Brexit

The Scottish parliament is expected to vote down Boris Johnson’s Internal Market Bill after the constitution secretary urged MSPs to “stand up and defend devolution” by rejecting the controversial UK legislation.  Mike Russell called on MSPs at Holyrood to vote against the UK government’s Brexit bill amid repeated claims from Scottish government ministers that it […]

Two major foreign car manufacturers have called on the UK government to reimburse them for additional customs charges if it failed to reach a Brexit deal with the EU. Japan’s two biggest car makers, Toyota and Nissan, want the government to cover an expected 10% tax on car imports from Britain that the EU could impose […]

MPs have approved a longer autumn recess for the House of Commons. The chamber will adjourn after business has concluded on Friday October 23 and return on Monday November 2. The motion detailing the recess was supported unopposed. MPs will be unable to challenge ministers in the Commons chamber during this period over coronavirus restrictions, […]

The UK Government is pressing ahead with draft legislation to override its commitments to the EU on Northern Ireland, which it admits will break international law. Yet it has – paradoxically – signalled it will only apply that legislation consistently with international law. This mixed messaging may be designed to encourage some its hard-line supporters […]

Brexiteer and former cricketer Sir Ian Botham has taken his seat in the House of Lords. Baron Botham, more used to the surroundings of Lord’s Cricket Ground, wore the traditional scarlet and ermine-trimmed robe for the brief formal introduction ceremony. The clerk referred to him as Baron Botham of Ravensworth after his home village. The […]

A front cover from the Daily Express featuring comments from health secretary Matt Hancock suggesting Brexit can “save lives” has been criticised. Under the headline “BREXIT GIVES UK FREEDOM TO FAST-TRACK WONDER DRUGS”, the newspaper reports that Hancock had insisted that Brexit will help save lives by allowing new drugs to be approved faster. The […]

A former Brexit Party MEP has suggested the Tory manifesto contained lies on Brexit – claiming there was not a “single accurate thing” in the section on leaving the EU. Ben Habib, an ex-Brexit Party politician who represented the seat of London in the European Parliament for six months before it was abolished in January this […]

The Green Party’s leadership has avoided referencing Brexit or membership of the European Union as it pitched its vision to supporters as part of this year’s virtual conference. Co-leaders Jonathan Bartley and Sian Berry instead used their conference speech to focus on the pandemic response.  Bartley said the action taken in response to the crisis had […]

Analysis of the impact of a no-deal, or weak deal, has focused on the impact on trade. But, says DR MARK AVERY, it will also bring consequences for the environment. Four years after the Brexit vote, and almost nine months through the one-year transition period, we are still unclear as to the impacts of Brexit […]

Former Brexit secretary David Davis has claimed the government should “shrug off” the EU threat of legal action over the Internal Market Bill which breaches international law. The Brexiteer told talkRADIO: “I don’t think it’s something we should take terribly seriously. “The first thing to understand is this was going to happen. “If the EU […]

Northern Ireland will mark 100 years of its existence on May 3, 2021. In the meantime the government of the Republic has launched a radical new policy calling for “A Shared Island”. This new emphasis on sharing points to a United Ireland as an aspiration rather than a policy. In parallel, the United Kingdom has […]

For her new book, DEBORAH MATTINSON has been talking to voters in Red Wall constituencies. Her research underlines how Brexit remains a totemic issue there. Voters in the Red Wall, in common with voters pretty much everywhere, tend not to follow politics very closely. I once ran a focus group live on TV where one […]

Did you notice Boris Johnson raising those careworn eyes towards the wider world horizon in the past few days? Not once but twice. First, to promise a generous £340 million UK contribution to the embattled World Health Organisation despite it being Public Enemy No 208 to his comrade-in-expediency, Tax Dodger Trump. Second, to pledge Britain […]

Peers will make a fresh attempt to block cheap US food imports such as chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef if Boris Johnson refuses to make concessions to Tory rebels. The House of Lords is currently debating stricter laws to govern food production after Brexit. However, critics – including several Tory rebels – fear that the […]

James O’Brien has asked Brexiteers whether they regret voting for Brexit now the UK faced legal proceedings from the EU. The LBC presenter pointed to a letter from the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator David Frost to car manufacturers as proof many of his warnings about the economic impacts of Brexit were in fact true. MORE: ‘Project Fear’ was […]

Nigel Farage has been called a “traitor” after issuing a tweeting defending the EU’s threat to sue Downing Street over breaking the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The Brexit Party leader caused controversy on Thursday when he appeared to suggest the EU was in its rights to take Britain to court after it approved laws explicitly overriding the Withdrawal […]

