Category Archives: Brexit

Central to UK Conservative and Brexiteer criticism of the European Union over the years was the latters attempts to raise social standards, wages and conditions. Far better, the British public were told, to let the market dictate such things, to unshackle business from European red tape, to free Britain to thrive. And, by implication, to pay lower wages.

Today the Tory Party, the friend of business, is singing from a different hymn sheet. British prime minister Boris Johnson casts himself as a revolutionary, bolder than all his predecessors. In a speech notably short of policy, he told the partys conference in Manchester yesterday he is determined that this reforming government, this can-do government will tackle the long-term structural weaknesses in the UK economy, which he blamed on industries such as haulage for not properly investing in better wages or conditions.

We are not going back to the same old broken model with low wages, low growth, low skills and low productivity, all of it enabled and assisted by uncontrolled immigration, he told delegates. Yes, it will take time, and sometimes it will be difficult, but that is the change that people voted for in 2016.

Brexit and its unspoken justification were the subtext its benefits were just around the corner. With patience all would be well, despite the unfortunate fallout of labour shortages, higher taxes and benefit cuts. There would be pain, but as he said on Tuesday: Its not the job of government to come in and try and fix every problem in business and industry.

When it came to the unfinished Brexit business the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol the conference rhetoric was as belligerentas ever. Chief negotiator David Frost warned of a robust response, including the invoking of article 16 to suspend parts of the protocol, if the EU does not show itself sufficiently flexible in the talks expected to resume shortly. EU officials are understood to be preparing retaliation in the form of tariffs or other barriers to trade flow between the UK and the union should talks fail.

Frost also launched a new, and very dubious line of attack, complaining that the strong increase in North-South and South-North trade as a result of controls on the Irish Sea was weakening the links between the North and Britain.

Some unionists appear to believe that the well-predicted changes in the patterns of trading on the island post-Brexit will lead to a greater long-term dependency of the Northern economy on the Republic and the EU. That reality, they fear, may feed arguments for unity.

But Northern Irish business-owners of all persuasions, benefiting as they do from the new cross-Border trade, will not thank Frost or the unionist leaders should they attempt to curtail such trade.

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The Irish Times view on the British Conservative Party: feeling the Brexit pain - The Irish Times

Collecting testimonies from Britons living across Spain who claim to have moved out of the UK because of Brexit, The Olive Press website headed one of its articles "Meet the Brexit refugees making a new life in Spain". The shocking collection of interviews aimed at representing stories from Remainers who felt leaving the UK for sunny Spain was the only option to escape new Brexit Britain.

But some of them admit lack of employment and functioning services have made life a bit harder for them across the Channel.

Speaking to the Spanish expat newspaper, Sarah O'Neill - originally from London - said: "I was devastated by the 2016 result.

"I came back to the UK in August 2017, hoping to return to the charity/non-profit sector, but there was nothing.

"No one knew what was going to come with Brexit, and there was belt-tightening and freezing of employment everywhere."

"I moved in May 2018 to get all my ducks in a row before the Brexit deadline.

"I learnt Spanish, obtained my residency and swapped by driving licence over."

She added: "Before Brexit, I came and went as I pleased, and I had plenty of visitors from all over Europe.

"But then of course, Covid happened, and then the true outcome of a hard Brexit."

READ MORE:France's bitter Brexit revenge Macron BLOCKS almost 5M vaccines

"All this nonsense about the colour of passports and 'taking back control' was just an excuse to retreat some feudal ideal of ye olde England, where power is concentrated in the hands of the political classes."

Amelia, living in Granada with her mother, said she has "no regrets" about leaving the UK.

She said: "I have absolutely no regrets, I'm exactly where I'm meant to be.

"I've got new friends, I enjoy my work.

"We all have fun, we all moan, and it does get stressful.

"Yes, hard work but I have never been happier.

"The quality of living is so different in Spain compared to the UK.

"I feel truly blessed to have found an amazing job and live in a beautiful country."

The issue of the rights of UK expats living in EU27 states after Brexit has become a particularly hot potato after March 31, the deadline for applications to the Governments EU Settlement Scheme.

All such rights were meant to protect in accordance with the Withdrawal Agreement which took Britain out of the EU at the end of 2019.

British expats living in Spain were detained earlier this year following allegations they submitted doctored proof of residency.

