Category Archives: Brexit

Those who can, do. Those who cant, end up working for GB News.

In a pleasing piece of synchronicity, Boris Johnsons move into his latest career, as a TV presenter working for a man called Paul Marshall, was announced just before what was left of his reputation as prime minister was forensically shredded in the evidence before the Covid inquiry.

It was the wrong crisis for this prime ministers skillset, was how his former comms guy, Lee Cain, evaded the key question of whether Johnson was up to the job.

As recently as 2010, Cains own day job involved dressing up as a chicken on behalf of the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror in order to taunt David Cameron and other Conservative election candidates. But, after a stint in Downing Street, he has learned to talk like the fictional Sir Humphrey Appleby.

Johnsons real-life cabinet secretary, Simon Case, was less squeamish in his choice of words. He cannot lead, Case wrote in a WhatsApp thread at the height of the pandemic, and we cannot support him in leading with this approach. The team captain cannot change the call on the big plays every day. Government isnt actually that hard but this guy is really making it impossible This is in danger of becoming Trump/Bolsonaro level mad and dangerous.

Even this was polite stuff compared with Dominic Cummings, the Brexit buddy Johnson brought into the heart of government. It would not be seemly to reproduce much of the language Cummings used to describe his boss and his cabinet, but the words included all the really rude four-letter ones beginning with c, s, f, and w.

I dont suppose Johnson is unduly distressed by the rubbishing of the way he handled his time at Number 10. That was thenand, according to Cummings, he was bored of being PM within a month of getting the job. He has moved onto an extremely lucrative basket of careers including speaker, columnist, global sage and now TV presenter.

Johnsons motives can be easily summed up in three words: money, ego and mischief. The six-figure stipend will be handy. He has an almost sociopathic hunger to be talked about. And, in an impending election year, he has an infinite number of scores to settle.

So thats the easy bit. But what about Paul Marshall? Whats in it for him?

Its possible you havent heard of Sir Paul Roderick Clucas Marshall. Theres no reason why you should have. Until fairly recently he was just another hedge funder/philanthropist whose only involvement in politics was as a patron of the so-called orange book tendency (the fiscal right wingers) within the Liberal Democrats.

But then he caughtand helped financethe Brexit bug. In a 2021 article for UnHerd, which he also funded, he identified himself as a classical liberala group which he thought needed, more than ever, to stand up for our most ancient freedoms such as freedom of speech, conscience and assembly. In other words, dont call him woke.

To that end, he founded GB News, in which he owns a 48 per cent stake. He is thus, in some senses, about to be Johnsons boss.

But why? The parent company of GB News, amusingly called All Perspectives Limited, was established in late 2019since then, six of its 11 officers have resigned.

All perspectives? Well, Johnson joins a line-up of presenters who are still Tory MPsincluding Jacob Rees-Mogg, Lee Anderson, Nigel Farage, Esther McVey and Dehenna Davison. So thats all perspectives within one party from, lets say, pretty right of centre to extremely right of centre. In addition, there has been a motley crew of anti-woke oddballs and climate change sceptics in front of the camera.

Former colleagues of Johnson are beginning to realise that the channeltogether with its incarnations on social mediais likely to prove highly influential in shaping whatever remains of the Tory Party after the next election; youll remember Priti Patels slightly demented conference tribute to the channel as a disruptor to take on the establishment, the Tory-hating, Brexit-bashing and free-speech deniers at the BBC and so-called mainstream media. Which made one wonder if she has, say, ever read a mainstream newspaper.

It is one of lifes mysteries that Ofcom, the regulator which is legally charged with upholding the due impartiality of GB News, appears to think that the all perspectives branding ticks the right boxes.

But Sir Paul is not content with shaping the future of right-wing British politics through GB News alone. He also wants to buy the Daily Telegraph and Spectator.

When I started in Fleet Street the Telegraph was owned by Lord Hartwell, a man with little evident interest in the political line of the paper (albeit the editorial line was always small c conservative).

The board of directors included one marquess, a baronet and four peers. The then-editor, a gentle man called Bill Deedes, was described to me by one of his successors, Charles Moore, as actually very good at news and not very good at comment.

I see no signs that Sir Paul is very interested in news. He seems relaxed, for example, about GB News employing presenters who spout clueless nonsense about the climate crisis engulfing us. But, hey, freedom of speech!

No, it appears that Sir Paul wants his hands on the Telegraph/Spectatoras well as GB Newspresumably so that he, as publisher, can call the shots in terms of how right-wing politics develops over the next generation or so. Hes made his millions (his fortune was 645m in 2021): now, it seems, he wants to be a player. A kingmaker.

Am I being unfair? How would you know? The ownership of major mainstream media platforms does not involve submitting yourself to any kind of serious scrutiny. So, assuming his bid is nicely pitched, Sir Paul could soon be a mini-Rupert Murdoch. Pulling strings, wielding unseen power.

So who better to hire as a star GB News presenter than Boris Johnson, his old Brexit confrere, whose previous career as a journalist displayed at times only an intermittent relationship with the truth. Who knows, if Sir Paul is successful in his bid for the Telegraph, maybe the editors chair at the top could be kept warm for the old rascal?

