Category Archives: Brexit

Lord Moylan made the comment about Labour as he responded to a tweet by Mujtaba Rahman, the managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group. Mr Rahman posted a thread with a series of predictions about the implications of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on the EU.

Mr Rahman said Vladimir Putin's brutal attack on Kyiv could lead to French President Emmanuel Macron's European Political Community vision of a "wider circle" of European states who are "linked to EU but not part of it".

He added that this could one day "offer a path for Labour to co-operate" with the bloc.

Lord Moylan replied to Mr Rahman's tweet: "Interesting that he expects @uklabour to blaze the trail of betraying Brexit. I agree."

But Mr Rahman furiously hit back insisting the Tory peer had misconstrued his tweet.

"The new/revived concentric proposal is all about that. You think it will attract @uklabour - I agree, precisely as a path back.

"A better question is how the EU is going to cooperate (as an equal) with a friendly, democratic, major power on its doorstep that simply will not be subordinated into concentric architecture that has the EU at its centre.

"Six years after the Brexit vote, Brussels has no idea."

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer last month insisted that if he came to power he would not reverse the UK's departure from the bloc.

The Labour leader made the comments as he set out a five-point plan to "make Brexit work" in a speech at the Centre for European Reform at an event at the Irish Embassy in London.

Sir Keir ruled out rejoining the EU, single market or customs union as he vowed to move on from "arguments of the past".

The Labour leader said: "There are some who say, 'We don't need to make Brexit work - we need to reverse it'. I couldn't disagree more.

"Because you cannot move forward or grow the country or deliver change or win back the trust of those who have lost faith in politics if you're constantly focused on the arguments of the past.

"We cannot afford to look back over our shoulder because all the time we are doing that we are missing what is ahead of us.

"So let me be very clear. Under Labour, Britain will not go back into the EU. We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union."

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'Can you read?' Row erupts as Tory peer told to 'grow up' over 'Brexit betrayal' claim - Express

SCOTLAND's salmon industry is facing "acute" labour shortages due to Brexit despite average salaries of 36,000, business leaders have warned.

Salmon Scotland has warned candidates in the Tory leadership contest, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, Scottish salmon businesses are running 20% light on staff and that without change there was a threat to the industry's business competitiveness.

International sales of Scottish salmon were valued at 280m in the first half of this year, with France accounting for more than half of the total.

But this was down by around 8% compared to 2021, across both EU sales and non-EU sales.

The drop was saidto have been offset by increased demand at home.

Scottish salmon is said to be UKs number one fresh food export, shipping to 52 different markets last year, with growth across 10 of the top 20 markets.

Now the trade body Salmon Scotland has called for a more "enlightened" approach to immigration to assist businesses, which it said was "vital to the economic performance of the UK not only in economically fragile coastal and rural areas but across the length and breadth of the country in processing, engineering, science and technology industries".

Farm-raised Scottish salmonsupports 12,000 jobs many in rural and isolated areas of the country.

But despite growing worldwide demand for the high-protein fish, the industry saidthe labour pool has shrunk in recent years with many key workers returning to eastern Europe post-Brexit.

The body says the industry does not have enough staff across key skill areas due to workers returning to their homes in Eastern Europe as a result of Brexit.

Salmon Scotland said that "very low" unemployment and "extremely limited" labour availability in areas where businesses have processing facilities, namely Rosyth near Edinburgh, Argyll, Fort William, Stornoway, Dingwall and three separate sites in Shetland mean processing factories are running 20% light on staff.

And there are ongoing concerns that changes to the Northern Ireland protocol could lead to retaliatory action by the EU, causing increased friction at the border, delays and queues for hauliers crossing to France, or extra costs for exporters.

The protocol is part of the 2019 Brexit deal and keeps Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods, preventing a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.

Salmon Scotland said a change to key worker definitions, changes to the salary cap level and a broader public signal that the UK is open to people and thus to business have been cited by the body as measures to improve the issue.

They have also asked candidates to take a "pragmatic" approach to trade negotiations with the EU, avoiding a so-called "trade war", with a "clear focus on the nation's export businesses who depend on a positive, professional relationship with France and the other countries of the EU".

Tavish Scott, chief executive of Salmon Scotland, said: Labour shortages in our processing businesses are acute. We would urge you to embrace a more enlightened approach to the movement of labour into the UK so as to assist business.

