Daily Archives: November 25, 2021

The issue of people crossing the channel in small boats is back in the headlines.

Dozens of people died on Wednesday making the perilous journey across the sea, following UK government attempts to make the crossings more difficult.

So far this year more than 25,700 people have managed to complete the perilous crossing.

The government says it wants to make the journey unviable to deter people from making it but is refusing to create safe alternative routes for people trying to claim asylum.

While dangerous, making the journey appears to pay off for the vast majority who complete it.

Of the 25,700 to have made it safely to the UK, just five have been returned to Europe, ministers say.

What is less realised is that this is partly down to Britain's departure from the European Union.

Despite rhetoric about borders and immigration playing a major role in the Leave vote, EU cooperation played a significant role in border policing before Brexit.

The figure of five returnees is significantly down on the 294 people who were returned last year in 2020. In that year, the UK was still covered by EU rules because of the transition period.

In 2020 the UK was still party to the EU's "Dublin" regulations. These rules allowed the government to ask other European countries to take people back if it could be proved they passed through safe European countries on their way to the UK.

The government has failed to negotiate direct replacements for the Dublin regulations.

Migrants are helped ashore from a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat at a beach in Dungeness, on the south-east coast of England, on November 24, 2021, after being rescued while crossing the English Channel.

AFP via Getty Images

The coffin of Sir David Amess is carried past politicians, including former Prime Ministers Sir John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the requiem mass for the MP at Westminster Cathedral, central London

PA

The scene in Dragon Rise, Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset where police have launched a murder probe after two people were found dead

Tom Wren/SWNS

London-based midwife Sarah Muggleton, 27, takes part in a 'March with Midwives' in central London to highlight the crisis in maternity services

PA

Police officers monitor as climate change activists sit down and block traffic during a protest action in solidarity with activists from the Insulate Britain group who received prison terms for blocking roads, on Lambeth Bridge in central London

AFP via Getty Images

A giant installation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson made from recycled clothing goes on display at Manchester Central, as part of Manchester Art Fair, in a 'wake-up call for the Prime Minister to tackle textile waste'

PA

The scene at a recycling centre in Stert, near Devizes in Wiltshire after a large blaze was brought under control. The fire broke out on Wednesday night the fire service has said and local residents were advised to keep windows and doors shut due to large amounts of smoke

PA

The sun rises over South Shields Lighthouse, on the North East coast of England

PA

ancer Maithili Vijayakumar at the launch of 2021 Diwali celebrations at St Andrew Square in Edinburgh

PA

Forensic officers work outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, following a car blast, in Liverpool

Reuters

Wreaths by the Cenotaph after the Remembrance Sunday service in Whitehall, London

PA

Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is ending his hunger strike in central London after almost three weeks. Ratcliffe has spent 21 days camped outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London without food. He began his demonstration on 24 October after his wife lost her latest appeal in Iran, saying his family was caught in a dispute between two states

PA

Peter Green protesting outside the Cop26 gates during the official final day of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.

PA

Seagulls fly around the statue entitled 'Tommy', a first World War soldier by artist Ray Lonsdale at dawn in Seaham, Britain

Reuters

Climate activists dressed as characters inspired by the Netflix series Squid Game protest as they ask Samsung to go 100% renewable energy, outside the venue for COP26 in Glasgow

Reuters

A deer statue silhouetted at Loch Faskally in Pitlochry, Scotland

Reuters

Sunrise over St Mary's Lighthouse at Whitley Bay on the North East coast of England

PA

Activists from Friends of the Earth during a demonstration calling for an end to all new oil and gas projects in the North Sea outside the UK Government's Cop26 hub during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow

PA

Protesters take part in a rally organised by the Cop26 Coalition in Glasgow demanding global climate justice

PA

Final touches are made to a life sized Sir David Attenborough cake surrounded by animals as part of a display created by a group of cake artists during Cake International at NEC Birmingham

PA

A spectacular display of the Northern Lights seen over Derwentwater, near Keswick in the Lake District

PA

Police and demonstrators at a Extinction Rebellion protest on Buchanan Street, during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow

PA

A person walks along the Basingstoke canal near to Dogmersfield in Hampshire

PA

Sir David Attenborough delivers a speech during Cop26 in Glasgow

Reuters

Extinction Rebellion activists protest in Edinburgh as the Cop26 conference begins in Glasgow

Getty

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Mapuche leader and Minga Indigena Lead Coordinator Claflin Lafkenche (right) alongside indigenous delegates at a ceremonial gathering at the Tramway in Glasgow in a symbolic gesture to mark a unified demand for climate justice

PA

Ocean Rebellion put on a display of puking oil heads ahead of climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow

EPA

A man dressed as Santa Claus outside Selfridges in London as the department store unveils its Christmas windows on Oxford Street

PA

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to Fourpure Brewery in Bermondsey, London, after the chancellor announced a cut to beer taxes in his budget

PA

Activist Steve Bray demonstrates with a toilet outside the gates of Downing Street, after MPs voted in Parliament against the Environment Bill, allowing companies to pump raw sewage into UK rivers and seas, in London

Reuters

Second World War veteran James White, 96, at the opening of the Edinburgh Garden of Remembrance, marking the start of the remembrance period

PA

Richard Ratcliffe holds up a photo of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he protests outside the Foreign Office while on hunger strike, part of an effort to lobby the UK foreign secretary to bring his wife home from detention in Iran

Getty

Partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Stella Morris and Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsson attend a protest ahead of the appeal hearing over Assange's extradition, in London

Reuters

Palace Gardener Justine Howlett adds the finishing touches to pumpkins bearing the face of Henry VIII and his wives, at Hampton Court Palace.

