Jangan Permisi

Sabtu, 14 Desember 2019

New Zealand Volcano Eruption Death Toll Rises To 15 - NPR

Divers near White Island search for a body in the water on Saturday after the volcanic eruption earlier this week. New Zealand Police hide caption

toggle caption

New Zealand Police

As New Zealand divers carry out a high-risk recovery operation to recover the body of a person killed in Monday's volcanic eruption on White Island, police have announced that the official death toll has risen to 15.

A team of nine police divers were searching contaminated waters for a body spotted in the water near the island. The water is contaminated because of the eruption and visibility is limited — between zero and 6.5 feet, according to a police statement.

"Divers have reported seeing a number of dead fish and eels washed ashore and floating in the water," Deputy Commissioner John Tims of New Zealand Police said. "Each time they surface, the divers are decontaminated using fresh water."

The divers are also operating under the threat of another eruption. GeoNet, which monitors volcanic activity in New Zealand, estimated on Saturday that there is a 35 to 50% chance of another eruption on the island in the next 24 hours. That's a decrease from Friday, when the experts estimated a 50 to 60% likelihood of an eruption in the next day.

Authorities were able to recover six bodies from the island on Friday, meaning that two people remain unaccounted for. The police said that even as divers continue to try to find human remains on Saturday, no land-based searches will be conducted on the island, also known by its Maori name, Whakaari.

Col. Rian McKinstry from the New Zealand Defence Force told Stuff that on Friday, the recovery team used hazmat suits with a special protective layer containing charcoal to filter out noxious gases. The team also used oxygen masks.

When the volcano on White Island erupted on Monday afternoon, 47 people – many of them tourists from around the world — were there exploring. Some of the survivors are suffering from major burns to their skin and lungs. Major questions persist about why so many people were freely wandering around in an area that was known to be an active volcano.

Police formally identified the first victim of the eruption on Saturday – Krystal Eve Browitt, a 21-year-old Australian citizen. The young woman had been on a cruise with her parents and sister, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. Her mother had stayed behind on the cruise, and her other two family members are believed to be receiving treatment for their injuries in an Australian hospital.

Browitt's high school principal from Kolbe Catholic College says that she was a "much-loved member of the Kolbe community that her teachers describe as a beautiful soul," the Herald reported.

The fifteenth fatality from the eruption, which police confirmed Saturday, was a person who was being treated for injuries at a hospital in New Zealand.

New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has called for a minute of silence on Monday at exactly a week after the eruption started.

"Wherever you are in New Zealand, or around the world, this is a moment we can stand alongside those who have lost loved ones in this extraordinary tragedy," Ardern said in a statement. "Together we can express our sorrow for those who have died and been hurt, and our support for their grieving families and friends."

As NPR's Colin Dwyer reported, of the 47 people where were on the island at the time, 24 were from Australia and nine from the U.S. Others were from China, Malaysia, Germany, the U.K. and New Zealand.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm5wci5vcmcvMjAxOS8xMi8xNC83ODgwODcxNjIvZGl2ZXJzLXNlYXJjaC1jb250YW1pbmF0ZWQtd2F0ZXItZm9yLWJvZHktb2YtbmV3LXplYWxhbmQtdm9sY2Fuby12aWN0aW3SAQA?oc=5

2019-12-14 18:25:00Z
52780495621285

After Brexit, Fractured EU Faces New Challenges - The Wall Street Journal

Boris Johnson at a European Union leaders summit in Brussels in October. Photo: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg News

Laurence Norman and

Laurence Norman

The Wall Street Journal

Biography
@laurnorman
laurence.norman@wsj.com

Stephen Fidler

The Wall Street Journal

Biography
@StephenFidler1
stephen.fidler@wsj.com

Dec. 14, 2019 11:30 am ET

BRUSSELS—Boris Johnson’s general election victory, and the likely departure of Britain from the European Union next month, will bring relief to most European governments: Now they can focus on other pressing issues facing the bloc.

Yet Brexit was a rare point of unity for the remaining 27 members and life beyond it could expose divisions among them. It isn’t clear, for example, how cohesive those left in the bloc can be as they confront issues after Britain’s departure—including negotiating new trade relations with the U.K.

During divorce talks, the bloc’s shared interests enabled its members to speak unanimously on matters such as winning protections for EU citizens in Britain. Determining priorities in coming talks with its former member, from among issues such as access to each other’s markets and the rights of European fleets to fish in British waters, will likely prove harder.

