Daily Archives: January 3, 2022

One year to the day since the UK left the European Unions economic structures, the people of Britain believe Brexit has done the country more harm than good, according to a new poll.

The exclusive Savanta survey for The Independent reveals that, on issues ranging from the economy to red tape to Britains ability to control its borders, more voters believe Brexit has worsened the UKs position than improved it.

Almost six out of 10 (57 per cent) believeBoris Johnson lied to them about whatBrexitwould be like during the bitter referendum campaign of 2016.

And by a clear margin, they said that the Remain campaigns forecasts of damage to the economy and increased red tape from Brexit have proved more accurate than the Leave campaigns promises, such as the claim on Mr Johnsons bus that EU withdrawal would deliver 350m a week for the NHS.

By a slim majority of 51 to 49 per cent respondents said that if they could vote again, they would opt to rejoin the EU with younger voters hugely more enthusiastic than the old for renewed membership.

More than half of those questioned (51 per cent) want a referendum on rejoining at some point, with 39 per cent saying it should come in the next five years, compared to just 32 per cent who say the issue should never be reopened.

The figures represent a significant blow to Mr Johnsons claim central to his platform at the last election that EU withdrawal would deliver a boost to Britain and encourage a new spirit of confidence, optimism and unity.

In a message released today to mark the anniversary, the prime minister said that his Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with the EU had allowed UK companies to seize new trading opportunities around the world and freed the government to establish a regulatory regime suited to British interests.

However, the bulk of the 70 trade deals which he hailed as a benefit of Brexit were no more than rollover agreements maintaining arrangements which the UK already enjoyed as an EU member, while government figures suggest that others with Australia and New Zealand will boost GDP by only a tiny fraction of 1 per cent, compared to the 4 per cent loss expected from leaving the EU.

Other benefits claimed by Mr Johnson included a faster Covid vaccine rollout, the introduction of a points-based immigration system, simplification of alcohol duties, the abolition of the Tampon Tax and the restoration of the crown stamp on the side of pint glasses.

Promising to maximise the benefits of Brexit so that we can thrive as a modern, dynamic and independent country, he added: The job isnt finished and we must keep up the momentum.

In the year ahead my government will go further and faster to deliver on the promise of Brexit and take advantage of the enormous potential that our new freedoms bring.

But todays poll suggested that few voters have yet experienced benefits from EU withdrawal.

When asked what effect Brexit had so far had on the UKs interests generally, some 38 per cent said it had been damaging, against just 27 per cent who said it had improved matters.

Even among Leave voters, only 39 per cent said that Brexit had been good for the UKs interests, with 34 per saying it had made no difference and 18 per cent saying it had been harmful.

Former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine, a leading figure in the Remain campaign, toldThe Independentthat the survey reflected a growing realisation among voters that they had been misled about the supposed benefits of Brexit for the UK.

The British people were deceived, said Lord Heseltine. The Brexit campaign was based on a range of emotional prejudices that set a mood of national frustration.

This poll reflects a growing disenchantment as people recognise the scale of the deception. A year from now it will be worse.

The UK formally left the EU on 31 January 2020, but a transition period meant that it remained in the single market and customs union and continued to observe Brussels laws until 11pm on 31 December.

The 12 months since Brexit have been overshadowed by the Covid pandemic.

But todays poll suggests that voters have so far felt more downsides than benefits from EU withdrawal.

Judging whether Brexit had worsened or improved a range of aspects of British life, in every case respondents answered in the negative.

A clear majority (59 per cent) said EU withdrawal had damaged relations with the UKs European neighbours, compared to 14 per cent who said they had improved.

More than half (51 per cent) said Brexit had made it more difficult to access a range of goods and services, compared to 18 per cent who said availability had improved.

Some 45 per cent said the burden of bureaucracy on UK businesses and citizens had increased as a result of leaving the EU, while just 21 per cent believed it had reduced.

On the economy generally, 44 per cent said Brexit had been harmful and 24 per cent beneficial.

Even on Britains ability to control its own borders one of the central promises of the Leave campaign just 23 per cent said Brexit had helped, against 43 per cent who said it had made matters worse.

Some 41 per cent said the UK had become less united and 24 per cent more united as a result. And 39 per cent said Britain had less global influence, compared to 23 per cent who said it had more.

New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London

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Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year

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Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland

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The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket

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Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London

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A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London

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Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham

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Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip

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People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London

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Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester

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The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge.

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People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year

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An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton

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Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux

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Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent

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Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election

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Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire

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Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle

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The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool

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People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster

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People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds

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People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds,

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Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

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Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service

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Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine

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Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow

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A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra

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People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother

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People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square

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A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London

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Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum

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Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar

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Workers put the finishing touches to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree ahead of the lighting ceremony later in the week

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Home Secretary Priti Patel is greeted by a police dog at a special memorial service for Met Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana

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Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City battles for possession with Aaron Cresswell of West Ham United during a match at the Etihad during snow

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Residents clear branches from a fallen tree in Birkenhead, north west England as Storm Arwen triggered a rare red weather warning

AFP via Getty Images

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Brexit poll: One year on, voters believe leaving EU has harmed UKs interests - The Independent

A British cheesemaker who predicted Brexit would cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds in exports has called the UKs departure from the EU single market a disaster, after losing his entire wholesale and retail business in the bloc over the past year. Simon Spurrell, the co-founder of the Cheshire Cheese Company, said personal advice from a government minister to pursue non-EU markets to compensate for his losses had proved to be an expensive joke.

