Category Archives: Brexit

Pothole repairs are at their lowest level in five years. Britains biggest municipal council, Birmingham, went bust a few weeks ago. The backlog in processing asylum claims is so great that would-be migrants are being housed on barges.

The air traffic control system went down for more than a day on the back of a single error. Shoplifting is at epidemic proportions.

The train system is beset by strikes, and ambitions for a major new high-speed line are watered down again and again, while the costs blow out. The water companies are discharging raw effluent into seas and rivers. The flagship offshore wind industry seems to be running out of puff.

In recent opinion polls, 58 per cent of respondents agreed that Britain is broken, and 76 per cent said it was becoming an appreciably worse place to live.

Britons, notoriously, love a good moan. Complaints about things getting worse are often made with an almost delighted relish. The sense that the country is in long-term decline, ever since the end of empire, is an almost unshakeable item of faith.

So its not surprising that confirmation bias abounds. Choosing from the menu above, every gloomy Briton is an assiduous compiler of their own catalogue of woe.

There has been a recent shift, though. In the early years after the Brexit referendum in mid-2016, the most enthusiastic doomsayers were Remainers people who had voted to stay in the EU, and subsequently seized upon any and every shred of evidence which might suggest that Brexit had been a calamitous mistake.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson, the most ardent of Leavers, waged a relentless one-man war against these doomsters and gloomsters, as he often called them. His argument was that Brexit was a great opportunity for Britains rejuvenation, if only the British people were up for embracing it.

With his departure, though, this buccaneering Brexiteer bravado has all but evaporated. Now, its the right-wing press in which youll find some of the gloomiest inventories of everything thats wrong with Britain.

Britain is in a state of distress more profound than our leaders are capable of addressing, says one recent headline in the Tories in-house newspaper The Daily Telegraph. Labour and the Tories have joined forces to condemn Britain to national failure, reads another. Britain isnt in managed decline: the country is about to fall off a cliff. On it goes.

My hunch is that the gloom now gripping the British right probably stems from the widespread expectation that the Conservatives will lose government next year. They have little to show for 13 years in power, and now they face a spell under Labour. For a Tory, that is pretty depressing.

But the left has precious little cause for levity either. Infrastructure is run down, and public services are struggling, but taxes are already at a record high and government borrowing is maxed out and costly.

That leaves Labour with little ability to drive a new political or economic agenda. Whats more, there is also little will: the public is concerned with the soaring cost of living, not seized with a desire to embrace any new progressive vision or policies.

The aftershocks of Britains big Brexit rupture, magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, are only just beginning to settle. Some commentators hope that this will restore Britains lost sense of proportion and pragmatism. Lets hope so, because the alternative is a potential descent into pessimism and paralysis.

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It's not just the 'Remainers' whingeing Britain really is broken - The Australian Financial Review

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UK SMEs not ready for 'avalanche' of Brexit 2.0 rules and taxes - Financial Times

In the same way that Britains more Eurosceptic newspapers will take even harmful policies and suggest they illustrate the successes of Brexit, those that campaigned for Remain rarely miss an opportunity to remind their readers that the 2016 vote was a mistake.

Having untied itself from Brussels regulations, Britain is now becoming the toxic poster child of Europe. That is according to a campaigner quoted in The Guardian on Wednesday in an article criticising the government for failing to ban 36 pesticides that are not allowed in the EU. Of these, the paper noted that 13 are considered highly hazardous, while four are highly toxic to bees, one contaminates water, and one is highly toxic to aquatic organisms.

There is obviously a story in this, especially given the Tory promise that environmental regulations post-Brexit would not slip lower than those set in Brussels. And it seems right that campaigners should urge the government to bring tougher rules into play. But to say, as The Guardian does in its first paragraph (albeit in quotation marks), that Britain is becoming the toxic poster child of Europe is quite a stretch.

All but six of the pesticides were allowed in the EU when Britain formally left, just three years ago. The paper saves this rather significant piece of information for its fifth paragraph. Businessman and former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib described this presentation as putting Europhilic dogma ahead of reality. He told The European Conservative:

If these pesticides are so awful, all of Europe was, until recently, toxic! This is yet another Remainer/Rejoiner scare story.

