Category Archives: Brexit

This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.

The British economy is struggling. As in the case of China and Russia, the situation is slowly unfolding, but compared to almost every OECD economy, and certainly compared to the others of the big seven (G7), Britain is doing dreadfully.

Its current consumer prices increased 9.1 percent over the last year with the expectation they will continue to rise (possibly doubling the current rate in 2023). The official figures for GDP, for to show that all sectors of the economy declined over the last year. The economy is only 0.9% bigger than it was in November 2019, while its population has grown about 1.5%. Unemployment has fallen to low levels but is beginning to rise. Wage increases are a long way behind inflation.

Russias troubles are easily explained. Despite strong hydrocarbon exports, the economy is being slowly strangled of component imports by the sanctions imposed because of the invasion of Ukraine. Chinas are because its giant property sector is switching from a Minsky boom to a Minsky bust.

Most economies in the world have been badly hit responding to the Covid pandemic (that includes China).The Ukraine war has raised prices of commodities like grain and hydrocarbons, although the worst increases are retreating. Wars disrupt economies even if the country does not deploy fighting men.

The Covid pandemic has disrupted international supply chains, a timely reminder of how interdependent the world is. It is not just that components are produced in different countries from the users. They have to be shipped. Shanghai, the biggest port in the world, is in a lockdown. So there are ships anchored offshore, waiting to enter. That means there are fewer ships for the rest of the world and so, for instance, trans-Tasman shipping capacity is limited; evident by the gaps on your supermarkets shelves. (Shipping prices are more three times than their pre-pandemic level.)

But these effects are not peculiar to Britain, so they do not explain why it is doing exceptionally badly. Nor can it be explained by Britains economic cycle being out of phase from everyone elses, a common source of confusion, especially by those who are after dramatic headlines. The relative deterioration has been going longer than a business cycle.

One sort of explanation is that once Britain was the workshop of the world, but other economies caught up. However, the catchup countries are now doing better. Only slightly better in any average year but the deficit accumulates.

I am not sure that the data is that reliable. International comparisons are difficult, especially for non-traded goods and for services. But suppose Britain is growing more slowly. One argument is that the economy is over-regulated. But is it more over-regulated than comparable economies? While I think good quality regulation is preferable, I am not convinced that it affects economic growth as much as the promoters of this view argue. Our strongest recorded economic growth boom was under the First Labour Government after the Great Depression recovery, when there were increasing interventions. The market liberalisations from the 1980s often cost a fortune, as in the case of leaky buildings. On average, they probably improved the quality of output, which GDP does not measure well, but there is no evidence of their improving the material growth rate. Similarly the strongest period of recent British growth was under Tony Blair; NewLabour is not remembered for liberalising economic regulation.

Another explanation for the long-term decline is that Britain has specialised in exporting services (particularly financial services) but at the cost of its manufacturing sector. Allow me to skip the longer analysis and note that the dominance of City of London has been at the expense of the rest of Britain (those promoting levelling-up take notice) but that the share of manufacturing would have declined anyway for the same reasons it has done in other affluent economies.

However, any such weakness does not explain the recent relative deterioration. Surely it is Brexit and the economic consequences. It is not hard to compile a long list of anecdotes which describe the difficulties the British export sector is currently facing.

Let me begin in good Popperian fashion, by setting out the strongest argument for the economic benefits of Brexit. They are not the slogans which people voted on, and I acknowledge that those who value constitutional independence might be willing to pay a premium for it in lower material output. I focus on the economic argument that the British economy outside the EU will be better off in the long run.

Note that this version of the argument accepts that any shock as large as the Brexit will cause damage in the short-to-medium run as industries adjust to the new situation. Could there be gains in the longer run?

The Brexiteers case seems to be that EU regulations were clumsy and holding back the potential of British industry. A less interventionist regime will liberate that potential and eventually lead to faster economic growth.

A New Zealander is allowed to be sceptical. That was the argument for Rogernomics and, as I said, there is no evidence, other than anecdotes and statistical distortions, to indicate that our market liberalisation speeded up economic growth (or even that the economy recovered the loss from the Rogernomics stagnation). The economy continues to trundle along at much the same growth rate as it did before Rogernomics despite, according to the World Bank, being at the top of the list of countries with which to do business. Of course, the Brits may have more sophisticated regulators than ours, thereby getting more of the upsides of the liberalisation and less of the downsides. We shall see.

There is also a sense that regulation as increased has a result of Brexit. While the Brits can liberalise their internal domestic market, they face increased red tape at the border. An exporter to the EU still has to meet EU standards; because the EU market is over six times the size of Britains, the EU determines the standards. Additionally, the additional documentation now required for exporting to the EU is a form of regulatory overload.

It is true there has been some liberalisation at the borders for other markets but the British trade deals have been mainly the ones that the EU did anyway. The good news is that both Australia and New Zealand got better access for their agricultural exports from Britain than the EU gave us.

Perhaps the Brits are hoping to do a better deal with the US than they would have got had they remained in the EU. We shall see, but I am sceptical. The US are tough, inward protecting bargainers as we saw with the TPP. Britain hopes to join the CPTPP; it would be a good win for them (and us) but will not offset the loss of the EU market.