PA

Flooded fields near Lingfield in Surrey, after southern England was hit overnight by heavy rain and strong winds from Storm Aurore moving in from France

PA

A wing surfer enjoys the strong winds as they surf in the sea off of Hayling Island in Hampshire

PA

Actor Jude Law holds hands with Little Amal, a 3.5-metre-tall puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl, as it arrives in Folkestone, Kent, as part of the Handspring Puppet Company's 'The Walk'

PA

A view over Southend-on-Sea in Essex, which is set to become a city in tribute to Sir David Amess MP, who spent years campaigning for the change

Getty

Members of the Essex Bangladeshi Welfare Association pay their respects by floral tributes laid at the scene where Sir David Amess MP was killed at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea

Reuters

Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, Priti Patel and Lindsay Hoyle pay respects to Sir David Amess at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea, the site of his death

EPA

A person lays flowers at the scene near the Belfairs Methodist Church in Eastwood Road North, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where Conservative MP Sir David Amess has died after he was stabbed several times at a constituency surgery. A man has been arrested and officers are not looking for anyone else

PA

A red deer stag during rutting season in Bushy Park, Richmond, south west London, which is home to over 300 red and fallow deer

PA

Police officers detain a man as Insulate Britain activists block a roundabout at a junction on the M25 motorway during a protest in Thurrock

Reuters

The aerial climate installation by Swiss artivist Dan Acher 'We Are Watching' is unveiled at Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh

PA

A young girl is helped by a Border Force officer as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, following a small boat incident in the Channel.

Read the original here:

How has Brexit affected the migrant crisis? - The Independent

The pub and restaurant group Mitchells & Butlers has warned that problems caused by Brexit and rising costs will hurt the hospitality sector, just as businesses return to profit after the easing of pandemic restrictions.

The company, which owns pub chains including ONeills and restaurant brands such as Harvester, said Brexit was still an important event for the market and had created risks for the sector, most notably around the supply and cost of products and workforce shortages. It said higher energy bills and increased staff wages were also weighing on the sector.

Mitchells & Butlers which also runs All Bar One, Toby Carvery and Miller & Carter said customers began to return to its 1,600 UK venues when lockdown restrictions were relaxed in the spring. Its sales bounced back in August and September and it is now receiving bookings for Christmas parties.

Announcing its annual results, the group said its suburban locations were trading better than those in city centres, as continued home working meant people visited their local rather than a branch near their workplace. Footfall in major cities has been slowly increasing in recent months, a trend the company expects to continue.

Pub and restaurant-goers want to socialise with others in a way they cannot at home following pandemic restrictions, the group said, as it reported a pre-tax loss of 42m for the year to 25 September, compared with 123m a year earlier.

Mitchells & Butlers said it had returned to profitability in recent months and its like-for-like sales were 2.7% higher than pre-Covid levels during the past eight weeks.

Christmas bookings at its venues had begun later than in previous years, but were now coming in, said Phil Urban, the companys chief executive, although this years get-togethers look to be smaller than usual.

We are seeing bookings in the cities and the suburbs, right across all our portfolio, he said.

We have some big venues, particularly in London, that can take some big size parties and what we are probably seeing less of so far, is a company coming in and saying can we take your whole venue for a night. But thats not to say they wont be replaced by people having smaller-sized parties. We are encouraged on bookings.

On Wednesday, wine and spirits companies warned there could be alcohol shortages in the UK over the festive season, as a result of the lack of HGV drivers. Mitchells & Butlers said it had several medium-sized Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans on standby, ready to collect goods from depots in the event of a missed delivery by lorry.

We have product in the supply chain, but either the supplier cant get it to the depot or from the depot to the site. Its a localised issue. The problem is we dont know where it will be until it doesnt turn up, Urban said. He added he was able in some cases to send vans to depots to collect supplies, rather than wait for our logistics to reschedule.

Mitchells & Butlers said it was working to offset the impact of rising costs, but warned they would have a residual impact on its performance in the current financial year.

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Higher utility bills remain a concern for the company, while it will also have to pay its staff more from next April as they benefit from the rise in the national living wage to 9.50 an hour for workers aged 23 and over.

Amid rising costs, the company called for the government to extend the temporary reduction in the rate of VAT on food and sales of non-alcoholic drinks, which currently stands at 12.5% but is due to return to the pre-Covid 20% level next April.

