• Contact
  • About
  • Authors
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
Yorkshire Bylines
  • Home
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
    Prime minister PMQ prep

    Brexit isn’t working – something we can all agree on

    The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

    Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

    schools bill

    Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

    Emmanuel Macron

    French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    cost of living march london

    Trade union movement marches to demand better

    European Union

    After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Refugee Week

    Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

    Trending Tags

    • Johnson
    • Coronavirus
    • Labour
    • Starmer
    • NI Protocol
    • Brexit
    • Culture
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Culture
    • Dance
    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Recipes
    • Sport
    Nostell Priory, Wakefield

    Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

    Headingley Cricket Stadium

    A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

    Bettys' Fat Rascals

    Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

    'Woke' beliefs

    Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Red Ladder

    Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

    Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

    Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

    Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

    Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

    Queen cakes fit for a Queen

    Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Sport
  • Business
    • All
    • Economy
    • Technology
    • Trade
    Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

    International Women in Engineering Day 2022

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    conservative party

    The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

    Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

    Money on the floor - £20 notes

    The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

    Financial problems

    Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

    An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

    Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

    Jar with money cascading out of it

    Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

    Trending Tags

      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
    • Region
    No Result
    View All Result
    • Home
    • News
      • All
      • Brexit
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Health
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
      Prime minister PMQ prep

      Brexit isn’t working – something we can all agree on

      The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

      Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      cost of living march london

      Trade union movement marches to demand better

      European Union

      After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Refugee Week

      Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

      Trending Tags

      • Johnson
      • Coronavirus
      • Labour
      • Starmer
      • NI Protocol
      • Brexit
      • Culture
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
    • Politics
    • Opinion
    • Lifestyle
      • All
      • Culture
      • Dance
      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Recipes
      • Sport
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      Headingley Cricket Stadium

      A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

      Bettys' Fat Rascals

      Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

      'Woke' beliefs

      Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Red Ladder

      Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

      Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

      Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

      Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

      Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

      Queen cakes fit for a Queen

      Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Sport
    • Business
      • All
      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
      Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

      International Women in Engineering Day 2022

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      conservative party

      The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

      Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

      Money on the floor - £20 notes

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      Financial problems

      Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

      An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

      Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

      Jar with money cascading out of it

      Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

      Trending Tags

        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Region
      No Result
      View All Result
      Yorkshire Bylines
      No Result
      View All Result
      Home News Brexit

      The Tories are “tethered to the mast of Brexit”

      The Conservative Party has tethered itself to the biggest policy disaster of modern times and is now going down with the ship

      Anthony RobinsonbyAnthony Robinson
      27-09-2021 19:06
      in Brexit, Opinion
      TTethered to the mast of Brexit, Image by David Mark from Pixabay

      Tethered to the mast of Brexit, Image by David Mark from Pixabay

      14.8k
      VIEWS
      Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
      ADVERTISEMENT

      Around the first anniversary of the referendum, after Theresa May’s disastrous 2017 general election, an unnamed but far-sighted Conservative MP told Politico that, “This country is f–ked. We are tethered to the mast of Brexit and when it goes wrong, we’re screwed. They all know it. All Labour have to do is hedge their bets. When the public realize they have been sold a pup they will turn on the party”.

      The moment of truth may be almost upon us.

      The Conservative Party and Boris Johnson have succeeded in one thing only in four long years: concealing the truth about Brexit. Through all the internal party wrangling and the tortuous EU negotiations, the government, aided by a compliant pro-Brexit press, has managed to maintain the delusion that isolating ourselves from the single market will somehow lead – eventually – to some sort of Eldorado.

      The Tories are “tethered to the mast of Brexit”

      The ship of Brexit set sail full of hope in January but is now badly holed, taking on water and sinking fast.

      The damaging effect of losing all four single market freedoms abruptly overnight on 1 January can be seen in the growing toll of problems recorded by Yorkshire Bylines in the Davis Downside Dossier and the Digby-Jones index.

      Brexit has been such a resounding failure that the government has been forced to delay implementing import controls until well into 2022, and reverse its own post-Brexit immigration policy in a last-ditch effort to recruit from the EU 5,500 workers for the food industry and 5,000 truck drivers. The latter is in response to the latest shambles in supplying petrol and diesel to filling stations, the situation being so bad the Cabinet are said to be considering bringing in the army.