Withdrawing from a trade agreement is akin to a breakdown of the supply chain. This time though, it is not so much being able to get the shipping as that the ships one does get are expensive rust buckets.

Even so, in a declining economy there will be some who do well. In Britains case, it is the retired, who are not threatened by unemployment, living on affluent investment incomes which benefit from higher profits and interest rates and who are nostalgic about the England they grew up in when it was still possible to pretend Britain was a world power. All they want is income tax cuts. They sound very much like the members of the Tory party who are voting for Liz Truss.

*Brian Easton, an independent scholar, is an economist, social statistician, public policy analyst and historian. He was theListenereconomic columnist from 1978 to 2014. This is a re-post of an article originally published on pundit.co.nz. It is here with permission.

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Paying the cost of Brexit | interest.co.nz - Interest.co.nz

There is a widespread assumption that freedom of movement with the EU is highly unpopular among people who identify as Leavers.Paul Willner, Todd Hartman, andRichard Bentallpresent data from a large (>2K) sample showing that this assumption is mistaken: freedom of movement is almost as acceptable to Leavers as it is to Remainers. This finding has implications for the positioning of political parties on freedom of movement and membership of the EU Single Market.

Six years after the EU Referendum, the Brexit project is in disarray. A series of authoritative reports have confirmed predictions that Brexit would inflict serious damage on the UK economy. In June 2022, a report from the Centre for European Reform estimated that UK GDP is 5.2% smaller than it would otherwise have been, investment is 13.7% lower, and goods trade 13.6% lower; a report from the Resolution Foundation estimated that Brexit will cost each UK worker 470 every year over the coming decade; and the Office for National Statistics reported the worst balance of trade figures since records began. An earlier report from the LSEs Centre for Economic Performance estimated that the cost of Brexit to the UK economy is likely to be more than double that of the COVID-19 pandemic, a view shared by the Chair of the Office for Budgetary Responsibility. And this is without full implementation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which the Minister for Brexit Opportunities has said would be an act of national self-harm.

Meanwhile, the problems over the Northern Ireland protocol appear irreconcilable, and the governments solution (to unilaterally cancel swathes of this international treaty that they signed amid great jubilation and claimed as a diplomatic triumph only two years ago) threatens to shred the reputation of the UK as a trustworthy partner in international affairs. This state of affairs is widely recognised: opinion polls on the question of whether Brexit is going well or badly have shown a steady deterioration in public support, with well over three times as many now thinking that Brexit is going badly than think it is going well (54% to 16%).

An obvious remedy for this malaise is readily available. Rejoining the Single Market would at a stroke overcome the barriers to trade with our European neighbours and solve the problem of Northern Ireland, as well as restore lost rights to UK citizens. But Single Market membership would mean the return of freedom of movement, which, it is believed, would so anger leave voters that they would withdraw support from a party advocating it. (We argue that this assumption drives Labour Party policy on Europe.)

Here we present evidence that the received wisdom is incorrect: freedom of movement is NOT toxic to leavers. Our data are from the eighth wave of an ESRC-funded nationally representative survey (grant no. ES/V004379/1), stratified by age, sex, and household income, conducted online on the Qualtrics platform in June 2022. Participants were identified as Leavers, Remainers, or neither from their responses to a questionnaire with three leave-supporting and three remain-supporting items (e.g. I identify strongly with people who voted to leave/remain in the European Union). We then presented participants with a range of different scenarios for the future of the Brexit process. Rather than asking them to identify their ideal or preferred outcome, we aimed to identify outcomes that could be acceptable to both Remainers and Leavers if they were achieved as the endpoint of a process of negotiation between the UK and the EU.

In an earlier survey, conducted with a representative sample of 1,408 adult UK citizens in 2021, we found that, unsurprisingly, a scenario labelled An Independent, Sovereign UK (essentially a hard Brexit) was acceptable to 41% of Leave voters, but unacceptable to 64% of Remain voters; conversely, a scenario labelled Rethink Brexit (calling a second referendum) was acceptable to 65% of Remain voters but unacceptable to 56% of Leave voters. However, a scenario labelled A New Deal with Europe was acceptable to a majority of both Leavers and Remainers, while unacceptable to less than 20% in either group.

In our new survey, alongside the hard Brexit and second referendum options, we offered three alternative visions of what a new deal with Europe might mean, involving either free trade, freedom of movement, or both. Each scenario was presented with an explanation of what it would mean, and a rationale (see Table 1).

A total of 2,166 participants responded to the survey: 587 participants (28%) self-identified as Leavers, 902 (42%) identified as Remainers, and 677 (31%) did not express a Brexit identity. We found that the hard Brexit option was unacceptable to almost 50% of the participants, and acceptable to less than 25%. The second referendum option was somewhat more acceptable (46%), which is unsurprising as significantly more of the sample self-identified as Remainers, but still unacceptable to almost 30% of participants. However, all three new deal options were acceptable to well over 50% of participants, and unacceptable to only around 15%.

