Daily Archives: June 20, 2022

A truck arrives at Larne port in County Antrim, where a customs post has been established as part of the Northern Ireland Protocol, on November 29, 2021. Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A truck arrives at Larne port in County Antrim, where a customs post has been established as part of the Northern Ireland Protocol, on November 29, 2021.

When the United Kingdom officially left the European Union, Northern Ireland stayed behind in one significant way.

The country effectively remained part of the EU's single market for goods, a concept that allows goods to move freely among the member states. That condition was called the Northern Ireland Protocol.

This week, the U.K. government announced a proposal to rework part of the agreement it made with the EU during Brexit in a move one European official called "illegal."

It's set off an international trade dispute between the U.K. and the EU, and threatened to disrupt the relative peace in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement was reached in 1998.

"When we look at people's concerns around the protocol, above all else, no matter what background people are from, their concern is for political stability in Northern Ireland," Katy Hayward, a professor of political sociology at Queen's University Belfast, told NPR.

"I think this is why a majority of people are very keen for the UK and the EU to find their way back to the negotiating table fairly quickly."

When Brexit took effect, it meant that the Republic of Ireland remained in the EU while Northern Ireland left the bloc.

In lieu of creating a land border on the island of Ireland, officials agreed to allow Northern Ireland to effectively stay in the EU's single market, a deal that was known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.

That meant that goods coming into Northern Ireland from England, Scotland and Wales had to meet EU standards and were subject to other rules governing the single market.

Britain has delayed implementing post-Brexit import controls several times, Reuters reported.

The government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who narrowly survived a recent no-confidence vote, is now the driving force behind a new bill that would undo parts of the protocol.

The proposal by Johnson's government would allow goods to flow into Northern Ireland under either UK or EU rules. It aims to lessen costs and paperwork for businesses in the UK.

Finally, disputes that are currently resolved by the European Court of Justice would instead go to independent arbitration under the proposal.

"This is a reasonable, practical solution to the problems facing Northern Ireland," Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement.

"Let's call a spade a spade: this is illegal," Maro efovi, the European Union's vice president for interinstitutional relations and foresight, said on Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had spoken with Truss and discussed the "need to continue negotiations with the EU to find solutions" regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The UK proposal also renewed fears of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, a possibility that the protocol explicitly aimed to avoid to maintain the relative peace between the two countries.

Decades of violence between nationalists and unionists known as the Troubles largely ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

But Hayward said she heard concerns about the return of a hard border while doing research in the region during the Brexit withdrawal negotiations from 2017 onward.

"It wasn't so much the question of customs checks and controls that people were concerned about," she said. "It immediately evoked those memories that people had of the Troubles and of blocked roads and of army checks."

In response to the recent proposal, the European Commission announced on Wednesday that it was launching infringement proceedings against the U.K. for violating the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The complaints include accusations that the UK is understaffed at border control posts in Northern Ireland and isn't carrying out the required controls. Additionally, the commission said the UK has failed to provide certain trade data related to Northern Ireland.

The commission also relaunched another infringement proceeding it first filed in 2021 "notably regarding the certification requirements for the movement of agri-food."

A spokesperson for Johnson said the government was "disappointed" by the commission's legal action.

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A trade dispute between the U.K. and the EU erupts over post-Brexit deal - NPR

Remainer George Osborne has predicted that the UK will be back in the European Union in 20 years' time.

The former Conservative Chancellor claimed Brexit has "caused a lot of damage to Britain's economy".

Speaking to LBC, Mr Osborne said: "Politics can't defy reality it's not unimaginable in 20 years time, to have a set of economic arrangements with the EU which aren't too distant from the economic arrangements we had when we were in the EU.

"In many ways, the people I respect most are the Brexiteers who say there's an economic cost to Brexit, but there are other benefits, such as parliamentary control, and sovereignty over our borders.

"What was nonsense and remains nonsense are the people who say Brexit was a great economic move to benefit the British economy, or a great act of free trade.

"It was the biggest act of protectionism in British history, and that is only now really, now it's fully implemented, becoming clear, and that's why free trade with Europe has got to be a priority for whoever the government in the next few years."

