Brexit

LIZ GERARD offers a lexicon for the last year, including many words you will never want to hear again. Activist lawyers Misguided solicitors and barristers who want the courts and the law, rather than Priti Patel, to determine whether migrants she doesn’t like should be deported. Anti-vaxxers Vocal ‘libertarians’ with a death wish for others. Often also […]

Things look particularly bleak this Christmas, but JAMES BALL finds some cause for optimism.  The midwinter is notoriously a bleak season – not for nothing is there a whole song along that theme. Similarly, it’s not coincidental that most cultures and religions mark some celebration of light or of joy in the middle of this […]

Once a fervent Eurosceptic, ED WEST explains why he has come to believe that leaving the EU will be a terrible blunder, in a thoughtful essay that will be a difficult read for Brexiteers and Remainers alike. Like a never-ending television series that should have been cancelled years ago, the Brexit saga reaches yet another season finale […]

Donald Trump is looking to secure a series of ‘mini’ Brexit trade deals with the UK, his trade chief has claimed. Trade representative Robert Lighthizer suggested that the US and UK could agree deals which reduce tariffs on items such as Scotch whisky if a pact is successful. The government hopes to broker a full free trade […]

An SNP MP has been suspended from a House of Commons sitting after he protested against the approval of controversial Brexit legislation. The party’s business spokesman Drew Hendry shouted “this is an outrage” as proceedings on the UK Internal Market Bill came to a conclusion following a lengthy parliamentary battle in recent weeks. Deputy speaker […]

Remainers are patriots who will be as pained as anyone by the damage that Brexit is about to cause their country, says IAN DUNT. The trap is right there waiting for us. Next month, Brexit goes from a theoretical issue to a practical reality. It will play out in declining GDP growth, investment, productivity and […]

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL on how the UK needed someone serious to take charge of Brexit – but ended up with Boris Johnson. When Boris Johnson first became prime minister, I called round a few contacts in European capitals, to get a feel for how they viewed what was by any calculation quite a major change from […]

Despite his establishment credentials the author John le Carré remained an outsider all his life, says CHARLIE CONNELLY, and was increasingly radicalised by Europe and Brexit.  There’s a broad perception that people become calmer politically as they grow older, the youthful firebrand activist gradually sensing the flames of radicalism dying down towards a dotage of faintly glowing […]

Emergency stop-gap Brexit legislation is set to be rushed through the House of Lords in a day to ensure the UK is ready for its final departure from the EU at the end of the year. The “panic stations” bill has led to accusations of “chaos” being levelled at the government. The criticism came as […]

A former prime minister of the Republic of Ireland said a Brexit deal was inevitable “as long as” Boris Johnson does not get involved. Bertie Ahern, who helped broker the Good Friday Agreement, said striking a deal was only a matter of time and trade-offs. Ahern told POLITICO the EU could give into Britain’s demands on fishing […]

Boris Johnson has told Eurosceptic members of the Tory party’s European Research Group that they should ignore the messages coming from the European Union about a Brexit deal. According to the Express, Conservative backbenchers were told by the prime minister to ignore the “propaganda” and “fake news” from Brussels which has left Brexiteers unhappy. It […]

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said there is now a “path” to a deal in the post-Brexit trade talks with the UK. She told MEPs that “as things stand I cannot tell you whether there will be a deal or not”, but acknowledged a path way that was “very narrow”. “It is therefore our […]

New polling has found that 28% of Britons Boris Johnson has handled Brexit well – despite talks faltering and the prime minister failing to so far deliver his “oven-ready” deal he promised at the last election. A total of two-thirds of the country (63%) think the UK’s departure from the EU has been handled badly, according […]

Jacob Rees-Mogg has claimed that the United Kingdom stronger as a result of Brexit- and that support for the European Union would fall after leaving the bloc in January. Speaking in The House magazine the pro-Brexit leader of the House of Commons claimed that the Westminster government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic – which resulted in the largest […]

MPs might not be able to vote on any Brexit deal agreed until after the transition period has ended, the leader of the House of Commons has admitted. Jacob Rees-Mogg said that MPs may be asked to “retrospectively correct” the law to recognise the agreement that Boris Johnson could sign before December 31. He admits it […]

Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has described the prospects of a speedy trade agreement between India and the UK as “the biggest bucket of b*****ks” he has ever heard. Rudd said Australia’s own trade talks with India, which he launched in 2009, were still on going and that chances of Britain getting one sooner […]

