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EU divorce deal in peril after two UK Cabinet ministers quit

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LONDON — Two British Cabinet ministers, including Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, resigned Thursday in opposition to the divorce deal struck by Prime Minister Theresa May with the EU — a major blow to her authority and her ability to get the deal through Parliament.

A defiant May insisted Brexit meant making “the right choices, not the easy ones” and urged lawmakers to support the deal “in the national interest.”

“The choice is clear,” May told lawmakers. “We can choose to leave with no deal. We can risk no Brexit at all. Or we can choose to unite and support the best deal that can be negotiated — this deal.”

But the resignations, less than a day after the Cabinet collectively backed the draft divorce agreement, weakens May and is likely to embolden her rivals within her Conservative Party. A leadership challenge is being openly discussed.

“I cannot in good conscience support the terms proposed for our deal with the EU,” Raab said in a resignation letter to the prime minister.

“I cannot reconcile the terms of the proposed deal with the promises we made.”

Raab is the second Brexit Secretary that May has lost — David Davis, who like Raab backed Brexit in the U.K.’s June 2016 referendum on its membership of the EU, quit in July of this year.

Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey followed Raab out the door. She said in a letter that it is “no good trying to pretend to (voters) that this deal honours the result of the referendum when it is obvious to everyone that it doesn’t.”

The departures — several junior ministers have also quit — are a further sign that many supporters of Brexit won’t back May in a vote in Parliament on the deal. That’s prompted a big fall in the value of the pound, which was trading 1.5 per cent lower at $1.28.

Pro-Brexit politicians say the agreement, which calls for close trade ties between the U.K. and the bloc, would leave Britain a vassal state, bound to EU rules that it has no say in making.

Before Parliament votes on the deal — the culmination of a year and a half of negotiations between the two sides — EU leaders have to give their backing. On Thursday, EU chief Donald Tusk called for a summit of leaders to take place on Nov. 25 so they can rubber-stamp the draft deal reached by officials earlier this week.

May has supporters in her party, and they argued Thursday that the alternatives — leaving the trading bloc without a deal or a second vote on Brexit — were not realistic options.

“‘No deal’ is not pretty,” Health SecretaryMatt Hancock told BBC Radio 4. “A second referendum would be divisive but not be decisive.”

But May’s chances of getting her deal through Parliament appeared to be shrinking. Her Conservative government doesn’t have enough lawmakers of its own to get a majority, and relies on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland, which says it will not back the deal.

Opposition parties also signalled that they would vote against the agreement if it comes before them — most likely in December.

Main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said May should withdraw the “half-baked” Brexit deal. He said Parliament “cannot and will not accept a false choice between this deal and no deal.”

Ian Blackford, who heads the Scottish National Party in Parliament, said the deal was “dead on arrival” and urged May to stop the countdown clock to Britain’s exit, less than five months away.

“Do the right thing and we will work with you,” he said. “Stop the clock and go back to Brussels.”

Meanwhile in Brussels, Tusk heaped praise on the EU’s Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, who had “achieved the two most important objectives” for the bloc — limiting the damage caused by Britain’s impending departure and maintaining the interests of the other 27 countries that will remain in the EU after Brexit.

“As much as I am sad to see you leave, I will do everything to make this farewell the least painful possible for both for you and for us,” said Tusk, who in his role as European Council President chairs the meetings of leaders.

The deal also requires the consent of the European Parliament as well as the British one and on Thursday Barnier was set to travel to Strasbourg, France, to win over legislators there. The parliament’s chief Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt, has already welcomed the draft withdrawal agreement late Wednesday.

But over the coming weeks, the British Parliament will be the focal point of the Brexit process. The deal has to be backed by a majority of lawmakers so Britain can leave the EU on March 29, 2019.

___

Casert contributed from Brussels.

Jill Lawless, Raphael Satter And Raf Casert, The Associated Press






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New report warns WHO health rules erode Canada’s democracy and Charter rights

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Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has released a new report titled Canada’s Surrender of Sovereignty: New WHO health regulations undermine Canadian democracy and Charter freedoms. Authored by Nigel Hannaford, a veteran journalist and researcher, the report warns that Canada’s acceptance of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) revised International Health Regulations (IHR) represents a serious erosion of national independence and democratic accountability.

The IHR amendments, which took effect on September 19, 2025, authorize the WHO Director-General to declare global “health emergencies” that could require Canada to follow directives from bureaucrats in Geneva, bypassing the House of Commons and the will of Canadian voters.

The WHO regards these regulations as “binding,” despite having no ability or legal authority to impose such regulations. Even so, Canada is opting to accept the regulations as binding.

By accepting the WHO’s revised IHR, the report explains, Canada has relinquished its own control over future health crises and instead has agreed to let the WHO determine when a “pandemic emergency” exists and what Canada must do to respond to it, after which Canada must report back to the WHO.