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Brexit LIVE: 'Real threat' EU mask slips as bitter plot to punish Britain backfires - Express

In the resurfaced BBC EU Election debate clip the then Sinn Fein MEP and convicted IRA bomber clashed with other Northern Irish politicians over the Brexit backstop which later transformed into the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol. Martina Anderson, who has since stepped down as an MEP, was slapped down after suggesting the backstop was needed to prevent "contaminating" produce from reaching the island of Ireland from Great Britain.

In the BBC Northern Ireland EU election night debate from 2019, Ms Anderson told the audience that the Brexit backstop is needed to prevent "contaminated produce" from Britain.

She said: "What [the backstop] presents is contaminated produce perhaps coming from Britain onto the island of Ireland."

"Oh come on!" a fellow panellist can be heard yelling which sparks a round of applause from the crowd.

TUV leaderJim Allister then makes a pointed remark about Ms Anderson's former involvement in the Irish Republican Army's bombing campaign.

He told the audience: "This is someone who contaminated GB with bombs!"

Michelle O'Neill has warned that the British Government's plan to enact legislation to scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol will have "colossal political and economic consequences".

The Sinn Fein Stormont leader said that Boris Johnson's plan to override parts of the protocol has "sounded alarm bells" across Europe and America.

Speaking at the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown, Co Kildare, the first minister-designate told the crowd that it was an "irrefutable fact" that the protocol is working.

"Boris Johnson is incapable of accepting in a straightforward, honest, and truthful way that this is the case," Ms O'Neill added.

"The attempts this week by Boris Johnson to sabotage the protocol in plain sight have sounded the alarm bells right across Ireland, Britain, Europe, and America, awakening all those who value the Good Friday Agreement and who care deeply about safeguarding our peace and progress of the past quarter-century.

"It is not taken lightly that this British Government discards international law at a whim in such a reckless way, and only ever in their own selfish interests.

"Boris Johnson knows that to gamble the protocol is to jeopardise the British Government's agreement with the EU on their withdrawal and future trading relationship with colossal political and economic impact.

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"The Tories have no mandate on this island.

"However, a majority of those MLAs recently elected do and there is a majority in the Assembly who support the protocol because it is working, giving us continued access to the European single market, creating jobs and economic benefit."

Ms O'Neill called for all of Northern Ireland to re-enter the EU and said the Irish Government "must plan for constitutional change".

"We need re-entry back into the EU for all of Ireland," she added.

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Brexit backstop needed to stop UK 'contaminating' Ireland, MEP warns in unearthed clip - Express

The Prime Minister penned a piece in the Telegraph which championed the Commonwealth and praised Brexit Britain for taking advantage of the opportunity to strengthen ties with old allies after leaving the European Union. The Commonwealth has played a leading role in 2022 and will continue to do so until the year comes to a close.

Many people in the 54 countries which are members of the Commonwealth marked the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations earlier this month.

Commonwealth countries will come together yet again in little over a month's time as athletes descend on England's second city to contest the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

However, Mr Johnson, who became the Telegraph's Eurosceptic-leaning Brussels correspondent in 1989, will also jet off to Rwanda this week to meet with Commonwealth leaders.

Linking the Commonwealth relationship with Britain's departure from the EU, the Prime Minister wrote: "That is why we are mobilising the UKs regained sovereignty to sign free trade or economic partnership agreements with as many Commonwealth countries as possible.

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"So far weve done 33, including Australia and New Zealand, and were aiming for India, the biggest of them all, by Diwali in October.

"You only have to look at the sheer scale of economic expansion in many of the clubs biggest members to see why the Commonwealth trade advantage is going to become ever more important for British jobs and livelihoods."

He added: "The Commonwealths GDP - $13.1 trillion has risen by a quarter since 2017.

"Over the next five years, its forecast to jump by close to another 50 percent to $19.5 trillion.

"Here are the growing markets for British exports that will create jobs at home and, at the same time, ease the pressure on the cost of living."

The Prime Minister's comments came just days after the Brexit-backing Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt revealed the UK will soon enjoy a $2trillion (1.65trillion) trade partnership with 27 Commonwealth countries.

The Portsmouth North MP, who has been tipped as a dark horse candidate in the eventual race to succeed Mr Johnson, unveiled the plan during international trade questions in the House of Commons.

However, critics of the UK's departure from the Brussels bloc claim trade deals with antipodean allies are too small to make up for the drop in goods exported and imported from the EU.