UK nationals who wish to keep living in Spain must prove they have are long-term residents.

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Remainers dub themselves 'Brexit refugees' as they flee UK to start new lives in Spain - Express

In late 2010, I sat in a discreet space in the lounge of a Dublin hotel with two British diplomats who were planning the first state visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland the following May and were consulting widely. The questions were the basic ones: What should she say? What should she not say? Where should she go? Where should she not go?

When I said she should visit a stud farm and get to see some horses, the diplomats were uneasy. Would that not seem too posh? I explained that following horses in Ireland was part of ordinary life. And also, if she didnt see some horses, people would think that she was not enjoying herself, and, oddly enough, despite 700 years of strife, most people in Ireland would want the Queen to enjoy her visit.

There was one word, I said, that, no matter what, she should not utter. The word was not Cromwell or paratrooper or Paddy or Mick or potato; the word was sorry. The Queen should not say that she or her government or her people were sorry, even for the plantation of Ulster or the penal laws or the famine or the Black and Tans. The word sorry was debased. Everyone was always sorry. Very few people who said they were sorry really meant it. Nor should the Queen express remorse or apology. The Queen in Ireland should not say anything that she did not mean.

I did not know at that time that Tony Blair had not, in 1997, personally seen his own statement of remorse for the Great Irish Famine before it was released. It was hastily written by aides because they could not reach him to approve it, newly released classified documents reveal, according to the Guardian report. What we believed were the prime ministers words were read out by the actor Gabriel Byrne at a televised commemoration event in County Cork.

In all the circumstances events could not have turned out better, the British ambassador to Ireland, Veronica Sutherland, cabled at the time. The statement, which focuses on undeniable facts, is widely perceived as the apology long sought by many Irish people.

At the time, I found what I believed were the prime ministers words to be disheartening. The speech felt formulaic, manufactured, insincere. But there was, nonetheless, something sweet behind Blairs intention and those of his officials and his ambassador who seemed to believe that many Irish people had long sought this apology. It seemed to me that many Irish people had many other things on their minds in 1997, one of the early years of the Celtic Tiger, when many Irish people were busy paying mad prices for property.

The diplomats who were preparing the Queens visit, unlike Tony Blair, planned things carefully; they put an immense amount of thought into every word the Queen would say in Ireland and every image of her that would be shown. It wasnt as though such close attention to Ireland was new, but it had been sporadic. It was there during the negotiations for the Sunningdale agreement in 1973, but not in the aftermath. It was there too in the run-up to the Anglo-Irish agreement in 1985. It was there in the negotiations, perhaps Tony Blairs finest hour, that led to the Good Friday agreement in 1998. It was not there during Brexit and its aftermath.

On 18 May 2011 the Queen spoke with great delicacy and tact in Dublin Castle. She did not apologise for anything. She merely said something that happens to be true: With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

The body of the Queens speech made clear something that might be important for anyone thinking about Anglo-Irish relations after Brexit. The Queen described the closeness between the two islands that prevailed despite political problems. Many British families, she said, have members who live in this country, as many Irish families have close relatives in the United Kingdom. These families share the two islands; they have visited each other and have come home to each other over the years.

None of this was ever going to change after Brexit. Irish soccer fans will still support English teams; Irish people still have cousins in England and go to England looking for work; Northern Irish people will still see Scotland as close to home. England still represents freedom for many Irish people.

But there has been an interesting change. Up to now, there was an image spread of the former colonies including Ireland. It suggested that we were somehow hot-headed and given to soft patriotism and nationalist sentimentality, that we could not be trusted in negotiation, that we spoke with a forked tongue. Now, all of these qualities have been taken over by Whitehall itself. But it is worse on this occasion. We, at least, were actually colonised. The United Kingdom, such as it is, was only ever colonised in its dreams, and by the EU, of all things. Dealing with the UK now, as Lloyd George said about Eamon de Valera, is like trying to pick up mercury with a fork.

In Ireland now, Brexit is still viewed with disbelief. It is hard to think of any real advantage that has been gained from it. Slowly, its implications are becoming clear in the most ordinary ways. There is a feeling in the Republic that someday soon Britain will wake up from this bad dream and benefit from some daylight.