The Spectator was in its prime as a journal of opinion 300-odd years ago. There are times when Britain feels as if it is still in the grip of an 18th-century system of patronage, information and government. And Johnson continues to flit between all three.

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What's really behind GB News signing Boris as the voice of Brexit ... - Prospect Magazine

Garages are being forced to pass on increased parts prices to customers, with Brexit and Covid a double-edged sword against a backdrop of cost-of-living rises.

The prices of some components have more than doubled in the past two years, with European brands the most affected.

William Morgan of Morgans Motor Engineers in Drayton, Norfolk, says that hes unfortunately having to pass costs on to customers, as he doesnt fit non-OEM parts to cars in his care.

On one occasion, Morgans had to wait several weeks for some Honda suspension parts to enter the UK supply chain, even though the company still has its European headquarters in the UK at Bracknell.

The delay was a hold-up at customs while Brexit checks were concluded and duties determined.

We tend to source most of our parts and consumables through the main dealership networks, as the quality is known and far less likely to have problems than some other sources we choose not to entertain, he said.

If its not good enough for one of our own vehicles, its not good enough for our customers thats how we have always operated.

Brexit checks are holding up parts deliveries. This PA image from September 2019 shows a sign over the M3 near Camberley warning of the impending changes

Because of supply and demand, prices for oils and parts most definitely have increased and these increases are continuing all the time.

It may be coincidental but since being bought by PSA, Vauxhall parts have most definitely increased in cost.

Morgan believes that Brexit is a key factor, not just because of the additional duties levied on parts imported from mainland Europe but also because of increased labour costs caused by driver shortages in the supply chain.

The problem has been exacerbated since Brexit, thanks to a number of European drivers no longer working in the UK.

The cost of living, Covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine are all factors that are causing prices everywhere to increase, unfortunately, he added.

Operational costs have increased due to fuel and energy costs shooting up, and as a result parts prices have been pushed up. When things will settle down again, I truly dont know.

William Morgan of Morgans Motor Engineers in Norfolk says Brexit is a key factor in him having to pass increased costs on to customers

His views are echoed by Bob Chittenden from Peterborough, who is an independent repairer specialising in vans and light commercial vehicles.

My business model is to buy vehicles that are non-runners and repair them for resale and I tend to only do Ford Transits now, he said.

Previously, I used to do quite well with Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, which have always had a good following, but these days theyre much more expensive to repair.

I cant get new parts at sensible prices and the lead times for getting them are much longer.

With Transits, theres always a good parts supply locally so theyre much easier to get parts for quickly, which is what you need when you have to get a vehicle back on the road.

The issues arent just being experienced by mechanics.

In a survey of its members earlier this year, the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA) reported that 90 per cent of them many of whom are fleet managers had seen costs go up as a result of Brexit and Covid.

For the fleet and mobility services sector, there really is no such thing as business as usual any more, said BVRLA chief executive Gerry Keaney.

BVRLA chief executive Gerry Keaney says many of its members have seen costs go up as a result of Brexit and Covid

Hampered by Brexit, Covid-19, inflation and carbon reduction targets, the global automotive supply chain continues to lurch from one crisis to another, with BVRLA members bearing the brunt.

The sentiments shared in our latest Industry Outlook Survey highlight this, but they also tell a story of optimism and remarkable resilience.

Green shoots are appearing with vehicle supply and most of our members are seeing growing sales.

We are not out of the woods, but we have every reason to believe that businesses in our sector are on the right path.

This feature appears in the current edition of Car Dealer issue 188 along with news, views, reviews and much more! Click here to read and download it for FREE!

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Revealed: How Brexit and the Covid hangover are affecting the ... - Car Dealer Magazine

Is there a single defining image of Brexit? The one that stands out for me is not of a victorious Nigel Farage with arms aloft on referendum night, or border queues or empty shelves. Its of what its photographer describes as a Brexit Statue of Liberty figure the first thing you see when you approach Great Britain by sea this wonderful middle-aged man in a dress and a bonnet waving at you while holding a union jack, welcoming you to the promised land.

The picture of Grayson Perry features in Muse, a new book that collects a decades worth of images of the artist-broadcaster-national treasure by award-winning photographer Richard Ansett. We were planning the shoot at a time of horror, extraordinary tension after the referendum, and I was thinking of a set piece about cliches of Britain like the White Cliffs of Dover and how to open up ideas of what Britishness can be, he says. But how do you sum that up in one picture? And as the idea developed it became so good that I couldnt have taken the heartbreak if it didnt come off. I was saying: If we dont do this, Im going to burn peoples houses down sorry, everyone dies unless we do this.

Grayson said yes, and so I had this amazing gift of his persona to temper the rabid nationalism and the toxicity of the union flag. And of course, we had a literal cliff edge. And the place we shot it, Seven Sisters cliffs on the South Downs is a suicide spot it is literally at the spot where people jump. The shoot was fantastic. Theres Grayson in his handmade dress, with a 2 union jack that I stuck into his hand. At that time, it just was extraordinary to be there with this wild cackling genius of an artist coming over the hill in his dress and bonnet.

Perry calls the book a mix of ridiculous fantasy and crumpled reality which might sum up Brexit almost as well as that photograph. As the subject I look at these photographs with joy in that they are funny and delightful and horror in knowing that I am that raddled old trannie, he adds.