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According to ONS data, UK goods exported to the EU in 2021 fell by 17.2billion and goods imported from the bloc faced a 46.5billion hit compared to 2019.

In comparison, goods exported outside the EU witnessed a 24.8billion drop and non-EU goods imported outstripped those from the bloc, with a 18.6billion increase over the same period.

However, the proportion of the UKs total trade with the EU has been falling for some time.

Member states made up around 55 percent of total UK trade in 1999 but the figure was reduced to just 43 percent in 2021 after steadily declining for many years.

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Boris hails Brexit Britain's 'regained' ability to boost relationship with Commonwealth - Express

When the British government announced its latest Brexit dividend at the start of the yeara return to stamping a tiny crown onto our beer glassesI was surprised. Mostly because I had not noticed that wed stopped. Clearly I gave up pretending to like beer sometime before 2006, when the rules supposedly changed.

Except they didnt. A close reading of the government press release revealed that in 2006, the European Union began to ask manufacturers to apply a common markCE, referring to the French acronym for European conformityto certify that their glasses held a full pint. There was no requirement to drop the existing crown stamp. And now, in the glorious post-Brexit land of freedom, the government was merely providing this guidance on how manufacturers can apply a crown symbol to beer glasses as a decorative mark on a voluntary basis.

Read: Why Britains Brexit mayhem was worth it

So the EU never forced us to remove the crown mark, and the government is only suggesting we reinstate it. Freedom! But whats this? The guidance also notes that any manufacturer who wants to keep supplying glasses to the EU, that huge single market on our doorstep, must continue to use the CE mark on them. So must anyone trading in Northern Ireland, too, because of its fluid trade border with the Republican issue Boris Johnson failed to sort out in his Brexit deal and is now desperately trying to renegotiate.

The saga of the crown mark is the perfect metaphor for Brexit: invested with enormous symbolism, fiendishly complicated and faintly absurd in its implementation, and, above all, a complete waste of everyones time.

Yet no one should be surprised that this is what Brexit has amounted to. Notoriously, before Johnson was a politician, he built a career in journalism on the back of stories like the crown mark. As a correspondent for The Telegraph in the 1990s, he sent regular dispatches about the alleged evils of Brussels bureaucrats and their petty rules against bendy bananas and insufficiently large condoms. (The man in charge of the condom standards, the improbably named Willy Hlin, was still annoyed nearly three decades later about how Johnson had misrepresented his work: We had had requests from medical institutions across Europe to check on the safety of condoms, he told The Guardian in 2019. That has nothing to do with the size of dicks.) These stories created a potent mythology of the British bulldog muzzled by gray-faced bureaucrats.

And so it shouldnt shock anyone that Johnsons government still indulges his most florid op-ed writers impulses when trying to advertise the benefits of Brexit. Leaving the European Union does have tangible consequences, but they are not ones that his government would like to boast about: For example, Britain might have taken back control of our borders, but immigration has remained high, while it has also become harder for British musicians to tour abroad and European students to study here. This country has made billions of pounds worth of new trade dealswhich largely replicated the old trade deals.

The British government has also taken back control of our laws. But as the 14 paragraphs about the regulation of beer glasses in that press release makes clear, Britain doesnt need Brussels to impose meddling fine print on us. We can do that all by ourselves. Our Parliament rolled the Measuring Instruments Regulations 2016 into English law, and there is very little appetite now to unpick it clause by clause. (If you polled a thousand Britons on how they felt about red tape, they would be against it, but the answer would be very different if you asked: Would you like to make it easier for pub owners to cheat you out of beer that you have paid for?) One of Johnsons predecessors as prime minister, David Cameron, once hired an alleged blue-sky thinker named Steve Hilton to cut through the alleged swaths of bureaucracy holding back Britain. Hiltons campaign faltered when officials gently told him there was a very good reason to ensure that sofas werent flammable. He did not so much collide with reality as arrive late to meetings with it, shout at it, question what makes it tick and then storm off, appalled at realitys obstinacy, wrote one former colleague.

Rather than fight reality, Johnson ignores it, hoping it will eventually give up and go home. More than anyone, he knows the value of being the leader who got Brexit done, even if no one is quite sure what that means. Brexit, like the crown mark, is more about symbolism than reality.