Those negotiations will present difficult trade-offs because both sides say they want close economic ties but have conflicting agendas. Prime Minister Johnson has said he wants to win Britain the freedom to diverge from EU rules and standards, giving him flexibility to reach trade deals around the world. The EU wants to keep the two economies more aligned.

EU leaders have already said a less-regulated U.K. could pose a competitive threat in coming years. That means they will insist that the U.K. broadly conforms to EU environmental, labor and other standards as the price for a close trading relationship.

“If Boris Johnson wants a very ambitious trade deal, there has to be very ambitious regulatory convergence. Be my guest,” said French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday.

His counterparts and other senior EU officials have said for months they want Brexit resolved so the bloc can focus on the future. But since October, when a preliminary Brexit deal that now looks likely to win British backing was clinched, the European mood has darkened.

Relations have soured between France and Germany, whose alignment had driven much of Europe’s integration over the past seven decades.

Mr. Macron has divided the bloc with criticisms of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an attempted rapprochement with Moscow and a recent veto on enlarging the EU to incorporate countries in the Balkans.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government’s inaction in the face of political infighting at home has frustrated other leaders, has worried aloud about Britain—currently the bloc’s second largest economy—emerging as a new rival to the EU.

Now, as EU countries begin fractious debates over the bloc’s next multiyear budget, many governments are internally divided or unable to sustain parliamentary majorities, further complicating efforts to maintain unity.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What do you think the future holds for the European Union without the U.K.? Join the conversation below.

For sure, the EU no longer feels the threat to its existence of 2016, when nationalist forces were ascendant in Europe. Now, a growing concern is that the EU’s decision-making machinery—always cumbersome—is no longer able to build consensus on even smaller issues.

There is a fear of sclerosis as Russia, China and the U.S. pose unprecedented economic and political challenges to the EU, which is now weakened by the U.K.’s likely departure.

U.K. stocks rose after Prime Minister Boris Johnson scored a decisive election victory on the promise of delivering Brexit. But despite investor optimism, the British government still faces a number of challenges. Photo: Jason Alden/Bloomberg News

The EU has traditionally exercised soft power, based largely on using economic incentives to promote democratic values. That flourished in a globalized world with widely accepted rules and an ethos that compromise could prove mutually beneficial. Now Europe appears adrift in the new reality of big-power politics. Even internally, the EU’s liberal democratic values are openly attacked by governments in Hungary and Poland.

“The fundamental reasons why there haven’t been any big reform pushes recently aren’t to do with Brexit,” said Pepijn Bergsen, a research fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, and a former Dutch official. “It’s to do with fundamental disagreements among the member states on how to move forward.”

The bloc faces deep divisions over many of its big strategic challenges. A durable solution to the bloc’s migration rules remains elusive after four years of arguments. The problem encompasses both people arriving from unstable regions outside the EU and how to distribute them inside the bloc.

Separately, Mr. Macron has proposed fixing flaws in the euro’s structure by deepening economic and budget integration, but the proposal has barely advanced. Tempestuous relations with the U.S. under the Trump administration have sown doubt over the future of Europe’s American security umbrella. EU member states are at odds over how to deal with Beijing’s twin goals of economic cooperation and geopolitical influence.

The EU will feel the loss of Britain, which bolstered the bloc even while impeding other countries’ initiatives. For years, Britain opposed deeper European integration in areas including defense, objected to a hefty EU budget and was wary of common financial and labor regulations. Still, its security muscle lent the EU some heft in foreign policy and London’s close ties with Washington helped bridge the Atlantic.

The U.K. was a strong proponent of free-trade, EU enlargement and pragmatic cooperation to tackle security threats. It opposed a “fortress Europe” approach, pushing for a competitive and open economy.

Britain also became in recent years the EU’s second-biggest net funder. EU officials say the U.K.’s departure will leave an estimated €84 billion ($93 billion) hole in the bloc’s next seven-year budget.

Agreeing on the size and makeup of that €1 trillion-plus budget will be the first major post-Brexit fight among its 27 remaining governments. Efforts to cut the amount of money spent on the EU’s newer members in Central and Eastern Europe risk further embittering the bloc’s east-west relations, already scarred by fights over migration and democratic norms.

EU officials meanwhile are scrambling to assuage worries in the richest member states, such as Germany and the Netherlands, that their already hefty budget bills won’t soar to fill the British gap at a time when euroskeptic forces in both countries are rising again. Months of talks on this, which continued among EU leaders at a dinner Thursday evening, have so far gone nowhere.