Steps could include a change to key worker definitions, changes to the salary cap level and a broader public signal that the UK is open to people and thus to business. No change to the current UK Government approach and the attitude in particular of the Home Office is a clear threat to business competitiveness against our main international competitors."

Fresh salmon from Scotland will normally arrive in France the following morning, but in recent weeks there have been delays of up to 48 hours due to queues on the UK side of the Channel and there are concerns of repeat problems.

Salmon Scotland wants the UK Government to introduce immediate contingency plans for perishable goods to have priority status when delays occur at peak times such as the summer holidays.

Mr Scott added: Maintaining and enhancing our export position to the EU and wider European markets is of considerable importance to our businesses

Any escalation of EU-UK negotiations over the Northern Ireland protocol is high on our industry risk register. Continuous access to our main markets in Europe is vital for the UKs food and drink export success story.

Our ask is that a pragmatic approach is taken to these negotiations by the UK Government.

No UK export business needs a trade war or even any such suggestion between the UK and the EU.

We would urge you to deploy a serious, pragmatic approach to these negotiations with a clear focus on the nations export businesses who depend on a positive, professional relationship with France and the other countries of the EU.

Original post:

Brexit staff shortage a threat to Scots salmon farming - HeraldScotland

For 30 years, Daniel Lambert ran a thriving wine business from the UK but on New Year's Day in 2021 everything changed.

The completion of Brexit saw his costs spiral with trading requirements starting a 150,000-a-year leak in his firm that he proudly "started up with a fiver".

Now, Lambert, 50, has moved to southern France to run his company in hopes of cutting down on "red tape" expenses.

Daniel Lambert Wines imports some 1.8million bottles of wine from Europe each year, supplying them to major British supermarkets Waitrose and Marks & Spencer.

But UK shoppers are now paying up to 1.50 (1.77) more per bottle compared to before Brexit, Lambert said, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic had also played a part.

"Brexit is fundamentally damaging the UK economy. I haven't seen a single benefit of it," he said from his new home near Montpellier.

Lambert hopes that by operating in France he will reduce the annual cost of importing back to the UK, which he valued at up to 150,000 (177,000).

He will continue to run his warehouse in south Wales, where he employs five people.

"This is a cost-saving plan. It's not just something I thought up overnight," Lambert said.

"It's the only way to have the competitive edge I need.Being able to trade in the EU effectively is much easier with an EU base.

"I'm trying to mitigate all the paperwork costs and just have a logistics cost."

Lambert said that shipping costs had almost doubled since before Brexit, rising from 160 (190) per pallet to 288 (345).

But he said the biggest expense is paperwork requirements brought about after the UK withdrew from the European Single Market.

While EU trade benefits from the free movement of goods, imports to Britain are subject to tighter checks which can include physical inspections of produce.

Lambert said that paperwork had snowballed since Brexit with an apparent 18 new processes for him to complete before importing goods from the EU to the UK.

Many companies use Europe-based "brokers" to make sense of and to manage new EU-UK trading requirements but this involves additional charges for their services.

Lambert said he hopes to sidestep these costs by managing the paperwork himself from his company's new hub in France.

However, he has faced backlash on social media after sharing his plans to leave "Brexitland".

One woman commented: "What stupid remarks from this man, we really don't need people like him in our country. We are Great Britain and will be getting greater."

Lambert, who has a dual French-British nationality, said he was surprised by the criticism, adding: "I think a lot of people need to wake up.

"My dual nationality means I now have more rights than someone with just a British passport."

Lambert, who is living with his wife and two teenage children, said he had been contacted by thousands of expats who had move to the continent for financial reasons.

He added:People told me theyve moved and havent looked back. I didnt want to do this, I honestly think its a very sad state of affairs."

Read the original here:

Why Brexit made top UK wine seller move to France amid spiralling costs and red tape - Euronews

Party leadership races often involve candidates adjusting policies on the hoof, and so tend to have more than the usual share of U-turns. . Here are some highlights.

Public sector pay Late on Monday last week, Truss announced a plan to save 11bn a year with a war on Whitehall waste, 8.8bn of which would come from tailoring public sector pay to where people work that is, cutting it for people outside London and the south-east of England.

After a torrent of criticism, including from Ben Houchen, the Tory mayor of Tees Valley, Truss dropped the policy little more than 12 hours after it was announced. A statement from her campaign falsely said there had been wilful misrepresentation of the plan, even though the original press release made it clear that savings would come from creating regional pay scales for all public sector workers, including police, teachers and the like.