Yet while we, in southern Ireland, take our easy relationship to England for granted, we do not have a similar relationship to Northern Ireland. In 1986, when I walked along the border in Ireland to write a book, I felt like a stranger much of the time in the north. Their hatreds were not mine, nor indeed their education system or their health service, not to speak of their police and the British army

In Fermanagh, I attended the funeral in a small, rural church of a part-time UDR man who had been murdered by the IRA, with the killers escaping across the border into southern Ireland. As I followed the ceremony, I realised that I had never been at a service in a Protestant church before. Then, when the sermon began, I heard a tone that was new to me. The clergyman read out the names of all those who had been murdered by the IRA in this border community since the Troubles began. He did this starkly, stopping briefly after each name. Many of those named were family, friends or neighbours of those in the congregation. As the clergyman wondered how many more names would be added to the list, the response was a stunned, troubled silence.

I wished that his sermon could have been used in full on southern Irish radio. When I went back to Dublin and told people about the sermon, they nodded in sympathy. But by that time the Republic of Irelands interest in the north was, like that of the British government, at most sporadic.

Like many in the south, I was puzzled at the vehemence of Protestant opposition to the Anglo-Irish agreement in 1985. One day the following year, when I had interviewed a Protestant survivor of a sectarian attack, I added a question about the agreement. He explained that his problem centred on the matter of arbitrary authority. The Dublin government suddenly had a say in the affairs of Northern Ireland, but no one in the north could vote to remove the Dublin government. This opposition to arbitrary authority was at the very heart of Protestant identity, he emphasised.

Now, after Brexit, Northern Ireland may become subject to EU regulations on medicine, to take just one example, but has no democratic relationship to the EU and is not represented in the European parliament. Thus, arbitrary authority approaches from two directions Brussels and Dublin.

The problem Northern Ireland has is serious. It has become low on everyones priority list. The British government was prepared to negotiate a hard Brexit, despite the implications for Northern Ireland. It promised one thing and delivered another. While Dublin wants the Good Friday agreement, in all its ingenuity and sense of inclusion, to be preserved to the letter, there is no appetite in the Republic to take over Northern Ireland or become responsible for funding it or dealing daily with its factions. Dismantling partition would be a most dangerous process.

Over the past 50 years the policy of the Dublin government has been consistent. Dublin wants stability in Northern Ireland. It does not want territory, or trouble. Keeping the border open is a way to avoid strife at the border. Supporting parity of esteem for Catholics is a way to make Catholics more confident and more at home in Northern Ireland.

But just as the Tories had Ukip barking at their heels, there is a spectre haunting Ireland. It is the spectre of Sinn Fin. In an Irish Times column in June questioning proposed legislation for an increase in police power in the Republic, Michael McDowell, a former minister for justice, ended ominously with: The constitutional privacy of the individual needs concrete expression and workable safeguards. You never know who may be directing police operations in the next few years.

His readers would have known instantly that he was alluding to Sinn Fin.

The loud and looming presence of the party as the main opposition in the Dublin parliament brings with it discussion of a united Ireland. The three main politicians in government in the Republic Michel Martin, Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney are not given to rhetorical flourishes. They tend to use language carefully, even thoughtfully.

It is thus depressing to find Simon Coveney in 2017 saying that he wants to see a united Ireland in his political lifetime, and adding this year that his party was very ambitious about Irish reunification. And Leo Varadkar, earlier this year, saying: I believe in the unification of our island and I believe it can happen in my lifetime. And Michel Martin last October insisting that his party was still committed to a united Ireland.

In this united Ireland of theirs, that will occur in their lifetimes, do they intend to foist the dysfunctional health system and the appalling housing crisis that exist in the Republic on the people of Northern Ireland? Do they want to import sectarian hatred and the politics of perpetual grievance from the north into the south?

Their talk of a united Ireland in my lifetime is mystical blather, but it has the power to unsettle a fragile political environment. Also, it will do nothing to keep Sinn Fin at bay. It will do nothing either to solve the more pressing and immediate problem of sour relations at official level between Ireland and Britain after Brexit. It is another example of politicians saying something they dont mean. When Tony Blair did it, his intentions were harmless, an example of bumbling goodwill. In Ireland now, however, stirring up emotion on the subject of a united Ireland in order to hold back the tide of Sinn Fin is what a speechwriter might call dangerous and unhelpful, or, as the Queen might put it, something that might be done differently or not at all.