Perhaps most worrying of late is the fading of a shared vision of the EU’s future in Berlin and Paris.

German officials were furious when Mr. Macron vetoed the start of EU enlargement talks with North Macedonia in October. French frustration with the slow pace of eurozone reform and the modest size of a new eurozone budget has been building for several years. The two nations have, at times, clashed over the handling of Brexit. Ms. Merkel warned Europe was unable to defend itself without NATO after Mr. Macron raised questions about the alliance’s future.

The Franco-German relationship is stuttering, rather than broken. The duo are pushing a revamp of the EU’s industrial policy, a strategic priority meant in part to address the challenges posed by China’s economic muscle. Berlin and Paris recently brokered a delicate compromise on the EU’s 2020 budget. Yet their common leadership, which led to the removal of borders across the continent and launch of the common currency, appears beyond reach.

To be sure, the bloc has gone through endless ups and downs in its more than 60-year history.

A new leadership team has taken office in Brussels, with sights fixed on rebuilding the EU’s cohesion and positioning the bloc as a more effective geopolitical player in an increasingly volatile world.

The EU’s single market—a common zone of harmonized economic regulation that speeds trade among member countries—remains a powerful asset that its members won’t want undermined by any trade deal with Britain. In recent years, Brussels has focused its energy on important challenges—from inking trade deals with countries such as Japan and Canada to expanding its single market into the digital economy and energy.

Still, some of Europe’s leaders warn the bloc will only be safe if its members further tighten their mutual ties. “We are in a world of powers,” Mr. Macron said in October. “We need to strengthen integration.”

Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiV2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndzai5jb20vYXJ0aWNsZXMvYWZ0ZXItYnJleGl0LWZyYWN0dXJlZC1ldS1mYWNlcy1uZXctY2hhbGxlbmdlcy0xMTU3NjM0MTAwM9IBAA?oc=5

2019-12-14 16:30:00Z
52780464144156

Former Sudanese ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir is convicted of corruption, money laundering - The Washington Post

A court in Khartoum sentenced former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, 75, to two years in a reform facility on Dec. 14. Bashir was convicted of corruption and illicit possession of foreign currency.

CAIRO — A court in Sudan convicted the country’s former authoritarian ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir of money laundering and corruption Saturday, delivering a verdict that few Sudanese expected a year ago when a massive populist revolt erupted.

But Bashir’s sentence of two years in a minimum-security lockup is unlikely to appease many of the victims of his brutal, three-decade-long rule, who are seeking justice for what they describe as atrocities committed by his security forces.

“While this trial is a positive step toward accountability for some of his alleged crimes, he remains wanted for heinous crimes committed against the Sudanese people,” Joan Nyanyuki said in August. Nyanyuki is Amnesty International’s director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.

Bashir’s prosecution — as well as other judicial cases against him — is seen as a test of whether Sudan can bring closure for the abuses endured by many citizens under his rule. It is also a test of whether the nation’s political transition can move forward, despite the presence of Bashir’s loyalists in the government bureaucracy and society.

On Saturday, hundreds of his supporters gathered in the streets near the presidential palace in the capital, Khartoum, ahead of the verdict. Troops and armored vehicles blocked roads and a heavy security presence was visible at the courthouse.

Bashir sat inside a metal cage for defendants, dressed in a traditional white turban and robe, as the judge read out the verdict.

“The convict, Omar al-Bashir, is consigned to a social reform facility for a period of two years,” the judge, Al-Sadiq Abdelrahman, said.

AFP/Getty Images

Former Sudanese ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir sits in a defendant's cage Saturday during his corruption trial.

The 75-year-old former dictator is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and genocide linked to government-backed attacks in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the 2000s. But Bashir remained untouched despite the ICC arrest warrant, often taunting the international community by traveling in African and Middle Eastern nations without being detained.

[Opinion: The International Criminal Court must do better]

During his rule, Bashir was also accused of sponsoring terrorism. That included harboring Osama bin Laden and playing a role in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, that killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured 40 others.

Sudan was slapped with U.S. sanctions and remains on the State Department’s list of state-sponsoring terrorism.

Saturday’s verdict arrives a year after Sudanese protesters took the streets, staging massive demonstrations and sit-ins against rising prices, food shortages and, by the end, Bashir’s iron-fisted rule. In April, Sudan’s military buckled to the pressure and ousted him. The uprising eventually led to the creation of a power-sharing agreement between the military and civilians.