Read: Boris Johnson has only delayed the inevitable

Recently, I attempted to come up with ways that my life had visibly, materially changed since Britain left the European Union in January 2020. No catastrophic food shortages have occurred, although there have been sporadic supply-chain problems, particularly in Northern Ireland. Friends tell me that shopping for anyone with food allergies is harder now, because specialty products free from gluten or nuts come and go. Last year, I could not get the chicken pasty I wanted at a roadside caf, but I dont think the United Nations food program needs to become involved. We did not have an immediate recession, despite what George Osborne, the former chancellor of the exchequer, predicted. And while the British economy is now sluggish and afflicted with high inflation, the economic effects of Brexit are impossible to separate from those of the coronavirus pandemic, which arrived two months later. (One economist recently suggested that 80 percent of British inflation was caused by Brexit, but Johnsons government can gesture across the Atlantic to Americas similar problems, which makes his critics argument more difficult.) Small businesses have borne the brunt of Brexit, because of the increase in customs paperwork required to move goods between Britain and the EU. In other words, Brexit created its own red tape. But to most Britons, such problems feel abstract, rather than obviously unjust. The occasional Amazon package arrives late, or with extra packaging. So what?

Most of the concrete effects of Brexit on my lifethe ones I can connect to our relationship with Europe with absolute confidenceare minor. When I renew my passport, it will be blue-black rather than burgundy. The more vindictive European countries now make me stand in a longer queue at immigration.

Anne Applebaum: Brexit reveals a whole new set of political wounds

The very worst effects of Brexit are felt by a small enough number of people that even my most ardently Remainer friends have bowed to the inevitable: Britain is not rejoining the EU anytime soon, and there is no political appetite to keep fighting that battle. You can even see the loss of Remainer enthusiasm online. Many of those who built a Twitter identity on being pro-European switched their political focus in the spring of 2020 to calling for strict coronavirus lockdowns.

Even so, Johnson and like-minded politicians cant give up the specter of the meddling Brussels bureaucrat, a figure that has served them well for decades. What was the prime ministers big Platinum Jubilee policy announcement? Forging ahead to remove the ban on selling [goods measured] in pounds and ounces. Not doing itno, that would be too much like hard workbut forging ahead in its general direction, presumably as measured in furlongs or yards or barleycorns. For too long has proud Britannia chafed under the unjust yoke of the overly comprehensible metric system, which operates in base 10 and can therefore be easily explained to schoolchildren. (In Britain, the only people who still think in ounces are Boomers and weed dealers.) Why not go further, and undo the decimalization of our money? Maybe the cost-of-living crisis wont feel so painful if we have to pay for fuel in shillings and guineas.

An honest analysis of Brexit would reveal that it has been neither as catastrophic as its fiercest critics predicted nor as utopian as its champions claimed. What it did do was clog up Parliament for three solid yearsan opportunity cost that is hard to fathom and even harder to forgive. I can live with the blue-black passport and the crown mark. Ill even learn, if I must, how many meters are in a furlong. My greatest disappointment is having to accept that the cultural side of Brexitthe forever war against the banana regulators and condom checkershas not ended, and will never end, because it is simply too politically useful. As the former Cabinet minister David Gauke commented on the potential return of pounds and ounces: The announcement of the return of imperial measurements is an important recent tradition which we should all celebrate. Im already looking forward to the next time this is announced.

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The Brexit Revolution That Wasn't - The Atlantic

The Labour leader is understood to be preparing a speech on the UK's immigration strategy outside the EU in a bid to prove his party can be trusted on taking back control. The party suffered humiliation at the polls in 2019 after Labour's manifesto promised a second EU referendum and outlined plans to protect the rights of free movement even if Britain voted for a second time to quit.

Dozens of constituencies in former strongholds for the party backed the Tories for the first time in decades in order to "get Brexit done".

Just months after the drubbing at the ballot box, when Sir Keir was campaiging to be made Labour leader, he pledged to continue supporting the UK's former open borders policy.

He promised the party's members he would "defend free movement as we leave the EU".

But fearing his party will still not be trusted by voters unless he shifts his stance, he is now preparing a speech to fully set out Labour's policy.

