Brexit

The Brexit vote and subsequent negotiations have reinforced an image of the UK as insular and exceptionalist. It will need a rebrand if it wants continued success away from the EU. As the UK prepares for economic recovery from COVID and makes the best of Brexit, it is striking that there has been no talk […]

Conservative rebels have failed in their bid to prevent ministers from signing trade agreements with countries implicated in genocide following Brexit. The House of Commons voted 319 to 297, majority 22, to disagree with a Lords amendment to the Trade Bill. This would have established a parliamentary panel of judicial experts to determine whether any […]

The government has acquired a second plane painted in the colours of the Union flag to ferry the prime minister and other dignitaries around on short-haul trips. The six-month-old Airbus A321 was captured at Stansted Airport at the weekend with the new red, white and blue paintwork, The Independent revealed. Downing Street came under fire last […]

Sir Keir Starmer said Labour would not fight “yesterday’s wars” after rejecting criticism of a pro-EU choice for the Hartlepool by-election. Dr Paul Williams, who was an opponent of Brexit and backed a People’s Vote, is standing in the constituency in which almost 70% voted to Leave in the 2016 referendum. But the Labour leader has […]

Independence for Scotland would be like Brexit on a rocket to Mars, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie has said. Speaking at the UK Liberal Democrat spring conference, Rennie said now is not the moment for the “long, divisive, argumentative, exhausting, all-consuming event” of another referendum on the issue. SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford has […]

MPs can “send a signal” to China and “give hope” to victims of human rights abuses by supporting a House of Lords amendment to the post-Brexit Trade Bill, a former Conservatives leader said. The government will seek in the Commons to overturn the amendment which would limit its ability to strike agreements with countries involved […]

As the pride of the British fleet prepares to sail to the South China Seas, MARK MARDELL offers a timely analysis of what ‘Global Britain’ might actually mean. There’s little that says ‘Global Britain’ so well as traveling halfway around the world to deliver the message “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!” The Royal […]

Brexit minister David Frost gets it wrong about the causes of January’s huge drops in trade with the EU It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where our first month of post-transition trading as a fully independent nation played out like a particularly tragic episode of Danny Dyer’s pachinko-styled BBC […]

Dominic Raab has denied saying the UK wants to trade with countries that violated human rights laws after a call with colleagues was leaked to the press. In a leaked video call listened to by HuffPost UK, the foreign secretary is heard telling departmental staff that only trading with countries that meet European Convention on Human […]

The “green Brexit” promised by the government has not been delivered, with weaker protections in areas such as nature and air quality, campaigners have said.

Former Remain and Leave groups have united in opposition to the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Opponents of Priti Patel’s latest act of legislation include Richard Tice – former chairman of the Brexit Party and Leave Means Leave – and Tom Brufatto, former leader of the People’s Vote marches and co-director of March […]

The EU will begin legal action on Monday over the UK’s breach of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a source close to the matter has confirmed. A letter is expected to be issued laying out the grounds on which the EU believes a breach occurred. A second “political” letter will be sent sharing the arbitration procedures […]

Downing Street needs to be more transparent over the evidence needed to call a referendum on uniting Ireland, an expert has said. Professor Colin Harvey, a professor of Human Rights Law, has called for the UK to collaborate with Dublin to ensure voters are adequately prepared. He wanted to avoid a repeat of the “mess” surrounding the […]

Brexiteer Mark Francois has urged Boris Johnson to stop paying the EU for post-Brexit arrangements after the UK’s decision to leave the EU led to a number of issues in Northern Ireland.  The chair of the European Research Group and Tory MP said the prime minister should reconsider paying £20bn worth of payments over the […]

Independence for Scotland would represent a reckless ‘hold my beer’ response to Brexit. By DOUGLAS ALEXANDER. I’m Scottish, British and European. I’m comfortable with layered identities, with pluralism, and I believe deeply in international cooperation. In a previous life I was the UK’s Europe minister so I’ve seen the EU from the inside. It isn’t perfect, but I continue […]

