Category Archives: Brexit

More than half of Brits think that Brexit is "going badly," according to new polling and the number of people with that opinion is growing.

The pollster YouGov asked people how they thought the country's exit from the European Union was working out, and a whopping 53 percent said it was going badly, a rise of 15 percentage points from June, when they asked people the same question. The "badly" camp can be split into two: those who thought Brexit was going "fairly badly" (21 percent) and those who said it was going "very badly" (32 percent).

The number of people with a positive take on Brexit was down seven percentage points from June, to 18 percent of those, 14 percent said it was going "fairly well" and just 4 percent "very well."

In addition, 21 percent said it was going "neither well nor badly" and 8 percent said they didn't know.

YouGov asked 6,546 British adults for their opinion on Wednesday, with the results published the same day.

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Brexit is going badly, say Brits in new poll POLITICO

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The United Kingdom's 25-year-old model of importing cheap labour has been up-ended by Brexit and COVID-19, sowing the seeds for a 1970s-style winter of discontent complete with worker shortages, spiralling wage demands and price rises.

Leaving the European Union, followed by the chaos of the biggest public health crisis in a century, has plunged the world's fifth-largest economy into a sudden attempt to kick its addiction to cheap imported labour.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit experiment - unique among major economies - has further strained supply chains already creaking globally for everything from pork and poultry to medicines and milk.

Wages, and thus prices, will have to rise. read more

The longer-term impact on growth, Johnson's political fortunes and the United Kingdom's on-off relationship with the European Union is unclear.

"It's really a big turning point for the UK and an opportunity for us to go in a different direction," Johnson, 57, said when asked about the labour shortages.

"What I won't do is go back to the old failed model of low wages, low skills, supported by uncontrolled immigration."

He said Britons had voted for change in the 2016 Brexit referendum and again in 2019, when a landslide election win made Johnson the most powerful Conservative prime minister since Margaret Thatcher.

Stagnant wages, he said, would have to rise - for some, the economic logic behind the Brexit vote. Johnson has bluntly told business leaders in closed meetings to pay workers more.

"Taking back control" of immigration was a key message of the Brexit campaign, which the Johnson-led "Leave" campaign narrowly won. He later promised to protect the country from the "job-destroying machine" of the European Union.

BREXIT 'ADJUSTMENT'

Johnson casts his Brexit gamble as an "adjustment" though opponents say he is dressing up a labour shortage as a golden opportunity for workers to increase their wages.

But restricting immigration amounts to a generational change in the United Kingdom's economic policy, right after the pandemic triggered a 10% contraction in 2020, the worst in more than 300 years.

As the EU expanded eastward after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, Britain and other major European economies welcomed millions of migrants from countries like Poland, which joined the bloc in 2004.

No-one really knows how many people came: in mid-2021, the British government said it had received more than 6 million applications from EU nationals for settlement, more than double the number it believed were in the country in 2016.

After Brexit, the government stopped giving priority to EU citizens over people from elsewhere.

Brexit prompted many eastern European workers - including around 25,000 truckers - to leave the country just as around 40,000 truck licence tests were halted due to the pandemic.

Britain is now short of about 100,000 truckers, leading to queues at gas stations and worries about getting food into supermarkets, with a lack of butchers and warehouse workers also causing concern.

"Wages will have to go up, so prices for everything we deliver, everything you buy on the shelves, will have to go up too," said Craig Holness, a British trucker with 27 years experience.

Wages have already soared: a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) Class 1 driver job was being advertised for 75,000 pounds ($102,500) per annum, the highest the recruiter had ever heard of.

WINTER OF DISCONTENT?

The Bank of England said last month that CPI inflation was set to rise to 4% late this year, "owing largely to developments in energy and goods prices", and that the case for raising interest rates from historic lows appeared to have strengthened.

It cited evidence that "recruitment difficulties had become more widespread and acute", which the Bank's agents had attributed "to a combination of factors, including demand recovering more quickly than expected and a reduction in the availability of EU workers".

Johnson's ministers have repeatedly dismissed the idea that Britain is heading for a "winter of discontent" like that which helped Thatcher to power in 1979, with spiralling wage demands, inflation and power shortages - or even that Brexit is factor.