The company said the temporary tax cut was worth 81m to the business during the year to September.

Excerpt from:

Harvester owner warns Brexit and rising costs will dent UK hospitality - The Guardian

The United Kingdom and the European Union are locked in post-Brexit talks which, if left unresolved, could lead to an all-out trade war with Nothern Irish businesses caught in the middle.

Negotiations over Northern Ireland have dragged on for a month, with its agriculture sector being one of the industries directly affected by the feud.

The sector says a trade war would be a lose-lose situation for all.

"I don't see any winners out of a trade war," Victor Chestnutt, head of the Ulster Farmers Union, told Euronews.

"That's not saying it wouldn't happen but I would take a very dim view on either side that started that, - a trade war to try to use any industry, be it farmers or any other industry as pawns in a bigger game. I think I would just be totally wrong in this day and age. I don't think the public would really like it," Chestnutt added.

Britain is threatening to suspend the Northern Ireland protocol, which is the part of the Brexit deal that keeps Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods.

The move has instead led to a de facto border in the Irish Sea between the British mainland and Northern Ireland.

London, despite signing up to the agreement, claims the protocol has burdened businesses with more paperwork.

If the UK suspends the agreement, Brussels said it would respond with trade sanctions.

Meanwhile, for many Northern Irish businesses, the country's unique position represents a huge opportunity.

"We've had regular meetings with the Canadian government, with the US government. They've said, Northern Ireland has great potential as having dual access to the EU and the UK and is unique in the world for that," revealed Seamus Leheny, policy manager for Logistics UK.

"And that's why as the business community we've not been saying to the government 'Let's scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol and invoke Article 16', instead let's reach an agreed outcome with the EU and make it work," he went on.

The Nothern Ireland Protocol was supposed to avoid a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Some say a frontier would threaten a return to the sectarian violence that blighted the region for decades.

However, many in the Unionist community feel this new trading relationship impinges on their British identity, resulting in a flare-up in sectarian tensions.

"People have taken fairly drastic measures as a way to show their frustration and their anger at the Northern Ireland Protocol. I don't believe it's the right way to go. I think we have seen how this story ends. It doesn't end very well when you have people taking firearms back out on the streets of Northern Ireland," noted the Loyalist Community's spokesperson Winston Irvine.

Meanwhile, the UK government has asked for the role of the European Court of Justice the arbiter of EU law to be removed from the protocol, something that Brussels has refused, saying it is impossible and unnecessary.

A survey from Queen's University Belfast found that this was not a major concern for people.

And while the EU and UK try to reconcile their differences, Northern Irish businesses will continue to trade throughout the uncertainty.

See the original post:

The view from Northern Ireland on the UK-EU post-Brexit trade dispute - Euronews

Neale Richmond, Teachta Dala for Dublin Rathdown, shared a picture on Twitter showing ferry routes heading for Ireland's capital. Accompanying the tweet to his followers, he wrote: "Powerful visual from Ireland's development office of the ever-growing state of direct shipping to our largest market, continental Europe, post-Brexit. More to come..." Ireland has been highly critical of how Britain has conducted itself in ongoing negotiations and its continued threat to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

This could see the UK tear up large parts of the agreement for post-Brexit trading arrangements the country, with Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney warning the EU will respond "very robustly".

But Britons have now been quick to mock Irish politician Mr Richmond over his post on Twitter.

Reacting to our initial story, Express reader beirnecol wrote: "The deluded fool doesn't realise it makes Irish products more expensive and we don't have to suffer their lorry pollution - win win for me!"

Gordie1234 commented: "Great. Less congestion and pollution on UK roads.

"Irish trade to the EU via UK was just a nuisance and of no economic benefit."

Express.co.uk reader Lord Baz said: "Brilliant news. Less trucks on the road, less pollution.

"The benefits just get better and better."

Express.co.uk reader Piquetb added: "Excellent news. Fewer polluting lorries can only be good."

READ MORE:Brexit LIVE: Frost to address 1922 Committee as pressure mounts

Like many of his Governmental colleagues, Ireland's foreign minister Mr Coveney has been highly critical of the UK in negotiations with the EU over the implementation of the Protocol.

He has claimed Brussels has made major concessions to Britain, highlighting how proposals from Brussels stated customs checks on food products would be cut by 80 percent, and a new proposal that would allow the UK to approve and send medicines to the province.

Mr Coveney said: "They were the three key issues that businesses and political leaders and civic leaders on the ground in Northern Ireland wanted addressed.

"So, as you would expect, Lord Frost wants more, and the EU is trying to go as far as they possibly can, within the confines of the protocol to respond to what are genuine concerns."

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The UK's Brexit minister Lord Frost also wants the European Court of Justice (ECJ) removed from the Protocol that in which it would act as a so-called referee in future trade disputes between the two sides.

But like the EU, Mr Coveney has also dismissed the possibility of this element being removed.

He added: "I don't think compromise is possible because that's quite a black and white issue.