Boris Johnson has held “frank” conversations with the DUP on the Northern Ireland Protocol as he visited the region. Extra checks on goods passing through its ports from the rest of the UK following Brexit have angered unionists. The prime minister toured a mass vaccination centre in Arlene Foster’s Co Fermanagh constituency. He was joined by […]

Fishing has overshadowed discussion of wider issues affecting the environment since Brexit

A Tory minister has raised eyebrows after claiming “British wind” will soon fuel homes across the UK. Paul Scully, a minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), made the announcement during an interview on Sky News, in which he promoted a new government pledge of £95million in funding for offshore wind farms in […]

Exports of UK goods to the European Union dropped by more than two-fifths in January as the Brexit transition period came to an end. New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that overall exports from the UK fell by £5.6 billion – 19.3%. It was driven by a £5.6 billion, or 40.7%, […]

Schools, colleges and universities can now apply for funding to allow students to study and work abroad as part of the post-Brexit replacement of the Erasmus exchange programme. The £110 million Turing scheme, which will fund global exchanges for about 35,000 UK students from September, will target disadvantaged students and those from under-represented areas. But […]

Irish journalist and academic DENNIS KENNEDY on the consequences of a demographic revolution in Northern Ireland The Northern Ireland Protocol promises to be 21st century Europe’s Schleswig-Holstein Question, the apparently intractable territorial dispute lasting most of the 19th century involving Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Austria and some others over the two provinces straddling south Denmark and northern Germany. Lord […]

Stormont’s agriculture minister has said special cricket pitch soil can be freely moved from Great Britain to Northern Ireland under Brexit rules. The clay-containing material known as loam can be obtained from counties in England to help give the ball a predictable bounce on the pitch. Northern Ireland Protocol bureaucracy has caused problems for suppliers […]

The Northern Ireland secretary has failed to explain the legal grounds for scrapping Brexit customs checks in the Irish Sea. Brandon Lewis was asked to clarify which part of the Northern Ireland Protocol would allow the UK to renege on its committment on customs checks – amid claims it could be breaching international law. “Is it […]

Dominic Raab has written to the European Council president after he claimed the UK imposed an “outright ban” on coronavirus vaccine exports. Charles Michel accused Britain and the US of imposing bans on the movement of jabs as he used a newsletter to hit back at criticisms of the bloc’s vaccine rollout. The foreign secretary […]

UK businesses and exporters have urged Lord David Frost to scrap No 10’s abrasive approach to dealing with Brussels and seek to build a more mutually beneficial trade relationship. Trade groups warned a breakdown in trade would inflict long-lasting damage on the UK economy. James Withers, chief executive of the industry group Scotland Food and Drink, […]

The UK government has unilaterally extended some grace periods associated with the NI Protocol in a bid to avoid a cliff-edge plunge into extra paperwork. The protocol is a post-Brexit arrangement designed to keep the Irish border open by ensuring Northern Ireland continues to follow the EU’s trading rules. The DUP has vowed to overthrow […]

The Jewish community is struggling to get kosher meat in time for the Passover festival due to post-Brexit arrangements, the DUP has claimed. Extra paperwork as a result of the Northern Ireland Protocol has caused a series of bureaucratic obstacles since the end of the post-Brexit transition period. Northern Ireland has a small Jewish community […]

Boris Johnson is famous for making babies. Now his Brexit is making babies unhappy. It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where Boris Johnson dismisses the unfolding post-Brexit trade fiasco as mere “teething problems”, Michael Gove talks of “issues which I would not describe as teething problems” and manufacturers […]

There were “bound” to be issues that needed ironing out between the UK and Brussels, the prime minister has said, as post-Brexit difficulties continue. Lord Frost, the cabinet minister who negotiated Britain’s trade deal with the European Union, provoked the ire of Brussels last week by unilaterally making changes that impacted upon the Northern Ireland […]

Brexit wasn't the first time leaders tried to stoke up tensions in the name of 'freedom' 

An immigration crisis is facing Britain now that Brexit reality is hitting

The government has moved to unilaterally ease another element of the contentious Brexit arrangements governing trade to Northern Ireland. A ban on importing plants potted in soil from Great Britain to the region has been temporarily lifted. While most agri-food goods are, or will be, subject to extra regulatory processes to enter Northern Ireland under […]