"Our country has been running at a comparatively low rate of wage growth for a long time - basically stagnant wages and totally stagnant productivity - and that is because, chronically, we have failed to invest in people, we have failed to invest in equipment and you've seen wages flat," Johnson said on Sunday.

But he did not explain how wage stagnation and poor productivity would be solved by a mixture of lower immigration and higher wages that fuel inflation which eats into real wages.

It was also unclear how higher prices would affect an economy that is consumer-driven and increasingly reliant on supply chains whose tentacles wind across Europe and beyond.

For some observers, the United Kingdom has come full-circle: it joined the European club in the 1970s as the sick man of Europe and its exit, many European politicians clearly hope, will lead it back into a cautionary dead-end.

Johnson's legacy will depend on proving them wrong.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Catherine Evans and Andrew Heavens

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Analysis: Brexit cold turkey - UK tries to kick 25-year imported labour habit - Reuters

European Union and British flags flutter in front of a chancellery in Berlin, Germany, April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

PARIS, Oct 5 (Reuters) - European states will, within days, announce measures to apply pressure on London to abide by Brexit agreements sealed with the bloc when Britain left the European Union, French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday.

He did not say what those measures would be, but noted in an interview with the radio station, that Britain depends on energy supplies its receives from the continent of Europe.

He said France felt exasperation at a decision by British dependency Jersey to refuse fishing permits for dozens of French vessels.

"Enough already, we have an agreement negotiated by France, by Michel Barnier, and it should be applied 100 percent. It isn't being," he said, referring to the EU's former chief Brexit negotiator, who is French.

"In the next few days, and I talked to my European counterparts on this subject yesterday, we will take measures at the European level or nationally, to apply pressure on the United Kingdom."

"We defend our interests. We do it nicely, and diplomatically, but when that doesn't work, we take measures," added Beaune.

"For example, we can imagine, since we're talking about energy, ... the United Kingdom depends on our energy supplies," Beaune also said. "It thinks that it can live all alone, and bash Europe."

Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Writing by Christian Lowe

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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France: Europe readying steps to make Britain comply with Brexit deal - Reuters

The EU has urged the UK to drop the political rhetoric in the row over Brexit negotiations for Northern Ireland, revealing it will make what it described as far-reaching proposals to break the impasse next week.

The European Commission vice-president Maro efovi told a conference in Dublin he had a good relationship with the UKs Brexit minister, David Frost, but that his threats to pull the plug on the Northern Ireland protocol were not helpful.

He confirmed the EU would finalise its response to UK demands that the protocol be substantially rewritten in the middle of next week and would then enter intense talks to try to find a solution. I believe that the package of practical solutions we are putting on the table would be attractive and I hope supported by majority of stakeholders in Northern Ireland.

He also said he hoped it would meet the interests of the unionist parties who were vehemently opposed to the protocol.

What the EU was trying to deliver were the best solutions, which will address the concern of the unionist community, efovi told the webinar at Irelands Institute of International and European Affairs. But he warned that the EU was not going to roll over to renegotiate the entire protocol just because the UK asked for this.

The protocol was the most difficult part of the withdrawal agreement to negotiate and involved the best minds on both sides over several years working on a solution to the problems Brexit caused in Northern Ireland. The EU would not negotiate the protocol as the UK is requesting, he said.

The commission has been working on counter-proposals to Lord Frosts July command paper for the past month. Although efovi declined to give details, they are expected to address the UKs concerns over checks on food crossing the Irish Sea and barriers to medicine supplies between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

It is unlikely, however, to concede to unionist demands that the role of the European court of justice should disappear. I would say [they are] very far-reaching proposals and I sincerely hope that it will be seen as such by our UK counterparts and they engage constructively in our discussion, because I think we have to kind of move [away] from the political rhetoric, from the threats, efovi said.

You are trying to do your most and what you hear from the other side is its not good enough these threats are definitely not helping.

efovi said the bloc would use all options under the treaties to protect EU interests but that there would not be a hard border if the UK decided to ultimately disapply the protocol.

