The first and most important piece of legislation announced by the Queen is the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, which will lay out the plans for Britain’s departure from the EU.
“My government’s priority has always been to secure the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union on 31 October,” the Queen says, at the start of her speech. “My government intends to work towards a new partnership with the European Union, based on free trade and friendly cooperation.”
Johnson plans to put the bill before MPs next week, once debate on the Queen’s Speech has wrapped up -- but it’s not clear if he’ll get the chance, given that his perilous position in Parliament means he is at risk of losing the vote on his agenda.
Even more pressing is the fact that Johnson is yet to agree any deal with the EU. If he hasn’t done so by the EU summit at the end of this week, he’s mandated by law to request another Brexit extension.
"An immigration bill, ending free movement, will lay the foundation for a fair, modern and global immigration system," the speech adds.
“My Government remains committed to ensuring that resident European citizens, who have built their lives in, and contributed so much to, the United Kingdom, have the right to remain. The bill will include measures that reinforce this commitment,” she added.
“Steps will be taken to provide certainty, stability and new opportunities for the financial services and legal sectors.”
MADRID — The Spanish Supreme Court on Monday sentenced former leaders of the Catalan independence movement to lengthy prison terms after finding them guilty of sedition for their botched attempt to break away from Spain in 2017.
The court verdicts followed a landmark trial in which 12 leaders of the Catalan independence movement stood accused of crimes ranging from rebellion and sedition to misuse of public funds.
The court sentenced nine of the 12 former leaders to prison for sedition, as well as for misusing public funds. The remaining three were sentenced for the lesser crime of disobedience during the events two years ago, which culminated in an unconstitutional referendum followed by a declaration of independence in October 2017.
The ruling came amid another buildup of tensions in Catalonia, the wealthy northeastern region where the Spanish authorities have recently deployed anti-riot police to prepare for any major street protests in response to the court’s decision.
It also came ahead of a repeat national election on Nov. 10, called after Pedro Sánchez, the caretaker Socialist prime minister, failed to get sufficient support from smaller parties in Parliament to form a government. It will be Spain’s fourth election in four years, highlighting the country’s political polarization and fragmentation.
President Trump on Sunday said there is widespread support in Washington to impose new sanctions against Turkey over its swift incursion into northern Syria.
Specific details about the sanctions were unclear but Trump said on Twitter, "Treasury is ready to go, additional legislation may be sought. There is great consensus on this. Turkey has asked that it not be done. Stay tuned!"
Reuters, citing an unnamed U.S. official, reported that the measures were being “worked out at all levels of the government for rollout.”
Over the past five days, Turkish troops and their allies have pushed their way into northern towns and villages, clashing with the Kurdish fighters over a stretch of 125 miles. The offensive has displaced at least 130,000 people.
On Sunday, at least nine people, including five civilians, were killed in Turkish airstrikes on a convoy in the Syrian border town of Ras al-Ayn, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Syrian Kurdish officials.
The New York Times reported that the troop advancement was so fast, they seized a road that complicated the U.S. troop pullout.
Trump has faced criticism over his decision to give Turkey a green light for the offensive. Critics said the U.S. abandoned its Kurdish allies that were credited for their actions to defeat ISIS. Trump has insisted that he wants to pull U.S. troops out of endless wars.
Trump was criticized by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for his initial decision, but was praised Sunday night for working with Congress “to impose crippling sanctions against Turkeys (sic) outrageous aggression/war crimes in Syria.”
"We have American forces likely caught between two opposing, advancing armies and it's a very untenable situation. I spoke with the President last night, after discussions with the rest of the national security team, and he directed that we begin a deliberate withdrawal of forces from northern Syria," Esper said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "Which is where most of our forces are."
Esper did not initially make it entirely clear whether the withdrawal would mean the US troops would be leaving Syria entirely or relocating elsewhere in the country away from where Turkish forces are operating. The Pentagon did not respond to CNN's request Sunday for clarification on the troop withdrawal.
While the majority of the 1,000 US troops in Syria are in the northern part of the country, the US military also maintains a small presence in southern Syria at a base in At Tanf where the US trains local anti-ISIS fighters that are not affiliated with the Syrian Democratic Forces.
A US official familiar with the situation on the ground said earlier Sunday that US forces in Syria are preparing to withdraw from the country.
The official said the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly in northeast Syria, adding that Turkish proxies, which the official describes as including "extremists," have advanced along the strategically important M4 highway setting up multiple checkpoints. He says these proxy forces are wearing SDF uniforms and killing civilians on the highway. US Forces and SDF troops no longer control ground lines of communication and have no control over Turkish aircraft overhead.
"US Forces are at risk of being isolated and there is increased risk of confrontation between Turkish proxies and US Forces unless Turkey halts their advance immediately," the official says.
