市场消息

FRANKFURT, March 7 (Reuters) – The European Central Bank slashed its growth and inflation forecasts for 2019 and lowered those for 2020 and 2021 on Thursday, acknowledging that Europe’s slowdown is longer and deeper than earlier thought.

With a global trade war weighing on confidence, industrial production and exports have taken a dip, exacerbated by a string of domestic difficulties, from German industry’s struggle to adapt to new car emissions regulations to protests in France.

Germany, the bloc’s biggest economy, stagnated last quarter and Italy is in outright recession, raising the risk that a temporary slowdown becomes a more lasting downturn as business confidence is sapped by a steady flow of negative news.

The following are the ECB staff’s new projections for inflation and GDP growth, with December forecasts in brackets. The ECB updates projections once a quarter.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will probably have to delay its departure from the European Union if MPs reject the government’s proposed divorce deal in a vote next week, Finance Minister Philip Hammond said on Thursday.

Unless Prime Minister Theresa May can get her divorce treaty approved by the British parliament, then MPs will have to decide whether to delay Brexit or thrust the world’s fifth largest economy into chaos by leaving without a deal.

“The government is very clear where the will of parliament is on this. Parliament will vote not to leave the European Union without a deal,” Hammond told BBC radio. “I have a high degree of confidence about that.”

Britain is due to leave the EU in 22 days, but if MPs reject the deal this will put in doubt how, when or possibly even if Britain’s biggest foreign and trade policy shift in almost half a century will take place.

Hammond warned eurosceptic colleagues if they fail to back the government’s deal they face the risk of a closer economic relationship with the EU.

“We will then be in unknown territory where a consensus will have to be forged across the House of Commons and that will inevitably mean compromises being made,” he said. “The way for my colleagues to avoid that is to vote for the deal.”

MPs on Jan. 15 voted 432-202 against her deal, the worst government defeat in modern British parliamentary history, largely due to the Irish backstop, which is intended to avoid the return of hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

Talks with Britain on amending its divorce deal with the European Union have made no headway and no swift solution is in sight, EU officials said on Wednesday.

Britain wants legally binding changes to the backstop to ensure it will not be indefinite, to allay concerns among MPs that Britain could be locked in a continued customs union with the EU.

When asked directly if Hammond would leave the government if May decided to leave without a deal, he said: “I have always said that I believe it would be a very bad outcome for the UK to leave the European Union without a deal.”

WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) – New activities have been detected at a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles plant, South Korean media said on Thursday, as U.S. President Donald Trump said he would be very disappointed if Pyongyang rebuilt a rocket site.

Movement of cargo vehicles were spotted recently around a factory at Sanumdong in Pyongyang, which produced North Korea’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the United States, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo and Donga Ilbo newspapers reported, citing lawmakers briefed by the National Intelligence Service on Tuesday.

Spy chief Suh Hoon told the lawmakers he practically viewed the activity as missile-related, according to the JoongAng Ilbo.

The newspaper also quoted Suh as saying that North Korea continued to operate its uranium enrichment facility at the main Yongbyon nuclear complex after a first summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last June.

The reports came after a second summit between Trump and Kim broke down last week in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi over differences on how far North Korea was willing to limit its nuclear program and the degree of U.S. willingness to ease sanctions.

The Sanumdong factory produced two Hwasong-15 ICBMs, North Korea’s longest-range missiles which can fly over 13,000 km (8,080 miles). After testing a new Hwasong-15 in late 2017, the country declared the completion of its “state nuclear force,” before pursuing talks with South Korea and the United States last year.

South Korea’s presidential office and defense ministry declined to confirm the reports of activity at Sanumdong, saying they are closely monitoring North Korea’s activities in cooperation with the United States.

There was no immediate response from the U.S. State Department.

On Tuesday, two U.S. think tanks and the South Korean spy agency reported that work was underway to restore part of North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station even as the Hanoi meeting took place.

North Korea began work to dismantle a missile engine test stand at Sohae last year in line with Kim’ pledge made at his first summit with Trump in June in Singapore.

“I would be very disappointed if that were happening,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, when asked if North Korea was breaking a promise.