A UK government spokesperson said it wanted significant changes to the protocol and reiterated that any proposals must be subject to genuine negotiation.

Earlier this week Frost said he would consider the EUs proposals in good faith but he would only give the talks three weeks before deciding whether or not to trigger article 16, the mechanism to disapply parts of the protocol.

He warned the UK would act in a robust manner if the EU launched a retaliatory trade war in the event of talks collapsing during the article 16 process.

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EU urges UK to drop rhetoric in Northern Ireland Brexit row - The Guardian

By Jonathan Power*

The lorries have no drivers. The supermarket shelves are emptying. The poor are having their subsidies cut. The British government ties itself in knots trying to square what is a circle in Northern Ireland. Brexitthe leaving of the EUis failing the nation.

But Europe itself is not failing. In fact, it is about to get stronger.

Writing in 1751 Voltaire described Europe as a kind of great republic, divided into several states, some monarchical, the others mixed but all corresponding with one another. They all have the same religious foundation, even if divided into several confessions. They all have the same principles of public law and politics unknown in other parts of the world.

Sixty-eight years ago, in a way that Charlemagne, Voltaire, William Penn and Gladstone, the early advocates of European unity, could only dream, a united Europe became a reality. Later in 2002 came the launch of the single currency that was the most dramatic of the steps taken towards what surely one day will be a single political entity.

War, time and time again, has interrupted the pursuit of that objective. Continued civil war across the continent, across the centuries, has pitted French against Germans, British against Italians and Germans, Czechs against Poles, Russians against the French and the Germans, Spaniards against Spaniards, Gentiles against Jews, reaching its dreadful climax in World War 2.

As Jan Morris has written in her Fifty Years of Europe, great cities lay in ruin, bridges were broken, roads and railways were in chaos. Conquerors from East and West flew their ensigns above the seats of old authority, and proud populations would do almost anything for a pack of cigarettes or some nylon stockings. Europe was in shock, powerless, discredited and degraded. Over the ages no other continent has been the scene of so much war.

Many, if not most, of that generation wondered in 1945 if theyd ever see Europe again in any state of grace or glory much less unified.

The fact that the urge to bury the hatchet and forge common institutions has come so far in such a short time against such a background is the twentieth centurys greatest political achievement. (Following the Declaration of Independence, it took the US nearly 90 years to establish a fully mature common currency; Europe has travelled the same course in 49 years.)

Yet this astonishing triumphal moment, only slightly tarnished by Britain, first, sitting out the common currency and last year implementing Brexit begs the question, what is the glue that holds it all together? After all what is Europe? Geographically, it is no more than a peninsula protruding from the land mass of Asia. Culturally, it has always been a potage of languages, peoples and traditions. Politically, it is a moveable feast of the 35 sovereign states in post Iron Curtain Europe; nine have been created or resurrected since World War 2.

Indeed, it is religion, not politics nor economic and monetary union that through the ages has made Europe one, held it together through its vicissitudes (many, tragically, of religious origin) and provided the common morality and common identity that made the EU and make a single currency possible today and political union a tangible, if still hotly debated, goal tomorrow.

Broadcasting to a defeated Germany in 1945, the poet T.S. Elliot reminded his audience that despite the war and the closing of Europes mental frontiers because of an excess of nationalism it is in Christianity that our arts have developed, it is in Christianity that the laws of Europeuntil recentlyhave been rooted. An individual European may not believe the Christian faith is true; and yet what he says, and makes, and does, will depend on the Christian heritage for its meaning.

Of course, today one can ask what do the contemporary cults of finance, sports, TV, mobile phones, the internet, Facebook, pop culture and eroticism have to do with a Christian heritage? Nevertheless, despite all, the fact is through changing fashions, through wars big and small, the idea of Europe that persists is essentially Christian. On its own, economic self-interest never would have created the European Union and, later, monetary union. Economic and monetary union has been driven all along by men and women who were essentially idealistic and visionary.