"What the EU is saying is that the court of the European Court of Justice has got to be the final arbiter on EU law and EU regulations.

"I think that's self-evident."

Later on Wednesday, Lord Frost will address the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs as pressure mounts on him to trigger Article 16 and take decisive action against the EU.

The UK's Brexit minister will address Tory MPs following surging unrest in the Conservative Party over Boris Johnson's leadership.

It will be Lord Frost's first appearance before the 1922 Committee, where he is expected to update MPs on the progress of talks with the EU.

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'Deluded fool!' Irish TD destroyed as he taunts Brexit Britain over ferry route bypass - Daily Express

Michel Barnier stares out from the cover of his new book, My Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion. Distinguished, suave, reassuring, every inch the international civil servant. Not exactly the Professor Moriarty of the right-wing British press, nor the crumpled joker, Boris Johnson, who rode to power on the back of Brexit.

The books sub-title is inadvertently accurate: it contains no spicy insider secrets or major revelations. This is the EU chief negotiators carefully calibrated historical record of 1,600 days of Brexit negotiations. But not all entries, doubtless carefully edited with a diplomats eye on the future, are put through the blander.

This is a chronicle of a hard Brexit foretold. Theresa Mays January 2017 Lancaster House speech ruled out future membership of the Common Market and the Customs Union. This eliminated from the negotiations almost all EU models previously negotiated with countries such as Norway, Iceland or Switzerland. It left Britain, like South Korea and Canada, with a free trade agreement option. Can we be sure, an astonished Barnier asks, that the referendum vote gave the British government carte blanche for such a total break?

Britains red lines, announced before negotiations had begun, defined the UKs negotiating positions and precluded the most mutually advantageous partnership models. British negotiators were stuck with seeking special privileges for a third party country, playing for time in the process, engaging in what the EU saw as cherry picking. Mays appointment of David Davis as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union opposite Barnier, while she herself worked through an experienced, knowledgeable and competent civil servant, Olly (now Sir Oliver) Robbins, didnt help.

On the British side there was misinterpretation, even denial, of the nature of Barniers and the EUs own red lines. The misunderstanding went deeper. As the Brexit Diaryrepeatedly reveals, the way of thinking on both sides was different. Barnier, for instance, insisted on logically sequencing British withdrawal with divorce arrangements first, including UK financial obligations, rights of EU citizens in Britain and British citizens in the EU, peace and stability in Ireland.

Barnier worked from basic principles. The Single Market, as the foundation of the EU, an eco-system involving much more than economics, was inviolable, so between the Single Market and third party economies such as post-Brexit Britain there had to be a level playing-field. Unity amongst the 26 other member states, sustaining unanimous support for the EUs negotiating position, was essential, everyone for all, in short.

The positions of all individual EU negotiating teams on specific topics were derived from these principles everyone for all applied particularly to Gibraltar (Spain), Cyprus (UK military bases) and, of course, Ireland (the Good Friday agreement). Throughout negotiations the EU position remained coherent. Barnier prioritised transparency towards all interested bodies, from the EU Council to Danish fishermen. In contrast, British tactics appeared more like the interplay between a weak trades union and a powerful employer: bluff and piecemeal pursuit of concessions.

The UK had one overarching principle: sovereignty, sometimes just a matter of being seen to Take Back Control. Barnier had the advantage of representing the EU, an international organisation based on the closest possible mutually beneficial co-operation between national sovereignties in a globalised world. He found the British concept of sovereignty, frequently deployed as a trump card at critical moments, irrational.

The EU Commission task-force had other advantages over the British. Barnier was a team player, leading a talented international team which he respected, drawn over the four years of negotiations from 22 different nationalities. He worked tirelessly to keep the different leaderships in Brussels, the Commission President and the different Commissioners, the Council of Ministers and European Parliament, plus member states political leaders, business leaders, academics and trades unions, fully up to date. He was rewarded with broad solidarity and a lack of dissent from his approach and strategy.

In contrast, the Prime Minister, Theresa May, was negotiating on three fronts: with Barniers team, with Brexit hardliners on her back benches and with Northern Irelands DUP, who during her second term, 2017-2019, brazenly took advantage of her slim majority to her detriment. Meanwhile Boris Johnson, a fifth column, was using his role as Foreign Secretary, after resigning as a Daily Telegraph journalist, to position himself for a Conservative Party leadership bid, championing the hardline Brexiteers, prepared if necessary for No Deal.

Barnier kept himself well-informed about the political shenanigans in Whitehall. When Johnson won the decisive second round of the Conservative Party leadership election on 23 July 2019, Barnier was reflecting on his deliver Brexit promise (get Brexit done). Two days later Johnson declared his determination to leave the EU by 31 October and make further discussions dependent on rethinking the Withdrawal Agreement, notably by removing the backstop designed to prevent any physical border within the island of Ireland.

