Brexit

As many as 60% of Kent businesses are not prepared for a no-deal Brexit, a report suggests, with just three weeks to go until the end of the Brexit transition period. Concerns have been raised that companies already “hanging on by their fingertips” after a year of pandemic disruption may not be ready for the […]

A former Australian prime minister has warned the UK against leaving the European Union on an ‘Australian-style’ Brexit agreement. Malcolm Turnbull warned Boris Johnson to “be careful what you wish for”, warning the results would be “pretty disappointing”. He told BBC Question Time: “It’ll be pretty disappointing, I think you’ll find out. “We obviously are dealing […]

EU leaders have made a last-minute change of plan to this evening’s dinner raising hopes of a new trade deal between the UK and the bloc. It means that first on the agenda in tonight’s dinner between UK and EU officials is discussions around a post-Brexit trade deal. The news was confirmed by Sky News Europe […]

Former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke has said that Brexit will put the country back by 50 years and a no-deal scenario will have worse economic effects than Covid-19. Speaking on the World at One on BBC Radio 4, Clarke said that he accepts the UK is leaving the EU and that his comments were not […]

A BBC presenter has been praised for his two-and-a-half minute explainer of Brexit – in a clip that some viewers said demonstrates why it “fundamentally won’t work”. Ros Atkins, who hosts Outside Source, explained how ideological differences between Britain and the EU would make a trade deal between the two sides near impossible to achieve. Atkins posted […]

The prime minister’s audience with the Queen has been postponed this week to allow him to focus on the post-Brexit trade deal talks. Boris Johnson usually telephones the monarch each Wednesday evening to update her on government matters, but there was no record of the audience in the Court Circular. Buckingham Palace said the Queen […]

Michael Gove has been told to “correct the record” after misleading statements made about Brexit. Gove had claimed that key health and education benefits will be saved “for a while” – even if there is no deal – while interviewed by the Today programme. There is currently no guarantee the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) or Erasmus will […]

A Conservative MP has clashed with a BBC presenter after she brought up a comment by the prime minister suggesting that chances a no-deal Brexit were “absolutely zero”. North Hertfordshire MP Bim Afolami accused Jo Coburn, who hosts Politics Live, of getting her facts wrong in relation to Boris Johnson’s remark. Johnson had said during last year’s […]

Irish politician NEALE RICHMOND on his sadness as the end of the Brexit transition period nears. When the people of the United Kingdom voted narrowly to leave the EU in 2016, it felt for us in Ireland like they had gone and shot themselves in our foot. There is no such thing as a good […]

A radio presenter who supports Britain remaining in the EU has issued Remainers with a stark warning against Brexit “gloating”. James O’Brien said it was “stupid” of Remainers to celebrate something that was bound to hurt them. Speaking about an FT columnist’s tweet advising against gloating, O’Brien said: “There are two things to say about that. Number one: […]

In recent days Conservative ministers have scrambled to insist that Boris Johnson’s “oven-ready” Brexit deal pledge at the election only related to the Withdrawal Agreement. But one year ago, days before the general election, the then chief secretary to the Treasury claimed there was no need for no-deal Brexit planning because “we have got this […]

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has dismissed a warning from Tesco chairman John Allan that Brexit could result in food shortages and price rises, saying he is “not concerned” by their claims. The chairman warned that failure to reach a deal with the European Union could see shoppers turning to buying UK-produced items when imported goods jump […]

A political commentator has brilliantly summed up the frustrations Remainers have with Brexit using an age-old analogy. The New Statesman‘s Philip Collins said Brexiteers compared the concerns of Remainers to “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” having completely ignored the moral of the story. In the fable, which dates back to the Middle Ages, a young shepherd boy repeatedly trick nearby villagers into thinking […]

Is it time to take a leaf out of Nigel Farage’s book to force Rejoin on to the political agenda? Ian Dunt is right (“Time for this eerie silence to end”, TNE #222) that no party is currently advocating rejoining the EU. This puts those of us who campaigned for four years, or more, to […]

A French MEP has accused Boris Johnson over ‘underestimating the determination’ of the European Union during Brexit talks. Mireille Clapot claimed the prime minister had miscalculated the EU’s ability to negotiate and remain united, claiming he was paying the price by risking a no-deal Brexit. She told the BBC’s Newsnight: “Somebody said that strength comes from […]

Of all the bad takes during a busy Brexit period, it is one of the worst, and yet for some reason it is stubbornly popular: the idea that Remainers are responsible for this mess. It’s a thought so stupid a child can see the problem with it, but many professional political commentators cannot. The argument comes from two distinct […]