From Jean Monnet, the founder of modern Europe, to Helmut Schmidt, Valery Giscard DEstaing, Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, the founders and creators of the Euro, the urge to remove the causes of belligerency and to form institutions that would further the development of a common democracy has been a central purpose. Nor should we forget the words of Winston Churchill who said in Amsterdam in 1948: We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think as much of being European as of belonging to their native land.

Europe is not first and foremost a political concept or a financial convenience. It is an ideal. Thats why, to take one example, absorbing Russia should be on the agenda.

We will work at it all our lives, as will future generations. The Brexit crisis, I foresee, will come to be seen as the defining moment for creating the right conditions for the pursuit of political union. Brexit is already visibly failing. In Britain, many forecast a winter of discontent. Britain is going to be left high and dry, perhaps, after the next election, knocking on the door to be let back in. If not, Scotland on its own will leave the UK and enter Europe as a sovereign state. Once the EU has recovered from the loss of Britain which soon it will, political union will take its place at the top of the European agenda.

About the author: The writer was for 17 years a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune, now the New York Times. He has also written many dozens of columns for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times. He is the European who has appeared most on the opinion pages of these papers. Visit hiswebsite:www.jonathanpowerjournalist.com

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Despite Brexit Europe Will Continue To Come Together OpEd - Eurasia Review

Video by Phil Clarke-Hill

Michel Barnier could not have picked a better week to visit the UK if he tried. As the effects of Brexit are finally felt, with Britain experiencing chronic labour shortages in part due to the end of freedom of movement, the outcomes the EUs chief Brexit negotiator warned of appear to have happened. Though other European countries are facing some of the same issues as the UK, Barnier emphasised that in addition to these problems, you have the consequences of Brexit when we recently met in London.

Barniers new book, My Secret Brexit Diary, is an account of his time negotiating with the UK from 2016 to 2021. The tome is hardly a page-turner entries are replete with mentions of that days edition of the Financial Times and filled with technical detail about fishing rights and customs duties but it is an important account of how the EU comprehensively out-negotiated the UK.

It portrays Barnier as in command of the detail and the EU as having a clear idea of what it wanted from the negotiations from the outset: to maintain the integrity of the single market and to ensure that no country outside of the EU had the same rights and responsibilities as one within the bloc. While the UK government was negotiating with itself, having triggered Article 50 in March 2017 without an agreed plan, Barnier was travelling to the capitals of the EU 27, building consensus and ensuring that member states would not be drawn into bilateral talks with London.

The EUs canny insistence on sequenced negotiations meaning issues such as citizens rights and Britains divorce bill had to be decided before talks on the future relationship could begin forced the UK into concession after concession as the clock ran down and the risk of no deal rose.

Barnier, 70, a French politician for more than three decades before he moved to Brussels, is now returning to the domestic political sphere by seeking the nomination of Frances centre-right Republican party for next Aprils presidential election. The question is whether he can capitalise on his reputation for effective technocratic management after a decade in Brussels.

The means by which Barnier chose to reintroduce himself to the voters of his home country have not failed to shock. He has refashioned himself from a consummate Brussels technocrat into a Eurosceptic, anti-immigration radical. His flagship measures are imposing a moratorium on immigration from outside the EU for up to five years, holding a referendum on immigration quotas, and passing laws to allow France to ignore certain rulings of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, the blocs highest courts.

The introduction to his book is titled A warning. The Brexit vote was a wake-up call for the EU, he told me, raising questions about European citizens relationship to Brussels that can no longer be ignored. We have to answer the questions asked by the British people because although its too late for them, its not too late for us.

How, then, would Barnier change the EU? He has four main proposals: less naivety in Europes trading relationships; making it harder for non-EU investors to take over some companies in strategic sectors; more common investment, modelled on the EUs 750bn recovery fund; and a common migration policy. At least three would likely require more cooperation at the EU level; none would involve repatriating powers to the member states. Its a fine manifesto for a politician in the tradition of Europes moderate centre right; as a Eurosceptic battle cry it falls flat.