      With the post-pandemic recovery beginning to stall as Brexit slowly chokes the nation’s economic windpipe, we see shortages of just about everything from fuel and food to fireworks and Christmas trees, with rising prices and the prospect of Britain’s age-old problem, stagflation – inflation coupled with a stagnating economy – taking off, just as it did in the 1970s.

      Many die-hard Brexiters think this is a short-term issue unconnected with Brexit, but recent polling suggests over two thirds (68 percent) of voters believe Brexit is at least partly to blame, including 88 percent of Remain voters and 52 percent of Leave voters.

      Iain Duncan Smith (“Don’t blame Brexit for driver shortages”) puts the blame squarely on “brainless bureaucracy”, although obviously not the one in Brussels this time. Our own civil service comes under attack.

      Money on the floor - £20 notes
      Brexit

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      byAnthony Robinson
      13 June 2022

      Johnson is “completely fed-up with bad headlines”

      We learn from the FT that Johnson is fed up with bad headlines on the shortages, but not apparently, about the shortages themselves – a telling detail about how would-be world kings see ordinary folk.

      Perhaps the prime minister is labouring under the illusion that the damage he has inflicted on this country is just an ephemeral thing and that we will soon be grateful for his hard Brexit?

      His comment came as the truck situation was discussed in Downing Street on Friday. Someone familiar with the discussion told the FT that the prime minister was “completely fed up with bad headlines on this and wants it sorted and doesn’t care about visa limits any more” and is prepared to take “the short-term hit on immigration as a trade-off for not messing up Christmas”.

      EU drivers are being offered three months temporary visas, can’t bring their families with them, and will be forced out again on Christmas Eve. Not very appealing, is it?

      The PM may be in for a surprise. The problems are not short-term but endemic; the surface of Brexit has barely been scratched.

      Northern Ireland: Frost in a difficult position

      Lord Frost of Allenton is perhaps in the most awkward position. He recently tweeted that the protocol he agreed with the EU is “having a continued negative effect on everyday life & business in Northern Ireland”. As a persuasive argument it might be a slightly tricky one since the ‘negative effects’ are actually worse on this side of the Irish Sea.

      There is no petrol shortage in Northern Ireland and food supply chains there have rapidly been able to reconfigure frictionlessly into Ireland and the EU, something Britain is unable to do through thickets of newly introduced red tape.

      This is also, or should be, a source of some introspection and perhaps embarrassment for the man chiefly responsible for the protocol and the thin trade deal (although he never seems to acknowledge it nowadays). But men like him don’t do shame or embarrassment, do they?

      To Ulstermen and women, on both sides of the sectarian divide, it must seem as if they are passengers in a lifeboat being hailed back to the Titanic for their own safety just as the great ship’s bow starts to slip below the icy waters. Lord Frost is clearly determined to see that we all share equally in the misery – we must go down together.

      Imperial Measurements
      Brexit

      Inching ever backwards: the proposed return to imperial measurements

      byPaul Bright
      10 June 2022

      Barnier’s book is now out

      All of this coincides with the publication in English of Michel Barnier’s book My Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion (translated by Robin Mackay, published by Polity Books) in hardback, reviewed in The Guardian by Blair’s former chief of staff Jonathan Powell.

      Powell says the EU side was “professional and properly prepared, whereas the UK was not” and that “Barnier was across the detail at every stage”, something that Dominic Cummings, our own Brexit ‘mastermind’, clearly doesn’t agree with. In a tweet, Cummings claims that the EU chief negotiator was “an emotional/bullshitter/lazy/DDavis type”. He puts the EU’s success down to Stephanie Riso, Von der Leyen’s deputy head of Cabinet.

      Usual ignorance from Adonis. Barnier was an emotional/bullshitter/lazy/DDavis type. Our real opponent, smart, subtle, tough, perceptive re PM idiocy was Steph Riso. Lucky for us (esp at end when PM was caving on many fronts) Barnier often sidelined her https://t.co/ERLxBhmsl9

      — Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) September 21, 2021

      At least it’s a grudging acknowledgement that we were comprehensively out-negotiated, even if Cummings quibbles about who was responsible. This from the man who didn’t believe Vote Leave needed to have a plan at all.

      The British side on the other hand even misunderstood how the talks were to be handled, repeatedly trying to negotiate with individual member states rather than the Commission. They kept being sent back to Barnier. Even at the last moment, Johnson tried to phone Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, but both leaders refused to take his call.