To classify 12 of them as carcinogens, nine as endocrine disruptors, and eight as reproductive toxins is more Guardian-esque hyperbole. Many chemicals, if absorbed excessively, have potentially adverse health outcomes. It is all about the dosage. I repeat: these pesticides were until recently widely used across Europe.

The Guardian needs to maintain some form of rationality in its apparent unfettered desire to promote the EU and do down the United Kingdom.

After all, it is not as if there arent plenty of other sticks with which to beat the current Tory government.

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Brexit Bitterness Continues To Cloud Reporting The European Conservative - The European Conservative

The UK is falling further behind the EU in restricting chemicals that pose a risk to human health and the environment, according to a new analysis.

UsingtheUK governments GB approvals registerand theEuropean Commission active substances database,PAN UK, the Pesticide Action Network, found 36 pesticides that can be used in the UK but are banned in EU countries.

The government has repeatedly promised that our environmental standards wont slip post-Brexit. And yet here we are, less than four years later, and already were seeing our standards fall far behind those of the EU, said Nick Mole, policy officer at the charity.

Of the 36 chemicals, 13 are considered highly hazardous pesticides a UN concept used to identify the most harmful chemicals including four that are highly toxic to bees, one that contaminates water and one that is highly toxic to aquatic organisms. The chemicals will now be in use in the UK for between two and five years longer than in EU countries, said PAN.

The analysis also revealed a growing threat to human health. The list of 36 pesticides also includes12 classified as carcinogens, nine endocrine disruptors (EDCs) and eight developmental or reproductive toxins.

Thirty of the chemicals in question were allowed for use in the EU when the UK left the bloc on January 31st 2020, but have since been removed from the EU market. Theremaining sixchemicals have been approved by the UK government since Brexit.

PAN said the divergence in standards is largely down to a UK government decision to grant all pesticides with licenses due to expire before December 2023 an automatic extension of three years.

Mole said the findings are not only concerning for human health and the environment:UK food exports containing pesticides that EU growers arent allowed to use are likely to be rejected, he warned. Given that the EU still accounts for around 60% of UK agricultural exports, the impact on farmers could be devastating.

A Defra spokesperson toldEnds Reportthat very strict regulation only permits the sale and use of pesticides where scientific assessment clearly shows they will not harm people or pose unacceptable risks to the environment.

An HSE spokesperson added: Divergence between Britain and the EU is an inevitable consequence of our independent pesticides regime what is not inevitable is a fall in standards.

A draft UK National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides was published in February 2021. The final plan was due last year but is yet to appear.

The UK government has been under fire in recent weeks for what campaigners perceive as a move to water down various green commitments.

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Green Brexit doesn't extend to pesticide protections - Footprint

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LONDON Brexit: the Conservative Party drama that will never, ever end.

Years after being ousted from office, former British PM Theresa May took a fresh potshot at her longstanding Tory nemesis and successor Boris Johnson, saying Johnson struck a bad deal to exit the EU.

May was replaced as prime minister by Johnson in July 2019 after months of fruitlesss attempts to pass a Brexit withdrawal agreement that could command the support of the House of Commons.

But she argued in a series of interviews aimed at promoting a new book that the U.K. would be better off if Tory MPs had jut accepted her agreement and moved on.

It wouldnt have given either side 100 per cent of what they wanted but it would have given the country a better overall deal, May told the BBC.

Now a backbench MP, May was replaced by Johnson, who in 2019 struck a new EU deal that eventually passed following a landslide general election victory. That election gifted Brexiteer Tories a big enough majority to break the deadlock.

But key aspects of the agreement in particular its rules on Northern Ireland trade have had to be overhauled since Johnson himself was booted out by angry Conservative MPs in 2021.

In a separate interview with LBC, May said Johnsons agreement, which included the much-contested Northern Ireland protocol, was a bad deal.

I had always said that the deal that he accepted, with that border down the Irish Sea, could not be accepted by in my view by any U.K. prime minister, because of the separation between Great Britain and Northern Ireland that it created, she said.