The Magician by Colm Tibn is published by Penguin (18.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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Colm Tibn: will the Brexit fallout lead to a united Ireland? - The Guardian

WHILE shopping in a local Sainsburys store, my wife came across this fitting notice which I thought Id share with you. It was covertly placed in one of the many empty shelves located in the fresh fruit/vegetables section.

What a good way to protest and highlight that Brexit is indeed a big factor in causing this type of problem one of many problems linked to the Brexit folly, by the way. It rightly refutes the Tory spin that is being foisted on the Scottish public in either not mentioning Brexit at all or bogusly claiming it has nothing to do with Brexit, ie IT WISNAE US!! Aye, thatll be right eh!!

READ MORE:Boris Johnson speech painted business as 'bogeymen', Iceland boss says

I hope this form of silent protest escalates and gradually moves from one community to the next on a grand scale time to strike back regarding this like it or lump it ploy that is being played out by this awful Tory Brit government: WE DIDNAE VOTE FOR BREXIT START LISTENING, PLEASE!!

Bernie JapsEdinburgh

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Supermarket sign was a useful reminder that Brexit was foisted upon us - The National

Exclusive:

Cruise ship workers are being forced out of the profession and overlooked for their European Union counterparts who don't need work visas, a veteran of the industry has claimed

Image: Jean Williams)

Cruise ship workers are leaving the industry in their droves due to crippling post-Brexit visa rules, a veteran of the industry has claimed.

Jean Williams says her life is being 'destroyed' and the livelihoods of many of her friends 'sacrificed' thanks to new employment rules.

Her 20 year career working on the river boats of Europe has been in serious jeopardy since the UK officially left the EU at the beginning of 2020.

Now the 56-year-old, her husband, son and thousands like them must apply for individual visas for each EU country they visit or sail through the waters of, as well as buy private health insurance.

She calculates the total extra cost at almost 5,000 a year, with the lengthy visa application process taking up to eight weeks.

As a result of the extra bureaucracy, many cruise firms are refusing to hire British workers, Jean says.

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For cruise workers are least, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's promises that Brexit would be a 'bonfire of red tape' and would lead to 'hundreds of thousands of new jobs' seem a far cry from reality.

"My husband and I did not want Brexit. We voted to remain but we are most definitely victims of Brexit," Jean, from Kent, told The Mirror.

"I do not remember Mr Johnson saying that the entertainment industrys professions, livelihoods and lives would be sacrificed when he was campaigning for Brexit over five years ago.

"While I may not agree with the decision to leave the EU, I respect the outcome of Brexit. But I dont deserve to be Brexits victim either.

"I am not a remoaner as we have been unfairly labelled, but because these issues were not sorted out properly before we left the EU, Brexit is destroying my life, the lives of my family, the lives of many people I know personally and thousands of people I will never know."

For the first 20 years of Jean and husband Glen's careers as entertainers on cruise ships their work life was relatively simple.

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As passport holders of an EU country they had the right to move and work in 27 other European nations with no need for a visa or health insurance.

All of that changed when the UK officially left the bloc.

"If we visit ten countries, we have to get ten visas," Jean said.

"You have to apply for them at the embassies in London. You go for an appointment and you have an interview.

"It is a lot of paper work and there's no guarantee you'll get a visa. The visas cost about 75 each.

"We are also talking health insurance which you never needed before. That's 8,000 a year for my husband and I."

When the industry started to restart after the coronavirus pandemic, Jean discovered the new rules were having a big impact on her employment opportunities.

She continued: "I started to notice that the adverts advertising the positions us Brits have been doing for decades, were now saying 'EU passport holders only'.

"Agencies told me they won't employ us when I called them.

"To put this into perspective, we are actually talking about hundreds of thousands of UK jobs and lives being effected here.

"UK workers including the self employed, cruise directors, entertainers, musicians, dancers, speciality acts, bar staff, chefs, waiters, cleaners, sound crew, lighting crew, hairdressers, makeup artists (to name but a few) are all going to lose work to European Workers unless an agreement is made between the UK and the EU to enable us all to continue to work in Europe.

"Many of these people effected are young people who are just starting out.