To thwart EU strategy, Britain repeatedly made attempts to bypass Barniers negotiating team by directly contacting EU heads of state and Jean-Claude Junker, President of the Commission, in the hope of gaining support and weakening the Commissions position. The old imperial divide and rule tactic was never going to work. At one point, two key heads of state were refusing to take Boris Johnsons calls. The UK underestimated the degree to which Britains withdrawal and behaviour was counterproductive, uniting a fractious EU divided over immigration policy and threatened by populism in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere.

Reading between Barniers carefully crafted lines, at the political level, from David Davis to Boris Johnson, there was a deplorable lack of preparedness for meetings and grasp of key detail. Following Theresa May, for whom there was some sympathy in Brussels she knew her brief there was a growing loss of trust. But Barnier kept a stiff upper lip. He writes of his commitment to avoiding anger, aggression and vengeance. The tone of the diary entries suggests that he succeeded. But the consistent denigration of malign Brussels intransigence in Britain, coupled with a readiness to tear up international treaties and attempts to re-negotiate hard-won agreements, clearly tried even the most experienced of negotiators on the EU side.

Because the Withdrawal Agreement had come into force, Johnsons threat of an Internal Market Bill in September 2020, enabling the reversal of the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland and a clear-cut threat to breach international law, shocked Brussels. This, Barnier writes, from a country that, for centuries, has built its reputation on the trustworthiness of its signature. Despite such signs of bad faith, negotiations moved forward, shoals of fish in British waters to the left, French fishing boats to the right. An ambitious and fair free trade agreement was reached on Christmas Eve 2020. Forty-seven years of EU membership had ended. Here the book ends, though Brexit problems do not.

The British Government seems to have learned nothing from the negotiations. Barnier has. His valedictory last chapter nods rightwards towards the former Gaullist party, Les Rpublicains, which may or may not select him as their candidate in the coming French Presidential elections. Whether Boris Johnson fights the next general election as the Prime Minister who got Brexit done will depend on excuse the anachronism the men in grey suits. They may be having them dry-cleaned in preparation, or perhaps pre-crumpled as I write.

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How Barnier beat Johnson and May at the game of Brexit - TheArticle

Power has been drawn away from parliament during coronavirus and Brexit, with the government ruling by diktat at times, peers have warned.

Reports by two cross-party House of Lords committees found that laws were being enacted without due scrutiny as ministers have made use of procedures which effectively bypass parliaments role in the legislative process.

The peers said the governments power grab was enabled by a shift to using secondary legislation and other technical measures.

Secondary legislation powers afforded to ministers which require less input by MPs and peers about legal alterations has been employed in the past few years to accomodate for the vast changes to UK law after Brexit and the need to respond quickly to the emerging threat of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (SLSC) and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee (DPRRC) have warned in both their respective reports published on Wednesday against the practice.

They said, as a result of the divergence from using primary legislation, the balance of power between parliament and government has for some time been shifting away from parliament.

They both said: A critical moment has now been reached when that balance must be reset: not restored to how things were immediately before these exceptional recent events, but reset afresh.

Lord Hodgson, chair of the SLSC, said that, while it was understandable that the Covid outbreak meant speed was required in introducing restrictions, government by diktat must not become the norm.

He said that hundreds of laws are being imposed on all of us without effective scrutiny by parliament.

Increasingly the government has made use of secondary legislation, regulations and orders which are subject to a much lower level of scrutiny than primary legislation, he continued.

Given this, it is not surprising that the executive can be tempted to put as much of the law as possible into regulations.

Lord Blencathra, chair of the DPRRC, said it was imperative the powers of parliament and government be rebalanced.

The reports condemn the growing use of so-called skeleton bills that give ministers sweeping powers to make secondary legislation that can be passed with little or no consideration by the two chambers.

They recommend that skeleton bills be used only in the most exceptional circumstances in future, along with a published justification for their use.

Peers also want the Cabinet Offices Guide To Making Legislation to be amended to emphasise that when ministers choose to use such delegated law-making powers, that their decision is based on the principles of parliamentary democracy and not political expediency.

Additional reporting by PA

Original post:

Government has ruled by diktat at times during Brexit and Covid, peers warn - The Independent

Irish farmers ability to grow their potato crops could be affected by the post-Brexit ban on importing seed potatoes from Britain, the Government has been warned.

In a letter to Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue, Scottish seed potato producer John K Lind asked if politicians have forgotten the Famine as he outlined the devastation that diseases can cause toa crop.

In the absence of a major domestic seed potato industry here, Irish farmers have traditionally sourced much of the seed potatoes they use from Scotland. The climate there aids thegrowth of disease-free seed potatoes.

Brexit means that seed potatoes can no longer be exported from Britain to the European Union as phytosanitary regulations are not aligned.

There has been concern among Irish farmers that bringing in more continental seed potatoes increases the risk of importing diseases such as brown rot, which present in some European countries.

Mr Lind, a partner at J&WF Lind in Aberdeenshire, wrote to Mr McConalogue to raise his concern at the situation.