[see also: Be careful Michel Barniers post-Brexit warning to the UK]

Indeed, when it comes to extolling the virtues of a united Europe for French power, Barnier whom Jean-Claude Juncker defeated to become the European Peoples Party (EPP) candidate for president of the European Commission in 2014 speaks fluently and convincingly. Referring to some economic projections that he said showed every European country except Germany falling off the list of the ten largest economies in the world by 2050, he said: I dont want my country to be a spectator of its own destiny.

Only a united Europe can arrest this trend and expect to credibly stand up to the great powers of the 21st century, he argues. La grande illusion to which the French title of his book refers is the notion that Britain alone will be strong enough to influence the tides of global affairs rather than be passively dragged around by them. We need to be together to be respected by China or the US.

Barnier is persuasive when he speaks of the benefits of a united Europe. He is less so when he argues for an opt-out from the European courts rulings. As he correctly recognises in his book, a union without common rules and enforcement ceases to be a union in any meaningful sense a principle he sought to uphold in negotiations with the UK.

To some who knew him during his time in Brussels, the sudden Eurosceptic transmutation does not come across as particularly sincere. These are certainly not the views I have seen articulated by him in the past, Lucinda Creighton, a former Irish minister for European affairs who served with Barnier as a vice-president of the EPP, the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament, told me. He seems to be playing to a domestic audience in the context of a heated election campaign.

Nor are voters, for the moment, buying it. Barnier is trailing his main rivals for the Republican party nomination, Xavier Bertrand and Valrie Pcresse, in the polls. I wonder whether, for your presidential run, you are playing the Eurosceptic at the expense of your genuine European convictions, one caller to a radio show on France Info mused to Barnier.

In common with many of his rivals for the presidency, Barnier is betting that the political winds have changed and that voters are in the mood for anti-immigration radicalism. While Barnier was never the liberal hero some pro-European Brits took him to be during the Brexit negotiations, he will have to answer whether the shift from Brussels technocrat to Eurosceptic firebrand came rather too swiftly.

Barniers argument is that the Europe he loves needs to change before it dies. His task over the next months will be to prove that he the ultimate defender of the EUs status quo during the Brexit negotiations is best placed to deliver that message.

My Secret Brexit Diary is published by Polity Press

[see also: ric Zemmour: the TV-friendly fascist who thinks he can be Frances next president]

This article appears in the 06 Oct 2021 issue of the New Statesman, Unsafe Places

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We have to answer the questions Brexit raised: Michel Barnier on the EU and why he wants to lead France - New Statesman

Queues for petrol and mass slaughter of pigs at farms because of a lack of abattoir workers are part of a necessary transition for Britain to emerge from a broken economic model based on low wages, Boris Johnson has argued.

His comments, on the first day of the Conservative conference, came as Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, insisted it was the role of business, not ministers, to sort out such problems.

I dont believe in a command-and-control economy, so I dont believe the prime minister is responsible for whats in the shops, Truss told a conference fringe event. This is why we have a free enterprise economy.

Speaking earlier, in a pre-conference TV interview, Johnson acknowledged that disruption to some supplies could continue until Christmas, but said the only short-term solution was to resume uncontrolled immigration, which would be wrong.

The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) said on Sunday that the crisis was virtually at an end in Scotland, Wales, the north of England and the Midlands, but warned supplies were still not getting through to London and the south-east.

The prime minister refused to completely rule out further tax rises, saying he would not increase them further if I can possibly avoid it.

Asked about warnings of the imminent slaughter and incineration of up to 120,000 pigs because of labour shortages across the UK, Johnson initially argued that this was no different from what normally happened to livestock.

Speaking to BBC Ones Andrew Marr show, he said: I hate to break it to you, Andrew, but Im afraid our food processing industry does involve killing a lot of animals, that is the reality. Your viewers need to understand that. Thats just what happens.

When Marr pointed out that it would be different, as in this instance the pigs would not be butchered for food and the farmers would receive no income, Johnson said this was part of a wider transformation of the economy post-Brexit.

If I may say so, the great hecatomb of pigs that you describe has not yet actually taken place. Lets see what happens, he said.

What we cant do in all these sectors is simply go back to the tired, failed old model, reach for the lever called uncontrolled immigration, get people in at low wages. And yes, there will be a period of adjustment, but that is, I think, what we need to see in this country.