"Many have studied long and hard and got themselves into financial debt in order to be able to do the job of their dreams, only to find there are no jobs for them.

"Many of these people (like us) are very experienced in their chosen profession and have been working in the same industry for many years and this is how we are repaid for all our hard work over the years."

Jean and Glen are determined to jump through the bureaucratic hoops and fork out the extra costs so they can continue working in the industry they love.

Others, including two of the six couples they most recently worked on stage with, have already given up on cruise ship work or are in the process of doing so.

"My son and his girlfriend have been working for many years as a dance couple for a UK agent throughout Europe, only to be told this year their contract is cancelled as the agency can no longer work them anymore due to the EU restrictions and they are both devastated," Jean added.

When asked whether the UK had plans to negotiate an EU wide work visa for British workers, a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Officer simply said: "Visa routes for other countries are a matter for those countries."

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Cruise ship family's lives 'ruined by Brexit' as rules mean they need dozens of visas - The Mirror

Rejoice. Queues at petrol stations. Food shortages. Gas price rises. If you thought they were a sign of the country falling apart then think again. Theyre actually a pointer to just how well things are going. Rather than moaning about people panic-buying diesel, we should be thrilled so many want to make sure theyve got enough fuel to get them to the HGV training centre. Same with empty supermarket shelves. A symbol of just how much everyone is now eating. As for the gas price rises? Perhaps it would be best to ignore them as they dont quite fit the new normal. An outlier.

Not that Boris Johnson seemed that thrilled to be given the opportunity to explain how everything was going entirely to plan on the Andrew Marr show in the traditional leaders interview on the first day of the Conservative party conference. Rather he seemed tetchy and defensive, as he so often is these days. His self-confidence is a paper-thin veneer that cant disguise a man with no self-worth.

Or self-awareness, for that matter. Its hard to tell if hes merely a pathological liar these days or if he just has a desperate need to reconstruct reality to accommodate his narcissism. Earlier that day he had been photographed going for a run in a white shirt and black walking shoes. We now have to accept that hes possibly not just a fun-guy oddball but someone having a breakdown before our eyes

Marr looked understandably perplexed. Not only had the Road Haulage Association written to the prime minister warning of problems back in June their letter had been ignored but almost everything Boris was saying was total doggybollox. He talked of cheap overseas labour not being the solution, seemingly unaware his own government had offered emergency short-term visas. Anyone who wanted a Christmas dinner was advised to go abroad to buy some mechanically reclaimed turkey.

Nor were wages keeping pace with inflation, there was no hint of a pay rise for public-sector workers presumably doctors and nurses were supposed to retrain as lorry drivers, assuming they could get ahead of the queue of Germans living in the UK who had also been invited to try life on the road and taxes were now at their highest sustained peacetime levels. Most people werent getting richer. They were getting more and more broke.

Having first tried to claim that lorry driver and food shortages were a global problem Marr was quick to challenge him on that Boris then did an about-turn. We should take pride in things being so shit because they were teething problems en route to a glorious Brexit future. There had definitely been small print on the side of the Brexit bus, warning there would be a bumpy few years until the UK became a high-earning, full-employment economy. It was just that the print had been so small no one had got round to reading it.

Most curious of all was Johnsons analysis of the labour shortages in the farming industry that were set to result in the imminent cull of 120,000 pigs. Oh those, he said. The thing about them was that they were going to die anyway. So they might as well be incinerated on the farm and saved from the abattoir. If people cared so much they could just turn up at a field and have their own hog roast. From farm to fork, missing out all the middle-men. It was what the pigs would have wanted. Just like all those who were going to croak on cancer waiting lists. Far better to die in the pursuit of an ideological hard Brexit than live with some kind of compromise.

At times like this it is hard to believe Boris is prime minister. But luckily he had the conference itself to remind us why. Because the gene pool of talent within the Conservative party is staggeringly low. An array of single synapses looking for another with which to make contact. This year the Tories have gone for a scaled-down auditorium of a few hundred seats and even then none of the cabinet can fill the hall. The party faithful are rather brighter than those who represent them.

First up was the newly demoted Oliver Dowden, who tried to pretend he was thrilled to be the new party chairman. He went down to stony silence and became ever more desperate as those inside the room could hear the noise outside and realised everyone else was having a better time than they were. Then youd have more fun queueing for petrol.