For Ansett, whose subjects have included female prisoners at HMP Foston Hall, the first same-sex couples to obtain civil partnerships in London and child survivors of Grenfell Tower and the Manchester Arena bombing, the book is not just a collection of photographs of one man, but an opportunity to examine what the hell has been going on between him and me and us all over the last 10 years.

There are memorable images that evoke the surreality of Donald Trumps White House years (a triumphal Perry in a gingham dress with a Harley-Davidson and the stars and stripes behind him) and the dilemmas posed by gender-based culture wars (Perry as the Madonna, with child). Created in part to promote the artists successful Channel 4 documentary series, they serve as beautiful, simple echoes of the themes he explores in his pottery and epic tapestries.

Ansetts pictures also chart a decade in which he says Perry, who won the Turner Prize in 2003 but was then far from a household name, has seeped into the national consciousness in a way few British artists have ever managed. The dresses and makeup help, of course, but so does Perrys inquisitiveness about those he might naturally be at odds with, as seen on those documentaries, and the generosity of spirit he displays in the Graysons Art Club TV show, which became a lockdown sensation. Having sold out large theatres on a recent tour, he seems to be easing past the status of an easily recognisable eccentric like Gilbert & George and is approaching the ubiquity of a British Warhol or Dal.

I think hes increasingly sort of national treasure material, rather than this sort of obscure, complex existential artist that no one fully quite gets, says Ansett. I think Art Club, which was very warm and comforting and joyful, offered support to people when they needed it and Graysons humility and humanity has made this person who is clearly different accepted by the mainstream.

Ansetts first images of Perry, taken before the artists Reith Lecture at Tate Modern in 2013, show him in a blood-red womblike room. Grayson is clutching his handbag, hes looking at me with horror because hes expecting to be given direction, but Im not speaking to him. Someone described that picture as him looking like he was being mugged at a cashpoint. It went into the National Portrait Gallery more or less straight away, a huge chance for a photographer. And it made me think, well, what do I do next with this guy? Whats next right now is a project for Londons Wallace Collection, involving Perry as a Victorian ghost.

There must be a reason why he keeps asking me back, continues Ansett. His wife Phillippa is a psychotherapist and Ive done Gestalt therapy and been a Samaritan for 20 years, so thats one link. And I do think that we have a common interest in British society and real people, like my photographs of the children of Grenfell Tower and things like that. But when I photograph him we dont sit around discussing psychology. Its a fun event; as soon as youve got the camera out he just becomes this spirit of chaos, spirit of joy, shouting and flying around and putting costumes on.

Muse: A Portrait of Grayson Perry by Richard Ansett is available now from ACC Art Books, price 40

Excerpt from:

Grayson Perry's portrait from the edge - The New European

Thursday 02 November 2023 5:33 am

By: John Oxley

John Oxley is a political commentator and associate fellow at Bright Blue

Theres a political vibe shift, and the Conservatives are on the losing end of it is Brexit finally takes its final exit, writes John Oxley

Last week the Tories once again flirted with the idea of removing the cap on bankers bonuses. Its a policy that is probably economically sensible but is certainly politically damaging. That the party is looking at it shows they are prepared to take the risk. More than that, it marks the political vibe shift that is going on. The long 2010s are ending.

Political eras are rarely neat, and one moves into another almost imperceptibly. Before you have even realised it, the underlying contours of the debate have moved. The issues and the fights are different. Now this is happening under our feet. As the great winner of the late 90s vibe shift, Tony Blair, put it, a new dawn is breaking, is it not?

The bankers bonus cap was symbolic of the financial crisis. It was a totemic, and largely symbolic, way of trying to rein in financiers excesses. It rankled with some Tories, especially those close to the City, but was ultimately popular. That the party feels it can finally remove it shows us two things about the shifting political sands.

The first is that we moved on from the aftermath of 2008. The credit crunch has become a historical memory rather than something politically current. It will mean bad PR, but not the same toxicity as it would have in the past. Second, it shows the waning of Tory dominance, their last chance to get some of their least popular changes through because, well, they are getting booted out anyway.

As we move towards the next election this sensation will become more and more apparent. The era of the Tory government will feel more past and less present. Cameroonism already seems that way, with the former PM off in his shed and most of his acolytes and proteges out of parliament. The rancour and relevance of Brexit too is fading, with the Tories struggling to resurrect it as a dividing line. Next years first-time voters will have been just fourteen when the referendum happened.

The news around the Covid-19 inquiry this week also feels like a throwback. Johnson and Cummings are no longer the centre of our political fray, but each making their own journey through exile. The failings and the debates around lockdown already seem like they are disappearing from the rear-view mirror. An aftertaste of incompetence remains, but the details and the day-to-day is hazy.

Now the debate is dominated by the cost-of-living crisis, by housing, and by the rising fortunes of the Labour Party. Tory psychodrama and infighting are old hat, and so too are their policies. Now they are largely running down the clock. The current questions are how Labour will engage with business, how Starmer will navigate investing in public services with a constrained ability to raise taxes, and if he can find a foreign policy that placates his party.

