The London Times: Brexit

Showing posts with label Brexit. Show all posts

Food prices to finance: what a no-deal Brexit could mean for Britain

If Theresa May fails to get her deal through parliament in January, the prospect of the UK leaving the EU without a deal becomes more likely. Here, Guardian journalists examine what a no-deal Brexit could mean for the country, sector by sector.

British and EU nationals

In a no-deal scenario, the rights of British nationals in Europe to work and reside there will fall away unless a member state has contingency plans in place. For this reason many Britons have taken the precaution of becoming citizens of the countries in which they are settled.

In its latest no-deal planning paper, published this month, the European commission urged member states to take a “generous” approach to protect the rights of 1 million Britons living in the bloc. It said governments should consider granting temporary residence permits to allow time for people to make applications to secure their long-term status.

Campaigners say the EU’s decision to leave the issue of citizens’ rights up to individual states means the 3.5 million EU citizens living in the UK and the 1 million Britons in Europe have been “abandoned”.

Concerns have been raised over the readiness of a British firm contracted by the government to run extra ferries in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Seaborne Freight was awarded a £13.8m contract this week to run a freight service between Ramsgate and Ostend.

The firm has never run a ferry service and a local councillor said it would be impossible to launch before Brexit.

The government said it had awarded the contract in "the full knowledge that Seaborne is a new shipping provider".

The Department for Transport said that "the extra capacity and vessels would be provided as part of its first services".

"As with all contracts, we carefully vetted the company's commercial, technical and financial position in detail before making the award," it added.

Jean-Claude Juncker has told the UK to “get its act together” in the run-up to the delayed House of Commons vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

The European commission president said the EU could not be expected to resolve the problems that continue to make it likely the British government will suffer a heavy defeat.

“I find it entirely unreasonable for parts of the British public to believe that it is for the EU alone to propose a solution for all future British problems,” Juncker said in a wide-ranging interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. “My appeal is this. Get your act together and then tell us what it is you want. Our proposed solutions have been on the table for months.”

May is set to put her deal, including the contentious Irish backstop, to MPs in the week beginning 14 January, following a week of debate in the Commons.

The prime minister pulled a planned vote earlier this month when it became clear the government was likely to suffer a heavy defeat.

Senior Brexiteer minister Liam Fox says there is a 50-50 chance the UK will not leave the EU on 29 March if MPs reject Theresa May's Brexit deal next month. The international trade secretary told the Sunday Times it would only be "100% certain" if MPs back the deal.

He said if the deal is rejected, that "would shatter the bond of trust between the electorate and Parliament". MPs are due to vote on the withdrawal agreement in January, with the UK scheduled to leave the EU on 29 March.

The agreement negotiated by Mrs May with the EU - which sets the terms of the UK's exit and a declaration on future relations - will only come into force with a majority backing in Parliament. The Commons vote was due to be held on 11 December but the PM postponed it once it became clear it would be defeated by a large margin.

The former Ukip leader said that while a new political party is “not my first priority”, he insisted it is important that Brexiteers “prepare for what comes next”. Speaking to Express.co.uk from a Leave Means Leave rally in December, Mr Farage said: “There may well be a realignment of British politics coming out of all of this. The splits are so great now within the Conservative parliamentary party and out there in the country with many Labour voters too.

The Brexiteer has also come out to warn that the prospect of a second Brexit referendum is now more likely than ever before.

Mr Farage said: “I fear when it really comes to it, Parliament may well force us into a second referendum. Most of my colleagues say ‘Nigel, don’t say it – it’s all going to be fine’. But I’m not sure it is going to be fine.

“My message now is – let’s get ready just in case.”

Theresa May suffered a brutal blow this month when she failed to gain the backing of 117 MPs during a vote of confidence in her premiership.

You know you’ve hit rock bottom when the Germans mock you on primetime TV and the jokes are actually quite funny. Giving Britons this year’s “golden dumbass” prize, Oliver Welke, the German equivalent of Dara Ó Briain, describes how Theresa May “can’t get out of the EU and can’t even get out of her bloody car”, over pictures of Angela Merkel waiting embarrassedly outside her Berlin residency as the door of our prime minister’s limo fails to open.

“Just go!” the host yells. “Hard Brexit, soft Brexit, liquid Brexit, just fog off!” Next, he shows a cartoon of a man in a bowler hat repeatedly burning his hand on a hot stove, then stabbing his eye with a fork. The audience is falling about laughing. Welke’s Heute Show on ZDF may not have the cachet of the US equivalent, the Daily Show, but it is good at reflecting the moment.

Best for Britain, a group which campaigns for a second referendum, examined more than 20 Freedom of Information request responses from police forces across the UK and found a huge number of crimes committed in the name of Brexit.

In total, 500 crimes were committed from 2016 to 2018 with the words 'Brexit', 'EU' or 'referendum' contained in the corresponding police report. This includes a massive 253 cases reported by the Metropolitan Police alone between April and July 2016.

The British Transport Police logged 43 crimes involving Brexit, Hertfordshire Police were involved in 30 incidents and Police Scotland logged 75 incidents.