READ MORE ON OUR BREXIT LIVE BLOG

Set to be delivered ahead of the annual party conference in September, he will promise not to reverse free movement and set out how he would tackle matters such as illegal immigration.

A Labour source told The Times: "Keir recognises that its time to put a line in the sand and stop any speculation about what our position on immigration might be."

The Opposition leader has been vocally critical of the Government's deal with Rwanda to resettle those who arrive illegally in the African country.

But he had failed to explain what he would do if in No10 to address the issue himself.

Sir Keir has struggled to keep his own MPs on message when it comes to Brexit and free movement.

Just last week it emerged a member of his frontbench had hinted the party could push for a full return to EU membership.

The chairwoman of the Labour Movement for Europe added: "We cant solve the cost-of-living crisis without revisiting what leaving the single market and customs union has done to grocery shopping."

A spokesman for Sir Keir was forced to shut down talk of rejoining the single market in the wake of Ms McMorrin's remarks.

He said: "Policy is clear.

"We need a strong relationship with EU partners but that does not involve membership of the customs union or the single market."

The pressure from Labour MPs comes amid continued speculation that the party has done a deal with the Lib Dems to help oust the Conservatives.

The Lib Dems remain fierce critics of Brexit and have been unashamed in promoting the overturning of Brexit.

Last month the party's leader, Ed Davey, indicated he was looking to force Sir Keir to adopt a more pro-EU stance if Labour was a minority government after the next election.

He said a hung parliament means "you can exercise influence in many, many ways".

The europhile added: "They key thing for me is making sure that we have the numbers to be able to influence that, so we can move away from this frankly indecent Government that's got no moral authority, that's got no plan for our country, and replace it with a Parliament where - it may be different parties put their ideas together - we work for the national interest."

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Sir Keir Starmer plotting major Brexit intervention as he seeks to 'come clean' on plans - Express

Areas across Europe are seeing temperatures in the mid to high 30s with some areas, including Spain hitting 42C last week. Meanwhile, the UK is set to also see warmer weather but within the pleasant climbs of mid 20s for the most part and possibly up to 30C by the middle of the week.

Remainer Alex Taylor tweeted: The one and only time Ill tweet wishing I wasnt in the EU.

The caption was tweeted with a picture of a weather map of the continent and the southern area of the UK showing the difference in temperatures between the two.

He added that to cope with the heat: I must still be very English after all as the only thing I can be arsed to do is make endless cups of piping hot tea.

Extreme heat has been plaguing Europe with warnings of crop failures coming from Italy where areas are suffering the worst drought in seven decades and several wildfires in Spain.

The temperatures in areas such as Italy, Spain and France are unseasonably high, which is bringing concerns about the later summer months which are traditionally hotter.

In France and Spain May was the hottest month on record in at least 100 years with temperatures being on average 10C hotter for this time of year.

On June 10, temperatures in Badajoz, Spain hit a high of 41.6C and at the same time Portugal recorded its first 40C temperature of the year.

In the days that followed, Seville went above 41.6C and was entirely above the average high of 33C.

READ MORE:Fatal flaw in Europes plan to save Ukraine laid bare

Meanwhile, firefighters in Spain have been battling wildfires as temperatures in the south reached the 40s last week.

One fire in the Castile and Leon region destroyed over 60,000 acres of pine forest, though thankfully the heatwave in the central region has subsided.

However, firefighters in northern Spain have fought multiple fires leading to the evacuation of many communities in Navarre.

While temperatures in Spain are thought to subside this week, those in France are forecast to worsen before moving towards Germany and Poland by the weekend.

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Staunch anti-Brexit Remainer wishes to return to UK - 'One time I wish I wasn't in the EU! - Express

Next Thursday marks six years since Britain voted to exit the European Union. Although I was too young to vote, I was a committed supporter of leaving. And along with most of those ticking the Leave box, I hoped our exit would remove the spectre of Brussels from our politics forever.

Yet we are marking this anniversary amid headlines about the ongoing influence of the European Court of Human Rights, the governments controversial proposals over the Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit agreement, and whether Labour wants to rejoin the EUs single market or not. All of this comes, of course, after several years of bitter debate over whether we should actually leave, and what an exit would look like.