The political landscape changes slowly, then all at once. We are reaching one of those inflection points. For anyone who wants to understand or influence the debates, its important to recalibrate as the times do. The Tories, in their own small way, are starting to do this as they sneak through a measure which plays well with their supporters but will likely cost them votes elsewhere.

With the impending Kings Speech, we are about to enter the last phase of this government. It will likely be the last year of Conservative power for some time. As their time wanes, so do their options for new policies and legislation, but the mood of the debate will also shift. After thirteen years of Tory rule, it feels almost impossible to remember a time before it. Soon, most of it will be forgotten.

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Bankers bonuses are back and the long 2010s dominated by Brexit ... - City A.M.

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Ports and truckers clash over post-Brexit border costs - Financial Times

Picture the scene. Economic growth is 5 per cent higher in the UK than it is now, foreign investment is up 11 per cent, and 7 per cent more goods are being traded across its borders. Stick on Ode to Joy, pop open a bottle of prosecco, curl off some jamn: welcome to Doppelgnger Britain.

This parallel universe scoffed at by Brexiteers and yearned for by Europhiles is the unofficial comparison point for how much Brexit has impacted the UK economy. The country the UK could have been had it remained in the European Union. Its a world that hovers in and out of view from Brexit Britain, like one of those lenticular stickers from the Nineties. There, but not there a vision just out of view behind every unsettling ripple in the stagnant economy.

Inflation, product scarcity, staff shortages, queues at Dover whatever it is, the question is always is this Brexit? Remainers are certain it is, sore-winner Brexiteers wont hear anything of it (though are similarly silent on their projects promised merits). Opinion polls suggest a country filled with Bregret.

The doppelgnger is an attempt to work out how the UK would be faring now if it werent for Brexit. Referenced in the Financial Times, Economist and BBC, weighing on the shoulders of Whitehall civil servants, and pored over by European governments, the doppelgnger model is perhaps the most influential analysis we have of Brexits impact. And it doesnt look good.

In creating a mythical Britain from comparable economies around the world as they were before the 2016 EU referendum this method suggests some of the bleakest pre-Brexit forecasts were right. Late last year, the model found that Brexit has reduced UK GDP by 5.5 per cent. (Since GDP growth forecasts were revised upwards last month, this has fallen to 5 per cent.) In 2018, the governments long-term Brexit forecast suggested the deal Boris Johnson backed would make the UK 4.9 per cent worse off. The Office for Budget Responsibility found Brexit would reduce productivity by 4 per cent in the long run.

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[See also: Labour is getting bolder on Brexit]

Not quite Project Fear the label applied to Remainers who warned the UK would suffer an immediate recession. But nowhere near a nimble Singapore-on-Thames nor a buccaneering Global Britain either.

The model suggests the costs of Brexit are on the higher end of the forecasts made before and immediately after the referendum, said John Springford, the economist behind the model. He is deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-European think tank, where he began as a junior research fellow in 2011 focused on what was then considered boring stuff about the EU.

Growing up in the small Dorset town of Sturminster Newton, Springford went on to a degree in economic history at Glasgow University. He joined the think tank world after abandoning a PhD at Oxford (I hated it). While he was politically engaged, he only became interested in the EU at university.

Since 2004 with the accession [of ten eastern European member states], the euro crisis, the migration crisis, a lot of the news has been bad, he reflected. Before, it was just something people didnt think about. It was part of the plumbing. Then there were some things which people started not to like, and the benefits were diffuse and inchoate.

In 2018, he began building the doppelgnger. Using data from the first quarter of 2009 up to the 2016 referendum, Springford pulled together a weighted combination of advanced economies on a similar trajectory to the UK, to create a hypothetical British economy that stayed in the EU. He ran his model from 2018, making the code public so that he could tweak it through feedback.

A major criticism was from the free-market economists Julian Jessop and Graham Gudgin, who argued that the model could not untangle the impact of Brexit from other factors, such as Covid-19 or the fiscal policies of individual states (for example, Donald Trumps tax cuts in the US). In response, Springford reduced the weight of any individual country in the model. He also suspended it temporarily when the pandemic hit to avoid the wild fluctuations in growth measurements across the world. The liberal economist Jonathan Portes has also critiqued the doppelgnger, pointing out that while it demonstrates a fall in UK growth, it cannot show the reasons why. He believes the negative impact of Brexit on UK GDP is more likely to be around 2-3 per cent.

Springford stopped running his model altogether earlier this year. The further you get away from 2016, the more shocks that come along that affect countries differently. In the end, the energy-price shock killed the model, he said.

Brexits tremors continue to rattle the country. In August, for the fifth time the UK government delayed imposing post-Brexit import checks on food and fresh produce from the EU. Yet again, this gives continental food producers an advantage, as all fresh food exports from the UK to the bloc do have to undergo checks.

With his tortoiseshell glasses, ginger beard and scuffed brown shoes, Springford, 44, looked every bit the unassuming academic when we met on a park bench in Victoria Tower Gardens, beside the Houses of Parliament. Yet he or at least the counterfactual country he founded has become a lightning rod of the lingering Brexit debate. Denounced as fearmongering and an absurd Remainiac report by Jacob Rees-Mogg last December in an Express column, and even questioned in the House of Lords by another prominent Tory Brexiteer, David Frost.

