Brexit

Brexiteers promised mobile phone roaming charges would not return if we left the EU. It was just another lie It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where mobile phone users are discovering what Matt Hancock has already learned: Roaming can be costly. If UK tourists are ever allowed into […]

More than 100,000 people have waited for more than three months for their applications to the EU Settlement Scheme to be processed, according to official figures obtained by a think tank. Some 102,000 EU citizens and family members, including 23,900 children, had applications outstanding for more than three months as of May 7, IPPR said. […]

GAVIN ESLER on the frustrations of political debate in an era where reason counts for little Recently an American reader sent an email to my website angrily denouncing a newspaper feature I had written. It was about gun control, or rather the lack of it. I’ll call him ‘John’ and he wrote: “I have lived in Texas for […]

Five years on from Brexit, the issue is far from being “done”, despite promises from Boris Johnson.

Home secretary Priti Patel has said that British nationals living in Europe are having difficulty accessing benefits, services, and jobs. Patel accused the EU nations of hypocrisy and of treating Britons unfairly, exactly five years after the country voted to leave the bloc. She said that “a number of reported instances of UK nationals in […]

The food industry is predicting a nightmare for British customers, with price rises and empty shelves caused by Brexit It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain as customers digest mixed news about Brexit’s impact on food. The downside is that your weekly shop is going to cost more; the […]

The anniversary of the Brexit referendum will barely register a ripple in Europe, where Britain was once seen as a place of dynamism, excitement and promise It is obviously a very subjective generalisation, but no European nation really cares that much about how they are being perceived by the rest of Europe. In the UK, […]

Since the start of the Syrian civil war 10 years ago, Europe has taken in more than one million refugees. So what has been the impact on the continent?

Nowhere are the consequences of Brexit being felt more acutely than in Northern Ireland, where the tensions are continuing to rise and the full ramifications are yet to play out Five years ago this month Arlene Foster was in France to cheer on Northern Ireland’s heroics in Euros 2016. Just months into her stint as first […]

Half a decade after the referendum, the economic hit to the UK caused by Brexit is becoming clearer. But it will be years before the true impact is understood It has started already; you will have noticed it yourself; the pro-Brexit press is starting to write those articles we all knew were on the way… The […]

Just who the hell are the British? After five years of Brexit, 18 months of a pandemic and a year of Black Lives Matter, the country – and the world – still doesn’t know My life in the United Kingdom started in 1972 at the age of eight with a black eye. My brother, who is two years older, and […]

The UK exported more food and drink to outside the EU than into it in the first few months after Brexit as exports to the bloc nosedived. Sales to non-EU countries made up 55% of all UK food and drink exports in the first three months of 2021 compared to less than 40% a year […]

The champions of Brexit have gone particularly quiet since the UK left the EU - but are Remainers guilty of doing the same too?

The trade deal between the UK and Australia should be subject to a vote in the House of Commons and Holyrood, Nicola Sturgeon has said. Scotland’s first minister has repeatedly raised concerns over the deal, which she says will hurt Scottish farmers and food producers as cheaper imports undercut them. The agreement was announced following […]

Searches from EU workers for jobs in the UK are down by almost half since the Brexit referendum five years ago, new research suggests. Interest has fallen most in lower-paid jobs in hospitality and retail, according to a study by jobs site Indeed. There has also been a decline in Europeans’ interest in higher-paid jobs, […]

When Brexit redefined the UK’s place in the world, migrants were left out in the cold. But, disabled migrants fell through the cracks entirely.  “Can you spell your last name?” they ask. I’m used to it by now. In France, it’s an easy question: I just answer “Castres, like the city.” But there’s no Castres […]

Boris Johnson’s faults and failings are blindingly obvious, but the media don’t seem interested in that story It was a great question. “When the history books are written, will Boris Johnson still get away with it?” It was asked by a woman in the Q and A when I spoke at the Wimbledon Book Festival, […]

