The third round of talks on the future relationship closed yesterday with very little progress on the substantive issues but with the first real glimpse of the UK’s true negotiating stance. Our chief negotiator David Frost told reporters afterwards: “The major obstacle to this is the EU’s insistence on including a set of novel and […]
The Financial Times reported this week that Liz Truss at Trade and George Eustice at Defra are involved in a ministerial ‘spat’ over plans to cut tariffs on US food imports. The paper reports that Liz Truss wants to offer “incentives to help seal [a] trade deal” and is said to be drawing up plans […]
For many Brexiters striking, preferential deals under our own trade policy was the whole raison d’être for leaving the EU. Yet paradoxically they seem perfectly happy to trade from next January with what is easily our largest and closest market without any deal at all. It makes no sense does it? Free trade deals are […]
The world moved a step closer to a free-for-all in international trade as Robert Azevedo, World Trade Organisation (WTO) director general, announces he plans to quit with over a year to go on his four-year contract. It’s the latest in a series of crises to hit the organisation in the past year. Reuters describes the […]
EU Legal guru warns UK it’s later than you think In a move calculated to focus minds on both sides of the Channel, a former Director General of the EU’s legal services department has delivered a stark warning, one that will echo particularly strongly in Whitehall. Unless an extension to the transition period is agreed […]
The Road Haulage Association (RHA) yesterday issued a desperate plea for the transition period to be extended due to the “impossible amount of work to be done” by the end of December. The coronavirus pandemic has “stripped resources” from both the government and the haulage industry and neither will be able to properly prepare for […]
Daniel Hannan is not a man you would necessarily trust to give you the truth about anything. He is on record in 2016 saying that, “absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market”; since when, he himself never stops telling us that’s precisely what we should do. The former MEP and […]
The UK government is fooling itself if it thinks we will ever be free from the massive gravitational field of the world’s only genuine regulatory superpower. Even Americans don’t realise how much their lives are ruled by the European Union. Brussels has risen to accidental pre-eminence as the global regulator. In 2012, a Finnish-American academic […]
Britain is to recruit 50,000 more customs agents, to handle post-Brexit trade according to a report in the Financial Times yesterday, at a cost to industry of at least £1.5 billion a year. The announcement of plans to build an academy in Kent to train the agents was made by Michael Gove. But as Jean […]
There is a growing and increasingly tense row developing between the UK and EU over arrangements for implementing the Northern Ireland protocol in the withdrawal agreement, threatening plans for entry points into the province becoming a de facto EU border. Britain appears to be dragging its feet and going out of its way to be […]
The American Chamber of Commerce to the EU (AmCham-EU) published a cross-sectoral position paper on Tuesday turning the screw on the UK Government’s hard-line negotiating stance. Although it urges both sides to “work to mitigate disruption as much as possible”, the paper deals a devastating blow to Britain’s present strategy. They make no secret that […]
Brexit continues to be the unseen thread that runs through everything happening in this country, even coronavirus. The pandemic has somehow become a proxy for Brexit and for some people it is the continuation of the European campaign by other means. Brexiteers are clearly worried about the impact Covid-19 might have on the government and […]
It’s understandable that British farmers want to export their products to Europe, America and the rest of the world. Already, some 40 per cent of our lamb is currently exported to Europe and the National Farmers’ Union has warned that 25 per cent or more of UK farmers could go out of business in the […]
The coronavirus lockdown has brought a strange tranquillity to much of Europe and now, out of the silence comes the sound of the Brexit ante bring upped. Talks on our future relationship, stalled for a few weeks, are getting underway again with the clock ticking ominously. A videoconference was held this week between the lead […]
In terms of installations of industrial robots, Britain’s record is woeful compared to every other industrialised economy. In 2012, a group of Tory MPs including Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng co-authored a book: Britannia Unchained, in which British workers were described as “among the worst idlers in the world”. Three of […]
Stella Perrott considers the impact coronavirus is already having on the UK and EU’s attempt to forge a Brexit deal and the implications for the future. David Frost the UK’s Brexit negotiator reassures us by tweet, almost on a daily basis, that the Brexit negotiations are progressing well. This is in spite of Michael Barnier […]
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently warned that the economic shock from the present coronavirus pandemic was already bigger than the financial crash of 2008–09. It means we are almost certain to be looking at another ten years of austerity at least, but this time on steroids. Angel Gurría, OECD secretary general, […]
Before the referendum, figures about the cost or benefit of EU membership were dropped like cluster bombs by both sides until everybody was completely shell shocked and confused. The one that resonated and stuck was the £350 million a week painted on the side of the red bus. It was perhaps the most famous but […]
Brexit was billed as taking back control of our laws but the government has still not published a list of EU laws they want to repeal After the transition period Boris Johnson will be free to tinker as much as he likes with a whole new section of the British constitution, called retained EU law. […]
The importance of freedom of movement for working musicians 3 chords and the truth. According to music legend, that’s all you needed. For Huddersfield Alt-folk artist Johnny Campbell, it’s held true for the last seven years as a pro musician. Touring on trains and coaches all over Europe and the USA, guitar in one hand, rucksack of […]