In Figure 1, these data are broken down according to participants Brexit identities. For the hard Brexit and second referendum options, the results from participants identifying as Leavers or Remainers were very similar to those obtained from Leave and Remain voters a year earlier: unsurprisingly, the hard Brexit option was highly unacceptable to Remainers (A), while the idea of a second referendum was highly unacceptable to Leavers (B). However, the three new deal options were all similarly attractive to Leavers as to Remainers (C,D,E): each of free trade, freedom of movement, and the combination of both elements, was acceptable to a majority of both Leavers and Remainers, and unacceptable to less than 20% in either group. Participants who did not express a Brexit identity also reported very low (10%) levels of unacceptability for all of the new deal options. We considered whether, within the Leave-identifying group a stronger Leave identity might be associated with grater antipathy to freedom of movement: it was not (correlation = 0.044).

These data suggest strongly that the conventional wisdom is mistaken: when the meaning is spelled out, freedom of movement is not toxic to leavers, who are almost as positive about it as Remainers. Moreover, almost identical levels of support were found for the third new deal option which envisages both free trade and freedom of movement a close approximation to Single Market membership. It appears that, contrary to received wisdom, the return of freedom of movement with Europe and rejoining the EU Single Market are policies that could command wide support across the Brexit divide.

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About the Authors

Paul Willneris Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Swansea University.

Todd Hartmanis Professor of Quantitative Social Science at the University of Manchester.

Richard Bentallis Professorof Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield.

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New research shows freedom of movement is not toxic to Leavers, who are almost as positive about it as Remainers - British Politics and Policy at LSE

The repercussions of the UKs withdrawal from the European Union are still of critical importance and the Government must work to protect 90 billion worth of annual trade between the UK and the Republic, the British Irish Chamber of Commerce has said.

In a pre-budget submission, the chamber has, among other things, called on the Government to set up a contingency fund to support Irish businesses that rely on the all-Ireland supply chain from the potential fallout of the impending Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.

Paul Lynam, director of policy at the British-Irish chamber, said that with UK-Ireland trade growing back towards pre-Brexit levels, the contingency fund could provide much-needed stability for businesses.

This vital trade link will be disproportionately impacted should the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill be implemented, he said.

It also wants to see the establishment of what it calls a shared islands fund, modelled on the existing Shared Island Fund, to foster collaborative initiatives between Ireland and the UK. Announced as part of budget 2021, the Shared Island Fund ringfenced 500 million in capital funding until 2025 for collaborative North-South projects.

Additionally, the British-Irish chamber said the Government should review economic ties with the North and set up a regional partnership programme to act as a counterweight to the Dublin-London corridor.

It has also called on the Government to set up an office of tax reform, similar to the UKs office for tax simplification.

While the chamber is as concerned as the Government when it comes to energy security and inflation, the repercussions of Brexit remain of critical importance, Mr Lynam said. This is why, it is firmly the view of the chamber and our members, who represent a comprehensive range of sectors, that Ireland now needs targeted supports to achieve recovery and growth.

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Brexit repercussions remain 'critically important' in Budget 2023 The Irish Times - The Irish Times

Apparently, you can now see the ring of human excrement surrounding Brexit Britain from space, the raw sewage of Brexits environmental fallout lapping at the shores of our sceptic isle. The Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping, whom I befriended at one of Robin Ince and Brian Coxs Hammersmith Apollo space-comedy events while dancing to Charlotte Churchs indie-pop covers band, contacted me from her sleep pod on the Tianhe space station module to describe the sight. Oh Stewart! From space, Britain now looks like a beautiful green jade earring, but a beautiful green jade earring that has been dropped in an oyster pail Chinese takeaway box full of dog diarrhoea. Oh Stewart! Wang sighed, clearly distressed, no fine ladies will want to wear that filthy earring that is Brexit Britain now. So sad. So sad for you. How is your Edinburgh fringe going? I hear Kunt and the Gangs Shannon Matthews: The Musical is very good.

Like me, I am sure you remember reasonable Remainers warnings about the incoming non-availability of European manufactured, sewage-refining chemicals being dismissed as project fear; like me, I am sure you remember how Michael Gove snorted with haughty delight as he promised us leaving the EU would enable us to enjoy even tighter environmental protections, rather than being swamped with raw sewage. Another Brexit-non-bonus; like me, I am sure you worried that the EUs fines for water pollution by privatised water companies were all that was saving us from capitalism crapping into every culvert, as big business kleptocrats asset-stripped the water infrastructure and processed the profits abroad; like me, I am sure you realised that the Conservatives October 2021 decision to vote down an amendment that would have stopped the dumping of raw sewage into seas and rivers would mean their friends who own the water companies would be free to choke our waterways and coastlines; and like me, I am sure you were more than a little bewildered to find that the most consistent voice of reason in this crisis is former Undertones frontman and keen fly fisher Feargal Sharkey. Who can forget the prophetic hit single, Here Comes the Summer, with its classic couplet: Keep looking for the girls with their bodies so fit, lying on the beaches all covered in shit?

