LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday defended her decision to call an early election for June, saying it would strengthen the government’s hand in negotiations to leave the EU.
May dismissed criticism of her move to send voters back to polling booths for the third time in two years, after a May 2015 national election and a June 2016 referendum on EU membership,
She said that “Brexit isn’t just about the letter that says we want to leave. It’s about ... getting the right deal from Europe.”
Britain’s next national election is currently scheduled for 2020, a year after the scheduled completion of two years of EU exit talks.
May told The Sun newspaper that if Britain were still negotiating with the bloc in the run-up to a national election, “the Europeans might have seen that as a time of weakness when they could push us.”
An early ballot will give the prime minister — or her replacement — more time to implement Brexit before another election.
May also told the BBC that her political opponents were intent on “frustrating the Brexit process” — even after Parliament authorized divorce talks with the EU.
May’s Conservatives currently hold 330 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. Opinion polls give them a big lead over the Labour opposition, and May is gambling that an election will deliver her a personal mandate from voters and produce a bigger Conservative majority in Parliament.
The House of Commons on Wednesday voted to support May’s call for a snap election on June 8.
The result, 522 to 13, easily surpassed the two-thirds majority of the 650 lawmakers needed to trigger an early vote.
Parliament will be dissolved in early May, sparking almost six weeks of campaigning.
May ruled out participating in televised debates with other leaders. TV debates don’t have a long history in British politics, but were a feature of the last two elections, in 2010 and 2015.
“We won’t be doing television debates,” May said, adding that politicians should spend election campaigns “out and about” meeting voters.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said that broadcasters should hold debates anyway, with an empty chair in May’s place.
“The prime minister’s attempt to dodge scrutiny shows how she holds the public in contempt,” he said.
UK PM defends decision to seek snap election
UK PM defends decision to seek snap election
Second death in Minneapolis crackdown heaps pressure on Trump
- Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, early Saturday while scuffling with him on an icy roadway in the Midwestern city
MINNEAPOLIS: The Trump administration faced intensifying pressure Sunday over its mass immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, after federal agents shot dead a second US citizen and graphic cell phone footage again contradicted officials’ immediate description of the incident.
Federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, early Saturday while scuffling with him on an icy roadway in the Midwestern city, less than three weeks after an immigration officer fired on Renee Good, also 37, killing her in her car.
President Donald Trump’s administration quickly claimed that Pretti had intended to harm the federal agents — as it did after Good’s death — pointing to a pistol it said was discovered on him.
However, video shared widely on social media and verified by US media showed Pretti never drawing a weapon, with agents firing around 10 shots at him seconds after he was sprayed in the face with chemical irritant and thrown to the ground.
The video further inflamed ongoing protests in Minneapolis against the presence of federal agents, with around 1,000 people participating in a demonstration Sunday.
After top officials described Pretti as an “assassin” who had assaulted the agents, Pretti’s parents issued a statement Saturday condemning the administration’s “sickening lies” about their son.
Asked Sunday what she would say to Pretti’s parents, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said: “Just that I’m grieved for them.”
“I truly am. I can’t even imagine losing a child,” she told Fox News show “The Sunday Briefing.”
She said more clarity would come as an investigation progresses.
US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” also said an investigation was necessary to get a full understanding of the killing.
Asked if agents had already removed the pistol from Pretti when they fired on him, Blanche said: “I do not know. And nobody else knows, either. That’s why we’re doing an investigation.”
‘Joint’ probe
Their comments came after multiple senators from Trump’s Republican Party called for a thorough probe into the killing, and for cooperation with local authorities.
“There must be a full joint federal and state investigation,” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said.
The Trump administration controversially excluded local investigators from a probe into Good’s killing.
Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz posed a question directly to the president during a press briefing Sunday, asking: “What’s the plan, Donald Trump?“
“What do we need to do to get these federal agents out of our state?“
Thousands of federal immigration agents have been deployed to heavily Democratic Minneapolis for weeks, after conservative media reported on alleged fraud by Somali immigrants.
Trump has repeatedly amplified the racially tinged accusations, including on Sunday when he posted on his Truth Social platform: “Minnesota is a Criminal COVER UP of the massive Financial Fraud that has gone on!“
The city, known for its bitterly cold winters, has one of the country’s highest concentrations of Somali immigrants.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison pushed back against Trump’s claim, telling reporters “it’s not about fraud, because if he sent people who understand forensic accounting, we’d be having a different conversation. But he’s sending armed masked men.”
Court order
Since “Operation Metro Surge” began, many residents have carried whistles to notify others of the presence of immigration agents, while sometimes violent skirmishes have broken out between the officers and protesters.
Local authorities have sued the federal government seeking a court order to suspend the operation, with a first hearing set for Monday.
Recent polling has shown voters increasingly upset with Trump’s domestic immigration operations, as videos of masked agents seizing people off sidewalks — including children — and dramatic stories of US citizens being detained proliferate.
Barack and Michelle Obama on Sunday forcefully condemned Pretti’s killing, saying in a statement it should be a “wake-up call” that core US values “are increasingly under assault.”
The former president and first lady blasted Trump and his government as seeming “eager to escalate the situation.”
