Category Archives: Brexit

Way back in the mid-1960s, during a quiet summer, a former journalist turned public relations man persuaded the chairman of a public company to conduct a search for the Loch Ness monster.

Quiet summers used to be known in Fleet Street as the silly season. One day, the PR man responsible for what was essentially a publicity stunt was called into the chairmans office. The chairman, a retired general, was in a state of panic. What on earth are we going to do if we find the monster? he said.

Its all right, sir, no need to worry. There is no monster.

I am reminded of this episode by the way those Brexiters who have not already admitted their gross disservice to a once-admired nation have been arguing that the government should do more to promote the advantages of Brexit. They have a slight problem: just as there is no Loch Ness monster, there are no advantages to Brexit.

Brexit is an unmitigated disaster, and the damage is getting worse. I fear that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, so impressive in his forensic demolition of prime minister (still!) Boris Johnson during PMQs, is living in cloud cuckoo land if he really believes that theres no case for rejoining [the EU], so we have to make it work. There is every case for rejoining the EU: the only question is how much economic and social damage will have to accrue before reality dawns.

Reality takes time to dawn; but when it does, it does so in spades. Tories have been tying themselves in knots over when and how to give the prime minister his marching orders. But the voters have not. For far too long they gave Johnson the benefit of the doubt I am still reeling from the shock of hearing a distinguished establishment figure saying before Christmas: I am beginning to warm to Boris. But this Falstaffian joker has finally been rumbled: the respondents to recent polls have, in effect, taken on the role of Henry V in Shakespeares Henry IV, Part Two in addressing Falstaff: I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers/How ill white hairs become a fool and jester.

So far the damage caused by Brexit has been shrouded by the understandable obsession with Covid. However, it is well described in an important survey by Jonty Bloom in the current issue of the New European: The UK is forcing self-inflicted defeats upon its exporters, service and manufacturing sectors and economy, time and time again, with no victories to offset the losses. He quotes the economist Adam Posen describing Brexit as a trade war, but a war the UK has declared on itself.

During the first year of Brexit, Bloom writes, faced with the proliferation of red tape that cropped up not because of Brussels but owing to the departure from Brussels, a fifth of small British businesses decided exporting to the EU was not worth the candle. Now, food and drink exports to the EU have fallen by a quarter since 2019. And according to the Centre for European Reform, UK goods trade is almost 16% lower than it would have been without the sovereignty of Brexit. As one of my favourite Roman poets, Juvenal, wrote: Difficile est saturam non scribere (it is hard not to write satire).

The complexity of Brexit rules of origin regulations for trade is such that exporters needed an extra year to attempt to cope with documentary requirements some 300m extra customs declarations are to be required when the postponed rules start applying. In order to administer this nonsense, some 50,000 extra customs officials are needed.

This is wholly unproductive. With the advent of the European single market in 1993, the removal of customs controls produced huge gains in productivity. We are now in a world of unproductive time-wasting all part of the 4%-plus loss of annual income and output that is the inevitable result of Brexit.

As the disillusioned former Tory chief secretary to the Treasury and justice minister David Gauke writes in the current New Statesman: The reality is that Brexit means putting up taxes because the economy is smaller than it otherwise would have been, erecting trade barriers and imposing new regulatory burdens on business. Gauke adds that the increasing tendency is to blame Johnsons big state instincts for this predictable turn of events.

The trouble is that Johnson packed the cabinet that is now conspiring against him with Brexiters. Whether or not David Davis was in Brutus mood urging Johnson in the name of God to go, let us beware the words of the Third Citizen in Julius Caesar: I fear there will a worse come in his place.

Wake up, Sir Keir, and please attack Brexit for what it is!

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Brexits Falstaff cant bluff his way through this any longer - The Guardian

On 23 January 2013, David Cameron announced that the UK would hold an In-Out referendum if he was returned to power at the next election. I watched his speech in a hotel room in St Moritz where I was skiing with an old foreign correspondent friend. I turned to him and said: Were f**ked!

I went home and wrote a book, called Brexit: How Britain Will Leave Europe. The establishment media refused to take my thesis seriously. I gave Radio 4s Jim Naughtie a copy of my book and he assured me an invitation to appear on Today would follow. I am still waiting.

Every editor, MP and diplomat, and the heads of all think tanks (with the exception of Charles Grant of the Centre of European Reform) patted me on the head and said it wouldnt happen. But it did, and here are the 10 guilty men and women who ensured we left Europe.

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Opinion: Here are the 10 guilty parties responsible for Brexit - The Independent

Boris Johnsons time as the United Kingdoms prime minister is under immediate threat. Johnson, who likes a classical analogy, will know that civil servant Sue Grays imminent report into the Partygate scandal is the bureaucratic equivalent of the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

Johnson has been gravely damaged by the revelations of recent weeks that he attended gatherings and parties his own government had banned during the COVID lockdown of 2020, while some Britons loved ones died alone.