To be fair, Sharkey is only one of a long line of Northern Irish punk musicians currently engaged in specific water-related political activism. Former Stiff Little Fingers guitarist Henry Cluney is especially concerned about climate changes impact on the breeding cycle of the water boatman (Corixa punctata); Ronnie Matthews, of Big Time hitmakers Rudi, sponsors a rare pelican eel at Belfast Zoo; while one-time Moondogs bassist Jackie Hamilton has attempted to raise awareness of depletion of the habitat of the gasterosteidae family by living for a year as a stickleback in Fermanaghs mysterious Lough Erne. Nonetheless, Sharkeys pop career change is only the second most startling in rock, beaten by that of Jeff Skunk Baxter, who vacated the bassists hammock of 1960s Boston acid rockers Ultimate Spinach, and subsequently the comfortable leather armchair of the same position in Steely Dan, to co-develop the Pentagons Son of Star Wars weapon system.

As water bosses dividends rise our rivers are suddenly more polluted than ever and our beaches are befilthed by sewage discharge in a way not seen since the 1970s, when I well remember seeing human turds bobbing around the face of Bobby Ball as he bathed blissfully in the Blackpool brine between shows. Back then, we were known as the dirty man of Europe. Today, the dirty man of Europe is Iain Duncan Smith, whose preferred pastime of picking his nose and gobbling down the crusty mucous in the Commons has become a hit Try not to gag meme among continental teenagers. But filthy Britain may yet become the dirty man of Europe again.

Ironically, the clogging of the seas around Britain with untreated excrement already threatens the core values of Brexit. Currently, I am in Edinburgh, performing two sold-out shows a day of so-called woke comedy. Between the middle ages and the 19th century, the spot currently occupied by Princes Street Gardens was home to the Nor Loch, an artificial lake that became so clogged with the human filth that ran down from the crowded tenements on the north slope of the Royal Mile that in hot summers a crust of excrement would harden across it strong enough to bear the weight of a man.

Indeed, in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), James Boswell recalls Samuel Johnson betting him a hundred guineas that he could not bear him upon his back over the encrusted sewage-lake. Boswell tried his best, but the creme brulee sliver of human waste cracked at around the point where the Ann Summers shop stands today and both Johnson and Boswell fell floundering into the filth, while much hilarity ensued. The problem for the Brexit government is that on a calm day, with a hot sun, the surface of the enshatted English Channel itself could similarly harden, allowing migrants in their millions to simply walk into Brexit Britain on foot, a spectacular own goal of Brexits regulations bonfire.

So, swim at your peril, middle-class wild river swimmers, unless you fancy being confined to your ersatz rustic Airbnb travellers wagon with sickness, diarrhoea and your children.

But remember Brexit Britain, as you crawl from the sea coated from head to toe in human excrement, its what you voted for! Freedom from their red tape! We may be swimming in shit, but at least its the shit of Britons unbowed by the yoke of Brussels! Where will this bonanza of post-Brexit deregulation take us next?

Stewart Lee is appearing in a show to raise funds for the David Johnson Emerging Talent award on 28 August, 6pm, at the Gordon Aikman theatre, Edinburgh; Snowflake is on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer at 10.30pm on Sunday 4 September, followed by Tornado on Sunday 11 September

This article was amended on 29 August 2022 to correctly refer to Lough Erne, rather than Loch Erne.

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At last, the Tories prove that Brexit has polluted the UK - The Guardian

Jonathan Portes answers the criticisms of those who claim that what the Brexit campaign was really promising was lower levels of immigration

In a recent article for ConservativeHome, I described the Governments post-Brexit immigration policy as a rare success: a Brexit promise that had largely been successfully delivered.

I argued that ending free movement, and equalising conditions for work and study visas between those coming from Europe and elsewhere, had both fulfilled the terms of Vote Leaves stated commitment and its objective of shifting away from lower-skilled and paid immigration. The new system also seems to command widespread public acceptance.

The results should be welcomed by economists and pro-migration liberals. A substantial rise in migration from outside Europe, particularly in higher-paid and more skilled jobs, largely offsetting reductions in EU migration. At the same time, political developments have resulted in a sharp rise in refugee flows from Hong Kong, Ukraine and Afghanistan.

Unsurprisingly, this thesis has not been met with universal acclaim.

The first criticism of it is that what the Brexit campaign was really promising and what those who voted for Brexit really wanted and voted for was much lower immigration. But this simply isnt the case.

Cutting migration to the tens of thousands was promised by David Cameron in the 2010 Conservative Manifesto, and again in 2015, and then reaffirmed by Theresa May in 2017 all Remainers of course. But the Vote Leave campaign was careful, understandably given Cameron and Mays record of failure, not to give any such hostages to fortune.

Its undoubtedly true that there was a strong undercurrent of xenophobia in the Leave campaign not just Nigel Farages notorious Breaking Point poster, but also the official Vote Leave scaremongering over Turkeys possible future accession to the EU. Its also true that a substantial majority of voters, both Leave and Remain, did indeed expect that Brexit would reduce migration flows.But this misses the point.