Arron Banks’ Leave.EU organisation has been forced to apologise to a Labour MP for calling her a “grooming gang apologist”. The unofficial Brexit campaign continue to have a high profile on social media, with the advisers behind the campaign more recently turning their attention to New Zealand politics. But before they turned their attention elsewhere, […]

Financial service firms in the UK have moved 7,500 employees and more than £1.2 trillion pounds worth of assets to the EU ahead of Brexit, a report has claimed. In a report tracking 222 of the largest financial firms in the UK, accounting firm EY said at least 400 relocations had occurred September alone and that many […]

A chemical expert from one of the major manufacturers has said chemicals readily available in the UK will “disappear” after Brexit. Neil Hollis, of the chemical giant BASF, told a Commons committee on the impact of Brexit upon UK industry that government plans to pull out of the EU chemical database, known as REACH, and create […]

UK car manufacturers could be hit hard with tariffs whether or not the government succeeds in getting a Brexit deal. The European Commission (EC) has rejected proposals for components from Japan and Turkey used on UK car production lines to be considered British. According to a letter to the car industry from Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator […]

Britain has backtracked on the issue of fishing rights in UK waters in a last minute attempt to salvage Brexit trade talks. The UK offered the EU a three-year transition period for its fishing fleets to leave British seas beginning from 2021. The idea of a phase-out has been discussed before but details of how […]

Boris Johnson’s controversial Brexit bill has cleared its final Commons hurdle – with Tory critics choosing to abstain. Former prime minister Theresa May and two ex-attorney generals, Geoffrey Cox and Jeremy Wright, were among 21 Conservatives who did not vote for the UK Internal Market Bill at third reading on Tuesday evening. While some, including […]

A former security commissioner has warned that troves of data collected by Britain’s intelligence agencies to tackle terrorism and crime would be deleted in the event of a no-deal Brexit. British intelligence would have to be wiped off EU systems if Brexit trade talks collapse, the ex-EU security chief warned. Sir Julian King, a British […]

More nominees for the worst Brexiteers of the week… ANN WIDDECOMBETV viewers have become used to the messages that run at the end of particularly harrowing shows, advising them to call a helpline “if you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this programme”. But one doubts there is a helpline for the issue […]

The Swiss held two important national referendums last Sunday. The first decisively reversed a previous one of 2014 which, by a wafer-thin majority, had sought to end freedom of movement of people with the EU, putting the country’s whole relationship with Europe in jeopardy. The lesson for Brexit Britain, a Swiss friend tells me, is […]

In a field outside the Suffolk village of Barton Mills, a ‘Boris 4 PM’ billboard left over from last December’s general election has finally been replaced. The new advert reads ‘Primevil: Screaming Won’t Help’. There can be no better illustration of how dreams have turned to dread for the prime minister and his inner circle. […]

A former Tory minister has claimed that Boris Johnson “doesn’t really believe in Brexit” and that once he has achieved a deal he will be gone. George Walden, a former minister and Tory MP until 1997, said due to the pandemic the prime minister will deliver on his goal to “get Brexit done”, and that he will […]

A new YouGov poll has put the levels of Brexit ‘regret’ at the highest since the pollster started recording opinions on the vote. Polling found that 50% of the country now thinks Britain was wrong to vote to leave the European Union – the highest reported by the pollster. In hindsight, do you think Britain […]

European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic has reiterated calls for the UK to withdraw provisions in the Internal Market Bill overriding the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement by the end of the month. Following a meeting of the Joint Committee on the implementation of the agreement in Brussels, Sefcovic said the UK’s position was still “far apart” […]

More than 50% of Britons do not believe Boris Johnson will negotiate a good Brexit deal with the EU, a poll has revealed. A survey by Ipsos MORI found that 58% of the public think Britain will not receive a good Brexit deal, the Evening Standard has reported. Just 26% think the government is well-prepared […]

A leading Tory Brexiteer has been branded a hypocrite after accusing the government of trying to remove people’s liberties. Steve Baker, a former chair of the hard-line Eurosceptic Westminster group the European Research Group (ERG), said it was “only fair” MPs got a vote on coronavirus laws that would take away people’s liberties before they came into effect. Brexiteer […]

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has not ruled out voting down a possible Brexit deal between the UK and EU “if it harms our economy”. Appearing on LBC, Davey was asked if he would vote for a future trade deal, despite criticisms that Johnson had failed to secure the deal he had promised at the last […]