It turns out our greatest competitor on the planet is the UK government because every time they do a fantastic deal, they kick us out of that market starting with the Brexit deal, he said.

Spurrell predicted in January that Brexit would cost him 250,000 in sales. We lost 270,000, so I got one thing right, he said, describing the post-Brexit EU trade deal as the biggest disaster that any government has ever negotiated in the history of trade negotiations.

His online retail business was hit immediately after the Brexit negotiator David Frost failed to secure a frictionless trade deal addressing sales to individual customers in the EU.

Spurrell said he had lost 20% of sales overnight after discovering he needed to provide a 180 health certificate on each order, including gift packs costing 25 or 30. He said the viability of his online retail had come to a dead stop.

After he embarked on a personal crusade to draw attention to the plight of UK exporters involving almost 200 media interviews around the world, he was invited to an online meeting with Victoria Prentis, a minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She suggested that emerging markets could compensate for the Brexit-related hole in the Cheshire Cheese Companys finances.

Spurrell said he had pursued new business in Norway and Canada but post-Brexit trade deals sealed by the government had put barriers in place.

We no longer have any ability to deal with the EU as our three distributors in Germany, France and Italy have said we have become too expensive because of the new checks and paperwork.

And now weve also lost Norway since the trade deal, as duty for wholesale is 273%. Then we tried Canada but what the government didnt tell us is that duty of 244% is applied on any consignment over $20 [15].

That meant Canadian customers who ordered a gift pack worth 50, including transport fees, were asked to pay 178 extra in duty when the courier arrived at their door, Spurrell said. As you can imagine, customers were saying: You can take that back, we dont want it anymore.

Norwegian duty on a 30 cheese pack amounted to 190 extra, he said.

Spurrell is now pursuing the domestic market with greater vigour but says the cost of marketing has gone through the roof because all his competitors are having to do the same.

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Before we could sell across the EU, now we are all fishing in the same pond. We used to be the biggest online sellers but now we are absolutely bombarded with attacks by all our cheese rivals because they are buying all the ads on Google to try to beat us. These are competitors who would never have bothered us before, he said.

The sad thing, Spurrell said, is that it is the small to medium-sized companies such as his, important employers up and down the country, have been hammered by Brexit and other trade deals struck by the government, rather than giant rivals.

He noted that the Canadian company Saputo, with a market capital of more than C$14bn (8.3bn), had done well out of the Norwegian deal as producers of three of the four premier cheeses singled out for significantly reduced tariffs.

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Brexit: the biggest disaster any government has ever negotiated - The Guardian

The European Union could hand Britain a huge win early on this year as Brussels scrambles to wrap up the ongoing Brexit negotiations. Political expert Marc Roche told BBC Dateline that Liz Truss could be the one to finish off the Brexit rows. Mr Roche, who writes for the French weekly Le Point, said the EU was keen to wrap up talks before the French presidential elections.

With Liz Truss taking over from Lord David Frost and the French election, BBC host Shaun Ley questioned whether a deal could be struck.

He asked: "Is it possible for a reset of the UK-EU relationship and a more positive one?"

Mr Roche started off by lashing out at Lord Frost's legacy in Brussels.

The expert claimed that the Europeans loathed Lord Frost "even more than Boris Johnson".

JUST IN:Brexit: 'Isn't worth the hassle' alarm as UK businesses hit

He said: "Well, good riddance that Frost has gone. He was hated in Brussels.

"He was an ideologue. He was saying something different in private and then in public. He was unemotional, he was a cold fish.

"Liz Truss could be the one to finish Brexit because she is a pragmatist I think.

"There is also a lot of goodwill on the European side to solve the issue of Northern Ireland and migrants because Europe wants to move on.

Mr Coveney urged a conclusion to the talks by February, before elections in Northern Ireland.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has called on Ms Truss to provide a clear date for ending the talks.

Later on BBC Dateline, Mr Roche also predicted that Valrie Pcresse will beat Emmanuel Macron if the right-wing Les Rpublicains candidate makes it into the second round.

Analysts say Ms Pcresse poses a formidable threat to the president as she targets his voters on the centre-ground of French politics.

Mr Roche said: "She is a traditional right-wing Gaullist and Macron will lose, because part of the left will go for a Gaullist.

"Macron is hated by the left because he is seen as a president of the rich."

