Anthony was a sales engineer, now retired and living in North Yorkshire after a long career representing several European manufacturers in the UK. Seeing first hand how continental companies work and how they strive to become world-class businesses makes him fear for Britain's post-Brexit future. He is interested in politics, although not as an active party member, and enjoys reading, gardening and DIY.
The nation remains divided over Brexit. Re-joining the EU is out of the question unless there is a significant majority in favour. But Brexit cannot be said to be ‘done’ until accepted by a significant majority. And how likely is that?
Brexit: A Grand illusion – Barnier’s book on the Brexit negotiations – lifts the lid on the hubris and delusional thinking of British governments led by both May and Johnson during three years of fractious talks.
Johnson’s trademark smirk is apparently known to psychologists as “duping delight” – the sheer joy of duping people, or in the prime minister’s case, entire nations, given away by an involuntary smirk, a “leaked expression of pleasure.”
Cummings is preparing an onslaught to bring down Boris Johnson. If anyone can do it, it’s Cummings. Downing Street is “terrified” that he has a ‘treasure trove’ of internal memos and emails in a damaging dossier.
Talks on the NI protocol continue with the UK government seeking to reduce the level and frequency of border checks on products of plant and animal origin as a way of lowering tensions in loyalist communities but won’t accept the obvious and proven solution because it might compromise sovereignty.
Reports that the EU and UK are edging towards a new NI deal may be optimistic with the two sides said to be far apart on many issues and the PM himself “in denial” about the role he has personally played in sparking off violence in Northern Ireland
Ellesmere Port’s future as a centre of car manufacturing means building electric vehicles, but this needs greater investment and Vauxhall has already earmarked other plants to build battery-powered cars,
The Brexit disaster wasn’t built on lies, but on arrogance and stupidity by men and women who didn’t know their own limitations, and still don’t
Rising tension in Northern Ireland is claimed to stem from frustration and anger among loyalist communities concerning the NI protocol which is widely thought to be separating the province from Great Britain by a sea border and has already created some disruption at ports of entry.
Boris Johnson has rendered the phrase “they’re all the same” totally redundant. He is in class of his own, impropriety personified
It is now abundantly clear that the massive overnight changes to trade terms, which industry only learned about with seven days to go and with inadequate guidance and woeful preparations, have been a disaster for Britain’s £700 billion a year trade with the EU.
The UK service sector has effectively suffered a no-deal Brexit. Services implies people and travel and the impact of Brexit has so far been concealed behind the covid restrictions. The sector is soon to face a ‘bewildering’ array of new visa application and work permit rules.
It is now clear that the massive constitutional, economic and political importance of the Irish border issue raised by Brexit and routinely dismissed at the time, were not appreciated at the highest level of government until as late as early 2018 and arguably not until the last few weeks.
Confirmation that the EU is about to take legal action against the UK for breaching provisions of the withdrawal agreement, marks another ratcheting up of the rapidly escalating row between London and Brussels
A new report, showing Britain’s exports have fared worse than most of our international competitors, makes grim reading for anyone who might be optimistic that 2021 will see the UK make a rapid recovery from the double impact of covid-19 and Brexit.
Lord Frost has barely settled into his new role before breaking an international treaty and unilaterally extending until October the 3-month grace period that the UK government declared in December last year was not renewable having committed itself to being fully ready by 1 April.
The EU shellfish issue has further exposed the total incompetence of those who campaigned for Brexit and, having ‘taken back control’, now find themselves in positions of power. In what must surely rank as one of the most humiliating letters ever received by a UK government minister, DEFRA Secretary George Eustice has had to be […]
The government’s sponsored advertising campaign to promote the ‘opportunities’ of Brexit features a tiny importer of sustainable clothing and a Japanese technology company that paid virtually no tax but managed a dividend of £85 million.
After years of claiming Britain is being ‘stifled’ by EU regulations that need scrapping, a government task force headed by Iain Duncan Smith to identify such rules, doesn’t even have the repeal of any of them as one of its objectives.
Lord Frost is appointed to cabinet as his disastrous trade deal starts to look like the greatest bargain of all time – for the EU. They get the jobs and tax revenues in exchange for ‘giving’ us what we already had, sovereignty. It is a slap in the face for Britain.
London’s position in the global league table of financial centres has slipped further with a new survey showing just a third of senior executives believing that the City will be a leading hub in five years’ time.
A significant part of the £1,750 bill for UK citizens returning from a list of 33 high risk Covid-19 countries will go to G4S for security services it has been revealed.
Among many Yorkshire businesses struggling with difficulties adjusting to new EU trade realities, a single Brexit supporting CEO of a chemical intermediates’ exporter is claiming no issues, and surprisingly, not even any extra costs after Brexit.
As the practical impact of the bureaucracy and red tape agreed as part of the NI protocol become clear for businesses and citizens in the province, there are worrying signs of tensions rising between London and Brussels.
The news that the UK is bidding to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership or CPTPP will come as a surprise to those suffering as a result of our withdrawal from the EU, which on the surface, looks like an almost identical body on our doorstep.
Businesses across the UK are suffering the malign consequences of Brexit with desperate stories becoming ever more frequent and the distress calls louder by the day. Yorkshire Bylines’ Davis Downside Dossier and Digby-Jones index provide a unique record of the unfolding calamity.
The fact that an adviser, or advisers, at the Department for International Trade has been advising businesses to set up in the EU should come as no surprise. This is the obvious, inevitable and easily foreseeable result of organising our EU trade as if we were Canada.
The chancellor is to head up a new ‘red tape challenge’ to uncover the elusive bureaucracy that the Tory party has convinced itself must be lurking somewhere in Whitehall. After Brexit, it will be a symbolic measure of how far Britain is prepared to diverge from EU rules.
Fishing trade organisations have accused Johnson of negotiating a “desperately poor” deal for them, misleading them by claiming the deal was a major success and essentially of telling lies about the new quotas. Tory MPs who were quick to offer support find themselves out on a limb.
As fishermen accuse the government of betrayal and selling them out, Michael Gove’s words are about to come back to haunt him. In 2016, he accused the EU of being a “job destroying machine”. Four years on he has become an industry destroyer.