the way national governments are run; change in the way the EU works.

Image copyrightREUTERS

Image captionSwedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg has struck a chord in several European countries with her call for action on climate change

But not everyone is looking to the nationalist right for answers.

The far left, the populist left (like Spain's Podemos), single issue parties and environmental groups also expect a boost. The Greens dream of becoming kingmakers in the new European Parliament too.

It's very likely that we'll see a similar trend to one we've witnessed in general election after general election across the EU: a slap in the face for traditional political parties that have governed Europe since the end of World War Two.

• New political climate may boost European Greens
• Candidates spar on TV for top EU job

The EU's Big Two - the governments of France and Germany - are jumpy.

Haemorrhaging votes in Brussels will further weaken Chancellor Merkel and President Macron at home. Both leaders have kept an extremely low profile during the European election campaign.

This when - you'll remember - Emmanuel Macron presented himself as Mr Europe in his push to become French president. Rather crushingly for him, the polls in France have his centrist alliance neck-and-neck with Marine Le Pen.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Overall though, pro-EU groups will likely dominate the new European Parliament.

The traditional centre-left (social democrat) and centre-right (Christian-democrat/conservative) factions may be in danger of losing their overall majority for the first time, but they'll still probably emerge as the two biggest groups.

Yet this threatens to be a very splintered parliament.

Finding consensus to make or change laws will be a challenge when the popular shout for change is at its loudest.

Still, let's not forget, while the European Parliament plays an important role, the real power to reform the European Union, or change it from within, lies not with MEPs but with national leaders: the prime ministers and presidents of the EU's 28 (27) member states.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48364626

You do as you wish Ken.

If it were me, and I found myself allied with right-wingers, I would be seriously questioning what in the world I was doing. And the more I learn about Brexit the more alarming the scenario, including serious job losses and inflation impacts on senior''s pensions, appear to be.  

Brexit fears are back and the pound is paying the price

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/22/investing/brexit-pound/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/23/theresa-may-hold-talks-ministers-attempt-prolong-exit

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They tried it Brexit obviously was a huge mistake It’s time for Brexiters to lick their wounds, accept the reality and that the people involved with Brexit are the one percenters that are already damaging the working people and the poor, and get back to working with the rest of Europe and keeping the peace

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/johnson-s-brexit-claims-were-dishonest-private-prosecutor-says

First Cameron now May

How many more prime ministers will The UK burn through before they put a stop to the Brexit insanity?

It’s time for the UK to cut its losses, put out its self-inflicted absurd Brexit fire, and get back to working with the EC for the betterment of its citizens

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/24/theresa-may-replacement-no-deal-brexit-pm

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No principles, just events

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5148515