A reader points out how Brexit red tape is impacting Amazon order This is the amazing journey of a tiny cheap item of a pair of Creative Earbuds ordered from Amazon UK costing just £6.99 and the time this small package took as it travelled from Rome, Italy to Oxford UK. I have ordered these […]

Ian Blackford has kicked off parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s post-Brexit trade deal with Australia by asking the prime minister multiple questions on the subject at PMQs. The leader of the SNP used his questions to ask for more “details of the disastrous trade deal with Australia”. He said these details were “busy being celebrated in Canberra, but […]

Boris Johnson has said that a path through the “thicket of burdensome and restrictive regulation” must be cleared to fulfil the potentials of Brexit. A report from Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform (TIGRR) led by Iain Duncan Smith has described Brexit as a “one-off opportunity” to reduce red tape and set out a new […]

MPs have written to Liz Truss demanding parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s post-Brexit trade deal with Australia. A series of MPs, representing all four nations, have written to the international trade secretary amid concerns that the deal could negatively affect the country’s farmers and put them out of business. In the letter, which was coordinated […]

Michael Gove has described international trade secretary Liz Truss as a “tough” and “shrewd” negotiator who will be looking to deliver “what’s best for Britain” with post-Brexit deals with other countries. The former environment secretary was said to have been at loggerheads with Truss over a trade deal with Australia, fearing the impact it could have […]

Farmers in Kent and Fife say their soft fruit crops may go unpicked because of a lack of seasonal workers from the EU post-Brexit It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain – not only in Cornwall, where a just-married couple’s party was ruined when the guests complained about the […]

The UK may have set a precedent with Australia which could create “negotiating difficulties” for future trade agreements, an expert has said.

Prime minister Boris Johnson is to unveil details of the UK’s first trade deal negotiated from scratch post-Brexit. He will welcome his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, to Downing Street on Tuesday after the two countries agreed on the broad terms of the pact. The deal is reported to have been sealed by the two premiers […]

US president Joe Biden urged Boris Johnson to ensure the Northern Ireland peace process is protected in his bitter row with Brussels over post-Brexit trading arrangements, the White House has disclosed. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden – who has spoken of his pride in his Irish roots – had held a “candid discussion” […]

Few people have seen their reputations enhanced by Brexit. But one who has is the artist Cold War Steve, who has chronicled the UK’s exit from the EU in all its misery. Here, New European cover artist CHRIS BARKER gives his own appreciation

MPs are calling on home secretary Priti Patel to urgently publish an independent assessment of the impact of ending free movement. The government had committed to publishing documentation around the post-Brexit measures to end the freedom for EU citizens to travel freely to and from the UK at the end of last year. Home Office […]

Brexit has caused a “massive hole” in the numbers of people coming to the UK to pick fruit in the summer months putting growers “on the brink”, it is claimed. Numbers of seasonal workers applying to work at one Kent-based company are down 90% in the last two years and there are fears for the […]

Comedian Mitch Benn looks at Donald Trump’s seemingly backwards trousers, Tim Martin’s demand for more EU migrants and Michael Gove’s trip to Portugal “LEOPARDS EATING PEOPLE’S FACES” MOMENT OF THE WEEKTim Martin, arch-Brexiteer, boss of the Wetherspoons McPub empire and Worzel Gummidge’s Angry Head, has been bemoaning the fact that the staff he told to […]

As part of our special edition looking at five years since the EU referendum, Alastair Campbell looks at the silence of the Leavers Weatherspoon’s boss Tim Martin inevitably attracted heaps of scorn when recently bemoaning staff shortages for his pubs, and demanding the government allow more EU migrants to fill the gap. But at least he […]

The government will “stand up for the British sausage and no-one will ever be able to destroy it”, a minister has insisted, amid the latest Brexit spat between the UK and EU. Conservative frontbencher Ranil Jayawardena made the pledge amid a row between the EU and the UK over the meat product. Brussels has threatened to […]