Springfords model last reported in summer 2022 that UK GDP is 5.5 per cent lower than that of the doppelgnger, investment 11 per cent lower, goods trade 7 per cent lower, and services trade about equal. When we met, however, Springford painted an even gloomier picture after revisions of the goods trade figures, he believes the hit was more likely one of 10-15 per cent. Inflation, too, has been exacerbated by Brexit, he argued, referring to LSE research showing Brexit was behind significant rises in food prices. Brexits restrictions on low-skilled EU immigration must have had an impact on inflation too, he added.

While UK services trade has held up, even emerging as better than the doppelgnger in some early findings, Springford nevertheless argues Brexits impact is definitely negative the argument is about how negative. He is particularly concerned about flatlining investment.

Were going to see further costs of Brexit down the road: this is not the end of it.

Without investment in new equipment, you cant get productivity growth computers deteriorate, machinery starts breaking down, youre not getting the latest technology, he warned. Thats continuing, and thats really concerning. Without that starting to rise, were going to see further costs of Brexit down the road; this is not the end of it.

Springford is asked all the time by European governments and diplomats particularly in western European and Nordic countries to visit and talk them through his work. He believes its helpful to those with growing populist movements. Its been pretty effective. If you look at Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Marine Le Pen in France, theyve all dialled back the Euroscepticism.

Yet closer to home, he has less of a hearing. Neither the Conservatives nor Labour have engaged significantly with his work something he regrets. I understand it tactically, he said. But after the election, Labour cant just say were going to improve the deal when theyve essentially been saying that Brexit is done and theres no compelling case for a much closer relationship. Part of that case has to be the impact of Brexit on the economy, and the groundwork isnt being laid we need to try and reduce these costs.

[See also: Are you happy outside the tennis club? Sadiq Khan on rejoining the EU]

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What would the UK look like without Brexit? - The New Statesman

Shane Brennan, Chief Executive of the Cold Chain Federation discusses how numerous Brexit import pushbacks have affected the sector and what the supply chain might look like in a post-Brexit world.

The UK has left the EU. I hope that doesnt come as a surprise to anyone, but it might for some especially in the European food business community. Because, for all the political drama of recent years, very little has changed for European food companies that are used to selling food to the UK.

For them, and for their customers, Brexit is still to be done and therefore the implications of import controls are yet to play out. As the UK promises to, once again (this time definitely promise) go ahead with the new border controls on EU to UK food imports starting on the 31 January 2024, it is time to start thinking about what the UK food supply chain will look like in a post-Brexit world.

But first, its important to understand why it has taken so long. It is nearly three years since the EU imposed full controls on UK goods entering the EU single market. In all that time the UK has operated outside the terms of the UK/EU free trade agreement, its own food safety laws and international trade rules.

Its not that the UK hasnt tried, we have had at least three fully formed plans formalised to (to coin a phrase) take control of our food border.But every time, faced with the looming reality of inevitable disruption and high costs for UK food consumers, Ministers have chosen to delay.

Industry responds to fifth delay for post-Brexit food import checks

The justification for delay has consistently been that industry has needed more time to prepare. That argument has never really been that persuasive. The reality is that no implementation timeframe is long enough to mitigate the downsides involved in having to impose complex, subjective, and costly barriers to trade. Also, whatever the lead-in period, a significant percentage of businesses will only react to change when it actually happens.

The delays are a function of indecision. Government has struggled in its resolve to do something damaging to our supply chains that has no obvious upside. The delayed imposition of food border controls is the last sticking plaster of the Brexit transition, and Ministers are really reluctant to whip it off.

It is very easy to be critical, but it is also important to recognise that there is significant ambition in the model that has now been brought forward. Government has tried very hard to find ways to minimise the burden of necessary food safety controls on as many importers as they can. This makes the new Border Operating Model a pretty unique (internationally speaking) risk categorisation approach, that means that large amounts of food imported into the UK (not just from Europe but from a number of markets around the world) will not have to provide the full range of certificates and verifications that would usually be required.

This innovation provides significant advantages for importers of foods deemed low risk. A deregulatory boon, especially those importing from markets outside the EU who will see their regulatory burden visibly decrease. But not so reassuring for those that are importing foods deemed medium or high risk who face the full burden of certification and inspection risk. For medium risk in particular, which means most meat, dairy and fish products, it will prove very frustrating and disruptive.

However, as the reality of the new risk-based regime comes into view the comparisons and apparent inconsistencies loom large. For example, beef from Ireland is a medium risk, and so will have to be certified every time it moves by an official vet and could be held and inspected at the border, whereas beef from New Zealand is low risk. Processed cheese is low risk, but goods containing raw milk from Europe is medium. It will also take quite some time for the new border enforcement agents and the importers to settle in and understand the new rules. Once they do, these rules will influence purchasing decisions, product formulations and lead to reorganisation of supply chains.

So, we will combine the indecisive policy decision making and implementation strategy of the past three years, with the significantly new framework that the UK border model represents and the general low levels of awareness and engagement in the European and international food industry, with the details of what the UK Government is about to do. We have to assume a period of disruption once the rules actually start to take effect from January next year. Only once we have got through that will the full implications be understood.