But he accepted what the EU had actually proposed in the first place, and then claimed it was a great victory.

And on the back of that, of course, he was able to say hed done Brexit and on the back of aiming to get Brexit, he was able to get the very good election results, May added.

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Theresa May says her Brexit deal was better than Boris Johnson's - POLITICO Europe

Staff in the U.K. Foreign Office were crying and in a state of mourning following the Brexit vote, the offices former chief Simon McDonald has revealed.

During an interview for the BBCs documentary series State of Chaos, McDonald said he saw people in tears and in shock the morning after the 2016 referendum, and decided to tell his ministers he had voted to remain in the European Union.

On this solitary occasion I decided to tell my colleagues and therefore let ministers know that I voted to remain in the European Union, McDonald said.

Under the civil service code, officials are expected to maintain impartiality and not share their own political preferences with ministers. But McDonald, who served as top civil servant of the office from 2015 to 2020, said he felt ministers likely knew his vote anyway, so decided to embrace it.

He also wanted to convey a message to a group of people, most of whom I felt had voted to remain in the EU, that their personal feelings were beside the point.

Still, McDonalds confession is bound to anger Brexiteers. McDonald himself said he knew the Foreign Office board was not entirely comfortable that he had revealed his vote, and the former deputy Cabinet secretary, Helen MacNamara, told the BBC she doesnt know why that would be a good or helpful thing.

The interview is part of the new episode of State of Chaos, a three-part series that follows the tumultuous events in the British government from 2016 to 2022.

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Remainer UK civil servants were in tears over Brexit, top official says - POLITICO Europe

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.

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Mark Carney Has Delivered A Stunning Takedown Of Brexit And Liz Truss - Yahoo News Canada

1. More Brits than ever say Brexit was wrong choice: YouGov survey  Reuters UK
2. More Brits than ever say Brexit was wrong choice: YouGov survey  EURACTIV
3. Brexit was wrong, say 57% of British voters  The Economist

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More Brits than ever say Brexit was wrong choice: YouGov survey - Reuters UK

1. Britain's fishing industry in line for post-Brexit boost following the end of EU red tape  Daily Mail
2. Brexit fishing win as new measures unveiled in 'clear departure' from hated EU policy  Express
3. 'Independent trading nation': UK joins Pacific trading bloc, as post-Brexit fisheries reform gets underway  BusinessGreen

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Britain's fishing industry in line for post-Brexit boost following the end of EU red tape - Daily Mail

Opinion The commercial departments of Brexit-supporting newspapers know the damage being caused to the UK economy, and newspaper advertising revenues, by Brexit. Their editorial colleagues continue to support it anyway.

The page lead in last weeks Daily Express was dramatic and right up their street. The headline read: Brexit victory as 6bn car engine deal proves leaving the EU hasnt alienated business.

Britain had scored a major Brexit victory as a new global company formed by the merger of Renault and Geely of China has decided to base itself in the UK.

The new company would invest 6bn to develop low-emission, hybrid and electric engines. More than 19,000 would be employed in 17 manufacturing plants and five research and development centres.

A Brexit victory indeed.

Former International Trade Secretary Liam Fox was ecstatic and commented: Another international vote of confidence in the UK as Renault and Geely invest 6bn in a new HQ here. [] It comes on top of the 17bn investment from Japan. Lets hear more good news.

Former Tory leadership candidate Penny Mordaunt and business minister Jesse Norman waxed lyrical in a similar vein.

There is only one small problem with this deal, which the Daily Express unaccountably failed to mention: none of the 17 engine plants or five R&D centres spread across three continents are in the UK.

The only British connection is that a small corporate headquarters will be based in London to set strategy and pull together the threads of plants scattered across the globe. The new company did not say how many jobs will be based in London, but we can be sure the number of office jobs will be relatively small, and equally sure that only the tiniest fraction of the 6bn investment will be coming to the UK.