Dowden, whose natural persona is of a crap maitre d in a third-rate hotel restaurant, tried to generate a bit of excitement by declaring war on woke I wonder what he would have made of the West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, refusing to appear on a DCMS panel because all the speakers were male and ended by saying the Tories would win the next election because his co-chair, Ben Elliot, would rustle up loads of cash. Drawing attention to Elliot, who is at the centre of a cash-for-access scandal, didnt seem the brightest of moves. But then Oliver isnt the sharpest of minds.

Next up was the new foreign secretary, Liz Truss. In Tory polls she regularly comes top in popularity ratings copy and pasting existing trade deals is an under-rated talent but her ability to lose an audience precedes her. Fair to say that public speaking is not one of her core skills: she acts like a shopping channel presenter on the graveyard shift and approaches each speech as if English were a third language. Liz managed to muddle her way through some basic jingoism dont mention the EU, was her mantra and the irony of her insisting countries must uphold their international obligations when the UK is threatening to ditch the Northern Ireland Brexit agreement that it had signed seemed to bypass her completely. Then most things do. Her speech was so bad that no one especially her seemed to realise it had finished. She briefly checked to see if there wasnt a page missing before wandering off in near silence.

The closest she came to reality was promising to bang the dumb for Britain. Boris must feel so proud of his cabinet. Labour traditionally sings The Red Flag at his conference. For the Tories its were shit and we know we are.

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Tetchy Boris tries to play down shortages as bumps on the Brexit road - The Guardian

Similarly, Britain has been suffering from a shortage of HGV drivers for years. Why did no one in Whitehall act to deal with a backlog of tests? The same could be said about the wider skills gap. Thats not a new phenomenon either.

But there seems to be a reflex among big business to scream for help at the first opportunity, hardly a surprise perhaps after the pandemic bailout. The scale of government spending intended to prevent mass unemployment, hardship and the collapse of companies big and small was unlike anything this country has experienced before.

It is striking how quickly many bosses have got used to leaning on the state, and are struggling to wean themselves off support. They need to learn to stand on their own two feet again.

We are talking about some of the biggest companies in the world, organisations with the financial firepower, the brains, and the reach to shape their own destiny not vulnerable sole traders. If Tesco can manage its way through a crisis like this then so can others.

The number of containers of fresh produce being transported by rail from Spain was ramped up to 90,000 from 65,000, 15,000 extra seasonal staff brought in, and 10pc more turkeys ordered. Murphy boasts that Tesco has planned to within an inch of our lives, but this is pretty basic stuff.

With more foresight and planning, companies could have seen some of this coming too. True, the Government should have been better prepared for the drop in foreign workers and the impact that would have but the same could be said of major multinationals that have become too reliant on cheap overseas labour.

See the article here:

Big business tried to block Brexit instead of getting ready for it - Telegraph.co.uk

HOLYROOD'S MSPs have voted to welcome the internationalist vision for Scotland set out by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Parliament debated a government motion titled Scotland in the World Championing Progressive Values.

It stated that the parliament recognises Scotlands distinctive profile on the world stage, and believes that Brexit, which the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland did not vote for, is at odds with that internationalist ambition.

This motion has now been backed by 66 votes to 54.

READ MORE:Gary Lineker breaks Brexit silence to criticise Boris Johnson's Tory conference speech

A Scottish Conservative amendment said the parliament recognises the UK Governments efforts to make the world a safer, cleaner and greener place through international alliances such as the AUKUS pact and its Presidency of COP26.

It called on the Scottish Government to work constructively with the UK Government in international development programmes.

This was defeated by 92 votes to 28.

READ MORE:Friendly Fires pan Boris Johnson for using their music at Tory conference

A Scottish Labour motion stated the Scottish Governments failure to address poverty, inequality, intolerance and violence against women in Scotland undermines its ability to promote progressive values abroad.

This motion was defeated by 94 votes to 26.

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Holyrood backs 'internationalist' Scotland as Tory Brexit condemned - The National

The rejoiners took to Twitter in protest against the culling - with many placing the blame on Brexit. The National Pig Association (NPA) have said that, due to the recent worker shortages, at least 600 swine have been killed.