So contrary to my partys 2019 promise, we are without a clear sense that Brexit has been done. Were my fellow Leavers and I naive that Brexit ever would be done, however? We certainly underestimated the hostility the vote would generate, and the determination of many to prevent Brexit going ahead. Then again, this is hardly surprising: a romantic faith in democracy is what fundamentally drove my Euroscepticism.

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Yet many Brexiteers were also far too naive as to how easy getting a deal would be. Many didnt understand the technicalities of Article 50, the customs union or the single market, and assumed mutual self-interest would prevent Brussels from making an example of us. Tory incredulity over the European Court of Human Rightss decision to block deportations to Rwanda this week, with various figures asking how it can have control over our laws after Brexit, also suggests that many do not understand that the court is not part of the EU.

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Moreover, splits within the Eurosceptic coalition clouded pictures of what our Brexit should and would look like. Some, like Daniel Hannan, would have been happy for us to have remained a member of the European Economic Area or European Free Trade Association, accepting freedom of movement for the sake of the ability to do free trade deals. Many Brexit voters instead saw the priority as reducing immigration a promise that has hardly been fulfilled.

In that sense, we were also misguided to believe that Brexit would really constitute a new departure in British politics. Whatever the intentions of Cummings et al, and whatever the promises made by leading campaigners, the institutional inertia of British politics has meant we have hardly used Brexit to diverge from the European Union. Our economic model still requires ever-growing taxes, tariffs for key industries and high levels of immigration.

This is not to say I believe Brexit was pointless, or that it should not have been delivered. The Covid vaccination programme alone highlights the benefits of shrugging off the dead head of Brussels. If the campaign to overturn the vote had succeeded, it would have permanently damaged our democracy. The nation state remains the best way of keeping politicians accountable, and the recent crisis in Ukraine has ably demonstrated the EUs dysfunctionality.

Yet six years on, it cannot be said that Brexit removed the European Union from our political life, or that leaving has been an unalloyed success. It is worrying to think we went through so much pain to take back control and get Brexit done, only to waste the opportunity it provides.

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Brexiteers like me are realising it's impossible for Brexit to ever be truly done - The New Statesman

Irish premier Micheal Martin said the legislation is "anti-business and anti-industry".

He said: "The fundamental issue is one of trust because the EU did enter an international agreement with the UK Government, which is now, essentially, being reneged upon.

"A lot of European Union leaders are going to say: 'How are we going to trust you again if we do a further deal? How do we know you will adhere to that deal?'

"That is a fundamental issue that now has to be overcome. I think the EU will uphold its side and also seek to press the full adherence to the agreement.

"Nobody wants to be in a situation where we end up in acrimony or real difficulty, but I am afraid the British Government's decision to unilaterally press ahead with this legislation, which is ill-thought-out anyway, in terms of the detail of it, I think makes for very difficult times ahead."

He added: "I don't think it's well-thought-out-or well-thought-through and certainly doesn't match the realities on the ground in terms of experiences of those involved in various industries.

"For example, those involved in manufacturing are doing particularly well under the protocol and they're now very concerned, not just by the uncertainty that has been created, but also the fact that this represents an undermining of conditions."

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Brexit: Remoaners humiliated as UK exports to EU soar to record high after bloc exit - Express

Ursula von der Leyen's vision of the EU as a significant military power has been dismissed by a prominent Brexiter - who pointed out member states are still heavily reliant on British hardware to keep them safe, six years after the UK quit the bloc.

Professor Daniel Hodson suggested Britain continues to do all the heavy lifting - most recently by spearheading the continent-wide resistance to Vladimir Putins Russia following its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Prof Hodson is a former director of the Vote Leave campaign, a former chief executive of Londons futures exchange, and the deputy chairman of the Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIBUK).

He said: Many in the UK would like to see our defence budget increased. However, in comparison with EU countries, the UK has done all the heavy lifting. We continue to do this from the icy Arctic to the sunny Mediterranean.

The EU has slowly woken up to the threats on its borders, after Putins illegal invasion of Ukraine. The independent UK has led the way, with training, funding, and the supply of serious military hardware.

He added: If the EU has any serious ambitions to become a military power one day, it still has a very long way to go.

Yet again, the conclusion is simple: for defence, as for so much else, Europe needs Britain far more than Britain needs the EU.

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'Considerable wealth' pouring into UK - new stats lay bare where EU is behind - Express