Situation in Syria
Prior to Turkey's offensive last week, as a confidence building measure with the country, the US convinced the Syrian Kurds to dismantle their defensive fortifications along the border and pull their fighters back. The US said Turkey had agreed to the arrangement which sought to prevent unilateral Turkish military action. Trump then had the Pentagon pull back US troops along that part of the border.
While Kurdish officials and Republican and Democratic lawmakers have argued that the pullback helped provide a de facto green light for the Turkish attack, senior members of the Trump administration have insisted Turkey would have invaded regardless of whether US troops had remained and that the US has not deserted the Syrian Kurds. However, the US government has not taken action yet to stop the Turkish incursion.
Esper said Friday the US is not abandoning its Kurdish allies, although he made it clear the US military will not intervene in the fight.
"We are not abandoning our Kurdish partner forces and US troops remain with them in other parts of Syria," Esper told reporters at the Pentagon.
"We remain in close coordination with the Syrian Democratic Forces who helped us destroy the physical caliphate of ISIS, but I will not place American service members in the middle of a longstanding conflict between the Turks and the Kurds, this is not why we are in Syria," Esper said.
Trump signed an executive order Friday giving the Treasury Department "very significant new sanctions authorities" against Turkey over its actions in Syria, but the US doesn't have any immediate plans to use them, Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin said.
The Treasury statement had said that Trump's threat of sanctions was meant to dissuade Turkey from actions that included "the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, targeting of civilian infrastructure, targeting of ethnic or religious minorities."
As the situation in Syria deteriorates, Trump wrote on Twitter Saturday that he is working with Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and unnamed Democrats to impose "powerful sanctions" on Turkey.
Boris Johnson has told the cabinet there is still a "significant amount of work" to do, as UK and EU officials hold talks on getting a deal in place before the 31 October Brexit deadline.
But the prime minister said there was "a way forward" that could "secure all our interests".
Parliament will meet on Saturday and vote on any deal achieved by Mr Johnson at a Brussels summit this week.
Labour said it would "wait and see" but would oppose anything "damaging".
Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "We don't think the Tories have moved too far on their deal."
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon told the same programme: "We will not vote for the kind of deal specified by Boris Johnson."
Talks in Brussels between UK and EU officials - described as "intense technical discussions" - are continuing on Sunday.
House of Commons Leader Rees-Mogg wrote in the Sunday Telegraph: "In the final stages of the Brexit negotiation, compromise will inevitably be needed, something even the staunchest Leavers recognise albeit unwillingly - but as a Leaver Boris can be trusted."
Ambassadors to the EU from 27 member countries are scheduled to meet this evening and Michel Barnier, the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, is expected to brief them on the talks.
The summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday is seen as the final chance to get a Brexit deal agreed ahead of the deadline of 23:00 GMT on 31 October.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: "The prime minister updated cabinet on the current progress being made in ongoing Brexit negotiations, reiterating that a pathway to a deal could be seen but that there is still a significant amount of work to get there and we must remain prepared to leave on 31 October."
Mr Johnson believed a deal could "respect the Good Friday Agreement", signed in 1998 in an effort to end the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
It could also "get rid of" the backstop - the plan to prevent the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic - which the government says threatens the future of the UK.
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Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson told Sky News that any agreement reached by Mr Johnson should "be put to the public so they can have the final say".
But asked whether more MPs would be likely to support a deal, if the Commons first voted in favour of putting it to a referendum, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "I think many in Parliament, not necessarily Labour MPs - others - might be inclined to support it because they don't really agree with the deal.
"I would caution them on this."
Asked about Labour's stance, Home Secretary Priti Patel replied: "They are clearly playing politics. The British public want to ensure that we get Brexit done."
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Mr Johnson's revised proposals - designed to avoid concerns about the backstop - were criticised by EU leaders at the start of last week.
However, on Thursday, Mr Johnson and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar held talks and said they could "see a pathway to a possible deal".
The Benn Act, passed by Parliament last month, requires Mr Johnson to ask EU leaders for a delay to Brexit if a deal has not been reached and agreed to by MPs by 19 October.
The first Queen's Speech of Mr Johnson's premiership, delivered during the State Opening of Parliament on Monday, will see the government highlight its priorities, including on Brexit.
Timeline: What's happening ahead of Brexit deadline?
Monday 14 October - The Commons is due to return, and the government will use the Queen's Speech to set out its legislative agenda. The speech will then be debated by MPs throughout the week.
Thursday 17 October - Crucial two-day summit of EU leaders begins in Brussels. This is the last such meeting currently scheduled before the Brexit deadline.