“It’s too early to see. … It’s a very early report. We’re the ones that put it out. But I would be very, very disappointed in Chairman Kim, and I don’t think I will be, but we’ll see what happens. We’ll take a look. It’ll ultimately get solved.”

Trump, eager for a big foreign policy win on North Korea that has eluded predecessors for decades, has repeatedly stressed his good relationship with Kim. But the bonhomie has failed so far to bridge the wide gap between the two sides. “We have a very nasty problem there. We have to solve a problem,” Trump said, while adding in apparent reference to Kim: “The relationship is good.”

Imagery from Planet Labs Inc. analyzed by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California showed activity at Sohae from Feb. 23 up until Wednesday.

The Washington-based Stimson Center’s 38 North said its latest photos from Wednesday indicated that the rail-mounted transfer building used to move rockets at the site was now complete, cranes had been removed from the launch pad and the transfer building had been moved to the end of the pad.

“But we don’t draw any conclusions from that besides they are restoring the facility. There is no evidence to suggest anything more than that,” Joel Wit of 38 North told Reuters.

A U.S. government source said the work at Sohae likely began before the summit, which was preceded by a series of lower-level talks in February.

SANCTIONS WARNING

Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, warned on Tuesday that new sanctions could be introduced if North Korea did not scrap its weapons program.The breakdown of the Hanoi summit and Bolton’s sanctions threat have raised questions about the future of the dialogue the Trump administration has pursued with North Korea.

A 78-minute documentary aired by North Korea’s state television on late Wednesday showed a stone-faced Bolton during an expanded meeting in Hanoi, while Trump and other U.S. participants were all smiles.

The documentary also showed Trump and Kim shaking hands in smiles even after they ended the summit with no deal, saying the two leaders agreed to continue “constructive dialogue.”

Some analysts have interpreted the work at Sohae as an attempt by North Korea to put pressure on Washington to agree to a deal rather than as a definite move to resume tests there.

The U.S. government source, who did not want to be identified, said North Korea’s plan in rebuilding at the site could have been to conspicuously stop again as a demonstration of good faith if a summit agreement was struck, while the work would represent a sign of defiance or resolve if the meeting failed.

Democrat Ed Markey, ranking member of the Senate East Asia Subcommittee, expressed his concern about the reports, saying that Trump had held Sohae up as evidence that his approach to dealing with Kim was working.

“North Korea’s apparent work at this launch site raises the troubling possibility that yet again Kim Jong Un is more interested in garnering concessions than conducting serious, good faith efforts to denuclearize,” the senator said.

Markey said it was imperative to restart working-level talks with North Korea as soon as possible and added that if Pyongyang were to abandon diplomacy the United States should be ready to consider additional ways to apply pressure.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday he was hopeful he would send a delegation to North Korea in the coming weeks but that he had “no commitment yet.”

While North Korea’s official media lauded Kim’s Vietnam trip as “successful,” its vice foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, warned Kim “might lose his willingness to pursue a deal.”

HONG KONG/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies sued the U.S. government on Thursday saying a law limiting its U.S. business was unconstitutional, ratcheting up its fight back against a government bent on closing it out of global markets.

Huawei said it had filed a complaint in a federal court in Texas challenging Section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump in August, which bars federal agencies and their contractors from procuring its equipment and services.

The lawsuit marks the latest confrontation between China and the United States, which spent most of 2018 slapping import tariffs on billions of dollars worth of each other’s goods. The year ended with the arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer (CFO) in Canada at U.S. request, to the consternation of China.

Long before Trump initiated the trade war, Huawei’s activities were under scrutiny by U.S. authorities, according to interviews with 10 people familiar with the Huawei probes and documents related to the investigations seen by Reuters.

“The U.S. Congress has repeatedly failed to produce any evidence to support its restrictions on Huawei products. We are compelled to take this legal action as a proper and last resort,” Huawei Rotating Chairman Guo Ping said in a statement.

“This ban not only is unlawful, but also restricts Huawei from engaging in fair competition, ultimately harming U.S. consumers. We look forward to the court’s verdict.”