He said the company was a high-grade producer in Scotland that provided the seed potatoes for predominant table varieties used in Ireland like British Queen, Record, Kerrs Pink and Golden Wonder.

Writing at the end of September, Mr Lind said these varieties are currently in the ground, as they were already in the pipeline for distribution in Ireland.

He said the company took a risk in doing this and it stands to make a loss on the crop.

Mr Lind added: The cost to us of the one-year loss that we will incur this year will be small compared to the collective losses possibly accrued by the Irish growers over the following four years. Four years is the approximate lead-in time for developing a seed potato crop.

He calls the prohibition on British seed potatoes in the EU a weak decision, especially as Irish politicians sit at the European table setting important strategy.

Mr Lind wrote: It seems incredible that politicians could choose to act politically instead of practically, considering the importance of potatoes, being the staple of the Irish populations diet.

The Irish potato industry would not be looking for solutions to get around the regulations if there was not a need to secure clean seed, he added.

Mr Lind wrote: Have the politicians forgotten (or are ignoring) one of the biggest impact life events of Irish history the Potato Famine?

He said: Viruses can devastate yields and quality, just as blight did then. This is possibly even riskier when you consider the possible effects of climate change.

He asked: Are the politicians ready to take responsibility for the consequences of losses in the Irish domestic potato supply?

Mr Lind expressed a hope that his letter helps the Minister to make an informed contribution at the European top table.

Minister of State for Agriculture Pippa Hackett replied to Mr Linds letter last month.

She said the Department of Agriculture is acutely aware of the need of the Irish Potato Industry to access high-grade seed potato material from GB/Scotland.

She said Ireland has repeatedly requested the EU to allow for a temporary derogation to facilitate the import of such seed material from Great Britain in the interest of our own potato industry.

However, the EU has not granted this in the absence of a commitment from the UK on dynamic alignment with EU phytosanitary rules.

She added: Notwithstanding the above, in the interest of the Irish potato industry, Ireland continues to engage with the EU Commission and other member states in relation to the current barriers on imports of GB seed potato material to the Irish and EU market.

Excerpt from:

Irish potato industry could be mashed by Brexit seed ban, Minister told - The Irish Times

The 2017 election taught Labour how to lose and the Conservatives how to win. So said Robert Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester and the lead author of the definitive study of the 2019 election, at the launch of the book last night.

By which he meant that Labour surprised itself and everyone else by coming so close in the 2017 election that it foolishly thought it had to do the same but more so next time. Hence the even more overloaded and implausible manifesto shopping list, the facing both ways on Brexit, and the letting Jeremy Corbyn have a second go.

The Tories, on the other hand, learned what not to do. The inner-party slogan for the 2019 campaign was: What we did in 2017? Dont do that. They got themselves a leader who enjoyed campaigning; they had an election for a reason that the voters agreed with (Get Brexit Done rather than Give me a bigger majority to deal with some distant threat to getting Brexit done); they promised more spending on public services; and they didnt propose a dementia tax.

See the original post here:

Brexit loyalties will play a key role in the next general election | John Rentoul - The Independent

Any political project in the UK must, in the end, encounter and overcome the civil servants of the Treasury: the staff who run the most powerful government department in Whitehall. In the 11 years from 2005 to 2016, Nick Macpherson served as permanent secretary to the Treasury the tax and spending plans of three administrations (Blair, Brown and Cameron)had to clear his desk. As the Treasurys lead civil servant, Macpherson helped construct the budgets of three chancellors, becoming the longest serving Treasury perm sec since the Second World War. He stepped down shortly before the 2016 Brexit referendum.

The civil servants atop the Treasury play a pivotal role in British politics, even though they are unelected and essentially unknown. Their judgements of what is and is not possible or advisable can embolden or deter the politicians they serve. The Treasury is not scrupulously neutral,it has a view: one crafted by centuries of trial and error, and inflected by the biases of its key civil servants at any one time. A chancellor may disregard the Treasury view, but few chancellors wish to war outright with the staff carrying out their plans.

In short, the Treasury view matters, and Macpherson who joined the department in 1985, when bunk beds still housed overnight staff and new employees had only recently stopped being given a towel and bar of soap on arrival is well-qualified to offer it. He does not speak on behalf of his successors at the Treasury, and is distant from their discussions today, but he worked closely with (and helped to hire) many of them. They share a mindset.

Macpherson is complimentary of Rishi Sunaks recent Budget, and the way he has staggered significant tax hikes over the past year. It was quite clever, he told me over lunch in Westminster, as last months budget was in effect the third of the year. The one in March had a big increase in corporation tax, and a classic stealth tax with the freezing of the income tax threshold the rate at which people start paying income tax. Such a freeze, Macpherson said, is a brilliant stealth tax at a time when inflation is rising.

Secondly, by floating the proposal of a 1.25 per cent rise in National Insurance to help fund social care over the summer, Sunak managed to make his October budget all about how you spend it. He even managed to throw in a tax reform on alcohol, Macpherson noted, admiringly.