If the Leave-voting public had indeed been taken for fools by a campaign which implicitly promised much lower immigration, and has delivered no such thing, then wed expect a sharp backlash now.The usual suspects on the ethno-nationalist right are doing their best to conjure up the spectre of exactly that.

Eric Kaufmann has long argued that what British voters really want is fewer non-white migrants. Writing in Unherd, he has claimed that reducing immigration is the way to reclaim national populist voters. Except that even by torturing his own dodgy data, and making some fairly obvious errors in the process, he cant show any such thing. Similarly, Ed West has said that the Brexiteers had one job and argues that what voters really want is to reduce non-European migration.Neil OBriens article, to which I was originally responding, is a carefully sanitised version of the same argument.

Essentially, their argument is that the British public is suffering from false consciousness and that when they discover whats really going on, there will be a backlash, and it wont be pretty.

Their position has a lot in common with Remainers on Twitter who persist in arguing that Brexit voters are going to be extremely unhappy when they notice that what Brexit has meant in practice is fewer European migrants, but lots more Indians and Nigerians.But so far, it simply hasnt happened.

Immigration remains well down on the list of issues of public concern.Even in the Conservative leadership campaign, despite the candidates race to the bottom on wider social issues and their enthusiastic endorsement of the Rwanda policy, neither has proposed any significant changes to the wider immigration system.

As I have written in these pages previously, this looks less like a simple hostility to immigration than the schizophrenic approach of New Labour: economic liberalism, combined with an instinctive hostility to refugees.

If it was really the case that there was a silent majority in favour of much lower immigration, then specific policies designed to achieve that would be very popular and politicians like OBrien would be advocating them. But they dont actually seem to have the courage of their convictions.

Not many mainstream Conservatives are advocating cancelling the Hong Kong visa scheme, or further aggravating NHS and care sector shortages, or making it much harder for international students to come to the UK for the simple reason that such proposals would not only be damaging but also unpopular.

The more valid criticism of the thesis is that the pendulum could easily swing back. If public acceptance of high levels of immigration is driven by the realisation, post-pandemic, of how dependent the UK is on immigrant workers, and current labour shortages, then it may not survive a sharp slowdown. Moreover, the media has so far largely ignored the recent increases in migration flows, with the more xenophobic elements preferring to concentrate on Channel crossings. That could change.

And its possible the debate will get more difficult. But there is an element of unnecessary fatalism here an assumption by pro-migration liberals that the vast majority of Britons are at best insular and at worst racist, and that theres little that can be done to change that, so any improvements to the system have to come by stealth.

This ignores that the shift in public opinion on immigration isnt a recent blip its been trending in this direction, slowly but steadily, for a decade.

Might it be possible that argument and advocacy by migrants organisations, unions, civil society and (dare I say it) economists may, over time, actually change peoples minds? This isnt an argument for complacency but at least for cautious optimism.

Finally, I was criticised for ignoring the labour shortages that are a very visible consequence of the end of freedom of movement in a number of sectors.While as far as we can tell, given the difficulty in interpreting the data overall migration for work is probably running at about the same level as in the years leading up to the pandemic, there has been a substantial shift in the sectoral distribution of migration flows.

Overwhelmingly, visas are now being issued for jobs in health and social care, IT and business services and finance; other sectors that previously saw large inflows from Europe, in particular hospitality, are finding it very difficult to recruit staff, while agriculture suffers both from the end of free movement and the Ukraine are.

This will certainly impose an economic cost. Employers face a set of unpalatable choices raise wages to recruit more resident workers, increase productivity through investment or more efficient working practices, or simply reduce output. But this is a feature, not a bug, of the new system.

The Brexit argument, of course, was always that free movement drove down wages and removing it would result in a high wage, high productivity economy. Theres little or no evidence of that so far not only are real wages falling across the board, but so far at least higher-paid workers and sectors have suffered the least.Nevertheless, over time, we might expect some increase in relative pay in the most affected sectors, and some investment in labour-saving machinery in, for example, agriculture.

Much of the adjustment will have to come in other ways, but it will come. Some sectors may shrink, as some business models become uneconomic; some production may move abroad.This is an inevitable consequence of the end of free movement, with its flexibility, lack of bureaucracy and responsiveness to labour market conditions.

But while regrettable as is, of course, the loss of Britons rights to live and work wherever we want in the EU this is an inevitable consequence of our exit from the Single Market.Its not in itself a convincing critique of the new system.

There remains lots wrong with the current system, even leaving aside the cruelty and racism of the Rwanda policy: high visa and settlement fees, especially for families; vindictively restrictive policies on spousal visas; and the broader cultural dysfunction of the Home Office.But that shouldnt stop us from recognising that the new system is, unlike much else, fit for purpose.Sometimes we should take yes for an answer.

Jonathan Portes is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the School of Politics & Economics at Kings College London

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'The Government's Post-Brexit Immigration Policy is a Rare Success' Byline Times - Byline Times

The European Audiovisual Observatory reported today that the number of broadcasters relocating away from the UK has fallen back to pre-Brexit levels, suggesting that an exodus away from the UK which was primarily caused by Brexit is now finally complete.