NPA chief executive Zoe Davies spoke to Sky News about the culling of the pigs and said she has seen grown men in tears as a result.

Ms Davies told Sky News: These are animals that they have reared, fed, looked after, cared for.

"To actually then kill something that's perfectly healthy to then go in the bin - it's just criminal."

Ms Davies also made clear that the situation did not look as though it was going to improve any time soon despite a 37,500 wage being offered to the workers.

However, Rejoiners on Twitter were quick to place the blame for worker shortages on Brexit.

Alex Taylor has worked on French TV and dealt with all-things Europe over 30 years of his career in TV.

Mr Taylor tweeted: This is truly awful.

These pigs are now being killed, not even as food but simply because no one in Johnson's government figured that if you sent the abattoir workers home, there wouldn't be enough abattoir workers to "process" them.

READ MORE:Germans mock UK and blame Brexit for petrol shortage

@BritishAlbatweeted: Pay staff more, improve working conditions, pay more to train staff. Problem solved.

The solution is not to turn back on the uncontrolled cheap foreign labour tap.

Businesses are going to have to learn that era is over.

Time for some cold turkey.

@elkeigh1also suggested there may be another reason for workers not returning, with a veiled hint at the pandemic.

They tweeted: The article says workers went home due to Covid.

I wonder why they didn't come back since.

Was there some change in circumstance between March 2020 and today which might explain it and which the article didn't mention? Complete mystery.

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'This is Brexit' Rejoiners fume at grown men 'in tears' as hundreds of pigs culled - Express

Boris Johnson jokes about number of children Jacob Rees-Mogg has during Tory conference

Public opinion of Boris Johnsons governments handling of taxes, inflation and the UK economy has nosedived, according to YouGov polling.

As think-tanks and trade organisations condemned the prime ministers Tory conference speech touting a high wage economic revival as vacuous and economically illiterate, the pollsters found his party were now neck-and-neck with Labour on the issue of taxation.

Meanwhile, the EU is preparing to table far-reaching new proposals on the Northern Ireland Protocol by the middle of next week, in a move welcomed by the DUP, which had threatened to collapse power-sharing at Stormont over the contentious part of the Brexit deal affecting trade in Northern Ireland.

The European Commissions vice-president Maros Sefcovic urged the UK to dial down the political rhetoric, after Brexit minister Lord Frost threatened this week that unilaterally suspending parts of the Brexit deal by triggering Article 16 may end up as the only way forward.

Speakers at the Tory conference were long on ambition but short on policy detail, the Institute for Governments chief economist has said.

Forty-one fringe events including two of our own had levelling up in their titles. Boris Johnson mentioned it 18 times in his speech to party members. But we still came away from the conference foggy about what the government really wants to achieve, said Gemma Tetlow.

She added: Some at conference argued that the vague, all-encompassing nature of the levelling up term is a strength, but mobilising the power of the state to tackle the array of thorny issues will require more than just a slogan.

With delivering on levelling up requiring action across numerous departments and all tiers of government, the forthcoming levelling up white paper will need to provide much greater detail on the objectives if the might of government is to be deployed effectively.

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 20:00

The government has announced that a total of 47 countries are set to be removed from the UKs red list for travel, including South Africa leaving just seven destinations subject to Britains quarantine rules, Lucy Thackray reports.

The Department for Transport said that dozens of destinations, including Argentina, Chile, Thailand and Mexico, would be bumped up to the rest of world list, allowing vaccinated arrivals from those countries to bypass quarantine.

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 19:41

Silhouettes representing 16 women who have been killed by serving or former police officers since 2009 have been placed outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters to call on the government to put an end to violence against women.

We need more than just words, we need actual action, action that will make a difference and save women's lives, keep women safer day to day, , said Ruth Davison, chief executive of Refuge, which organised the campaign.

She suggested Priti Patel has a real opportunity to do this in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which contains a proposed new serious violence prevention duty requiring, police and other public bodies to work together to prevent and tackle serious violence.

But as the bill currently stands, the definition of serious violence in the prevention duty does not explicitly include domestic abuse, domestic homicide or sexual violence which Refuge wants to change.

(Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 19:07

A Conservative councillor has been suspended from the party after being linked with a far-right, white nationalist organisation by an anti-racist campaign group, our political correspondent Ashley Cowburn reports.

