It is being reported that the EU is getting ready to call Johnson’s bluff. Bloomberg say the EU has no plans to offer any concessions to the UK ahead of next week’s 15 October deadline set by the prime minister. This follows Barnier’s visit to Berlin yesterday where he met with Angela Merkel and German […]
There is a widely held view that the North of England is a Brexit stronghold and indeed, in the EU referendum, just under 58 percent of voters in Yorkshire and Humber, 58 percent of voters in the North-East and 53 percent in the North-West voted Leave. The continuing enthusiasm for Brexit in the northern ‘red […]
Quarantine here, quarantine there; quarantine maybe, maybe quarantine not. A game from Alice in Wonderland? Can you, can’t you, can you, can’t you, can you … well, can you bleeding go or not? Another fine mess you got us into, Johnson (slap!). But is there method in this misery? A Cummings world-beating wheeze (for once […]
Note: This article has proved so popular that Yorkshire Bylines has now added it as a permanent feature and we will continue to update the index as the impact of Brexit begins to make itself felt across the country. See it HERE. As before if you know or hear of jobs being lost and attributed […]
In a month’s time, the UK could be before the European Court of Justice for breaching the withdrawal agreement. Yesterday, the EU commission president sent a letter of notice to the UK, starting infringement proceedings against us. This states the EU’s view that, by unilaterally trying to change the terms of the agreement signed last […]
As the trade talks continue in Brussels, Britain’s desperation to enter the so-called “tunnel” is becoming all too clear. The Guardian reports that the UK government has this week tabled no fewer than five new draft negotiating documents containing legal texts on fisheries, the level playing field, law enforcement and judicial cooperation, civil nuclear cooperation […]
“We want free movement with the other Europeans!” That’s the message that Swiss voters sent to their politicians in a referendum a few days ago, when the idea of scrapping their agreement with the EU on free movement of persons was rejected by 62 percent. During the British debate on Brexit we heard a lot […]
With headlines about the UK being prepared to breach the treaty agreed with the EU, and the end of free movement looming, many EU citizens in the UK still have good reason to be uncertain about their future in the UK. And with huge changes to the immigration process fast approaching, they are about to […]
As the test and trace fiasco unfolds there is more unwelcome news: we may be two years off a mass vaccination programme for the whole country. The i reported yesterday that the mass rollout of a Covid-19 vaccine in the UK could be delayed for two years by the government’s failure to get to grips […]
Earlier this month, the Haribo company announced it was ceasing production of Moam products at its £92m factory in Castleford, leading to hundreds of factory job losses. Jon Hughes, director of Haribo, said this was a necessary response to a highly competitive market. But the timing of the job losses is bad; at this time […]
The fact that Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove is accompanying Lord Frost, chief UK negotiator, to Brussels this week for the ninth round of talks says everything. Gove is said to be representing the UK at more “joint committee” talks about still unresolved issues on the Northern Irish border but make no mistake, crunch time […]
Can there have ever been an emptier slogan in the history of political campaigning? Blaming others for its own mismanagement has become the defining characteristic of this government. A concerted attack on EU ‘intransigence’ in an effort to shift responsibility to Brussels for the chaos that a no-deal Brexit will bring in just 66 working […]
Almost everyone loves bees and in Yorkshire we have the opportunity to observe an amazing variety of different species. There is one species of honeybee, several of the 27 different varieties of recorded UK bumblebees, and a whole series of fascinating solitary bees like the bilberry mining bees that leave tiny volcanos on moorland paths […]
With fewer than a 100 days until we exit the transition period and fully leave the EU, the twitter chatter today about the likelihood of a deal is frankly not surprising. With the prospect of a second, possibly more deadly, wave of the Covid-19 virus the government may well feel that it can only fight […]
Yesterday marked 100 days to the end of the transition period and the beginning of an omni-crisis for the government. Coronavirus is once again on the rise, threatening a second peak over the winter, with 6,208 new cases reported, virtually the same as at the height of the pandemic in May. At the same time, […]
For generations, sheep and cattle farmers have shaped the upland Yorkshire landscape we all cherish. Now many traditional farmers, so vital to the fabric of our rural communities, are at risk of being put out of business. Uplands farmers – particularly sheep and beef cattle farmers in the Yorkshire Dales and on the North York […]
On 18 September, the newly merged Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office launched a public information campaign for post-Brexit travellers to Europe – Going to Europe next year? The campaign is designed to “help British travellers prepare for changes when visiting Europe from 1 January 2021”. Any new government campaign usually warrants a catchy new slogan, […]
Coinciding with the EU’s partial revocation of Cambodia’s access to the ‘Everything But Arms’ (EBA) preferential trading scheme, Brexit threatens to provide a loophole in European sanctions.