While Huawei had very little share of the U.S. market before the bill, it is the world’s biggest telecoms gear maker and is seeking to be at the forefront of a global roll-out of fifth generation (5G) mobile networks and services.

In its lawsuit, Huawei said its “equipment and services are subject to advanced security procedures, and no backdoors, implants, or other intentional security vulnerabilities have been documented in any of the more than 170 countries in the world where Huawei equipment and services are used.”

The privately owned firm has embarked on a public relations and legal offensive as Washington lobbies allies to abandon Huawei when building 5G networks, centering on a 2017 Chinese law requiring companies cooperate with national intelligence work.

“The U.S. Government is sparing no effort to smear the company and mislead the public,” said Guo in a news briefing at Huawei’s headquarters in southern China.

“NO PROOF”

The NDAA bans the U.S. government from doing business with Huawei or compatriot peer ZTE Corp or from doing business with any company that has equipment from the two firms as a “substantial or essential component” of their system.

In its lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, Huawei argues that the section in question is illegal because it could sharply limit the company’s ability to do business in the United States despite no proof of wrongdoing.

The lawsuit also alleges that Huawei has been denied due process and that Congress, by stripping Huawei of commercial opportunities, has violated the “separation of powers” portion of the constitution by doing the work of the courts.

UPHILL BATTLE

Some legal experts, however, said Huawei’s lawsuit is likely to be dismissed because U.S. courts are reluctant to second-guess national security determinations by other branches of government.

The lawsuit “will be an uphill battle because Congress has broad authority to protect us from perceived national security threats,” said Franklin Turner, a government contracts lawyer at McCarter & English.

In November 2018, a federal appeals court rejected a similar lawsuit filed by Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, which was challenging a ban on the use of its software in U.S. government networks.

The Texas court hearing Huawei’s case will not be bound by that decision, but will likely adopt its reasoning because of similarities in the two disputes, said Steven Schwinn, a professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

“I don’t see how (Huawei) can really escape that result,” said Schwinn.

Huawei’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, said the two cases were different in terms of evidence and scope, and that the Chinese firm’s case had “full merits”.

If a judge decides Huawei has a plausible claim the case will proceed to the discovery phase, in which internal documents are shared and U.S. government officials could be forced to provide testimony and lay out their security concerns.

RETRIBUTION

The legal action compares with a more restrained response in December emphasizing “trust in justice” after the arrest of CFO Sabrina Meng Wanzhou.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei later said Meng’s arrest was politically motivated and “not acceptable”.

Meng – Ren’s daughter – is accused by the United States of bank and wire fraud related to breaches of trade sanctions against Iran. Canada approved extradition proceedings on March 1, but Meng has since sued Canada’s government for procedural wrongs in her arrest. The next court hearing is set for May 8.

The case strained Canada’s relations with China, which this week accused two arrested Canadians of stealing state secrets and blocked Canadian canola imports.

Meng is under house arrest in Vancouver. It is unclear where the two Canadians are being detained in China, and at least one does not have access to legal representation, sources previously told Reuters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lavishly detailed 445-page report by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr released by the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998 concluded that President Bill Clinton “committed acts that may constitute grounds for an impeachment” and paved the way for an unsuccessful attempt in Congress to remove him from office.

But Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s impending report on the findings of his investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election may far fall short of the searing and voluminous Starr report, legal experts said, in part due to constraints on Mueller that did not exist when Starr produced his report.

The Starr report presented explicit details about Clinton’s sexual encounters with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky and accused Clinton of specific crimes including perjury, attempted obstruction of justice, witness tampering and “a pattern of conduct that was inconsistent with his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws.”

Starr operated under an independent counsel law that has since lapsed. Mueller’s powers differ from those of Starr, and Justice Department regulations place limits on him that Starr did not face. Mueller since May 2017 has looked into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign conspired with Russia and whether the president unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe.

Trump has denied collusion and obstruction. Russia has denied election interference.

Here is an explanation of some of the factors that may limit what ends up in Mueller’s report to U.S. Attorney General William Barr and what ultimately may be released to the public.