Worthing Cllr Tim Wills was alleged to be a supporter of Patriotic Alternative (PA) a group which claims to preserve the indigenous population of the UK.

Read the full story here:

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 18:37

Just hours after the EU announced it would offer far-reaching proposals for how to resolve issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol, the UK government is reported to have reiterated its threat to trigger Article 16.

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 18:22

Fishing industry leaders in France are threatening to take action against the UK in two weeks time if they are not granted a sufficient number of post-Brexit fishing licences.

French fishing must not be taken hostage by the British for political ends, French sea minister Annick Girardin reportedly said, while the chair of the Hauts-de-France Regional Fisheries Committee threatened that British people will not have so many nice things to eat at Christmas if the issues arent resolved.

My colleague Lamiat Sabin has the full story here:

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 17:50

There is widespread support for the Northern Ireland Protocol, Sinn Feins president has said, dismissing rumblings within a section of unionism.

There is a recognition across the board that the protocol is necessary to protect the all-island economy, necessary to ensure that the foundations of the Good Friday Agreement are kept intact, Mary-Lou McDonald told reporters in Dublin.

"[Maros Sefcovic] will also know, of course, that there are rumblings within a section of unionism, only a section of unionism, and of course the antics of the British Government are well recorded in respect of Brexit, the coercing of the North out of the European Union against the democratic wishes of the voters and, of course, the strategy that they adopted in terms of the exit agreement, and so on.

The reality is that the protocol has to work for all of us on this island.

Ms McDonald said the complications with the protocol have been acknowledged by everybody but said it is essential that everybody, our European partners, but also the British Government, come at this in good faith and with good will.

Calling on Boris Johnson and his government to act on the basis of good will and good faith, she added: I believe that Europe is coming at this question in a solutions mode and I fully expect that the British Government will respect that and will reciprocate that.

Of course, you can never guarantee that, but certainly that is what any responsible and honourable government would do.

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 17:40

The DUP leader has claimed a victory for unionists as he welcomed Maros Sefcovics announcement that the EU will table very far-reaching proposals aimed at securing a compromise over the Northern Ireland Protocol within the next fortnight.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said: We were told weeks ago that the EU were not in a position where they were ever going to reopen negotiations, so I think we've breached the first wall and I think that is the result of unionists standing together and saying, look, we cannot support this protocol, we cannot support an Irish Sea border.

Claiming the pressure we have brought to bear and the steps that have been taken in the last few weeks have focused minds both in London and in Brussels, he added: We still have a long way to go, I don't pretend otherwise, but I think at least now we've broken through. We've opened up the protocol and there is a beginning of a negotiation. We'll see what emerges from that.

Sir Jeffrey had threatened to pull his ministers out of Stormont a move that would collapse powersharing in Northern Ireland if major changes to the protocol are not secured, and said he had been assured by Boris Johnson that unless the EU steps up to the mark, the UK will move unilaterally to restore Northern Ireland's position within the UK internal market.

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster on Thursday, he struck a dour tone over the EUs newly-awaited proposals, and said he hoped the ensuing negotiations would be meaningful.

The EU will bring forward their proposals, I've no doubt that those proposals will fall short of what the UK need and certainly what we need, and there will then follow a period of what Lord Frost called intensive negotiations, the DUP leader said, but added: I've certainly seen a change in the tone and language being used by the EU, which is welcome.

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 17:19

Public opinion of the governments handling of the economy, tax and inflation have nosedived over the past month, according to YouGov polling.

The pollsters also found that Labour and the Tories are both tied with 25 per cent over which party the public thinks would be best on taxation.

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 16:46

Nadine Dorries has been accused of being detached from the real world after she claimed the Universal Credit cut will not push anyone into poverty, my colleague Adam Forrest reports.

The 20-a-week cut to millions of families incomes risks 500,000 people in the UK falling into poverty, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has estimated, while the right-wing Legatum Institute has put the figure at just over 800,000.

But asked by journalist Owen Jones at the Tory conference how many face poverty as a result of the cut, Ms Dorries said: Nobody. Nobody is No, no, no, because no, Owen of course not.

Andy Gregory7 October 2021 16:27

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Boris Johnson news - live: Tory ratings on economy nosedive, as EU touts far-reaching Brexit deal solutions - The Independent