Help with energy bills Another clarification came a few days later, when in an interview with the Financial Times, Truss appeared to rule out any further assistance for people to pay soaring energy bills this winter beyond tax cuts, which disproportionately help the better off.

Truss said: Of course I will look at what more can be done. But the way I would do things is in a Conservative way of lowering the tax burden, not giving out handouts. After criticism from Rishi Sunaks campaign, Truss supporter Penny Mordaunt took to the airwaves to say other forms of assistance remained possible. Truss has since refused to say if she would offer more help.

Longer-term changes of view All politicians adjust their opinions over time, but Truss is notable for the extent of her idealogical trajectory,in the short and longer terms. Until recently, Truss was an enthusiastic proponent of building new homes in the green belt, but is now more coy on the issue.

More generally, Truss began as a student Liberal Democrat who wanted to abolish the monarchy and more recently was an opponent of Brexit before the 2016 referendum. In the leadership race, she has presented herself as the PM to keep alive the flame of true Brexit.

VAT on energy bills The former chancellors primary pitch for No 10 has been as the voice of financial reality, in contrast to what his camp portrays as Trusss have-cake-and-eat-it boosterism. But this has changed as the campaign has gone on.

Most notable was his idea to cut VAT on energy bills, saving the average household 160 a year. While this is a modest proposal given the expected rise in energy bills, allies of Truss gleefully described it as a screeching handbrake U-turn.

Gaming levelling up funds This is less a U-turn than a confession. While speaking to Tory party members in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, Sunak said that as chancellor he had managed to take money from deprived urban areas to give to other parts of the country.

In footage obtained by the New Statesman, Sunak said: I managed to start changing the funding formulas to make sure areas like this are getting the funding they deserved. Sunaks allies said he had merely been re-stating the idea of also focusing on deprivation in towns and rural areas.

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The war on woke Sunak was never seen as much of a culture warrior by the standards of Boris Johnsons cabinet, but appealing to Tory party members has seen him change his tune. In one speech at the end of last month, he pledged to battle leftwing agitators who sought to take a bulldozer to our history, our traditions and our fundamental values.

Separately, Sunak said he would extend the Prevent anti-extremism programme to people who sought to vilify Britain, described by one former senior police officer as an idea that risked straying into thought crimes.

Read more here:

From energy bills to Brexit: a guide to the Tory leadership race U-turns - The Guardian

Rishi Sunak has been curiously silent about rampaging public sector unions and Liz Truss did not get on the case until Monday. But I fear she does not go far enough requiring a higher strike vote and a minimum service. Altogether the unions represent fewer than seven million of the nations labour force yet they are bent on disrupting services funded by the taxpayer in a summer of discontent. Things have reached a pretty pass when doctors threaten to go on strike. So much for their Hippocratic oath to protect life at all times.

GPs are no better in playing hard to get with their patients. The concept of public service has clearly flown out of the window and badly needs restoring.

My solution is simple: legally ban strikes in defined public services, subject to new arrangements for settling disputes; and require all NHS medical practices routinely to see patients for consultation and provide a 24-hour service from full-time staff.

It is an utter disgrace that hospital accident and emergency departments are overwhelmed because GP practices are not doing their job.

Remote consultation may have made sense during the pandemic, though no one knows the cost in terms of missed diagnoses, but it can no longer be justified.

Lest you think I am just reacting to popular discontent, I should report that I have not seen a GP in my practice for three years even though at 90 I have a portfolio of medical problems.

The second minority impeding the smooth working of the nation is that collection of environmental zealots going under various names from Extinction Rebellion to Insulate Britain. These dangerous idiots and I use the words advisedly would bring the country to a halt in the name of zero carbon.

Glueing themselves to motorways, oil companies and even oil-based works of art is the least of their threat. If they got their way, they would end Britain as an industrial country by leaving us without motive power.

In trying to clean up the atmosphere, they offer only a return to the Dark Ages and in the process leave us at the tender mercies of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

My solution is to toughen the law so that any interference with the free passage of vehicles and pedestrians going about their lawful business is viewed as a serious offence against civil liberty. We have altogether too many people who think they are entitled to impose their will on us.

Which brings me to the wokerati. No one knows their number but it is plain that they infest human relations departments of public and private organisations as well as national institutions and especially academia. They have but one objective: to impose their minority will on the rest of us.