Some of the more severe crimes to have been committed include two rape incidents, affray, drug trafficking and a number of arsons.

Don’t panic! Don’t panic! You need not spoil your Christmas by worrying that Britain is walking the Brexit tightrope without a safety net because the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, has announced that the armed forces are on standby.

Standing by to do what exactly? That is not clear. Penny Mordaunt, the international development secretary, is redeploying civil servants with expertise in disaster management to no-deal emergency planning. And Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has declared himself the world’s biggest purchaser of fridges so that the NHS has somewhere to keep stockpiles of critical medicines. He recently told colleagues that, in the event of a bad Brexit, he could not guarantee that people would not lose their lives. Choose Brexit – and you may die. They certainly didn’t put that on the side of their campaign bus.

Pharmaceutical organisations working with Whitehall to maintain medicine supplies in the event of a no-deal Brexit have signed 26 “gagging orders” that bar them from revealing information to the public.

Figures show that 16 drug companies and 10 trade associations have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) which prevent them from revealing any information related to contingency plans drawn up with the Department of Health and Social Care.

It means that the government has now asked at least 60 partners working on no-deal preparations across Whitehall to sign such agreements, angering transparency campaigners and MPs.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has led criticism of Jeremy Corbyn after the Labour leader re-committed his party to going ahead with Brexit if he became prime minister.

In a newspaper interview, Mr Corbyn stressed that even if Labour won a snap general election in 2019 he would seek to "go back and negotiate" a Brexit deal with the EU in time for the UK to still leave the bloc on 29 March next year.

He also failed to commit Labour to backing Remain if there were a second EU referendum.

Mr Corbyn's refusal to budge from his party's manifesto commitment to respect the result of the 2016 Brexit vote has prompted anger from among both his party's MPs and high-profile supporters.

Rowling mocked Mr Corbyn's position - and his supporters - in a biblical-style series of Twitter posts she titled "The Visitation of The Corbynites".

Jeremy Corbyn is facing a storm of criticism from Labour activists and MPs after suggesting he would press ahead with Brexit if the party won a snap general election.

In a sign that he is losing backing among overwhelmingly pro-Remain Laboursupporters, Corbyn was also accused of betraying the party membership by appearing reluctant to back the idea of supporting Remain in a second referendum.

The first signs of a serious internal revolt from party members on the left, who helped propel him to the leadership, came after Corbyn gave an interview to the Guardian in which he suggested he thought Brexit should go ahead and said EU state-aid rules would prevent a Labour government intervening to support UK industries.

Michael Gove is expected become the first minister to employ a military planner amid fears a no-deal Brexit could result in food shortages, according to reports.

The planner, provided by the Ministry of Defence, could take up a role at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in January to help ensure rural communities do not run out of resources.

The appointment would form part of the government's contingency planning for a “worst case scenario” no-deal Brexit, codenamed Operation Yellowhammer, The Telegraph reported.

According to documents seen by the paper, the military planner’s job would be to assess alternative routes into Britain for food supplies should the one between Calais and Dover become severely disrupted.

British nationals living in Berlin have been reassured that an urgent registration process to secure legal status will be in place for them in the event of the UK leaving the EU with no deal.

Worried Britons who attended a meeting hosted by the British embassy said they felt relief that the state authorities had been able to go further than the European commission, whose no-deal planning announced this week made them feel abandoned.

There are an estimated 100,000 Britons living in Germany, the majority of them working, but they fear they will be treated as third-country nationals after Brexit, last in the queue for jobs after Germans and EU nationals, as is the legal norm for people from outside the bloc who apply for work.

Berlin recently overtook North Rhine-Westphalia as the state with the most UK nationals with 18,000, the ambassador said in his opening remarks.

Engelhard Mazanke, the head of the foreigners registration office at the Berlin state office for citizens, told Britons that he could not say what kind of residence status they would get when the UK leaves the EU, or what documents would be required.

Jeremy Corbyn has defiantly restated Labour’s policy of leading Britain out of the European Union with a refashioned Brexit deal, shrugging off intense pressure from Labour MPs and activists for the party to throw its weight behind a second referendum.

The Labour leader insisted that even if his party won a snap general election in the new year, he would seek to go to Brussels and try to secure a better deal – if possible, in time to allow Brexit to go ahead on 29 March.

“You’d have to go back and negotiate, and see what the timetable would be,” he said. In an exclusive interview, Corbyn also:

Admitted to being “extremely angry” in the House of Commons on Wednesday, when he denied calling Theresa May a “stupid woman”.
Pledged an end to the selection process that led to the Peterborough MP, Fiona Onasanya, who has been convicted of perverting the course of justice, emerging as a candidate.
Announced that Labour would repeal the 1824 Vagrancy Act that is used by the authorities to target beggars and rough sleepers.

Twenty-four hours after the furore in the House of Commons in which he was accused of insulting the prime minister, the Labour leader appeared much more relaxed on a visit to the Hope Centre, a homelessness charity in Northampton whose campaign against eviction he is supporting.

