Stories of the week 24 March
Marches, deadlines and political coups. What’s not to like about Brexit this week?
A million people marched in London to protest against Brexit. And, in one of our favourites headlines of the week, whilst a million turned out to protest against Brexit, Nigel Farage addressed a crowd of 200 pro-Brexiters. Bit of a difference in turn out there. As if this wasn’t enough to demonstrate anti-Brexit feeling sweeping the country, nearly 5 million people have signed an online petition demanding that Article 50 be revoked Looks like Brexiteers are the anti-democratic movement now in the UK.
Theresa May has had a big week. Firstly, she was told to stop bullying Parliament and behaving like a dictator. There is strong precedent for stopping Governments repeatedly putting the same thing before MPs until they vote it through. May was told in no uncertain terms that she could not simply return with the same deal to Parliament and make them vote again and again.
This all may be academic as the Tories say enough is enough. There are various plots sweeping the party to out May and replace here with various contenders, depending on which newspaper you are. A divided country, a divided party and plenty of misery for the UK ahead.
Looking forward to what’s to come next week. Where Brexit stops, nobody knows.
In a terrible indictment of racial tensions and the threat of white right wing terrorism, the atrocity in New Zealand sparked a number of Islamophobic hate attacks in the UK.
To make matters even worse if that were possible, the Home Office has been found to have completely failed on immigration detention.
New Zealand started to heal this week. Parliament opened with a reading form the Quran, thousands of people from all faiths donned headscarves to pay their respects to the victims and gun laws were immediately changed.
The sad and complex story of Shamima Begum continued this week. Having lost her baby, her distraught family have launched an appeal against the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid’s decision to strip her UK citizenship.
US President Donald Trump continues on his mission to disrupt the rest of the world as much as he possibly can. This week Trump announced that the US should recognise Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights. In even more extraordinary news, Trumps’ ally, Mike Pompero, claimed that Trump has been ‘sent from God to save Jewish people from Iran.’