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden has been urged to drop the government’s plan for a Festival of Brexit Britain in 2022. More than 600 cultural workers have signed a joint letter calling for the money to be better spent following the coronavirus pandemic. It reads: “Amidst a background of culture devastation, where thousands have lost their […]

Brexit trade talks could continue beyond the newly-agreed Sunday deadline, foreign secretary Dominic Raab has hinted. Raab was reticent to confirm Sunday’s deadline as a final cut-off, saying that “you can never say never” with EU negotiations. His comment came as Boris Johnson and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen agreed to scrap Thursday’s deadline in favour of […]

Alastair Campbell on Boris Johnson’s ‘oven-ready’ Brexit pledge – and the ministers who have attempted to spin it. With the possible exception of my good friend Andrew Adonis, has there ever been a politician more misnamed than James Cleverly? Yet it is becoming ever more apparent that in the Johnson government, having a good brain, […]

A leading MEP has claimed that Scotland would be ‘better off’ if it goes independent and rejoins the European Union, hinting it could perform better than England after Brexit. Philippe Lamberts, the Belgian co-president of the Green Party in the European Parliament, compared Scotland’s potential to Ireland which remains an island away from the main […]

A majority of Britons face being barred from visiting the European Union from January 1 2021 when pandemic safety rules that allow freedom of movement within the bloc stop applying to the UK. The European Commission has said that the end of the Brexit transition period will mean that the UK will be subject to […]

Brexit negotiators have been given four days to reach an agreement following crunch talks between Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen. The prime minister and European Commission president agreed that a “firm decision” about the future of the negotiations should be made by Sunday. Discussions will continue between the UK and EU’s negotiating teams […]

DONALD MACINTYRE on the squealing and dealing from Boris Johnson’s government over Brexit. We’ve been here before, of course. It was on March 13, 2003, that the cabinet were told “the message that must go out…[is] that we pin the blame on France for its isolated refusal to agree.” This was three days after Jacques […]

JAMES BALL on how the spell is broken for a one-trick phoney. Any man can tell you he can jump off the roof of a building, entirely naked and free of strings, parachutes, or similar, and levitate safely to the ground. An incredibly persuasive man, perhaps backed up by faked video evidence and more, might […]

A former EU diplomat has described Boris Johnson’s last-minute meeting in Brussels as ‘just for show’, claiming the prime minister was adamant about pursuing a no-deal Brexit. Sir Ivan Rogers, the former UK ambassador to the EU, said Johnson had intervened in Brexit talks too late to yield a positive result. Rogers said officials in Brussels believe […]

A Brexiteer MP in the House of Commons has been accused of treating Britain’s EU partners with “patronising contempt” by a Maltese MEP after he claimed Britain was nothing like her country. Daniel Kawczynski took to Twitter to complain about the EU’s handling of Brexit talks. He said: “Mistake EU making is they are treating us as if we […]

Boris Johnson has been told he has “no mandate” for a no-deal Brexit after a petition was handed in urging him to strike a deal with the EU. More than 100,000 people signed the petition organised by European Movement UK, a grass-roots campaign group focused on Britain’s relationship with Brussels. Signatories claimed that “a damaging No Deal […]

Michael Gove has been compared to Bart Simpson for his refusal to accept responsibility for the “chaos” caused by Brexit. But instead the Cabinet Office minister compared himself to Groundskeeper Willie – the fictional Scottish school janitor – only to be told that Willie declared his support for Scottish independence at the 2014 referendum. SNP MP Owen […]

A grammar school in Kent will close for two days after Christmas over fears Brexit will cause debilitating traffic jams. Maidstone Grammar School (MGS) will instead teach pupils virtually between January 4 and January 5. The all boys secondary school is located a mile away from the M20 , which is expected to rammed with lorries […]

Ireland’s deputy leader said he believes Boris Johnson would be willing to make concessions to get a post-Brexit trade deal, claiming his politics is closer to the “liberal” view he took as mayor of London. Leo Varadkar said the European Union and the UK have “more to gain and more to salvage” from an agreement […]

Number 10 has been left angered after the SNP’s constitution and Brexit secretary branded Boris Johnson and his Tories as ‘extremists’. Michael Russell hit out at the Westminster government for their “damaging and harmful” Brexit ideology. Speaking at Holyrood, he told MSPs: “It is utterly incredible that some 1,629 days since the European Union referendum, […]

Boris Johnson has scrambled together a new unit in Downing Street to manage the government’s response to the “nightmare scenario” of a no-deal Brexit. The winter control and co-ordination cell, based in No 10, will report daily confidential briefings to the prime minister about emerging threats such as a surge in Covid-19 cases and extreme […]