Brexit

Is it time to move on from Brexit and try to reunite the country? Readers have their say.  While I applaud the political logic and humanitarian sentiment behind Ian Dunt’s piece, I am finding it impossible to muster the love of country which he sees a key to post-Brexit recovery. Back in the distant times when […]

The chair of a pro-EU lobbying group has urged Sir Keir Starmer to lead a cross-party “progressive alliance” to reform UK politics in the wake of Brexit. Stephen Dorrell, the chair of the European Movement – a grass-roots group focused on promoting close ties between the UK and Europe – said the first-past-the-post system of voting allowed “a small clique” […]

A leading fisherman has called for resignations over Brexit claiming that it has left the industry “worse off” than when the UK remained a member of the European Union. Arnold Locker, chairman of the Locker Trawlers in Whitby and a former chairman of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, claimed that key Brexiteers had betrayed the […]

A comedian has delivered the perfect rebuke to Brexiteers up in arms over jokes he made about Nigel Farage and Brexit on New Year’s Eve. Nish Kumar angered Brexiteers when he described Farage as “not technically a man, but a sack of meat brought to life by a witch’s curse whose blood type is technically real ale,” […]

A Brexiteer has been left fuming after the EU failed to update its website to include a reference to its newly-signed trade agreement with the UK. John Redwood used a blog on January 2 to complain that the bloc had yet to update its list of trade deals agreed with other countries. Referencing the “negotiations […]

A British couple who voted Brexit and then moved to Spain have been ridiculed after they were no longer able to access UK programmes abroad due to new post-Brexit streaming rules. The duo, whose daughter posted about the whole ordeal on Twitter, were cut off from watching Only Fools and Horses on their Sky app. Joey, […]

A Brexiteer has compared the UK’s departure from the European Union marks the biggest change to politics since the evolution of democracy at the end of the Stuart dynasty. Tory MP Bill Cash claimed: “It is a momentous moment which, by any historic standards, can only be compared in peacetime to what happened in the […]

Tory grandee Lord Heseltine has called for pro-Europeans to “fight back” and battle to rejoin the EU. The former deputy prime minister cited the stance of the SNP in pushing for another referendum on Scottish independence as the way forward for Remainers, despite the UK formally leaving the Brexit transition arrangements on New Year’s Eve. […]

The government is “working closely” with Spanish authorities to resolve issues over post-Brexit residency documentation after British nationals were prevented from boarding flights back to Spain. Travellers at Heathrow airport were left “distressed” after being told by airlines that they did not have the correct proof of residency. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) […]

Millions of voters will this year get their first chance to have a say on how politicians have handled Covid-19 and Brexit. A bumper set of elections are to be held across Great Britain on “Super Thursday” – May 6 – including a number of contests postponed from 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Voters […]

Remember the lessons of 2016… A new year doesn’t mean everything will be better. Over the last few weeks, as I’ve read and heard many people express an entirely understandable longing to be rid of 2020, I’ve been reminded of the eerily similar outpouring of relief and/or hope which issued forth four years ago. 2016, […]

Boris Johnson has claimed that his post-Brexit trade deal with the European Union is the “cakiest treaty” – and that the UK was able to “have its cake and eat it” after all. The prime minister, in an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, said that while there “will be changes” for people come January 1st, […]

A Conservative commentator has faced backlash after the only post-Brexit “benefit” she could name in an interview was the chance for Britain to become “a low-tax economy”. Earlier this week, Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal passed through the Commons with 521 votes for and 73 against. On Good Morning Britain, Isabel Oakeshott and former Labour home secretary Jacqui Smith […]

Stanley Johnson, the father of British prime minister Boris Johnson, has admitted he is in the process of applying for a passport that will give him all the benefits of EU membership after Brexit. Johnson, a former Conservative MEP, told RTL Radio in France that he wants to become a French citizen to keep his […]

Sandra Khadhouri reports on one initiative attempting to maintain links between the UK and Europe As Brexit negotiations end, the next phase begins. In 2021, much time and effort will be expended by pro-EU campaigners in exposing the damage of Brexit, big and small, to ensure people draw sensible conclusions and place blame where it is […]

IAN DUNT offers a rallying cry for pro-Europeans. We’re out of the EU. No more Article 50. No more transition. For all intents and purposes, January 1, 2021, is the first true day of Brexit. It’s remarkable that after nearly half a decade it’s still possible to burn with shame and indignation at what is happening […]