Asked whether labour shortages and the associated disruption they caused were an inevitable part of his Brexit policy, Johnson did not disagree. He said: When people voted for change in 2016, and when people voted for change in 2019, they voted for the end of a broken model of the UK economy that relied on low wages and low skill, and chronic low productivity. And were moving away from that.

Later on Sunday evening, Johnson partly blamed the lorry driver shortage on industry bosses making it an undesirable career for women, saying they did not want to have to sleep in a small cabin and urinate in bushes.

The prime minister suggested if more women had been attracted to the job, that would have helped make a huge difference to our current situation.

Speaking at a rally organised by the Women2Win organisation during conference, Johnson asked: Why is it, do you think my friends, that its so difficult to persuade people to become lorry drivers and join the road haulage industry? Why should they join when you cant even you have to urinate in the bushes.

Im speaking frankly about this, why should you when you have to sleep in your cabin, thats not frankly what women want. Its ridiculous.

That is the result of chronic, chronic under-investment in that sector of industry, chronic failure to deal with the issues, chronic mainlining of low-wage and low-skill talent rather than investing in equipment and investing in facilities and encouraging women to take part. That would have made a huge difference to our current situation.

Chris Loder, a Tory MP, told a fringe meeting at the party conference that it would be a good thing for supermarket supply chains to crumble, even if it caused short-term problems.

Asked by Marr about a prediction by the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, that shortages of petrol and other goods could last months, to Christmas or beyond, Johnson initially refused to answer. Pressed by Marr, he said: Rishi is invariably right. But it depends how you interpret what he said.

Johnson said the issue was a long-term one, caused largely by the road haulage industry not investing in better pay and conditions and instead relying on the cheaper labour of drivers from Europe, now largely gone as a result of Brexit.

Johnson also defended his governments tax rates after Marr said that with the highest taxation policies since the 1940s, he was less like Margaret Thatcher and more like Harold Wilson.

He said: Youre talking total nonsense, because neither of those distinguished people had to deal with a pandemic on the scale we have. Neither of them had a fiscal meteorite hit their system on the scale that we had.

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Boris Johnson: petrol crisis and pig cull part of necessary post-Brexit transition - The Guardian

I have received an email from my daughters primary school advising us that Lancashire county council has had to offer a reduced school dinners menu due to supply chain issues. We are required to pick from a menu basically consisting of soup and a sandwich or a baked potato. Once again, the most vulnerable in society will suffer as a result of this governments abject failure to plan for the after-effects of Brexit. For many children who are in receipt of free school meals, it is the only hot, nutritious meal they receive in a day.

I have no doubt that House of Commons restaurants will be offering a wider menu than soup and a sandwich or a baked potato.Andrew KerinBurnley, Lancashire

Re your report (Nandos and Deliveroo chiefs join hospitality council to help crisis-hit UK sector, 29 September), this is overdue recognition of the issues facing the hospitality industry, particularly in relation to recruiting and retaining staff. The industry has faced the perfect storm as a combination of Brexit and Covid-19 meet an already precarious and low-paid sector. Our recent research into the experiences of hospitality workers in Scotland, both before and during the pandemic (and similar findings in Ireland), point to a significant increase in customer aggression and abuse aimed at the workforce, with little or no management intervention. In these circumstances, is it surprising that hospitality is facing thesestaffingissues?

Therefore, it is disappointing that the council will bring together sector leaders and associations but, unless I read your report incorrectly, will not include employee representatives. Frontline hospitality workers are best placed to know what changes should be made. One wonders whether it is ideological myopia that has prevented their inclusion?Prof Tom BaumDepartment of work, employment and organisation, University of Strathclyde

Good to see army personnel training as tanker drivers (Fuel crisis: UK government mobilises reserve tanker fleet and army, 29 September). Perhaps they can then retrain as nurses, then as GPs, then cancer consultants, paediatric psychiatrists, police officers and restaurant chefs.Colwyn LeeDerby

Have an opinion on anything youve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.