WHAT DO JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REGULATIONS CALL FOR?
Congress let the independent counsel law expire in part because of concern among some lawmakers that Starr had exceeded his mandate. The Justice Department then crafted regulations to create the job of special counsel in 1999, with certain limits on powers.

The department’s No. 2 official, Rod Rosenstein, appointed Mueller to take over the Russia investigation after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, whose agency had led the probe, and directed Mueller to abide by the special counsel regulations.

But the regulations provide only limited guidance on the parameters of Mueller’s final report, stating that at the conclusion of his work he should provide the U.S. attorney general, the nation’s top law enforcement official, with a “confidential report” explaining his “prosecution or declination decisions.” The term “declination decisions” refers to judgments that Mueller made not to bring criminal charges against a given individual. Mueller already has brought charges against 34 people – including the former chairman of Trump’s campaign Paul Manafort and other campaign figures, Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and former national security adviser Michael Flynn – and three Russian companies.

The regulations require Barr to notify the top Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees that Mueller’s investigation has concluded. The Justice Department’s policy calls for Barr to summarize the confidential report for Congress with “an outline of the actions and the reasons for them.” According to the regulations, Barr “may determine that public release of these reports would be in the public interest, to the extent that release would comply with applicable legal restrictions.”

WHAT HAS BARR SAID ABOUT WHAT HE WILL RELEASE?
In his January Senate confirmation hearing, Barr provided some insight into his thinking. He said that “it is very important that the public and Congress be informed of the results of the special counsel’s work.” Barr added, “For that reason, my goal will be to provide as much transparency as I can consistent with the law. I can assure you that, where judgments are to be made by me, I will make those judgments based solely on the law and will let no personal, political or other improper interests influence my decision.”

House Democrats have vowed to subpoena the report and go to court if necessary to win its full release.

WHAT WILL MUELLER’S REPORT LOOK LIKE?
Some legal experts said the text of the 1999 regulations and the context under which they were written in the aftermath of the Starr report signal that Mueller should not write a lengthy narrative like Starr did, but rather deliver straightforward and concise findings. The regulations were intended to give a special counsel some independence while ensuring a degree of accountability and oversight by the Justice Department.

But some experts said Mueller would be well within his power to provide Congress with information it can use to conduct further investigations. Leon Jaworski, who served as a special prosecutor during President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, adopted this approach when he finished his investigation. Jaworski’s “road map” document, which helped prompt Nixon’s resignation, remained secret until 2018.

Comey, in a Washington Post opinion piece on Tuesday, urged Barr to make an expansive release, saying “a straightforward report of what facts have been learned and how judgment has been exercised may be the only way to advance the public interest.”

PROOF BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT
There is a tension between a decades-old Justice Department policy against public comment on decisions not to bring criminal charges and the requirement in the special counsel regulations that Mueller explain which criminal cases he brought and which ones he declined to bring. Rosenstein in February said, “If we aren’t prepared to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt in court, then we have no business making allegations against American citizens.”

This policy might lead Mueller to keep his explanations of his declination decisions brief, legal experts said, and Barr subsequently could opt not to disclose those parts of the confidential report. Department policy, presented in a 1973 Nixon-era memo and reaffirmed in a 2000 Clinton-era memo, is that a sitting president cannot face a criminal indictment.

Some lawyers have said this policy, combined with the practice of generally not explaining decisions not to prosecute someone, limits what Mueller can put in the report about Trump’s conduct. Other lawyers have said Jaworski, who had an analogous role, set a precedent that Mueller would be within his power to lay out a case for removing Trump from office through impeachment, as Starr did with Clinton in 1998.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s relationship with the United States is more important than ever and will prosper as Britain leaves the European Union, Washington’s ambassador to London Woody Johnson said on Wednesday.

He added that the chances of a future trade deal between the two countries should not be damaged by false concerns over U.S. farming practices which he said had been largely driven by the European Union to create barriers to U.S. farm products.

“I have confidence that whatever way you decide to go that the U.S. and our special relationship will continue and prosper, no matter what,” he told BBC Radio.

Asked if that included in a no deal Brexit scenario, he replied: “In any situation I know that our two countries have to be together in this free world. There’s a lot of danger out there, so our relationship is more important now than ever whatever happens with Brexit.”