In fact, under these International Health Regulations, the WHO could demand countries like Canada impose stringent freedom-violating health policies, such as lockdowns, vaccine mandates, or travel restrictions without debate, evidence review, or public accountability, the report explains.

Once the WHO declares a “Pandemic Emergency,” member states are obligated to implement such emergency measures “without delay” for a minimum of three months.

Importantly, following these WHO directives would undermine government accountability as politicians may hide behind international “commitments” to justify their actions as “simply following international rules,” the report warns.

Canada should instead withdraw from the revised IHR, following the example of countries like Germany, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, and the United States. The report recommends continued international cooperation without surrendering control over domestic health policies.

Constitutional lawyer Allison Pejovic said, “[b]y treating WHO edicts as binding, the federal government has effectively placed Canadian sovereignty on loan to an unelected international body.”

“Such directives, if enforced, would likely violate Canadians’ Charter rights and freedoms,” she added.

Mr. Hannaford agreed, saying, “Canada’s health policies must be made in Canada. No free and democratic nation should outsource its emergency powers to unelected bureaucrats in Geneva.”

The Justice Centre urges Canadians to contact their Members of Parliament and demand they support withdrawing from the revised IHR to restore Canadian sovereignty and reject blind compliance with WHO directives.

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CNN’s Shock Climate Polling Data Reinforces Trump’s Energy Agenda

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

As the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress move aggressively to roll back the climate alarm-driven energy policies of the Biden presidency, proponents of climate change theory have ramped up their scare tactics in hopes of shifting public opinion in their favor.

But CNN’s energetic polling analyst, the irrepressible Harry Enten, says those tactics aren’t working. Indeed, Enten points out the climate alarm messaging which has permeated every nook and cranny of American society for at least 25 years now has failed to move the public opinion needle even a smidgen since 2000.

Appearing on the cable channel’s “CNN News Central” program with host John Berman Thursday, Enten cited polling data showing that just 40% of U.S. citizens are “afraid” of climate change. That is the same percentage who gave a similar answer in 2000.

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How much has been spent on climate alarm messaging since that year? When Climate science critic Steve Milloy, who runs the Junkscience.org website, asked X’s AI tool, Grok 3, to provide an estimate of “the value of pro-global warming propaganda from the media since 2000,” Grok 3 returned an answer of $722 billion. Given that Grok’s estimate includes both direct spending on such propaganda as well as earned media, that actually seems like a low number when one considers that virtually every legacy media outlet parrots and amplifies the prevailing climate change narrative with near-religious zeal.

Enten’s own report is an example of this fealty. Saying the findings “kind of boggles the mind,” Enten emphasized the fact that, despite all the media hysteria that takes place in the wake of any weather disaster or wildfire, an even lower percentage of Americans are concerned such events might impact them personally.

“In 2006, it was 38%,” Enten says of the percentage who are even “sometimes worried” about being hit by a natural disaster, and adds, “Look at where we are now in 2025. It’s 32%, 38% to 32%. The number’s actually gone down.”

In terms of all adults who worry that a major disaster might hit their own hometown, Enten notes that just 17% admit to such a concern. Even among Democrats, whose party has been the major proponent of climate alarm theory in the U.S., the percentage is a paltry 27%.

While Enten and Berman both appear to be shocked by these findings, they really aren’t surprising. Enten himself notes that climate concerns have never been a driving issue in electoral politics in his conclusion, when Berman points out, “People might think it’s an issue, but clearly not a driving issue when people go to the polls.”

“That’s exactly right,” Enten says, adding, “They may worry about in the abstract, but when it comes to their own lives, they don’t worry.”

This reality of public opinion is a major reason why President Donald Trump and his key cabinet officials have felt free to mount their aggressive push to end any remaining notion that a government-subsidized ‘energy transition’ from oil, gas, and coal to renewables and electric vehicles is happening in the U.S. It is also a big reason why congressional Republicans included language in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to phase out subsidies for those alternative energy technologies.

It is key to understand that the administration’s reprioritization of energy and climate policies goes well beyond just rolling back the Biden policies. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is working on plans to revoke the 2010 endangerment finding related to greenhouse gases which served as the foundation for most of the Obama climate agenda as well.

If that plan can survive the inevitable court challenges, then Trump’s ambitions will only accelerate. Last year’s elimination of the Chevron Deference by the Supreme Court increases the chances of that happening. Ultimately, by the end of 2028, it will be almost as if the Obama and Biden presidencies never happened.

The reality here is that, with such a low percentage of voters expressing concerns about any of this, Trump and congressional Republicans will pay little or no political price for moving in this direction. Thus, unless the polls change radically, the policy direction will remain the same.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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