Sudanese law mandates that Bashir will spend his two-year sentence in a government correctional facility for elderly people convicted of non-death penalty crimes.

But the ex-president, who rose to power in a military coup in 1989, is set to remain in jail because he faces a separate trial on charges of incitement and playing a role in the killing of protesters before he was toppled. This week, Bashir was also questioned over his role in the 1989 coup.

On Saturday, some Sudanese took to social media to ridicule the verdict.

“Given his age, he will be placed in a rehabilitation center. This is a joke,” tweeted Mutasim Ali, a Sudanese law student at George Washington University. “The deep state is still exist particularly in our judiciary and to make reforms will take us decades. That’s why cooperation with the ICC to handover Bashir and others is due.”

[Newly united, Sudanese Americans push for civilian rule in their homeland]

Sudan’s transitional government has yet to publicly say whether it will hand Bashir over to the ICC at The Hague. But Sudan’s military, a partner in the government, has said it would not extradite Bashir.

Bashir’s testimony during his corruption and money laundering trial offered some clues on the reluctance to hand him over to the ICC: He can potentially implicate other powerful Sudanese military commanders and politicians in war crimes and genocide charges. They have also depended on Bashir’s largesse over the years.

When he was arrested in April, millions of dollars, euros and other currencies were seized from his home. In August, Bashir told the court that the cash was mainly from $25 million given to him by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Some of the cash was distributed to a military hospital and a university.

But $5 million, Bashir said, was given to the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary unit made up of former members of the Janjaweed, the militia that Bashir deployed and is accused of seeking to ethnically cleanse Darfur through the burning of villages and killings.

The head of the Rapid Support Forces, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, is on the transitional government’s ruling council. Hemedti’s unit is widely accused by pro-democracy protesters of leading the crackdown against them, killing dozens.

On Saturday, the judge also ordered the confiscation of the millions found in Bashir’s home. But Bashir’s lawyer, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, said that the ex-president plans to appeal the verdict.

“The judge made the ruling based on political motives, but despite that we still have confidence in the Sudanese judiciary,” Tahir told reporters, according to the Reuters news agency.

Watch: Sudanese women demand a greater voice after Bashir’s fall

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__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?oc=5

2019-12-14 15:30:00Z
52780495071266

What did the UK elections teach us about 2020? Trust the polls - CNN

Maybe you think Republican President Donald Trump has reason to smile after his friend, Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, won a big mandate.

Maybe you think the crushing defeat of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party shows the peril of the Democrats potentially nominating Bernie Sanders.

Those theories may prove to be true, but I think the clearest lesson is staring us right in the face: The polls are still pretty good as we head into the 2020 presidential election in the US.

Take a look at the average of polls for the four parties that have earned at least 10 seats each in the House of Commons (the UK Parliament's lower House). The average of the final UK polls had the Conservatives winning 43% of the vote, Labour 33%, the Liberal Democrats 12% and the Scottish Nationals 4%.

The actual result was Conservatives taking 43.6%, Labour 32.2%, the Liberal Democrats 11.6% and the Scottish Nationals 3.9%. In other words, each of these parties got within 1 point of its final polled vote share.

This remarkably accurate result was better than we'd expect based on history. The final 2019 polling average missed the margin between Conservative and Labour by about 1.9 points. Since the 1945 election (i.e. the prior 20 UK general elections), the average final poll had missed by 3.9 points.

Indeed, despite a lot of cries that the polls are broken, the UK elections taking place during the Trump administration show that isn't true. Beyond this year, the difference between the Conservatives and Labour margin in the final 2017 polling average and election result was 4 points. In other words, it's right in line with what we'd expect, given the historical polling accuracy rates.

The US's own polls have likewise been fairly accurate during the Trump era. The average House, Senate and governor's polls were about a point more accurate in 2018 than they had been in similar elections over the prior 20 years. The same was generally true for House special election polling in the 2017-2018 cycle and the three governor elections of 2019 (Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi).

Another key point is that just because one side outperformed in the polls in the last election doesn't mean the same party will outperform in the next one. I know some people were expecting (and a lot of Labourites were hoping) that because the polls underestimated Labour in 2017 they would do the same in 2019. It didn't happen. The Conservatives were actually slightly underestimated.

Again, we saw this same lesson play out in the US over the past few years. After the polling underestimated the Republicans almost across the board in 2016, there was less of a systematic error in 2018. The polls slightly underestimated the Democrats on average. Now, the polls weren't perfect in 2018 in the US, but they were better than average and correctly projected a strong Democratic year. Similarly, the polls, if anything, underestimated the Democrats in the gubernatorial elections of 2019 and special elections over the course of 2017 and 2018.