My earnest hope is that the new PM will let the fallen leadership candidate, Kemi Badenoch, loose on them and their totalitarian ways. They are not in the business of civil liberty but repression.

My fourth bete noir is the fifth column Remainers - behind the EU and more especially a vindictive post-Brexit France, which is blatantly disrupting holiday traffic, especially through Dover, by pettifogging bureaucracy and failure to supply enough bureaucrats to handle the predictable traffic.

I have not the slightest doubt that this disruption is encouraged by Remainers who have made no secret of their belief that UK EU-membership is on the cards again now that they have felled Boris Johnson in a coup.

Here we have a minority as proven by the Brexit referendum trying to wag the dogs tail against the wishes of the people. It is one of the more miserable aspects of our democracy.

It might even be described as (mindless) treason because it conspires against our national sovereignty and even encourages the failing EUs annexation of Northern Ireland. My solution is to put an indefinite block on any further payment of the 42bn debt we are supposed to owe the EU after terminating our membership.

Not a penny more would be paid until the EU gets its hands off Northern Ireland and ensures free and unfettered trade and legitimate traffic between the UK and the Continent. Come on Sunak and Truss, show some real Tory backbone. As of now, Ms Truss looks the more likely. We shall see.

Originally posted here:

We should not pay EU a penny until they back down on Northern Ireland BERNARD INGHAM - Express

A British wholesaler who supplies the UK retail market is moving his business to the South of France in order to mitigate Brexit redtape, which he says has cost his business 150,000.

Daniel Lambert Wines, which was been operating for 30 years, imports around 2m bottles of wine to the UK each year to supply retailers including M&S, Waitrose and around 300 independent retailers across the UK. However owner Daniel Lambert is moving his family to Montpellier in France, in order to set up the business there so that he can import wines from the EU to his own company which is based in South Wales.

He told The Guardian that this was in line with the UK governments own suggestions and was the only way to get around the incredibly complicated process and paperwork for importing alcoholfrom the EU to the UK after Brexit.

Being based in France will give the company a French economic operators registration (EORI) number which is required to export into Britain as well as the UK EORI that his British-based company needs for importing.

What Im doing will enable me to import and export into and out of the EU within the company itself, so that we mitigate all of the cost of importing into the UK, he told the paper.

Around 70% of the companys wines are sourced in France, along with Spain, Portugal, Austria and Germany. It also imports some wine from the US, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

Lambert said that although business had boomed during the pandemic with revenues up 500,000, as UK retailers swapped nights out for drinking better quality wine and more cocktails at home, Brexit red tape had cost the company somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000.

He also noted that there had been a contraction in the number of hauliers prepared to import alcohol to the UK, due to the additional complexities involved.

The premiums that are now being paid to move alcohol, particularly across the border, are quite incredible. Brokers have found themselves doing pretty much what they like in terms of charging, because so few are willing to do it, he said.

Until Brexit, the UK was part of the EU-wide EMCS system, a customs database that kept shipping relatively simple and minimised the need for regulatory checks and procedures. However this changed when the UK left the EU at the end of the Brexit transition period, leaving British importers and European businesses facing many more hurdles and costs.

Lambert has previously spoken out before about the level of paperwork involved in the new post-Brexit import system, taking to Twitter to vent his frustration over the bureaucracy, cost and preparations involved, a post that was seen by more than 5.5million people.

He said that each consignment needs around 200 pages of paperwork as each wine needs paperwork detailing a commodity code, depending on the variety of grape, the type of wine, the alcohol strength, the size of the container it is being imported in and whether it comes from a protected designation of origin, as well as information about the origin and the destination of the cargo.

We were a pretty good little business, we were doing quite well, until Brexit came along, he told The Guardian.

Read the rest here:

UK wine supplier moves business to France to mitigate Brexit costs - The Drinks Business

They are trying to hide the failure of Brexit behind policy stunts. This observation about the fiasco of the Conservative partys leadership contest came from an economist friend and neatly sums it up.

Liz Truss, who voted Remain but is now an ardent Brexiter, cannot admit to herself that she was right first time, and that the trade deals she goes on about that are supposed to have made up for our crass departure from the European Union do not amount to a hill of beans.

Sunak, who was always a Brexiter, must surely have learned from his time as chancellor that the Treasurys hostility to Brexit was right all along. He is an intelligent man but, like Truss, is fantasising about Brexit opportunities that the Treasury and other Whitehall departments know are chimerical.