Businesses that trade with the EU need to take steps now to prepare for the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, a government minister has warned.

Financial Secretary to the Treasury Mel Stride told the BBC's Today programme "there is a call to action now".

HMRC has published an update to its advice on how firms should prepare for a no-deal scenario.

However, Mr Stride called the prospect of the UK leaving the EU without a deal an "unlikely event".

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Stride said: "The time is now, there is a call to action now.

"Those who are importing or exporting into and out of the EU 27, in the unlikely event that there is a no-deal at the end of March, will need to take certain steps. They need to do that now."

The government is editing its own "no-deal" documents to remove the word "unlikely" in relation to Britain falling out of the EU without a agreement.

Sky News understands the notices known as "technical papers" were quietly changed over the last 24 hours, as ministers activated full planning for the UK to leave the EU without a deal.

One text on medicines used to read: "In the unlikely event of no deal, the UK would no longer be part of the European Medicines Agency."

The refreshed version now says: "In the event of no deal, the UK would no longer be part of the European Medicines Agency."

Senior Labour and Tory MPs are to ramp up efforts to block any possibility of a no-deal Brexit ahead of the vote on Theresa May’s deal, with a plan to mandate the prime minister to extend or cancel article 50 if the prospect of crashing out looms.

Efforts were kickstarted on Thursday by a cross-party group of prominent MPs led by Yvette Cooper, who tabled a new amendment to the finance bill that would only allow a no-deal exit if MPs voted to proceed with one.

Cooper, the chair of the home affairs select committee, said the risks to the UK’s economy and security were “far too high and it would be irresponsible to allow it to happen”.

Britain needs a foreign policy. Brexiters may fantasise about “global Britain”, but leaving the EU removes one of the twin pillars of its place in the world. The foundations of the second, transatlantic support, have been badly shaken by US president Donald Trump’s America First worldview.

To adapt the caustic observation of a postwar American statesman, Britain is losing a continent and casting around for a role. Hardline Leavers who want a clean break with the EU hold up Canada as a model for future trade relations with the bloc. They are right to say Britain can learn from its Commonwealth partner and Nato ally. The mistake is to think the lesson is about trade. Britain needs a deeper economic partnership with the EU than that enjoyed by Ottawa. Where it can learn from Canada is in reframing the way it looks at the wider international landscape.

There's just under 100 days to go until the U.K. leaves the European Union (EU) and despite a Brexit deal being on the table, both sides are stepping up preparations for a 'no-deal' divorce.

After months of fraught negotiations, the U.K. and EU struck a Brexit deal (or "withdrawal agreement") last month; the trouble is, no one in the U.K. parliament likes it that much.

With British politicians set to vote in mid-January on whether to approve or reject the Brexit deal, the odds are stacked against it.

British Prime Minister Theresa May tried to get Europe to amend parts of the Brexit deal, particularly the troublesome future status of Northern Ireland if no trade deal is struck, but without success.

A no-deal Brexit could cause the cancellation of thousands of flights between the UK and the European Union next year, because departures would be capped at 2018 levels.

Disappointed passengers who thought they had firm bookings to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Greece and other destinations could find their tickets cancelled. While the cost would be automatically refunded, they would then need to compete for scarce seats and could face higher fares.

The crucial condition in the European legislation reads: “The total seasonal capacity to be provided by UK air carriers for routes between the United Kingdom and each member state shall not exceed the total number of frequencies operated by those carriers on those routes during respectively the IATA winter and summer seasons of the year of 2018.”

The London Times

Food prices to finance: what a no-deal Brexit could mean for Britain

British and EU nationals

No-deal Brexit ferry contract sparks concerns

UK needs to get its act together before Brexit vote, Juncker says

'Brexit 50-50' if May's deal rejected, says Liam Fox

Farage reveals exactly when he'll launch NEW pro-Brexit party - 'It’s entirely possible!'

Brexit has made the UK a global joke. How will we rebuild our reputation?

At least 500 Brexit-related crimes since referendum, figures show

Bluff, blackmail and brinkwomanship: the ‘madman theory’ of no-deal Brexit

Drug firms preparing for no-deal Brexit told to sign 'gagging orders'

JK Rowling leads criticism of Jeremy Corbyn over Brexit with biblical tweets

Corbyn faces furious Labour backlash over backing Brexit

Michael Gove ‘to bring in military planner amid fears no-deal could cause food shortages'

UK nationals in Berlin assured of residency in event of no Brexit deal

Corbyn: Brexit would go ahead even if Labour won snap election

Firms told to prepare for no-deal Brexit

Government edits own documents to remove claim no-deal Brexit is 'unlikely'

Labour and Tory MPs strengthen efforts to prevent no-deal Brexit

Brexit Britain should follow Canada’s lead

Less than 100 days to go until Brexit and 'no-deal' preparations are in full swing

THOUSANDS OF FLIGHTS WOULD BE CANCELLED BY NO-DEAL BREXIT AS DEPARTURES CAPPED AT 2018 LEVELS