Johnson said he could not confirm if U.S. President Donald Trump would make a state visit to Britain in June – the 75th anniversary of the allies D-Day Landings in France during World War Two.

“I think it’s been presented but I don’t have any of the details right now. He’s got a very, very big schedule…but we’d love to have him over here,” he said.

“His mother was born here so he has a great affection for this country.”

Trump last visited the UK in July 2018.

NEW DELHI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – High-resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters show that a religious school run by Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in northeastern Pakistan appears to be still standing days after India claimed its warplanes had hit the Islamist group’s training camp on the site and killed a large number of militants.

The images produced by Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrasa site on March 4, six days after the airstrike.

Until now, no high-resolution satellite images were publicly available. But the images from Planet Labs, which show details as small as 72 cm (28 inches), offer a clearer look at the structures the Indian government said it attacked.

The image is virtually unchanged from an April 2018 satellite photo of the facility. There are no discernible holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrasa or other signs of an aerial attack.

The images cast further doubt on statements made over the last eight days by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the raids, early on Feb. 26, had hit all the intended targets at the madrasa site near Jaba village and the town of Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

India’s foreign and defense ministries did not reply to emailed questions sent in the past few days seeking comment on what is shown in the satellite images and whether they undermine its official statements on the airstrikes.

MISSED THE TARGET?
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, who has 15 years’ experience in analyzing satellite images of weapons sites and systems, confirmed that the high-resolution satellite picture showed the structures in question.

“The high-resolution images don’t show any evidence of bomb damage,” he said. Lewis viewed three other high-resolution Planet Labs pictures of the site taken within hours of the image provided to Reuters.

The Indian government has not publicly disclosed what weapons were used in the strike.

Government sources told Reuters last week that 12 Mirage 2000 jets carrying 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs) bombs carried out the attack. On Tuesday, a defense official said the aircraft used the 2,000-lb Israeli-made SPICE 2000 glide bomb in the strike.

A warhead of that size is meant to destroy hardened targets such as concrete shelters.

Lewis and Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation studies who also analyses satellite images, said weapons that large would have caused obvious damage to the structures visible in the picture.

“If the strike had been successful, given the information we have about what kind of munitions were used, I would expect to see signs that the buildings had been damaged,” Lewis added. “I just don’t see that here.”

Pakistan has disputed India’s account, saying the operation was a failure that saw Indian jets, under pressure from Pakistani planes, drop their bombs on a largely empty hillside.

“There has been no damage to any infrastructure or human life as a result of Indian incursion,” Major General Asif Ghafoor, the director general of the Pakistan military’s press wing, in a statement to Reuters.

“This has been vindicated by both domestic and international media after visiting the site.”

BOMB CRATERS
In two visits to the Balakot area in Pakistan by Reuters reporters last Tuesday and Thursday, and extensive interviews with people in the surrounding area, there was no evidence found of a destroyed camp or of anyone being killed. [here]

Villagers said there had been a series of huge explosions but the bombs appeared to have landed among trees.

On the wooded slopes above Jaba, they pointed to four craters and some splintered pine trees, but noted little other impact from the blasts that jolted them awake about 3 a.m. on Feb. 26.

“It shook everything,” said Abdur Rasheed, a van driver who works in the area.

He said there weren’t any human casualties: “No one died. Only some pine trees died, they were cut down. A crow also died.”

Mohammad Saddique from Jaba Basic Health Unit and Zia Ul Haq, senior medical officer at Tehsil Headquarters Hospital in Balakot said they had seen no casualties.

POLITICAL FIRE
India must hold a general election by May, and pollsters say Modi and his Hindu nationalist party stand to benefit from his aggressive response to a suicide bomb attack that killed 40 Indian paramilitary police in the disputed Kashmir region on Feb. 14.

India’s Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said on the day of the strike that “a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders, and groups of jihadis who were being trained for Fidayeen action were eliminated” in the attack. Fidayeen is a term used to describe Islamist militants on suicide missions.

Another senior government official told reporters on the same day that about 300 militants had been killed. On Sunday the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Amit Shah, put the number killed at more than 250.