Whichever contender succeeds the worst prime minister in living memory will have to come to terms with two fundamental consequences of Brexit. One is that the Office for Budget Responsibilitys estimate of a 4% annual loss to gross domestic product not only makes the country poorer but severely limits their tax-cutting ambitions hers now, his later. Foolishly losing tens of billions of potential tax revenues through Brexit is not a good start to either of their ambitions.

The second is the devaluation of the pound by up to 12%, which the financial markets attribute to, yes, Brexit. This has not only made the country poorer but has also severely aggravated the inflation problem the government and Bank of England now face with price growth running significantly higher than in most other European and G7 nations.

Because they are not facing up to the consequences of Brexit, the leadership contenders have resorted to promising major tax cuts Stunt Truss; and to a Thatcherite approach to the public finances Stunt Sunak.

This tax-cut business is holy writ among rightwing Tories, and a classic illustration of the cloud cuckoo land in which they reside. They may not have noticed, but most UK citizens are not only suffering from a severe squeeze on real incomes, but are also only too aware of the dilapidated state of so much of our infrastructure and public services.

Public services need to be paid for. The truth that dare not speak its name in rightwing circles and the modern Tory party is dominated by the rightwing tail that wags the dog is that improvements to public services require tax increases, not decreases. There has been much fuss recently about our historically high levels of taxation, but in those European countries not least Scandinavia whose public services we in Britain tend to admire, public spending and taxation are much higher as a proportion of gross domestic product.

Sunaks obsession with his putative Thatcherite credentials is worrying. But is he paying enough attention to the social implications of the budget cuts now affecting the public sector? Many experts think the industrial troubles on the railways are only the start. Even former Treasury permanent secretary Lord Macpherson recently observed that although public expenditure must be controlled it is worth remembering the 1931 Invergordon mutiny. He points out that HMG is currently seeking much bigger real pay cuts than those that caused such social disturbance all those years ago.

When Jack Kennedy was running to be US president (in 1960) he said: I do not run for the office with any expectation that it is an empty or an easy job. He was running because it was the centre of action, and in a free society the chief responsibility of the president is to set before the people the unfinished business of the country.

Sunak and Truss are not standing to be president, but whoever wins will face almighty problems at home and abroad. So far one could be forgiven for thinking they were vying to host a game show. What they should be doing is facing up to unfinished business, recently described by Spains El Pais as time to sow the seeds of reversal of Brexit.

Of course the immediate problem is that our candidates feel obliged to pay obeisance to the pro-Brexit prejudices of so many of their members. For Truss, this is no problem. She has developed a loathing for the European Union that has not been lost on Brussels and Dublin. It is not just the economic damage of Brexit that needs to be repaired. For obvious geopolitical reasons, we need to get as close as we can to the EU.

Frankly, I think Truss is beyond the pale. One must hope that Sunak wins, and is then able to make a serious assessment of where the countrys interests lie. This would involve learning the lesson of the failure of Brexit, and recognising that the Thatcher miracle was not all it was cracked up to be.

The rest is here:

Tax-cut stunts cant cover up the disaster that is Brexit - The Guardian

This is Ian Dunts Week, a subscriber-only newsletter from i. If youd like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week,you can sign up here.

Hello, its another week of morbid horror Im afraid, watching two people who have no business being anywhere near the top of politics somehow competing to be prime minister. Whoever wins, we lose etc etc.

I reached a point of almost complete existential collapse watching the last TV debate and decided that was it for me. No more of that. Anymore than three and you feel like the political version of that bloke who ate McDonalds for a month.

Anyway column below, god help us all, and some recommendations after that.

Brexit squats over everything, barely mentioned, but casting its grim shadow across us. The further we get into this Tory leadership debate, the clearer it becomes. It has broken the partys epistemological system. It is no longer able to process information about the world on a rational basis. So now it does so through myth-making and fantasy. Its the opium dream version of political campaigning, but without the pleasure or the relaxation.

The only moment Brexits consequences were addressed in the BBC debate between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss on Monday came when the presenter asked about the queues to get into France. Were they the result of Brexit? And suddenly these two figures, who for the previous hour had been tearing strips out of each other, were joined in spiritual union. No, they both said stridently, firmly, and in unison.