But even that assumes consistency of policy at the top and that is not something we can or should assume. With a general election in 2024, and promises to revisit the whole issue of the separation of UK and EU food safety laws coming from the main political opposition policies, it would be a brave business that settled on long-term strategic choices about how best to organise the way it supplies goods to the UK.

The reality is that Brexit is not done, it is an ongoing process and a shifting regulatory reality that businesses have lived with for the past three years and is unlikely to change fundamentally for some time yet.

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The long road of Brexit: A shifting regulatory reality - New Food

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BELFAST Jeffrey Donaldson is a man under pressure.

The choice the Democratic Unionist Partys leader makes in the coming weeks will determine whether Northern Ireland regains the cross-community government at the heart of its peace process or falls deeper into a Brexit-fueled crisis that may last another year or more.

Senior figures in the British government and all five of Northern Irelands main political parties have told POLITICO that October looms as the make-or-break month for reviving power-sharing at Stormont, the Greek neoclassical parliament building that overlooks Belfast.

The introduction of long-awaited post-Brexit trade measures next month offers what may be the final political opportunity for Donaldson to break the deadlock before the election cycles of 2024 kick in.

When you get into the new year you are heading towards a general election, warned Chris Heaton-Harris, the U.K. governments Northern Ireland secretary, speaking at an investment conference in Belfast this week.

On October 1, the first phase of the Windsor Framework [post-Brexit agreement] comes in and we will see a big difference in how trade flows, and indeed how goods come into this country.

In normal times, Stormont is home to the Northern Ireland Assembly and a multi-party executive tasked with governing the divided U.K. region. But little has been normal since the Brexit vote of 2016, which shattered the careful balance of interests fundamental to Northern Irelands 1998 peace agreement.

Two U.K.-EU deals designed to avoid post-Brexit checks on goods crossing the land border between the north and the Republic of Ireland have satisfied Irish nationalist and middle-ground parties but so displeased Donaldsons DUP that it gridlocked the assembly in May 2022 and collapsed the executive in October.

Under prevailing rules, the Stormont system cannot function without the DUP, the main pro-British party in Northern Ireland. Donaldson insists this veto is the only leverage he has and he wont permit power-sharing to be restored unless the U.K. government gives him what he wants.

What precisely Donaldson wants is somewhat opaque, however.

In February, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak finally unveiled his painstakingly negotiated Windsor Framework, an agreement with the EU designed to satisfy the DUP and break the Stormont deadlock by reducing and simplifying though not eliminating checks and restrictions on goods being shipped from Britain to Northern Ireland, the only U.K. region still required to maintain EU goods standards after Brexit.

Since then, Donaldson has spent six months to-ing and fro-ing with Downing Street and the U.K.s Northern Ireland Office over his demands for further unspecified concessions.

Were waiting on the last bit of information from the DUP about what they want, said Steve Baker, Heaton-Harris Northern Ireland Office deputy. When we get it, we will strain every sinew to give it to them, because we want them back.

Broadly, Donaldson wants even greater limits on the Brussels bureaucracy being planned at Northern Irish ports. He also wants symbolic and legal reassurances for unionists, who fear that the new trade regime will encourage local businesses to deal increasingly with Irish firms rather than British ones and lead, over time, to a united Ireland.

Heaton-Harris and Baker insist the deal on the table is the best the DUP will get. They hope unionists will be reassured by the low levels of checks being rolled out at Northern Irish ports next month, and say its now up to Donaldson to accept a further as yet unpublished package of concessions being offered behind the scenes.

Baker urged Donaldson to face down hard-line critics both within his party and on social media and radio shows who insist there can be no compromise.

He said Donaldson appeared constrained by a small number of really important opinion-formers who shape what the DUP does. Without naming them, Baker said these extremists were steering the life of Northern Ireland to a degree that is not really consistent with their status as unelected figures.

Donaldson rejects the U.K. governments portrayal of his position and their bilateral negotiations, insisting talks could continue indefinitely. There isnt a deadline here, he said.

But leaders of the other parties in Northern Irelands mothballed government told POLITICO that the DUPs response to the forthcoming Windsor Framework-related legislation, once published, will be crucial.

This is expected to happen by the first week of October, just before the DUPs annual conference on October 13-14, when Donaldson will face pressure either to accept a return to Stormont or confirm the party is staying out.

Doug Beattie, leader of the smaller moderate Ulster Unionist Party, said hes confident that Donaldson is about go back in, using the imminent U.K. legislative package as a fig leaf.

In the next week to 10 days we need to see the enabling legislation for the Windsor Framework, Beattie said, forecasting that the British government also would publish secondary bills strengthening the role of checks-free green lanes at Northern Irish ports and reasserting the constitutional position of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.

Then its for the DUP to make a decision whether thats enough for them to get back into the Stormont arena. The Windsor Framework is going to be implemented regardless, Beattie said.

This cant drag on beyond October, because then youre moving into the realms of a Westminster election.

If the DUP dont go back into Stormont next month, they wont be in until after May, Beattie said. And after May, with the likelihood of a new British government, the process starts all over again. It could be October, the end of the year, or even the following year. It would be a crazy road to take, which is why I dont believe Jeffrey will take it.