This broadcaster exit (or brexit, if you will) has been significant: the Observatory previously reported that the number of TV channels based in the UK had halved between 2018 and 2020, from 1230 to 586.

The Observatory says that many of the relocations have been subdivisions of international broadcasters such as Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Viaplay, NBC, Paramount, Antenna, SPI International, as well as versions of Sky and BBC targeting foreign markets and international channels aimed at pan-European audiences in general.

Obviously these broadcasters havent pulled out of the UK completely. Rather, while smaller broadcasters or individual channels owned by those groups could previously base themselves in the UK while broadcasting to one or more EU countries abroad, now theyve had to relocate across to the mainland continent.

Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and The Czech Republic were the main destinations for networks that chose to relocate. Several of those markets had been actively pitching themselves as new European hubs for broadcasters, spotting a post-Brexit opportunity to attract new business.

UK + ECTT, or EU + AVMSD?

The reason for this mass evacuation comes down to the EUs rules around broadcasting licences rules which have previously benefited the UK by allowing a number of TV businesses to base themselves in the UK even though they didnt actually serve UK audiences.

The Country of Origin principle enshrined within the EUs Audiovisual Media Services Directive states that broadcasters are permitted to transmit across the entire EEA so long as they comply with the rules of their host country, which of course must be a country from within the EEA.

Many broadcasters chose to set up shop in the UK, obtaining a licence for UK regulator Ofcom. Ofcoms guidance is considered by broadcasters to be very clear and detailed, thus being relatively easy to comply with.

But since the UK has left the EU, it no longer falls under the AVMSD, which effectively left UK-based international broadcasters with two options.

A separate piece of legislation created by the Council of Europe (which the UK is still a part of) similarly allows for broadcasters based in one member state to also broadcast in other member states. This piece of legislation, the European Convention on Transfrontier Television (ECTT), sets its own rules which broadcasters have to comply with in order to broadcast across borders.

So broadcasters could have chosen to remain based in the UK and be governed by the ECTT, but there were a number of drawbacks to this. Not all EU member states are signed up to the ECTT, and it doesnt cover on-demand content or streaming services (since it was written in the eighties). Its also generally less comprehensive than the AMSD, and doesnt have mechanisms for conflict resolution.

The alternative was to relocate to an EU member state a move which also had its drawbacks. Broadcasters had to physically locate at least part of their business to that country, or else try to justify saying they were established in the country using technical rules around satellite uplink. Either way, they also had to learn the rules of that countrys TV regulator.

But clearly of the two options, many saw the latter as preferable.

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The Brexit-Led Broadcaster Exodus from the UK Appears to be Complete - VideoWeek

Brexit may never have happened if Boris Johnson hadnt won the 2019 Tory leadership contest, broadcaster Laura Kuenssberg has said.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the BBCs former political editor said there was a decent argument that Mr Johnsons involvement in the Brexit debate tipped the balance towards leaving the EU.

She said there was also a case to be made that should Mr Johnson not have won the Tory leadership contest in 2019, Britain may never have made its exit.

Asked how he will be remembered, she said: He will, without doubt, always be seen as a prime minister of huge consequence.

Because whatever you think of the UK decision to leave the EU, theres a decent argument to be made that his involvement tipped [it], but theres also a decent argument that if he hadnt won the Tory leadership in 2019, it [Brexit] wouldnt have happened.

So he will have a chunky chapter in UK history. Then being the prime minister who was in charge during the pandemic, not least the PM who nearly lost his life to the disease.

Ms Kuenssberg also described Mr Johnsons likely successor, Liz Truss, as a great survivor.

She has often been looked down on by people who she then outwitted or outlasted, she said.

She is a great survivor. Relentless, shape-shifting, being pragmatic, having a bit of fun at her own expense those are all things that she is [or is] willing to do. Shes instinctive.

On her own next steps, she said she wants her version of the Sunday programme to have some wit around it and warmth.

Ms Kuenssberg said there is no point being aggressive for aggressives sake.

But firm? Absolutely damn right, she said.

Ms Kuenssberg is due to take over the Sunday politics show on September 4 with a new set, format and title music.

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Brexit may not have happened if Boris Johnson hadnt won 2019 Tory leadership - The Independent

Located at the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula, Gibraltar was a part of the European Union before Brexit. With 95 percent of its residents having voted Remain in the 2016 referendum, relations between the British overseas territory (BOT) and London have been turbulent ever since.

Spain's acting Foreign Minister, Jos Manuel Garca-Margallo, has repeatedly renewed calls for joint SpanishBritish powers.

As the issue dragged on, the narrative grew more resentful, with the Spanish ambassador, Agustn Santos, saying negotiations between Madrid and London were urgently needed to overcome Gibraltar's "colonial" status.

The remarks, in his annual address to the UN Decolonisation Committee in June, echoed calls by Mr Picardo, insisting "the Gibraltarian people" would not accept any solution proposed in their name and without their participation.