Never mind the fact that the queues were exactly as predicted. The full evidential refutation of their previous assurances was taking place right in front of their eyes and it didnt even cause them to hesitate.

That one word no revealed the basic dynamic of the leadership race. Its the triumph of wish-thought over empirical thought. And that is a result of Brexit itself. For half a decade, we were consumed by a project which prioritised mythical national glory over practical disadvantage. And even though its now ostensibly over, the mental scarring remains.

Brexit long ago stopped being about European membership, or free trade deals, or even the Northern Irish Protocol. Those debates still happen of course, and they still mutilate peoples economic life and sense of identity, but they are not the central fixation. It is much broader than that. It is about the triumph of the will the idea that anything can happen if you just wish for it hard enough. The idea that faith destroys all barriers. If you just believe, truly believe, it will be real. It is the transubstantiation of political discourse.

Peoples voting records have never mattered too much to the Brexiters. They were always open to converts. Theresa May voted Remain but was enthusiastically embraced in 2016. That love affair was dented by her disastrous 2017 election campaign but it only really ended when she unveiled the backstop solution to the Irish issue. That was a cold hard dose of reality and therefore a betrayal of the core Brexit proposition that only fantasy can be allowed to permeate. And so, from one day to the next, she went back to being considered a Remainer.

Truss, on the other hand, has absorbed the Brexit instruction. Its like meeting an old school friend and finding out theyve become a Scientologist. Her eyes are open and wild with the newfound possibilities. Its why the old Brexit guard from Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg on the front benches to Steve Baker on the backbenches have thrown in their lot with her. They get that reassuring whiff of political Bacchanalia.

Its hard to tell if she really believes in this stuff or merely pretends to. Perhaps, deep down, she is still that radical young Lib Dem who wanted to get rid of the royal family, or the sensible centre-right Remainer who wanted to stay in the EU, and now she merely notes down whatever nonsense the Tory party base has ordered so she can warm it up in the microwave. Or perhaps she is now of the true faith, transfixed by the wondrous new worlds revealed in the Conservatives hallucinatory adventure. It doesnt matter. All that matters is that she promises to deliver on it.

Sunak is more interesting. Sometimes his eyes reveal a sense of frustration and bafflement, breaking out across the rictus Lotus-salesman grin. Occasionally, as in Mondays TV debate, it boils over into hectoring indignation. None of this makes sense. His political education taught him that this was the way you did things: hone your presentational skills, plant yourself in a Cameron/Osborne mould, speak to the Conservative instinct for sound money, show that you are electable. And yet its not working.

Its possible that, in his quieter moments, he has flickers of self doubt. After all, he campaigned for Brexit. He believed in it. He wrote preposterous papers crammed full of absolute drivel about free ports. He is the Brexit hipster in this contest, the one who was into it before it was cool. And yet, it has done something unexpected. It has changed the parameters and the incentives of political debate. And now the culture he helped create is swallowing him whole. Hes like a man who tried to light an incense stick and ended up burning down his house.

Despite his impeccable Brexit voting record, he oozes the old politics of managerialism, professionalism and restraint. He is not quite willing to give up on the idea of objective reality. He is a reminder of the bad old days, before that transcendent moment of national epiphany in 2016.

The rest of us are just trapped here, watching a Tory debate on tax cuts with no relevance to the problems we face, be it the cost-of-living, inflation, the lack of a growth strategy, decaying public services, the war in Europe, the climate crisis or the grotesque inequalities the country labours under.

This is what happens when you commit to a system-level idea grounded in nationalist fantasy and then reject any evidence of the damage it does. The debate over Brexit can pass, but the radicalising effect it had on people does not.

It has mangled and redefined the fundamental psychological assumptions of the governing party. And now were lost in a terrible psychedelia, tripping out on Tory hallucinations while the world burns around us.

For some reason this latest Marvel release got middling reviews upon its release. Thats more a symptom of a pent-up desire for a backlash and the critics growing tired of the relentless arrival of more Marvel films. Which is fine if youre not into it, dont go see it. But of all the films to have a backlash over, this was the wrong pick.

Love and Thunder is a joyous riot of utter nonsense. Within the opening couple of minutes a bloke is killing a sun god in front of giggling flower deities. And then later on Russell Crowe pops up as Zeus, playing him as a flamboyant Greek waiter in a skirt. If thats not a good night out at the movies then I have no idea what is.