Other leaders arent so sure, in part because they see the DUP as internally split and Donaldsons position within his party as too weak. But they agree that, if the DUP doesnt shift position soon, Stormont faces a likely continued shutdown throughout 2024.

Jeffrey will have to eventually face down his critics. I just hope that he has the drive and the determination to do that, and to do it pretty quickly, said Naomi Long, who leads the Alliance Party, which represents middle-ground opinion between the British unionist and Irish nationalist camps.

If we dont get back this side of Christmas, its very hard to see how there will be another opportunity to come back to the table in the next year or so, Long said. We could be into a very prolonged hiatus, and that would be incredibly damaging to our public services, our public finances, and public confidence in our institutions. Were running out of road.

Read more:

Make-or-break moment looms for Northern Ireland's failed government - POLITICO Europe

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It is becoming clear the Voice referendum is our Brexit moment. The No case is being built around misinformation and fear. The basest anxieties are being stoked. As with Brexit, the choice made on October 14 will say a great deal about the country that made it.

A defeat would lead inevitably to a loss in international standing and influence a perception, quite inaccurate, that Australia has not forsaken its racist past. As occurred in Britain, there will be, a few months hence, asevere case of buyers remorse.

Lord Acton, the great English liberal Catholic historian, famous for his aphorism about the corruption of power, wrote: I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong

We would do well to remember these words.

No campaigners in the current referendum, the first in Australia since 1999, are encouraged to concentrate on generating fear and doubt in voters, avoiding any discussion of evidence, history or statistics. In this appalling campaign, the No side just makes stuff up.

The No campaign slogan If you dont know, vote no is morally bankrupt. It encourages citizens not to engage with an important issue. Really, if you dont know, you should find out. This is basic decency on a question of such importance.

Coalition politicians have been circulating material in their electorates that asserts various falsehoods. This, from Dan Tehan, is an example:

If the Voice is approved, it would be the biggest change ever to our Constitution (rule book), in our history

They want the Voice to cover all parts of the government.

This would give the Voice a lot of power and control over everything, from the Reserve Bank to Centrelink.

It means there would be no issues, like the economy, national security, infrastructure, health, education, and more, that the Voice could not be involved in.

Instead of Parliament deciding the Voices powers, the High Court would decide. This could cause legal problems.

Do they really believe any of this stuff? Would any be prepared to sign an affidavit asserting that the claims are accurate?

The assertion that entrenching the Voice as an advisory body would represent the biggest change to the Constitution in our history is not only wrong but palpably absurd.

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia never operated as written.

From the first week of the Commonwealths establishment in 1901, executive power was in the hands of a prime minister and cabinet (not mentioned in the Constitution) and Australia operates as a democracy (a word missing from the Constitution). Aboriginal people are now counted in the census (1967), the High Court is no longer subordinate to British courts (1975) and the Australia Act (1986) provides that the British Parliament can no longer legislate for us. The royal veto over legislation is still preserved.

No campaigners assert the 1901 Constitution is a non-racist document and that a Yes vote would introduce a racist element, so much so that Australia would be adopting Apartheid. That is both wicked and silly.

The decades leading up to Federation in 1901 coincided with powerful arguments, internationally, about scientific racism, the concept of a hierarchy of races with Nordic types at the top, then people from the Mediterranean, Asians, Africans and, at the base of the pyramid, mainland Australian and Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples.

Scientific racism, often misnamed social Darwinism, led to the appalling doctrine of eugenics with the premise that unfit individuals, and even races, could be culled. Eugenics had powerful scientific supporters, both from the left and right. Until the 1970s, that support was especially strong in Australia and central to the White Australia Policy.

Charles Darwin, to his credit, had rejected the hierarchy of races, proposing that all humans had similar physical and intellectual potential, with differences not being innate but the result of climate, diet and disease.

Throughout the 19th century, Aboriginal skeletons were eagerly sought by European and American museums and it was assumed that the passing of the Aborigines was imminent.

There was more interest in Indigenous Australians as specimens than as people.

White Australia was a powerful driving force in the Federation movement, and Alfred Deakin, a liberal reformer on most issues, was a zealot on race.

When the Commonwealth of Australia was inaugurated in January 1901, the premier of New South Wales, William Lyne, observed: Of the three great colonial possessions, Australias lot has been the happiest. Unlike Canada and South Africa, she has not had arace problem to solve.

C.E.W. Bean, our pre-eminent war historian, asserted Australia was the only continent without racial mixture. He did not count Indigenous Australians, seeing them as marginal, irrelevant or headed for extinction. He shared these views with his collaborator Keith Murdoch, Ruperts father.

The Australian Constitution was an artefact of the contemporary consensus about race and eugenics. First Nations people were dismissed as irrelevant out of sight, out of mind.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are now estimated to number just 3.8per cent of the Australian population. A third are below the age of 15.

In the campaign for constitutional recognition through an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, the burden of arguing the Yes case has fallen on Linda Burney, Patrick Dodson, Noel Pearson, Megan Davis, Thomas Mayo, Marcia Langton, Pat Anderson, Pat Turner, Tom Calma, Ken Wyatt, June Oscar and others.

This is a dangerous strategy. The referendum involves all Australians, not just First Nations people.