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But he is also concerned. The tax rises are ambitiousif realised, they would bring the UKs tax take to its sustained highest level since the late 1940s. Macpherson doubts that will happen: either tax revenues will be weaker than forecast, as he expects, or taxes will be cut ahead of the next election ifthe projections on the tax take prove to be robust.

Macpherson is, in part, sceptical of projections becauseBritain is set to grow slowly in the 2020s, as it did in the 2010s after the financial crisis of 2008. If the Office of Budget Responsibility [OBR] are right, Macpherson said, living standards and productivity will continue to stagnate, and Sunak will have a massive problem funding public services the national income simply wont be there to give him the revenues [both] to fund them and cut debt.

The OBR has made it clear that Brexit is a key driver of our subdued future growth: a fact that Labour has proven reluctant to highlight, allowing Boris Johnson and Sunak to ignore it. In the OBRs forecasts, Brexit is set to reduce UK GDP by 4 per cent over the long run, while the economic scarring from Covid is forecast to be only half as great, at 2 per cent.

Many economists predicted this and many proponents of Brexit accepted it as a price worth paying in exchange for tighter borders and greater sovereignty. But some ardent backers of Brexit maintained that leaving the EU, a protectionist bloc, would in fact increase Britains trade and wealth. Macpherson is quietly caustic about such boosterism. Maybe Brexit will unleash animal spirits that none of us have yet detected, he suggested with wry scepticism, but the idea that Brexit has liberalised trade is just nonsense.

The plain fact is that almost all the trade deals we are doing are not much better than any deal the EU has done with that country, he said. In many cases, they are worse: You only have to look at the restrictions of theborder, he pointed out, referring to the chaos seen at Dover and other ports as lorries queue up to get their paperwork stamped.

One of the Treasurys unifying principles since the 19th century has been the importance of free trade. Brexit is a spanner in that long narrative. The single market gave us extraordinary access to a market where trade on goods was totally free and it was becoming freer still with services.

Macpherson likes to refer to Brexit as a Jacobin revolution, and he thinks its revolutionary fervour has ways to run. But at some point, he told me, a leader Labour or Tory will have a grown-up conversation with the British people, and say, Look, come on, we need to make it easier to trade. Within 15 years, he predicted, the UK will settle down to a relationship which has aspects of the customs union and single market whilst being very clearly outside the EU. In his estimation, we were never properly in the EU in any case noting Britains reluctance to sign up to key EU policies such as the Schengen Agreement and the euro.

I asked finally about the politics of austerity the prolonged programme of spending cuts that the New Statesman long opposed, and which arguably fuelled support for Brexit. Macpherson ran the Treasury at the time. His civil servant team enacted George Osbornes programme of cuts. Macpherson today sees those measures as having disproportionately fallen on the poorer with things like benefit cutswhile the better off, perhaps, didnt make the same contribution.

We could have been more in it together, he conceded. You could certainly argue that.

[See also: Chris Bryant interview: Labour should put the ministerial code into law]

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The idea that Brexit has liberalised trade is just nonsense - Treasury grandee Nick Macpherson - New Statesman

In an article first published in the October print edition of Byline Times, Chris Grey explores how continuing dishonesty around the entire Brexit project is resulting in continuing incompetence from the Government when it comes to dealing with its impact

The genius of the Vote Leave campaign was to convincingly propose that Brexit would be cost-free and to demonise all claims to the contrary as Project Fear. It was certainly never sold as Brexit at any cost or as something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

In fact, since the day after the 2016 Referendum result, the costs have been stacking up, often in the invisible form of growth foregone or investments not made. They are also being paid by just about every business sector in new trading and regulatory requirements, but the details of that are mainly only known to insiders in particular industries rather than being obvious as a big picture to the general public.

Thus, it has only really been since the end of the Brexit transition period that there have been visible signs of the huge structural transformation that Britain is undergoing.

Rotting fish and unharvested crops were early examples but, now, with sustained shortages in shops and, especially, long queues for petrol, there is something like a Brexit crisis beginning. Although the current fuel disruption will probably ease as people fill their tanks, in the absence of a sustainable solution to the driver shortage, it is always liable to recur. Meanwhile, the normal winter spike in demand for EU fresh produce will exacerbate food shortages.

Of course, the causes and effects are very complex, and many other factors including most obviously the Coronavirus pandemic are in play.

Brexiters are quick to point these out and, in doing so, easily slip from correctly saying that Brexit is not the only cause to falsely implying that this means it can be entirely discounted. The key point is that, while many countries may be experiencing similar problems, in Britain, uniquely, there is the additional and self-chosen burden of Brexit, which is why it is only here that we see panic buying of petrol, for example.

Some of that burden is inherent to Brexit itself, but the extent of it is also to do with the hard form of Brexit Boris Johnsons Government chose. Then, within that, it is to do with the incompetence with which that form was implemented.

Here, the architects of Brexit were prisoners of their own propaganda about its costlessness. The consequence was that, even assuming Brexit was a desirable thing, far too little planning and preparation was undertaken, because doing so would have entailed admitting the costs that were denied.