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'The one to finish Brexit!' Truss backed to strike early EU deal before French elections - Daily Express

The recent Savanta poll on the UKs departure from the EU a year ago only confirms a growing sense that the phoney Brexit phase is over and that from now on Britain is facing the full consequences of its decision to support the hardest of a withdrawal agreement that only just fell short of no deal in its negative impact

While it may be the case that a majority of older voters would still opt to leave in any second referendum, time and the experiences of their younger fellow citizens, facing the prospect of further restrictions on goods and access to Europe whether for business, education, work or leisure will very likely lead to a growing clamour to revisit the decision over five years ago in a similar way the Tory government of the early 1960s re-assessed its international position and concluded that the only realistic future for Britain lay with Europe.

Paul Dolan

Originally posted here:

Letters: The UK is set to face the full consequences of Brexit - The Independent

Sir, David OFlanagan is kind enough to respond to my suggestion that we could, perhaps, disagree better about Brexit (Letters, January 1st). On at least one matter I can reassure him. I am not at all saddened to hear that many people share Fintan OTooles astute analysis of Brexit (Its the first birthday of the Brexit hole and they have to keep digging, Opinion & Analysis, December 28th).

I happen to disagree with Fintan OToole about some (not all) of that analysis, but my point was that such disagreements do not need to descend into diatribe. There are perfectly rational arguments both for and against Brexit and thoughtful debate should reflect that.

This was exactly the point I was attempting to make in commending The Irish Times letters page for representing different shades of opinion on Brexit and its consequences. Too many news outlets, from both sides of the argument, have failed to do this and stuck to rigidly partisan lines.

When I wrote that the truth about Brexit was dull, I did not mean to minimise the undoubted problems it has caused, merely to suggest that overall the UKs withdrawal from the European Union is neither as bad, nor as good, as the most passionate on either side sometimes suggest.

That said, I can see that Ireland is a special case. Did I think about Ireland when I voted leave? In truth, no, but as things have turned out I can see that I should have done. The post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland remain one of the most challenging problems. To solve them we do need to discuss the issue in a civilised way. Yours, etc,

DAVID HARRIS,

Poole,

Dorset, UK.

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Brexit finding the middle ground - The Irish Times

A British student is spending the festive season in Spain rather than with family because Spanish red tape combined with Brexit means she cannot leave the country while her visa is processed.

Lucy Taylor, 21, from East Sussex, is a Warwick University student on her year abroad. Until 2021 she would have been able to spend the academic year in Spain without formality.

But since the Brexit transition phase ended a year ago, British students require visas to study in any of the 27 European Union nations.

Ms Taylor applied for her visa for Spain in June one of a mountain of applications from British students, workers and property owners. She was permitted to enter the country and begin her studies in Madrid in September.

Were she to leave Spain before the visa is processed, she would not be allowed back in due to the long-standing rule than non-EU citizens may stay no more than 90 days in any 180.

Im not able to leave Spain until I get my visa, so I havent been able to get back to the UK for the Christmas holidays.

Because of commitments and responsibilities at home, my family werent able to come out to see me either.

She spent her 21st birthday which fell on Christmas Day in the Spanish capital. With no prospect of returning to the UK for New Years Eve, a British friend is visiting her instead.

Ms Taylor was too young to vote in the 2016 EU referendum which Leave won by more than one million votes.

Speaking from her flat in Madrid, she said: Theres no guarantee of when I may get my visa, and with term restarting on 5 January Ive got full-on lectures, so Im not sure when Ill be able to see them it may be Easter.

She said the Spanish bureaucracy appears to be less efficient than other countries. I know some British people studying in other countries who do not appear to be having the same problems as I have.

I know people in France who have managed to get a French visa, so in part it may be due to the Spanish being slow and the Madrid administration is the slowest at processing these things.

But at the root of it: if we hadnt left the EU, I wouldnt have to worry about any of this.

The UK has withdrawn from the Erasmus programme which began life as the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students.

The government says: We are developing the new Turing Scheme to support thousands of students to study and work abroad.

Read more:

Brexit forces British student to spend Christmas and New Year in Madrid - The Independent

Three months before he won the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump gave himself a new nickname: Mr. Brexit. After the nation voted to break away from the rest of Europe, Trump appeared at Turnberry, his golf course in Scotland, and commended the Brits who took back their country. He later said Brexit was a great advantage for [the] UK. But, in true Trumpian fashion, Brexit wasnt great for Trump personally. According to a financial disclosure filed with Scottish authorities and signed by Eric Trump, Brexit impacted our business as supply chains have been impacted by availability of drivers and staff, reducing deliveries and availability of certain product lines.

Turnberry has since seen higher prices, which have increased from additional freight and import duty charges, the filing states. Staff availability has been a challenge from a combination of wage inflation with retail and logistics sectors increasing wages to attract staff due to increased business levels, it says. And, it explains, [T]he staffing pool has been reduced with lack of access to European staff for businesses in general resulting in greater demand for individuals previously available to the resort.

Link:

'Mr. Brexit' Donald Trump's Scotland Golf Resorts Crushedby Brexit - The Daily Beast