The direction of the polling errors is most often random. If something is methodologically amiss in surveys, good pollsters tend to figure out what's wrong before the next election.

None of this guarantees that the final polls will correctly gauge who is going to win or lose in 2020. There are still margins of error, so someone slightly ahead in the polls may end up losing. Likewise, someone slightly behind may end up winning.

But in an era with a lot of disinformation out there, the polls continue to do a very good job of separating the signal from the noise.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNubi5jb20vMjAxOS8xMi8xNC9wb2xpdGljcy91ay1lbGVjdGlvbi1wb2xsaW5nLTIwMjAtcHJlc2lkZW50aWFsLXJhY2UvaW5kZXguaHRtbNIBYWh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmNubi5jb20vY25uLzIwMTkvMTIvMTQvcG9saXRpY3MvdWstZWxlY3Rpb24tcG9sbGluZy0yMDIwLXByZXNpZGVudGlhbC1yYWNlL2luZGV4Lmh0bWw?oc=5

2019-12-14 13:32:00Z
52780464144156

Former Sudanese ruler Omar al-Bashir convicted of corruption, money laundering - The Washington Post

CAIRO — A court in Sudan convicted the country’s former authoritarian ruler Omar al-Bashir of money laundering and corruption Saturday, delivering a verdict that few Sudanese expected a year ago when a massive populist revolt erupted.

“While this trial is a positive step toward accountability for some of his alleged crimes, he remains wanted for heinous crimes committed against the Sudanese people,” said Joan Nyanyuki, Amnesty International’s Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes in August.

Inside, Bashir sat inside a metal cage for defendants, dressed in a traditional white turban and robe, as the judge read out the verdict.

“The convict, Omar al-Bashir, is consigned to a social reform facility for a period of two years,” the judge Al-Sadiq Abdelrahman said.

—

Afp Via Getty Images

Sudan's deposed military president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in a defendant's cage during his corruption trial at a court in Khartoum on Dec. 14, 2019.

The 75-year-old former dictator is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and genocide linked to government-backed attacks in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the 2000s. But Bashir remained untouched for more nearly a decade after the ICC arrest warrant was issued, often taunting the international community by traveling in African and Middle Eastern nations without being detained.

[Opinion: The International Criminal Court must do better]

During his rule, Bashir was also accused of sponsoring terrorism. That included harboring Osama bin Laden and playing a role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen that killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured 40 others.

Sudan was slapped with U.S. sanctions, and remains on the State Department’s list of state-sponsoring terrorism.

Saturday’s verdict arrives a year after Sudanese protesters took the streets, staging massive demonstrations and sit-ins — against rising prices, food shortages and, by the end, Bashir’s iron-fisted rule. In April, Sudan’s military buckled to the pressure and ousted him. The uprising eventually led to the creation of power-sharing agreement between the military and civilians.

Sudanese law mandates that Bashir will spend his two-year sentence in a government correctional facility for elderly people convicted of non-death penalty crimes.

On Saturday, some Sudanese took to social media to ridicule the verdict.

[Newly united, Sudanese Americans push for civilian rule in their homeland]

Sudan’s transitional government has yet to publicly say whether they will hand Bashir over to the ICC at The Hague. But Sudan’s military, a partner in the current government, has said it would not extradite Bashir.

Bashir’s testimony during his corruption and money laundering trial offered some clues on the reluctance to hand him over to the ICC: he can potentially implicate other powerful Sudanese military commanders and politicians in war crimes and genocide charges. They have also depended on Bashir’s largesse over the years.

When he was arrested in April, millions of dollars, euros and other currencies were seized from his home. In August, Bashir told the court that the cash was mainly from $25 million given to him by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Some of the cash was distributed to a military hospital and a university.

But $5 million, said Bashir, was given to the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary unit made up of former members of the Janjaweed, the militia Bashir deployed and is accused of seeking to ethnically cleanse Darfur through the burning of villages and killings.

The head of the Rapid Support Forces, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, is on the transitional government’s ruling council. Hemedti’s unit is widely accused by pro-democracy protesters of leading the crackdown against them, killing dozens.

On Saturday, the judge also ordered the confiscation of the millions found in Bashir's home. But Bashir’s lawyer, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, said that the ex-president plans to appeal the verdict.

