With a reputation for their savagery, the conquest of the Isle of Anglesey by the Romans put an end to the Anglesey Druids and the last pagan corner of Wales.
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Today, two big amendments were put to a vote in the House of Commons.
First was a proposal led by Labour’s Stella Creasy to allow women from Northern Ireland to get free abortions in England. Currently, abortions in Northern Ireland are banned unless in extreme circumstances of poor health, and the women who travel to England for the procedures have to pay around £900. It passed the house and will now come into law.
The amendment - which was backed by more than 50 MPs from across the major parties - means Northern Irish women will now have their abortions in England covered by the NHS. Fairly reasonable, when you consider most of these women pay the taxes that fund the service. It is estimated the amendment will cost approximately £1 million per year.
Second was a Brexit-based amendment led by Labour’s Chuka Umunna. This amendment suggested the UK stay in the single market, which guarantees free movement of goods, services, money and labour within the EU. Jeremy Corbyn called on all Labour MP’s to abstain from the vote and threatened they would be sacked from any ministerial roles if they rebelled. So far we are aware of 3 Labour frontbenchers who have been sacked from their roles for not abstaining.
While parties such as Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats showed unanimous support for the amendment, it was easily defeated due to Labour abstentions.
Then all that remained was the vote on the final Queen’s Speech, the last piece of the puzzle to make Theresa May the undisputed Prime Minster of the United Kingdom. With the support of the DUP’s 10 MPs, the Queen’s Speech passed.
tl;dr Good news for women, bad news for business, great news for Theresa May
Yes, it’s the first day of the long anticipated Brexit negotiations and the first in our series of Brexit related posts. First days are always tricky. Both parties sizing the other up, looking for an angle to put their team ahead - so how did everyone get on?
Representing the UK is David Davis, veteran MP for the Conservative party and May’s Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. His approach? Well, no one reallyknows. It looks like we’re in for a ‘hard’ Brexit, with Davis opening the discussion with talk of leaving the customs union and the single market - to the universal agreement of the EU team. When it comes to borders, movement and human rights? No word yet.
What we do know is that UK’ first aim is to build the Brexit schedule on theirterms, not the EU’s. The UK went into today’s talks hoping to get permission to discuss trade agreements with various EU countries at the same time as discussing the possible ‘divorce bill’ they might or might not owe. This is the big power play of the day - whoever gets their way gets the upper hand going forward.
And the winner is?
On the first day of negotiations, the winner was the EU by a landslide. Chief negotiator for the EU, Michael Barnier, stated that the UK, as the leaving party, were not in a position to determine the timetable.
Compounding the strategic loss, the Conservative government has also suggested it will U-turn on its stance not to guarantee the right to remain of EU citizens currently in the UK. Theresa May herself is expected to fly out to Brussels over the next few days to unveil the reversal.
The rights of EU citizens is something many opponents to the Tories promised in party manifestos leading into GE2017, particularly Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. Maybe we’re seeing the first signs of the impact of May’s hung parliament.
And if things didn’t look like they could get any worse for Davis and the UK, the issue of the Irish border just became a whole lot more complicated. Negotiations are now expected to take a lot longer than the UK team predicted. How this news will affect the DUP’s deal with the Conservatives is yet to be seen.
Without words for this place… As much as I love researching locations before a trip, nothing compares to seeing a place like this with your own eyes - especially since it was only a vague hint on Google earth that led me here. Head over to my Instagram for daily updates.