Mr Picardo's commitment to ensuring Gibraltar's future is not determined by two countries other than themselves was reflected in comments he made in response to the claims he had held "secret talks".

He continued: "We have stated repeatedly that we are constantly meeting with colleagues from the UK, the EU and Spain as we continue to try to finalise negotiations for a safe and secure treaty between the UK and the EU which settles our future relationship with the EU and which has no implications for sovereignty.

"I am very proud to be leading the Gibraltar negotiations, alongside (Gibraltar's Deputy Chief Minister) Joseph Garcia."

"The work is constant and unrelenting and occurs daily by telephone, email, WhatsApp, video conferences and in-person meetings.

"It has not waned through the summer months as we try to finalise matters as soon as possible."

The Gibraltar Chief added:"Work on the proposed treaty therefore continues, with more formal rounds to be announced shortly starting in September, and as soon as we can announce areas of progress or agreement, we will do so."

The Gibraltar Government said there is nothing "remotely secret or undisclosed" about such meetings.

They added: "The Government only makes announcements of such meetings when they are formal negotiating rounds or when they involve senior ministerial representation from other governments involved."

Additional reporting by Maria Ortega

Read more:

Gibraltar chief forced to deny 'secret talks' on Brexit deal with Spain as mystery swirls - Express

25.06.2016

One of my early portrayals of Boris Johnson, before Id rendered the caricature down to a minimal mop of vision-impairing blond hair complete with a big gob and Pinocchio nose. Here he is the morning after the EU referendum with his Brexit bedfellows, Nigel Farage and Michael Gove, having successfully screwed the nation.

30.03.2019

It was always my opinion that the only objective of Boris who allegedly had childhood dreams of becoming World King was merely to gain power, even if that meant destroying the country in the process just so he could be leader of the remaining shit heap. This was published before Johnson had actually become Prime Minister, so my prediction wasnt far off

31.08.2019

From those halcyon days early on in BJs leadership before Covid, Partygate and all the other gates that were yet to come where he was just merely piggybacking onto the Queen to unlawfully prorogue Parliament.

15.06.2019

As we now reach the prolonged end of yet another Tory leadership battle where the dozen or so people in the Conservative membership get to choose the next Prime Minister this cartoon takes us back to the previous one in 2019. It all got a bit bizarre when the subject of past drug-taking became a cause clbre which all candidates were interrogated on. Regardless, Johnson snorted away all the competition in the end.

15.02.2020

A cabinet of nodding Yes People. It always seemed the only qualification needed for being on Boris top team was just devout loyalty and the willingness to appear on morning news interviews to blow raspberries in answer to questions about whatever the latest scandal was. If you were able to do this, then it didnt matter how bad you were at your actual job, youd be an unsackable asset!

24.10.2020

Published before the government performed a U-turn on its original pro-child food poverty stance, when they were still rejecting Marcus Rashfords campaign to extend free school meals to children from low-income families during school holidays. My intention was to convey what the Government was saying no to in a succinct manner, something cartooning can be a very effective medium for.

24.04.2021

Theres something very satisfying as a cartoonist when you have a basic idea that can then be cram-packed full of gags. In this instance they came naturally. The stench of Tory sleaze was lingering heavy when this one was published in April 2021, so I depicted various members of the Conservative party as postcards in a phone box offering their services to those who want to party like its a Covid lockdown work event

04.09.2021

After the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, Britain launched Operation Warm Welcome, a scheme to resettle Afghan refugees who had worked with the UK in the past 20 years. It turned out that those who managed to get in on the UKs limited and chaotic embrace arrived in a country with shortages of well, just about everything.

20.11.2021

Injecting some Wile E Coyote style slapstick for when the Government was accused of letting down its newest cohort of Red Wall voters in the North after it scaled back plans to upgrade the regions rail network. It proved, as had long been suspected, that Levelling Up was just another vacuous slogan.

15.01.2022

When Johnsons claims that all those lockdown gatherings at Downing Street were work events started to crumble. It wasnt Partygate that finished Boris premiership in the end, but it left him with a mighty hangover.

14.05.2022

As a cartoonist, once youve been drawing a public figure for long enough and have rendered them down to just a set of lines you could draw with a blindfold on, you can start to be creative with pushing the limits of that likeness and metamorphosise the caricature into all sorts of whimsical forms. Such as this one, where I imagined Boris as a Platinum Jubilee cake, in which all I needed was a blob of yellow custard for the hair, some jam filling for the lips and a protruding candle for that nose. This one also presented an opportunity for lots of pudding puns.

08.07.2022

The End (or is it?)

Signed/unsigned prints of all these cartoons and more are available at: benjenningscartoons.newsprints.co.uk

Visit link:

Boris Johnson cartoons: Three years of chaos, from Brexit to Partygate - iNews

Since January 1, 2021, football clubs across Europe have had to get used to post-Brexit player trading regulations.

Already this summer, deals have fallen through because a potential signing has not secured the relevant number of governing body endorsement (GBE) points needed to obtain a work permit to play in the Premier League or EFL.