Lizzos debut, Cuz I Love You, was one of the best pop albums Id heard in years. Eleven tracks on it and every one of them a banger. Youd just sit there and think: she cant possibly sustain this over a whole album. But she did. The new offering, Special, isnt anywhere near as good. But slightly below par Lizzo is still miles ahead of everyone else. An expertly structured cacophony of funk, disco, rap and pop. Itll cheer you up if you need it, and itll provide the soundtrack to a good mood if you dont.

Ive been rereading this comic series ahead of the new Netflix TV show, which starts next month. I cant really assess it objectively it was the kind of thing I read when a highly susceptible teenager and its strange fantastic world completely owned me. It still reads beautifully now. Its a comic for people who dont read comics. And it has at its heart a love for those who dont quite fit in.

It is ultimately a moral book, even if that is sometimes hard to parse when youre looking at a drawing of a bloke with teeth in his eye sockets and a talking raven. There are three possible entry points to the story: Overture, which is both a prologue and an epilogue because thats how Sandman rolls, Preludes and Nocturnes, which is the official start, and Season of Mists, which I think is the best entry point. If you want my advice, try the latter, then go to Overture and carry on from there if you like it.

This is Ian Dunts Week, a subscriber-only newsletter from i. If youd like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week,you can sign up here.

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Brexit squats over the Tory leadership contest, unaddressed yet mangling reality around it - iNews

Red Wall regions that voted most heavily for Brexit, now export even more heavily to the EU, a new report has revealed.

The Annual Regional Manufacturing Outlook published by Make Uk, which represents manufacturers in the U.K., and business consulting firm BDO examined the contribution of the manufacturing sector to the economies of each UK region.

It analysed both the most recent official data and Make UK's quarterly data on a wide range of indicators, including orders, employment, and investment intentions.

The report found that in 2021, the EU remained the most dominant market for UK goods, with an overall average of 49 percent exports to the bloc.

Red Wall regions that saw the largest increase in EU exports were Wales (+2 percent, the Northeast (+2 percent), the East Midlands (+3 percent) and the East of England (+2 percent).

View original post here:

Brexit: They'll be lucky House of Lords erupts in laughter as bill heckled - Express

The warning has come from the Together Association campaign group, which has raised more than 300,000 signatures on a petition to scrap VAT on energy billsaimed at achieving Net Zero climate change goals. It follows Mr Sunak and Ms Truss locking horns this week over the future of taxation in the UK with fears that tax increases are fuelling the cost-of-living crisis. It comes amid reports that Mr Sunak is set to bow to pressure and reverse his opposition to removing VAT from energy bills.

Together Associations Axe the Tax campaign has come amid fears that by November this year the average household fuel bill is set to rise to well above 3,000.

It has hit the heart of a central issue in the Tory leadership contest, with the candidates all offering to look at Net Zero goals which are already unpopular with Tory members and voters.

In April a Techne UK poll for Express.co.uk revealed that seven in 10 voters opposed the Green Levy on fuel bills.

Alan Miller, co-founder of the Together Association, said: The cost-of-living crisis, which is largely a cost of lockdown, is hitting businesses and families harshly.

Whoever becomes Prime Minister needs to take swift action to eliminate VAT and green taxes on fuel and energy.

They risk facing a challenge on the scale seen with Brexit if this is not addressed. We cannot have this situation continue and get worse as we go into autumn.

That is why we at the Together Association are demanding the new Prime Minister commits to Axe the Tax.

So far from the final two only Ms Truss has said she will suspend the Green Levy requirements in a means of bringing down fuel bills.

Others including Penny Mordaunt, who went out of the contest in the MP voting rounds, had also pledged to remove VAT from energy bills using Brexit freedoms. Now Mr Sunak is set to follow suit.

The Together Association has five aims which it wants the new Prime Minister to agree to or face protests:

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Without a reduction in green taxes, fuel tax and a cap on energy, they will have no choice but to make staff redundant, putting even more pressure on the treasury. Now is the time to pause, allow these businesses to recover and adapt to higher costs"

Bernie Spofforth, chief executive of IP Patents Global Manufacturing, said: It's not too late, we can and we must take a different path, one that allows businesses to continue to operate, employees to remain employed and parents to provide for their children. We must act now to afford individuals and businesses the freedom required to mount an urgent recovery.

This situation is unsustainable and unacceptable.

Read more:

Axe green taxes! New PM faces a Brexit-style revolution if they fail to cut energy bills - Express