“The judge made the ruling based on political motives, but despite that we still have confidence in the Sudanese judiciary,” Tahir told reporters, according to the Reuters news agency.

Watch: Sudanese women demand a greater voice after Bashir’s fall

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

Let's block ads! (Why?)

General election 2019: Labour facing long haul, warns McDonnell - BBC News

Labour faces a "long haul" as it attempts to gain power following its fourth election defeat in a row, shadow chancellor John McDonnell has warned.

He rejected claims that leader Jeremy Corbyn had been responsible for the result, instead blaming "the overwhelming issue" of Brexit.

But some current and ex-MPs have said Mr Corbyn's unpopularity contributed to Labour losing dozens of seats.

Boris Johnson's Conservatives won on Thursday with a Commons majority of 80.

The outcome, far more positive for the Tories than most opinion polls had predicted, has prompted much soul-searching within Labour, which last won a general election under Tony Blair in 2005.

Mr Corbyn has announced he will stand down in the near future and Mr McDonnell, one of his closest allies, said he had been "the right leader" for the party.

But Labour's Helen Goodman, who lost her Redcar seat to the Conservatives on Thursday, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that "the biggest factor was obviously the unpopularity of Jeremy Corbyn as the leader".

And Dame Margaret Hodge, Labour MP for Barking, east London, said she felt "anger because this is an election we should have won".

She added that, under Mr Corbyn's leadership - during which Labour has faced criticism for its handling of anti-Semitism allegations among its membership - voters had come to see it "as a nasty party".

Meanwhile, Wes Streeting, Labour MP for Ilford North, said the party's "far-left" manifesto had alienated much of the electorate.

Mr McDonnell disagreed with personal criticism of his leader, saying: "The overwhelming issue was Brexit and the Labour Party was caught on the horns of a dilemma.

"We had a party which was largely supportive of Remain, but many of us represented Leave constituencies."

In the election, Labour's number of Commons seats fell to 203, its lowest since 1935.

Mr Corbyn, leader since 2015, ran for prime minister on a promise to hold a second referendum on Brexit, saying that during any campaign he would remain neutral - in contrast to Mr Johnson's promise to take the UK out of the EU by 31 January.

Mr McDonnell said: "If we went one way, to Leave, we would have alienated a lot of our Remain support. If we went for Remain, we'd alienate a lot of our Leave support.

"We tried to bring the country together. It failed. We have to accept that, take it on the chin. We have to own that and then move on."

Mr McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington in west London, said Labour now needed to have "a constructive debate" about its future, discussing "what went right and what went wrong" during the election campaign.

He argued that Mr Corbyn, who has received criticism from some Labour figures for not standing down immediately, was right to stay on "for a couple of months".

It was necessary because of the "expertise" required to deal with issues such as Brexit and the forthcoming Budget, he said.

Discussing Mr Johnson's government, Mr McDonnell said: "My fear is that we're in for a long haul now, possibly five years.

"The two issues that we face are still there - huge, grotesque levels of inequality and, the issue that never really emerged in the campaign, which was climate change, this existential threat that must be our priority.

"Brexit, well, we'll see what the government brings back in terms of its negotiations. The people have decided we need to implement that, but we've got to get the best deal to protect jobs and the economy."

He added: "My fear is five years of a fossil fuel-backed government under Boris Johnson means we'll miss this five-years opportunity of saving our planet."

At the 2017 general election, Mr Corbyn's first as Labour leader, the party won 40% of votes and gained 30 MPs, denying Theresa May's Conservatives a majority.

But on Thursday it received 32% of the vote and lost 59 seats, including several of its traditional strongholds in the north of England.

Mr Corbyn said that, during the election campaign, he had done "everything I could" and that he had "pride" in the party's manifesto.

The Labour leader's sons, Tommy, Seb and Benjamin, tweeted a tribute to their father, calling him an "honest, humble and good-natured" figure in the "poisonous world" of politics.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiL2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJiYy5jb20vbmV3cy9lbGVjdGlvbi0yMDE5LTUwNzk0MDc20gEzaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmJjLmNvbS9uZXdzL2FtcC9lbGVjdGlvbi0yMDE5LTUwNzk0MDc2?oc=5

2019-12-14 13:10:54Z
52780464144156

Boris Johnson calls for unity after landside victory - CBS This Morning

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiK2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnlvdXR1YmUuY29tL3dhdGNoP3Y9SVNUcG5PdmFJLUHSAQA?oc=5

2019-12-14 12:46:11Z
52780464144156