This country will continue to suffer from Brexit but we should not despair, says DOMINIC GRIEVE. Geographical and economic realities will make greater co-operation with Europe inevitable. This week the United Kingdom embarks on a new chapter in its relations with its neighbours in the EU. Just as the statue of Janus looks two ways and […]

To say the trade agreement between the UK and the EU weighs in at 1,246 pages is to do it a disservice. The dossier of articles, declarations and annexes totalling some 467,000 words is no-one’s idea of light reading, but would still be less than half the length of Hilary Mantel’s acclaimed Wolf Hall trilogy – an attainable task […]

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL on how the ‘bastard’ tendency which tormented John Major over the Maastricht Treaty has finally got its way. Have a guess where I was in early December 1991, and again in February 1992. Very well done at home, as mega-selling novelist Richard Osman says to viewers of BBC’s Pointless show, if a Dutch city the […]

TIM BALE assesses whether the deal with the EU means politicians on both sides of the debate will finally emerge from the trenches Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Imperial Japanese army took some persuading before he would agree to hand over his sword, his rifle, and the dagger with which he intended to commit suicide […]

Cabinet Office minister and Brexiteer Michael Gove has been accused of insulting EU citizens by claiming that their mandatory applications to the EU Settlement Scheme were a “vote of confidence in Britain”. Appearing in the Commons to support the prime minister’s Brexit bill, he told MPs: “It is important to remember that there are now […]

Left wing advocates of Brexit labour under a number of misapprehensions, says FRANCIS BECKETT – such as a mistaken belief it will make their aims more achievable and that all Remainers are middle class. Paul Embery is one of the brightest stars of Lexit – the faction that says that all proper socialists are Brexiters. […]

A Tory MP has been celebrated for his tweet showing him celebrating Brexit alongside a cardboard cut-out of Margaret Thatcher, inscribed with the message “got Brexit done”. David Amess, the MP for Southend West, took to the social media platform to celebrate the UK’s departure from the European Union. Tweeting a picture of a cardboard […]

Guy Verhofstadt on his sadness as the transition period ends, and his optimism for the future. “There is one case,” wrote Dostoevsky, “and only one, when a man may deliberately and consciously desire something that is downright harmful even stupid, even extremely stupid, and that is: to have the right to desire what is even extremely […]

At the very moment the Irish border reaches its centenary it is about to enter a new era, as Brexit finally comes into full effect. IAN WALKER presents a birthday biography. In May 2018, Jacob Rees-Mogg – then chairman of the hard Brexit Tory pressure group the ERG – declared: “I don’t think my visiting the Irish border is really […]

We don’t know what we’ve got til it’s gone… Roger Casale on the end of free movement. Free movement of people is one of the EU’s most celebrated achievements. According to the December Eurobarometer survey, 81% of Europeans think free movement has benefitted the economy. Yet in Britain, it is often cited as one of the […]

A Labour frontbencher has resigned over her Brexit deal position after she defied Keir Starmer’s call for MPs to vote in support. Shadow Cabinet Office minister Helen Hayes left the opposition frontbench after abstaining on the bill. She tweeted: “I’m grateful to all who’ve contacted me on the EU Future Relationship Bill. I can’t vote […]

As MPs in the House of Commons vote in support of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, we look at how each politician voted. In the second and third reading of the bill, the Commons voted by 521 votes to 73 to back the agreement, a government majority of 448. 359 Tory MPs backed the bill – with 162 Labour […]

HYWEL CERI JONES on the government’s decision to reject the EU’s Erasmus scheme as part of the Brexit deal. In finalising its treaty with the EU, to the dismay of many, PM Johnson has confirmed his last-minute negative decision to no longer participate in the EU`s Erasmus programme. This comes as a severe blow to […]

Former Brexit secretary David Davis has said the treaty agreed by Boris Johnson is “much better than would have been achieved under the previous strategy”, but warned there are “issues to deal with” on Northern Ireland, fishing and Gibraltar. He told the Commons: “It’s not over. All will lead to uncomfortable decisions in the near […]

Tory Brexiteer Mark Francois has quoted Nigel Farage, Mel Gibson and the prophet Isiah in his speech on the government’s Brexit deal – claiming his colleagues in the ‘Spartans’ could now “lower our spears”. Francois, who chairs the European Research Group, told MPs: “Thanks to this agreement on New Year’s Eve we will finally leave […]

Despite claiming he had secured a “fantastic” trade deal with the EU for Brexit, just 17% of voters think it will be “good” for the country. The new YouGov polling found that the public enthusiasm for the deal was low – with 21% thinking it was a bad deal, and 31% thinking it was neither […]