      Powell describes Barnier’s book as an important account of Britain being:

      “Comprehensively out-negotiated over Brexit and saddled with a flawed withdrawal agreement and a deeply disadvantageous future relationship, both of which will cause us major problems for decades to come”.

      Britain never even asked for a good deal

      This is the mast to which the Conservative Party is now firmly tethered. They cannot deny that it is their project, their long wished for policy, supported by every candidate at the 2019 election. They cannot blame others or escape the consequences, which are becoming clearer by the day. They cannot claim the party was never warned about the deeply damaging impact of a Brexit and especially the hard Brexit Johnson delivered.

      A leave-voting colleague told me in 2018 he thought the EU would “give us a good deal”, although I’m not sure he even knew what a good deal might look like. As it turned out, we didn’t get a good deal, because we didn’t actually ask for one.

      We set red lines thinking the EU would have to make all the concessions and grant everything we wanted because ‘we’re so important’ – known as the Digby-Jones approach. It didn’t, and in the end we wound up with a still-contested internal border that two sitting prime ministers said Britain should not and could not accept, and a bad trade deal to boot.

      Historians will one day answer many questions about Brexit. The biggest one of all may well be: how did they ever think they were going to get away with it?

      ADVERTISEMENT
      Previous Post

      Fuel crisis? What crisis?

      Next Post

      New Labour Deal needed for Britain’s heroic workers

      Anthony Robinson

      Anthony Robinson

      Anthony is a retired sales engineer, living in North Yorkshire. He has represented several European manufacturers of packaging machinery in the UK. Anthony is interested in politics, although not as an active member of any party, and enjoys reading, gardening and DIY.

      Related Posts

      Prime minister PMQ prep
      Brexit

      Brexit isn’t working – something we can all agree on

      byAnthony Robinson
      28 June 2022
      labour party conference
      Opinion

      Labour’s precarious tightrope walk to the general election 

      byJohn Heywood
      22 June 2022
      Money on the floor - £20 notes
      Brexit

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      byAnthony Robinson
      13 June 2022
      Imperial Measurements
      Brexit

      Inching ever backwards: the proposed return to imperial measurements

      byPaul Bright
      10 June 2022
      Sheep
      Brexit

      I’m a sheep and cattle farmer in Yorkshire – Brexit has left farmers in fear for their futures

      byPeter Gittins
      9 June 2022
      Next Post
      “Tax” by Images_of_Money is licensed under CC BY 2.0

      New Labour Deal needed for Britain’s heroic workers

      Want to support us?

      Can you help Yorkshire Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

      DONATE

      Sign up to our newsletter

      If you would like to receive the Yorkshire Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

      NEWSLETTER

      LATEST

      Prime minister PMQ prep

      Brexit isn’t working – something we can all agree on

      28 June 2022
      The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

      Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

      27 June 2022
      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      27 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022

      MOST READ

      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      27 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Photo credit Robert Sharp / englishpenLicensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

      The Davis Downside Dossier

      1 January 2021

      BROWSE BY TAGS

      antivaxxers Charity climate change Coronavirus Cost of living Creative industries Crime Cummings Democracy Devolution education Equality Farming Fishing hgv History Immigration Johnson Journalism Labour Local Democracy Mental Health mining money NHS NI Protocol omicron Pies pollution poverty PPE Public Health Review shortage social media Starmer tax travel Ukraine Yorkshire
      Yorkshire Bylines

      Yorkshire Bylines is a regional online newspaper that supports citizen journalism. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in Yorkshire and beyond.

      Learn more about us

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Contact
      • About
      • Letters
      • Donate
      • Privacy
      • Bylines network
      • Shop

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • News
        • Brexit
        • Education
        • Environment
        • Health
        • Home Affairs
        • Transport
        • World
      • Politics
      • Opinion
      • Lifestyle
        • Culture
        • Dance
        • Food
        • Music
        • Poetry
        • Recipes
        • Sport
      • Business
        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Donate
      • The Compendium of Cabinet Codebreakers
      • The Davis Downside Dossier
      • The Digby Jones Index
      • Newsletter sign up
      • Cartoons by Stan
      • Authors

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      Welcome Back!

      Login to your account below

      Forgotten Password?

      Retrieve your password

      Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

      Log In