In one instance, the club thought they had a deal in place and the required points wouldnt be an issue, only for that to change in the space of 48 hours, resulting in their application being rejected.

And with clubs across the United Kingdom keen to add to their squads on deadline day, whether a player qualifies to receive a GBE is going to be a key issue in negotiations.

The Athletic explains why

What is GBE?

GBE is a points-based system in which players need to earn at least 15 points to be eligible to play for a Premier League or EFL team.

For players hoping to arrive in the UK from Europe, the post-Brexit regulations essentially mean they must go through a similar process to signings coming from South America.

It also means Premier League and EFL clubs can no longer sign overseas players under the age of 18 (this would have meant Cesc Fabregas, who joined Arsenal as a 16-year-old in 2003, would have been prevented from moving from Barcelona), and those who are 18 and above have to earn a set number of points to qualify for a work permit.

The applications are submitted by the clubs and are either rejected or approved by the FA.

How is a players eligibility assessed?

A players eligibility is assessed by a range of factors, including:

International appearances are the only way potential signings can be granted an automatic pass.

In terms of domestic minutes, players will score higher if they play in a better league.

There are five bands set out by the GBE:

Band One: English Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1

Band Two:Portuguese Primeira, Belgian First Division, Eredivisie, Turkish Super Lig, English Championship

Band Three: Scottish Premiership, Liga MX,Primera Division of Argentina, Russian Premier League, Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A

Band Four:Croatian First Football League, Swiss Super League, Bundesliga 2, La Liga 2, Austrian Football Bundesliga, Ligue 2, Czech First League, Ukrainian Premier League, Greek Superleague, Colombian Categoria Primera A, MLS

Band Five:Danish Superliga, Polish Ekstraklasa, Slovenian PrivaLiga, Chilean Primera Division, Serbian SuperLiga, Chinese Super League, Uruguayan Primera Division

Are there a set number of points needed to qualify?

Yes, the points system is broken down into three different categories: ineligible, can appeal and eligible.

If a player scores 15 points or more, they are eligible for a GBE and can therefore play in the Premier League and EFL.

Should they receive 10 to 14 points, the club will be able to appeal the decision so long as they can provide evidence that exceptional circumstances prevented the player from receiving 15 points.

However, if a player scores fewer than 10 points, then they will not receive a GBE and will not be able to appeal the decision.

This was the case with Justin Kluiverts proposed transfer from Roma to Fulham yesterday, with the 23-year-old Netherlands midfielder refused a work permit. Despite appearing for Nice on loan last season, his lack of recent appearances for Roma meant he failed to meet the FAs criteria and an appeal was not permitted.

What happens if an application is rejected?

If an application is rejected and the player achieves between 10 and 14 points and there is evidence that exceptional circumstances stopped them from receiving 15 points, then clubs can appeal to the FAs exceptions panel.

In this scenario, the FA will appoint an independent panel of three members, which includes one legally qualified chair and two panel members who have relevant experience at the top level of football.

A fee of 5,000 plus VAT will be charged for every exception panel appeal and this must be paid by the club before the application is considered by the FA.

Even if the exceptions panel recommend that a GBE is given, the FA is not obliged to offer one.

Should a club apply for one player to obtain a GBE and it is initially rejected, then a second application will be granted if the circumstances have changed.

For example, if, at the beginning of August, the player had not played enough minutes but then by the end of the month they had, the club can apply to the FA again. But the situation must have changed in order for this to happen.

What about female players?

Female players are subject to the same application system as male players, although they require 24 points as opposed to 15 to be granted a GBE.

They are ranked in the following five categories:

The league quality is measured by two bands:

Band One: English Womens Super League, Australian W-League, French Feminine Division 1, Italian Femminile Serie A, German Frauen Bundesliga, National Womens Soccer League, Spanish Womens Primera Division, Swedish Damallsvenskan, Norwegian Toppserien and Danish Elitedivisionen.

Band Two: All other leagues not in Band One.

If the player in question achieves 24 points or more, they will be granted a GBE. Should they receive between 20 and 23 points, then (similar to male players) evidence of exceptional circumstances preventing them from achieving 24 points must be submitted to the exceptions panel.

This costs 5,000 plus VAT.

Anything 19 points or below will be rejected and an appeal cannot be lodged.

When is the deadline for a work permit application?

There is and there isnt one.

Technically speaking, clubs can make applications all year round, so todays 11pm deadline will not hinder a teams ability to complete a deal.

However, any application should be submitted to the FA by midday (at the latest) on the relevant transfer deadline day for it to be processed the same day.

But as per the guidelines, a club can sign and register a player even if they do not have the required points to qualify for a GBE.

If this were the case, however, the player would not be eligible to play until they are eligible and have successfully applied to the FA.

To get around this, some teams, in theory, can buy a player who does not qualify and then immediately loan him out overseas in order to get his points up. By doing that, they can complete the signing they want and benefit later down the line.

(Top photo: Marcio Machado/Getty Images)

Continued here:

Brexits impact on transfers and how clubs obtain a work permit for players - The Athletic