Instead, Brexiters, including Johnson, persisted with the fantasy that there was some magical form of trade deal whereby the UK could have its cake and eat it. Indeed, even as he signed the deal with the EU which allowed anything but that, the Prime Minister claimed to have confounded his critics by negotiating such a cakeist agreement.

This is why now, for instance, we are in the ludicrous situation where the EU was ready to implement controls on imports from the UK at the end of the transition period, whereas the UK has yet again delayed introducing full controls on imports from the EU. But the need for such controls was apparent from the moment, in January 2017, that Theresa May announced that Brexit would mean leaving both the customs union and the single market.

Since such things were still dismissed by Brexiters as Project Fear, little if anything was done to prepare. Even by July 2020, with the pandemic raging, when the UK still had the option to extend the transition period to give it more time to get ready, blind ideology trumped pragmatism and the chance was squandered.

Similarly, the logistics and haulage industries have been warning for years about how Brexit would affect them, but were dismissed as doom-mongers. Even now as those warnings have been proved true, there are anonymous ministerial briefings about diehard Remainers being responsible for stoking panic.

Meanwhile, it is already clear that the belated and grudging offer of temporary visas for HGV drivers is an entirely inadequate response to the magnitude of the problem created by ending freedom of movement even in the haulage industry, let alone all of the other sectors, such as social care, which face desperate staff shortages.

The dishonesty with which Brexit was proposed continues to contribute to the incompetence with which it is being delivered. This intertwines with Johnsons reckless drive to get Brexit done, without regard for what he was agreeing to. That is most obvious with the Northern Ireland Protocol, which he proclaimed to be a huge triumph of his negotiation because it removed Mays backstop. But it did so by creating an Irish Sea border, which from the outset he denied and which he now says is totally unacceptable. Yet, he and his MPs campaigned on it as a great oven-ready deal, voted for it in Parliament, and signed up to it in a binding international treaty.

Dishonesty and recklessness can work as political tactics for a while, but eventually reality catches up and this is what we are now witnessing in the economic crisis over supplies and the political crisis over Northern Ireland.

It is impossible to turn the clock back, and there is little point in anyone saying we told you so. But we collectively, as a country do need to understand what has created this situation if we are to begin to mend it. Central to doing so is to start being honest about the rising costs of Brexit and to identify what needs to be done to reduce them.

That does not mean re-joining the EU, which would be unacceptable to both the UK and the EU, at least until such a time as there is large, sustained, and genuinely enthusiastic support for that in the UK. But it could mean recognising that increased customs costs due to not having a UK-EU customs union far outweigh the benefits of the independent trade policy which having no customs union allows. That has always been true, and is all the more obvious now that it is clear that there is no UK-US trade deal in prospect. Along with aligning on food and related standards, this would also go a long way to addressing the Northern Ireland situation, rather than persisting with former Brexit chief negotiator David Frosts aggressive and, worse, unrealistic blustering.

It could also mean seeking single market membership via the European Free Trade Association something like the Norway Brexit that, for so long, we were told would be desirable. That would do much to remove the ludicrous regulatory hurdles UK businesses are now facing, for example in having to use the UKCA standard mark to sell products here and the CE mark to sell identical products in the EU.

This is another change that has been postponed because of a lack of readiness, and one which also illustrates the hidden costs of Brexit that are ramping up beneath the headline stories of shortages.

These choices were available to us after the Referendum and were not taken a big reason being that single market membership entails freedom of movement of people.

But we have already begun to see how vital that is for Britain and this is going to continue, if only because the age profile of the British population means that, even if wages and work conditions massively improve, there simply arent enough people of working age here. It just wasnt true that British people were having their jobs taken by EU workers. Weve also begun to see what has been lost to British people who want to work, study or retire on the continent. Despite the claims of some Brexiters, these things have not simply continued regardless of Brexit.

The key point is that we are not forever bound by those choices, made as they were in a highly toxic and impassioned political atmosphere. As in our personal lives, it is perfectly possible and sometimes wise to admit that mistakes have been made, to learn from them, and to put them right. Doing so would not be cost-free either and involves eating a certain amount of humble pie as a nation, just as, in our private lives, it can be hard to put things back on track after making a bad decision. But it would be a very harsh world in which people were not allowed to try to do so, and an absurd political world in which countries forbade themselves from doing this.

Of course, the biggest obstacle to this is the hardcore Brexiters. But they have had their chance. They promised that Brexit would be costless and we now know for a fact that it is not. The result of the Referendum has been fully honoured: the UK has left the EU and we certainly wont be re-joining again without another referendum.

So now we are fully entitled to make the best of what being out of the EU means rather than clinging with ideological dogmatism to that particular version which, between them, May and Johnson delivered. We are not prisoners of those decisions regardless of the crisis they are now creating. We can, to quote a phrase, take back control.

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Out Of Control Brexit Britain Can Still Be Steered Clear of Chaos Byline Times - Byline Times