Saturday 19 October - Special sitting of Parliament and the date by which the PM must ask the EU for another delay to Brexit under the Benn Act, if no Brexit deal has been approved by Parliament and they have not agreed to the UK leaving with no-deal.
Thursday 31 October - Date by which the UK is due to leave the EU, with or without a withdrawal agreement.
Turkey-backed Syrian fighters enter Ras al-Yan, Syria on Oct. 12.
BEIRUT — Videos posted on social media showing at least one execution-style killing have called into question the discipline of the soldiers engaged in Turkey’s five-day old effort to seize territory controlled by the Kurds allies in northeastern Syria.
The most gruesome and explicit of the videos shows Turkish-allied Syrian fighters pumping bursts of automatic fire into the body of a bound man lying on the side of a desert road as a gunman shouts to his comrades to take his phone and film him doing the shooting. Another trembling, handcuffed man crouches on the opposite side of the road as the shooting erupts. “Kill them,” one man is heard shouting.
The video is one of a series of photographs and videos posted on Twitter accounts of the Turkish-backed rebel groups and circulated by the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces that suggest some of the Syrian rebels participating in Turkey’s offensive to capture territory in Syria may have committed war crimes.
The Turkish army is leading the incursion, but is relying heavily on Syrian rebels to provide the manpower for the effort to drive the Kurdish-led SDF away from Turkey’s border.
A separate video shows the fighters crowding round a black, bullet ridden SUV that had apparently come under a hail of gunfire before being forced to stop. As the fighters step over the body of a dead man in civilian clothing to reach inside the vehicle, a female voice is briefly heard coming from the back seat.
“Another fleeing pig has been liquidated by the hands of the National Army. He was fleeing in an armored car,” says one of the fighters as the others clamor to be filmed
What happened next is unclear, but the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said the woman in the car was Kurdish politician, Hevrin Khalaf, whose body was found later in the day in a nearby morgue. Khalaf was the secretary general of a newly established party, the Future Party of Syria.
A Turkish newspaper, Yeni Safak, trumpeted her killing as a “successful operation” against a politician affiliated with the “terrorist” People’s Democratic Union, the Kurdish political party that runs northeast Syria.
The newspaper said she had been “neutralized” in the operation, and described her death as a big setback for the group.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, a total of nine civilians were executed on Saturday at the roadblock to the south of the town of Tal Abyad. Several other photos and videos posted by the Ahrar al-Sharqiya rebel group, which was apparently among those involved in manning the roadblock, show captured men surrounded by fighters on the side of the road.
Ahrar al-Sharqiyeh is composed of fighters mostly from the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, much of which is currently controlled by the SDF.
The Syrian National Army, an umbrella group uniting a number of Syrian rebel factions, condemned the killing in a statement and said it had launched an investigation into what it said represented a violation of “the standards and values that we commit to.”
The videoed killing and others that may have occurred off camera almost certainly constitute a war crime, according to international law, and may breach one of the conditions Trump set for allowing the Turkish offensive to go ahead unhindered by U.S. troops in the area. In a tweet last week he cautioned the Turks not to undertake any “unforced or unnecessary fighting” or else they would face measures against their economy and currency.
Turkey views the Syrian Kurdish forces, which were key U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State, as a terrorist group on its doorstep and a threat to its national security.
In past impeachment proceedings, the courts have undermined the President's wishes. During Whitewater, President Bill Clinton was forced by a unanimous Supreme Court to testify under oath in a civil lawsuit, which led to his impeachment for lying and obstruction. During Watergate, President Richard Nixon faced multiple fast-moving court cases that ultimately forced details to Congress and prosecutors that prompted his resignation before the full House voted on articles of impeachment.
In a hearing Tuesday, Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court, the first-line trial court in most separation of powers fights, grilled a Justice Department lawyer who argued to keep information known to the executive branch away from the House.
Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court pictured on April 13, 2018. Alex Wong/Getty Images
Howell pressed the administration attorney on legal precedent -- what Howell must decide under the law based on past decisions from courts above. When the lawyer suggested that a judge in 1974 would have not handed a grand jury's collection of evidence to the House of Representatives during Watergate if the case had arisen today, "Wow," Howell exclaimed.
Howell also bluntly told the Justice Department's legal team she would need to back the House in its needs during a formal impeachment proceeding.
"By my reading of the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit law, I owe enormous deference, if not absolute deference, when it comes to the exercise of the impeachment power to how the House decides to conduct itself," Howell said Tuesday.
Michael Gerhardt, a CNN analyst and University of North Carolina law professor, pointed to moments in the Howell hearing as an example of how far Trump's legal team has swerved from history.
The "argument shows not just how aggressive the President is being, but how much disdain they have for settled law. Most judges would just recoil at that," Gerhardt said.