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The Daily Express did not actually specifically say that all the 17 plants and five research centres would be based in the UK or that all of the 6bn and 19,000 jobs would be based here. It was however heavily implied so heavily implied that the coverage was downright misleading, well on the way to deceiving its readers.

It was enough to fool an experienced trade politician such as Liam Fox, and many of the aging, Brexit-supporting readers of the Daily Express would have been duped by the 6bn Brexit victory.

Hardly the greatest journalism, but alas all too common from the right-wing Brexit-supporting press which plays down the bad news about the impact of Brexit of which there is no shortage and hails minor deals as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

For example, the free trade agreement last year between the UK and New Zealand was portrayed as a triumph even though British farmers were hung out to dry to get a deal any deal.

Much less, coverage for the EU reaching a much better deal with New Zealand than the UK managed and the EU held out to protect its farmers.

Yet anything that the Daily Express can do, the Sunday Express can do better much better.

Whereas the Daily Express could manage only a mere 6bn Brexit boost, the Sunday soared away with a 12tn Brexit Trade Boost for Britain as a result of joining the 11-nation Indo-Pacific trade bloc (CPTPP).

Wow, 12tn is one serious trade boost.

Business secretary Kemi Badenoch said the agreement placed the UK at the top table of the Indo-Pacific group and greeted the step as the clearest demonstration yet of our new found freedoms outside the EU.

As you might have guessed by now, there are a few problems with this extravagant example of pro-Brexit journalism.

The UK has already got trade agreements with no less than 10 of the 11 CPTPP countries, including the aforementioned member, New Zealand. The Indo-Pacific group may have a population of 500 million in a fast-growing part of the world economy, but the UK decided to turn its back on a much richer, if more mature, 500 million market in Europe 600 million if you add in the EUs subsequent trade deal with Japan.

The 12tn Brexit Trade Boost is, of course, also total nonsense. The Sunday Express has simply added together the GDPs of all 11 countries including Japan, Canada and Australia, and of course the number has nothing whatsoever to do with trade.

In fact, there is some dispute about what the impact on trade will be. According to one estimate it would add 0.08% to the UKs GDP over 10 years but that is almost certainly an underestimate based on out-of-date numbers.

The BBC forecast of less than 1% is more realistic, yet the Corporation was once again accused of bias by the Daily Mail for setting the deal in a totally realistic context.

If the near-1% figure turns out to be even close to accurate it would compare badly with figures produced by the Centre For European Reform on what Brexit has cost the UK.

John Springford, deputy director of the Centre, says its model, which has been accurate so far, estimates that Brexit had cost the UK economy 5.5% of GDP growth up to the end of the second quarter of 2022.

You would never find numbers like that in either the Daily Express, the Sunday Express or the Daily Mail or for that matter The Sun.

Mail Metro sales chief: Brexit definitely having an effect on adspend

The Daily and Sunday Express coverage is an affront to responsible journalism and should be an embarrassment to Reach, the company that owns both papers.

Reach may allow the editors of its various publications, which includes the Daily Mirror, the editorial freedom to address the very different political proclivities of its newspapers. But by pumping out such embarrassing rubbish, Reach faces the serious danger of corporate reputational damage by allowing its journalism to practice deception on its readers and indeed British society.

All those involved in such murky journalism should have a care about the latest polling from YouGov suggesting that only 31% of the population now want to remain outside the EU.

And for good measure the UK is still losing trade with the EU. In May, year-on-year trade between the UK and Ireland fell by 34% while Irish trade the other way increased by 19%.

I dont suppose Express readers will get to hear about that either.

The irony is that the commercial departments of the Brexit-supporting newspapers know all too well the damage being caused to the UK economy, and newspaper advertising revenues, by Brexit.

In a Media Leader interview last week by Jack Benjamin, Dominic Williams, chief revenue officer at Mail Metro Media, admitted how tough it was out there because of the pandemic, Ukraine, the cost-of living crisis and Brexit.

Williams was asked how much Brexit had impacted business.

That is definitely having an effect on advertising because of the UK economy, replied Williams.

Perhaps he should have a word with some of his editorial colleagues.

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Tabloids are misleading their readers over Brexit at their own peril - The Media Leader