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Brexit has hit the economy and school dinners - The Guardian

French MP Bruno Bonnell, while speaking on GB News, insisted that it was predictable that rows between the UK and France would continue to occur post-Brexit. He claimed there were many issues both countries were disagreeing on such as fishing and energy. However, he complained that the Brexit deal was constantly being renegotiated by Boris Johnson and his Government when both sides initially agreed to it.

Mr Bonnell also accused Boris Johnson about lying about Brexit to the public and smirked as he claimed the Prime Minister would find out how one-sided Brexit was.

Mr Bonnell said: "A fallout between the UK and France was unfortunately predictable.

"This is after so many lies told to the UK people about Brexit.

"We knew that it would be a problem and we knew it would not end discussions about some issues.

DON'T MISS:Hostile state Brexiteer launches scathing attack on France

"Remember we were scared of a no-deal Brexit.

"Finally we got a deal and now this deal is endlessly renegotiated by the UK authorities."

Mr Bonnell then attacked Boris Johnson directly for his stance on where relations with France are.

He said: "Boris Johnson has been laughing and lying constantly about Brexit.

"He is now putting into action the fact that this Brexit is just one-sided.

"The people are trying to do some arm wrestling regarding this contract that was definitely set and now the rules are changing."

Mr Bonnell also reflected on France's threat to cut power to the UK due to the fishing row.

He insisted the UK needed to behave like an ally and complained about the AUKUS deal as well and accused the UK of "bluffing" regarding concerns over the Northern Ireland protocol.

He said: "Talking about allies, I hope that the UK and French relationship is not damaged.

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"On our side, there is no damage here but we see at a political level, at Government level, that there are many issues.

"The last one being the big deal with the submarine and Australia, AUKUS and so on.

"So talking about allies is always about trying to remain friends, something we really want and facing the situation.

"This is when the Governments are trying to take the most out of the Brexit deal.

"Which we disagree on, what is next? Is it the Irish border, what is the next step of this endless bluff?"

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Boris Johnson ridiculed by French MP over Brexit row 'We knew it would be a problem' - Daily Express

Brexit minister Lord Frost will declare that the "British Renaissance has begun" as the nation struggles with staffing issues linked to the departure from the European Union.

He will tell the Tory party conference on Monday the "long bad dream" of EU membership is over, as he challenges Brussels to be more "ambitious" to solve separate issues over Northern Ireland.

The Conservative peer's speech will come as the UK continues to feel the effects of a fuel crisis and faces the prospect of shortages in the run up to Christmas due to a lack of HGV drivers.

Boris Johnson appeared to admit that the issues are part of a "period of adjustment" after the departure from the EU.

The prime minister said he would not "reach for the lever called uncontrolled immigration" to prevent a feared incineration of 120,000 pigs due to a shortage of abattoir and butchery workers.

Lord Frost will use his speech in Manchester to look ahead to new opportunities presented by Brexit, such as new trade deals and a new immigration system.

"All history, all experience, shows that democratic countries with free economies, which let people keep more of the money they have earned, make their own decisions, and manage their own lives, are not just richer but also happier and more admired by others," he is expected to say.

"That is where we need to take this country. The opportunities are huge. The long bad dream of our EU membership is over. The British renaissance has begun."

He will also reiterate a warning that the Northern Ireland Protocol he negotiated risks undermining the Good Friday Agreement and that the threshold for triggering Article 16 to effectively tear up parts of the deal has been met.

The peer will tell Brussels to be more "ambitious" in their approach and warn that "tinkering at the edges" will not fix the fundamental problems with the post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland.

His speech will come after days of lengthy queues and petrol stations running dry.

Pig farmers have also warned that up to 120,000 growing animals will have to be slaughtered and incinerated because of an acute shortage of butchery and abattoir workers.

In an interview on Sunday, Mr Johnson said the "great hecatomb of pigs that you describe has not yet taken place, let's see what happens".

He told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that "what we can't do is in all these sectors simply go back to the tired, failed, old model, reach for the lever called uncontrolled immigration, get people in, low wages".

"There will be a period of adjustment, but that is, I think, what we need to see," he added.

PA

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Brexit minister says British Renaissance has begun as nation hit by petrol and food shortages - The Independent