The No case asserts the Yes campaign promotes division, that its framed as special pleading from an elite minority: This is what we demand.

In reality, the case is far more modest: Please listen to us.

To succeed, the Yes campaign requires powerful advocacy from within the 96.2 per cent of non-Indigenous Australians. The argument needs to be: This is the time to be honest with ourselves. First Nations people have a right to be heard.

So far, advocates from the 96.2per cent have adopted a small target strategy. Leaders of the Commonwealth government, from all six states five Labor and one Liberal (Tasmania) as well as from both territories, have been deferential and courteous, leaving the Yes case to First Nations people.

There probably could have been a bipartisan agreement to set up the Voice by legislation but Anthony Albanese, to his credit, opted for the harder way, because entrenching the Voice in the Constitution was a central element in the May 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart.

It would have been cynical for him to have said, Well listen to you up to a point, but ultimately we reject what you ask for. We will take one step, but not the second adopting tactics, not principles, emphasising the brutal short term of politics not the unforgiving long term of history.

The questions in Australian referendums are almost invariably very short, only about principle. There are never any details about how a Yes will be implemented.

The composition, size, mode of election and terms of reference for the Voice will be determined by the parliament, not by the prime minister or the government, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton should acknowledge that he would have to share in its creation.

Since the Albanese government does not have a majority in both houses of parliament, the composition and function of the Voice will require negotiation and compromise, in which Dutton and senators Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Kerrynne Liddle and Lidia Thorpe could play a constructive role.

This should have been clearly stated, and repeated, from the outset.

Unhappily, the disinformation, gross exaggeration and Trumpian appeals to fear and anger shown by some No advocates have gone unchallenged. Powerful advocacy for Yes is hard to identify outside the Indigenous community.

Its time to recognise, and reject, racist elements in our history, which are embedded in the Constitution. Its time to break down barriers and share knowledge and experience, to act decently and recognise that life itself involves risk, every day.

Apart from the 1967 referendum, when there was no official No case, and an assimilation policy was broadly accepted by all major political parties, every subsequent change to the status of First Nations people has aroused bitter but unjustified fear and anger.

Every time there has been a change to the status of Indigenous people Mabo, Wik, the Apology there have been cries of havoc and alarm. None have had any justification.

Given its unpromising beginnings in 1788, settler Australia has been a country of remarkable achievement, outstandingly successful in most areas. But we could achieve far more for ourselves and humanity generally if we came clean about our past.

We have so much to be proud of. There are about 190 nations on Earth and Australia ranks in the top 10 on most social indicators.

No is a confession of failure, of the belief that if we attempted anything new, wed muck it up. So we remain prisoners of the past, back in Platos cave, surrounded by pessimism and apathy.

Yes is a vote for optimism, confidence, a vote for the future, an assertion that we are capable of great things, of acting with decency, courage and generosity.

Surely the choice is simple.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 16, 2023 as "The Voice is our Brexit moment".

For almost a decade, The Saturday Paper has published Australias leading writers and thinkers. We have pursued stories that are ignored elsewhere, covering them with sensitivity and depth. We have done this on refugee policy, on government integrity, on robo-debt, on aged care, on climate change, on the pandemic.

All our journalism is fiercely independent. It relies on the support of readers. By subscribing to The Saturday Paper, you are ensuring that we can continue to produce essential, issue-defining coverage, to dig out stories that take time, to doggedly hold to account politicians and the political class.

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The monarchy and the constitution

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Barry Jones The Voice is our Brexit moment - The Saturday Paper

Mark Carney was governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020.

Mark Carney was governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020.

Mark Carney has delivered a stunning takedown of Brexit and Liz Trusss government.

The former Bank of England governor accused those who backed quitting the European Union of wanting to tear down the future.

And he said Trusss disastrous mini-Budget, in which she planned to borrow billions of pounds to slash taxes for the rich, of creating Argentina on the Channel in reference to that countrys troubled economy.

Speaking at a summit in Montreal also attended by Labour leader Keir Starmer, Carney said: For years, the rallying cry of the Brexiteers was broken Britain. But their solution - to take back control - ended up code for tear down the future.

He went on: When politicians proclaim that our great democracies are broken, its not because they want to fix them, its because they want a licence to demolish.

Its a model, and its a repeated model, that uses a constraint to starve the beast of government in the misguided view that slashing leads to growing.

Carney, who led the Bank of England from 2013 until 2020, added: When Brexiteers tried to create Singapore on the Thames, the Truss government instead delivered Argentina on the Channel - and that was a year ago.

Those with little experience in the private sector - lifelong politicians masquerading as free marketeers - grossly under-value the importance of mission, of institutions, and of discipline to a strong economy.

And the bad news is that while these tactics never work economically, they can work politically. Brexit happened, Donald Trump was elected. So we cant dismiss the impact of anger, but we must resist its power.

Truss was eventually forced to resign as prime minister after just 49 days in office.

Story continues

She has since defended her plans to slash taxes to boost growth, insisting that she was the victim of the powerful economic establishment.

It also emerged last week that she is writing a book on how to save the west.

See the rest here:

Mark Carney Has Delivered A Stunning Takedown Of Brexit And Liz Truss - Yahoo Movies UK