Brexit: Rubbish, colonies, 'bribes' & betrayal

As Theresa May settled down for a quiet weekend of making “alternative arrangements” for the Irish backstop in her Brexit deal, Westminster pondered putrefying garbage, inducements for Labour MPs, a Conservative grass roots rebellion and a colonial jibe from Spain.

It emerged on Friday that UK environmental officials had expressed concerns that a no-deal Brexit would leave Britain overflowing with “putrefying stockpiles” of rubbish and lakes of liquid manure.

If the UK leaves the EU without a deal on March 29, export licences for millions of tonnes of waste would become invalid overnight. Environment Agency (EA) officials said leaking stockpiles could cause pollution, the Guardian reported, citing a leaked email.

The EA was also concerned that if farmers could not export beef and lamb, a backlog of livestock on farms could cause liquid manure stores to overflow.

“It could all get very ugly, very quickly,” an EA source said.

“If there is a no-deal scenario, the current export of waste may cease for a period. This could result in stockpiled waste which causes licence breaches,” the email said. “Odours will obviously be an issue as the stockpiled waste putrefies and there may be runoff of leachates, causing secondary pollution.”

Meanwhile, the opposition Labour Party and trade unions were squaring up with potential rebel MPs in areas that voted to leave the EU being enticed by May with money for constituencies in return for supporting her deal.

Party chairman Ian Lavery warned any MPs who were considering talking to May that they should not forget the government's record on austerity.

"Any Labour MP seriously considering discussions with the PM should remember her record and that of her party going back generations. Quite simply, taking such a bribe would be fool's gold."

"If the prime minister wants to talk about ending austerity and protecting rights as we leave the EU, she should do so with the leader of the Labour Party and his team.”

Lavery also said unions would not endorse other proposals aimed at improving workers' rights after Brexit, dismissing them as a “divide and rule” tactic.

In what was supposed to be a simple change in EU legislation to allow visa-free travel for Britons in Europe after Brexit turned into a diplomatic spat after Brussels described Gibraltar as “a colony of the British crown” in its no-deal legislation.

The footnote containing the offending phrase was included at the insistence of Spain, which has laid claim to “the Rock” for more than 300 years.

“It is completely unacceptable to describe Gibraltar in this way,” May's spokesman said.

“Gibraltar is a full part of the UK family and has a mature and modern constitutional relationship with the UK. This will not change due to our exit from the EU.”

At a more local UK level, senior grassroots Conservatives were expected to warn May that a Brexit delay of any longer than two months would be a “betrayal” of the EU referendum result.

The warning was contained in a motion to be voted on by the heads of local Conservative associations when they meet later this month, the Times reported.

It emerged as Sir Graham Brady became the latest senior Tory politician to say that Brexit could be delayed.

The chairman of the back-bench 1922 Committee said the date of Britain’s departure could be put off for a short period, probably of about two weeks, to finalise legislation. He said he would only support a delay if parliament had already agreed to May’s deal.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Thursday suggested the UK may not leave the EU on March 29 as planned, amid reports that almost a third of the cabinet believe that the Article-50 exit process will have to be delayed.

In an interview with the BBC Brady said: “I would only countenance a delay if we already had a deal agreed, it’s just a matter of doing the necessary work to implement it.”

The motion at the National Conservative Convention warns that any “delay beyond the European elections” on May 23 would be unacceptable because it would betray the referendum result and damage the Tory party “for a generation”.