A commentator has pointed out that Brexit “won’t get done” even if a deal is achieved by December 31. Author Jemma Forte said she believed Boris Johnson would likely achieve some sort of agreement with the European Union, which he would champion as a victory for Britain. But she warned the detail would be “paper-thin” […]

A list of “opportunities” awaiting Britons once they leave the EU, shared by the chair of the Brexit Party, has been ridiculed on social media. Richard Tice, a former Brexit Party MEP and now its chairman, said the country had “loads of opportunities” in store once it left the trading bloc. Appearing on LBC radio, […]

A Brexit lorry park – dubbed the ‘Farage Garage’ – will not be fully ready until after February, it has been reported. The 66-acre site in Ashford was due to be ready for completion on January 1 – the day after the Brexit transition period ends.  The government purchased the land to use “as a permanent […]

Each dawn, sheep farmer Thomas Carrick works the land through freezing winter rain and snow, 2,000 feet up in the bleak Cumbrian fells. Like many British farmers, he is about to find out if life outside the EU is even colder and darker. Well used to weather dependent good and bad years, sheep farming is […]

The Daily Mail has suggested Britons could make a success out of a no-deal Brexit by buying British-made products such as a Jaguar, a second home in the UK, or a more powerful vacuum cleaner. With the EU and Britain warning a no-deal Brexit was now the most likely outcome of negotiations, leading to World Trade Organisation tariffs […]

A German television show has mocked Boris Johnson and his Brexit proposals in a spoof of Netflix’s The Crown entitled ‘The Clown’. Extra3, which airs on public broadcaster NDR, derided the UK’s departure from the European Union and its prime minister in a spoof trailer which is going viral in the European country and now the […]

A UK citizen who has been living in France for 36 years has brought a case to the Court of Justice of the European Union that could have profound implications for British people living in European countries after Brexit. The woman is hoping to retain some citizenship rights after she ceases to be a European […]

Brexiteer James Dyson’s farming business only managed to make a profit in the last year because it benefited from EU subsidies, it has been reported. Beeswax Dyson Farming posted £3.4 million pre-tax profits last year, the Times reports, up from £2.7 million in 2018. But without a £3.4 million cash injection from the EU’s common agricultural […]

Post-Brexit Cornwall is set to receive just 5% of what it needs to replace EU funding, according to a local councillor. As one of the UK’s poorest areas, Cornwall requested £700 million over 10 years to make up for a shortfall in EU funds caused by Brexit. Instead, the county will get little more than £1.8 million […]

Brexit is a ploy to make Britain a “low tax, low regulation economy”, Alastair Campbell has claimed. The New European‘s editor-at-large said Vote Leave would not have won the 2016 referendum had they been up front about their plans for a post-Brexit Britain. Speaking on the BBC’s Politics Live, Campbell said: “It’s basically about trying to […]

Downing Street repeatedly refused to confirm that MPs would be given a vote on any post-Brexit trade deal that is agreed with the European Union. The prime minister’s official spokesman said it was for Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg to set out the business of the House and refused to commit to the principle of MPs […]

The recording of the Queen’s speech has been delayed by Brexit – as Buckingham Palace await a decision on whether or not the UK will leave the EU with a deal. The royal usually records her speech by the middle of December, but it has been pushed back to next week due to the uncertainty surrounding […]

The SNP has indicated that it will vote down Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal – despite saying a deal would be better than the “complete disruption” of a no-deal Brexit. Appearing on Good Morning Scotland, the party’s Brexit secretary said it could not back something that is “the wrong thing for Scotland”. He explained: “There will be […]

A Labour MP has delivered a scathing attack on Boris Johnson for suggesting that crashing out of the EU would be a “wonderful” outcome for Britain. David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, accused Johnson of attempting to deliver a type of Brexit no-one wanted. MORE: Boris Johnson under renewed pressure as new polling finds two-thirds of Brits […]

Irish prime minister Micheal Martin has said that “Britain needs Europe, and Europe needs Britain”. In a criticism of Boris Johnson’s handling of Brexit talks, he said the Taioseach was critical of Boris Johnson’s threat to deploy Royal Navy vessels to patrol the seas around Britain if there is no deal. “All of that type of […]

Veteran Tory MP Sir Roger Gale said Boris Johnson should quit as prime minister if he fails to secure a trade deal with the European Union. Sir Roger, who was one of only two Tory MPs to vote against the UK Internal Market Bill, said an acceptable deal would see “imaginative ideas” regarding trade and […]