The new Tory MP for Wakefield may well be an ardent supporter of Brexit, but his understanding of it varies between shaky and non-existent. His article in the Yorkshire Post only demonstrates his own shortcomings. Imran Ahmad-Khan says he has spent many years in distant, sometimes dangerous, places and thinks Britain had ceased to be […]
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden last night tweeted a clear warning to Boris Johnson that he will not allow the Good Friday Agreement to become a “casualty of Brexit”. The former vice president, whose Irish roots are in Ballina Co Mayo, has strongly supported the peace process and was quick to condemn any move that […]
As the government tries desperately to limit the domestic political damage caused by its plans in the internal market bill to break international law by unilaterally tearing up the withdrawal agreement, it has used a series of excuses to justify its position. Of these, perhaps the most pathetic was the agreement could be broken because […]
Johnson is consciously provoking the EU into either allowing the single market to be compromised by unfair UK trade practices, or taking appropriate steps to safeguard its external frontiers by instigating controls on Northern Ireland trade. He thinks that in doing so, he can then blame the EU for any ‘hard border’.
In what may be regarded as the ultimate in bad faith, last October – as the UK and EU teams were engaged in intensive final negotiations in Brussels – Johnson is alleged to have taken legal advice about repudiating the withdrawal agreement even before the text was completed. He was never committed to keeping the […]
Imagine that you could put yourself in Theresa May’s shoes for a short while. I realise that this may not be easy for those of you who don’t normally favour designer kitten heels, but stick with me for a while as it is worth the effort. It is a year ago and you are the […]
As Anthony Robinson (no relation) highlighted on the 14 September, the UK government announced last week that they intend to break international law. Perfectly stated by David Allen Green, “the government of the United Kingdom is proposing to enact legislation that is deliberately intended to make it possible for ministers to make regulations that would […]
Unless you’ve just splashed down from Mars, you’ll have noticed that the government has got itself into a great deal of hot water over the internal market bill. Former prime ministers, of various hues, have lined up to express their horror at its cavalier, casual dismissal of international law and repudiation of a treaty that […]
Ester Weber, reporter at The Times told twitter this morning: “One Tory MP in a big Leave constituency tells me: ‘In a patch like mine I think almost anything would be tolerated in the name of Brexit … Except fly-tipping.’” This may well be true, and the expectation that the government is about to fall […]
The furore about the UK proposing to break international law has every potential to grow into a full-blown constitutional crisis. If the UK internal market bill, which will override Johnson’s EU withdrawal agreement, passes the Commons this week it may well be blocked by peers, setting the two chambers against each other. However, the extraordinary […]
I voted to leave the European Union in 2016, but I have been horrified at what our country is becoming ever since. Rather than the sunlit uplands we were promised, the United Kingdom is becoming a lonely, isolationist state prepared to break international law in order to fulfill an ideological project. When I voted to […]
Even before the latest threats to the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement Act 2020 were made public, Britons living in Europe were becoming increasingly nervous about their futures. For those relying on protections afforded us by this ‘deal’, those concerns were heightened this week by the introduction of the UK internal market bill. British citizens, both in […]