The Indian government has not produced evidence that a camp was destroyed or that any militants were killed in the raid.

That has prompted some opposition politicians to push for more details.

“We want to know how many people actually died,” said Mamata Banerjee, the firebrand chief minister of West Bengal state, in a video published by her All India Trinamool Congress party in a tweet on Feb. 28. “Where did the bombs fall? Did they actually fall in the right place?”

Banerjee, who is seen as a potential prime ministerial candidate, said that she stood behind the Indian Armed Forces, but that they should be given a chance to speak the truth.

“We don’t want a war for political reasons, to win an election,” she said.

Modi has accused the opposition Congress party, and other opponents such as Banerjee, of helping India’s enemies by demanding evidence of the attacks.

“At a time when our army is engaged in crushing terrorism, inside the country and outside, there are some people within the country who are trying to break their morale, which is cheering our enemy,” Modi said at an election rally on Sunday.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s 800-year-old parliament has a big decision to make, and little time to make it.

After months of drama and delay, the country’s fate could be decided next week in a series of Brexit votes in which lawmakers must choose one of two wood-panelled corridors to shuffle down inside the neo-gothic Westminster palace.

Each vote, known as a division, takes about 15 minutes. If it takes too long, the Serjeant-at-Arms, dressed in shiny black shoes, knee-high socks and a long woollen suit, will be sent bearing a ceremonial sword to investigate.

Rich in pageantry and theater, Westminster’s parliamentary format has been adapted, modernized and exported to more than two dozen countries across the globe.

But with less than a month until Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29, the largely unreformed template is struggling to deliver on a deeply divisive decision that has shattered the traditional left versus right party loyalties.

After almost two years of grueling negotiations by Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, parliament resoundingly rejected the exit deal she struck with Brussels and lawmakers across parties are now fighting to dictate what happens next.

The battle is playing out inside a building whose crumbling 19th century limestone exterior matches an interior where Brexit is eroding a party structure that has defined British politics for almost a century.

“There’s now a live battle between the government as the executive and the membership of the parliament about who has control,” said Pete Wishart, a member of parliament from the Scottish National Party.

DIVISION!
On March 12, May is expected to try once more to get her deal approved, though much will rest on whether she can secure extra assurances from Brussels about the thorny issue of Northern Ireland’s border.

If that vote fails, May will ask parliament a day later whether it wants to leave the European Union without any kind of exit deal – a potentially disruptive divorce with damaging consequences for the world’s fifth largest economy.

If parliament rejects that outcome as well, lawmakers will then decide on March 14 if they want to try to delay Brexit, potentially opening the door to a wholesale renegotiation with the EU – or even a second referendum at home.

If the process does go to a third ballot, when Speaker John Bercow bellows “Division!” and bells ring across parliament and beyond to alert lawmakers to the vote, Britain could be 15 minutes from taking its first step towards reversing Brexit.

“This is the first time the public decided in a referendum something that was not what most members of parliament were in favor of – that is this challenge we’re having – this is the argument between government and parliament,” said Mark Harper, a lawmaker with the ruling Conservatives and former minister.

The fact the outcome of the Brexit votes next week is still highly unpredictable is symptomatic of a parliament built on the principle that the majority rules.

The 2016 decision to leave the EU fractured Britain, dividing families and communities, cities and villages. In parliament, where many struggle to accept the 52 percent to 48 percent result, there’s no clear consensus on the way forward.

In the 650-seat House of Commons, May is shy of a majority, meaning she can only govern and pass laws with the support of 10 allies in Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

But the DUP and a eurosceptic faction within May’s Conservative party don’t support her current Brexit deal and they joined opposition lawmakers on Jan. 15 to reject it and inflict the biggest defeat in modern history.

Since then, May has been buying time by promising to report on progress in EU negotiations on a fortnightly basis, while lawmakers across parliament concoct plans to break the deadlock.

The Malthouse Compromise, The Brady Amendment, The Cooper-Boles Bill: not a trilogy of airport thrillers, but eponymous attempts by lawmakers to use complex procedures and processes to end the parliamentary impasse.

Some say a second referendum is now the only way out, though critics argue that a so-called People’s Vote would destroy faith in democracy – given the country already voted in 2016.

‘HOUSE IS WINNING’
Despite the ticking clock, key legislation needed to prepare for Britain’s exit is on hold while lawmakers fill the hours between May’s updates with general debates on unrelated topics such as “Sport in the UK”.

On one day in February, the five-foot-long ceremonial mace that is laid in the chamber to mark the start of each day’s proceedings, was lifted after just four hours to draw business to an early close.

Outside parliament, frustration among voters on all sides is growing with a system seen by many as opaque, incomprehensible and flunking the biggest decision of their lifetimes.

“A lot of the language of parliament – Henry VIII powers, statutory instruments, public bill committees, select committees – this language is quite impenetrable to ordinary people,” said Ruth Fox, director and head of research at the Hansard Society www.hansardsociety.org.uk, a pro-democracy charity.

“If I were asking ordinary people in most towns and cities across the country what a bill was they would think about it in terms of their own bill for their electric or for their gas – rather than a piece of legislation.”

A 2018 poll by Ipsos MORI www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk ranked politicians as the least trusted profession in Britain after advertising executives. Government ministers, estate agents and journalists made up the bottom five.

“It’s just all these old men sitting around in an old building,” says Terry Clare, 34, a plumber in east London. “It just seems like a bit of a show.”

But regardless of the final outcome, the Westminster system has had a profound impact on the Brexit process.

The so-called meaningful vote on May’s Brexit deal in January only had legal weight because lawmakers demanded it. The government has also been found in contempt of parliament and forced to produce legal advice it wanted to keep confidential.

And, crucially, next week’s votes are only happening because May’s team knew that if they didn’t offer them, ministers were ready to resign and back a rebel plan forcing the same outcome.

“In my 18 years here it’s probably one of the most engrossing battles I’ve ever witnessed,” said Scottish lawmaker Wishart. “It looks like the house is winning just now.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Congress was on the verge of issuing a sharp rebuke to President Donald Trump over his declaration of an emergency at the border with Mexico, with a top Republican predicting the Senate would approve a resolution to reject it.

Already approved by the House of Representatives, the resolution to terminate the declaration has sufficient support in the Senate to be passed, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday.

McConnell predicted that Trump would veto the resolution once it lands on his desk, however. McConnell also said that that there would not be enough votes in Congress to override the veto.

That would leave the emergency declaration – an effort to circumvent Congress to get funding for a proposed border wall – in effect, sending it to the courts for a legal battle between the White House and Democrats.

An internal debate over the issue will continue in the Senate on Tuesday, with a vote expected before the end of next week. While the outcome of the Senate vote remained uncertain, McConnell’s remarks pointed strongly toward passage.

A vote by the Republican-controlled Senate to block Trump’s declaration would be a huge embarrassment for him. In more than two years in office, he has failed to persuade Congress to fund his wall, even when both chambers were controlled by his fellow Republicans.

Trump declared a national emergency on Feb. 15 after he failed to convince Congress to give him the $5.7 billion he wanted for to build the wall. Emergency powers would allow him to divert money from other accounts already approved by Congress toward the wall, he said.

Trump says the wall is needed to curb illegal immigration and crime; Democrats say it would be too costly and ineffective.

Democrats protest that the president’s emergency intrudes on the constitutional power of Congress over government spending. The Democratic-majority House voted last week to revoke Trump’s declaration, sending the issue to the Senate.

McConnell was speaking on Monday in Kentucky after fellow Republican Senator Rand Paul said he would vote to reject the emergency.

“What is clear in the Senate is that there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president and then in all likelihood the veto will be upheld in the House,” McConnell said.

Overriding the president’s veto requires a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate, and since the resolution originated in the House the first attempt at override would presumably be in that chamber.

Paul joined Republican senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis in saying they would vote to block the president’s declaration. The list of defectors could grow, as other Senate Republicans have expressed concerns.

Passage in the Senate would send a message about “executive overreach” by the White House, Collins said on Monday.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson said he hoped the Senate would pass its own resolution, instead of the House-passed measure. It was unclear whether the House measure could be amended; McConnell said Republicans are studying this.