Significantly, pressure on Johnson is mounting from within his own party. During an acrimonious prime ministers questions on Wednesday, David Davis, a former Tory minister and arch-Brexiteer, told Johnson in the name of God, go!

Yet, for all the public anger about Johnsons lack of leadership during the pandemic and inability to grasp the need for full contrition about Partygate, his weakened position actually has a lot more to do with the aftershocks of Brexit in three major ways.

The first is the extent to which Brexit contributed to Johnsons election victory in December 2019.

The commanding majority he secured in that election a major political achievement enabled Britain to withdraw from the European Union. Much of this success was attributed to a swing in support from so-called Red Wall constituencies in the north and Midlands parts of England, which had a history of voting Labour and switched their allegiance to the Conservatives.

Read more: Boris Johnson polling is now so bad that it makes sense for Conservative MPs to get rid of him

The twin sources of this historic switch were believed to be a desire to complete Brexit and a hostility towards Labours left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The problem for Johnson is the perception, among the new cohort of Conservative MPs elected in the Red Wall constituencies, that their newfound support among voters may be fragile.

With Brexit now done and Corbyn no longer Labour leader, many are asking themselves whether these voters will now revert back to Labour. The fear of an embarrassingly short parliamentary career may be convincing many to consider giving Johnson the push.

The second Brexit-related weakness concerns Johnsons style of leadership itself and the part this played in the Conservatives 2019 election win.

This style has been described by political scientists Chris Bickerton and Carlo Invernizzi Accetti as technopopulism. That is to say Johnson is a leader who both appears to reject normal politics, while at the same time professing an unorthodox competence to get things like Brexit done.

This was a major part of his appeal to Conservatives who elected him party leader in 2019 and voters who made him prime minister later that year.

Yet, this now leaves him vulnerable. Theres a big question many Conservatives may be asking themselves: was the 2019 election Johnsons victory, or the partys more broadly?

If they feel it was Johnsons victory, they could decide to eject him before he permanently contaminates the Conservative brand ahead of local elections in May and a general election two years from now.

Johnsons populist nod and wink that I am with them but not of them could now come back to bite as Conservative politicians decide whether to amputate the Johnsonian rot to save the Conservative body.

Read more: Boris Johnson's big election victory: academics on what it means for the UK and Brexit

In doing so, they will be in tune with public opinion. Johnsons chaotic leadership style was always linked with a sense of self-advancement. If this was visible to some during Brexit, it became even more evident during the pandemic.

During 2020, the Conservative leadership invoked the second world war Spirit of the Blitz to make it through the darkest days of the pandemic.

From the perspective of 2022 and the Partygate scandal, another wartime analogy looks more apt lions led by donkeys. This is a popular memory of the first world war in which stoical British soldiers were led to their deaths by incompetent commanders.

Lastly, Johnsons position has been weakened because, despite the rhetoric, Brexit is only half-done.

Johnson is a famous over-promiser. He told parliament in 2017 that Brexit meant Britain could have its cake and eat it. The reality is the Brexit cake is half-baked (in both senses of the word).

For one, the status of Northern Ireland as a full part of the UK is still in the balance because the EU-UK border question has yet to be resolved.

Read more: State of Stormont: can Northern Ireland trust in Truss?

Second, it is hard to see what material benefit Brexit has brought the UK. Admittedly, the pandemic has clouded the ability to make firm judgements about the UK economy. However, it is hard to imagine, amid all the shortages of food and truck drivers, that a free-trade agreement with Australia is giving UK citizens much more than they had when Britain was part of the EU.

This means true believers in Brexit might like someone like Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as PM to fully realise what they perceive as the real benefits of the decision to leave the EU.

Truss, currently in Australia for the annual Australia-UK ministerial meetings, is probably considering her position, along with other potential contenders to replace Johnson: Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, Home Secretary Priti Patel, Health Secretary Sajid Javid, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi and former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who was defeated by Johnson in the 2019 Conservative leadership contest.

Former Conservative MP Enoch Powell, hero of the Conservative right and a vociferous critic of the UKs entry into the European Economic Community in the 1970s, once said all political lives end in failure.

Johnsons downfall would be a case of the revolution eating itself. The irony is the man who promised to get Brexit done, may well get done in by Brexit.

Read more here:

Boris Johnson and 'Partygate': he who lives by the Brexit sword, dies by the Brexit sword - The Conversation AU

Keir Starmer gave Simon Hattenstone several encouraging insights into his political beliefs and intentions (Stop talking about the problem fix the bloody thing! Keir Starmer on Boris Johnsons parties and his plan to win power, 19 January). The interview did, however, refer to one elephant-in-the-room contradiction. Many who would like to vote Labour will disagree with him when he says there is no case for rejoining the EU, were out and were staying out, and Brexit must be made to work from the outside.

Does Starmer not read the opinion polls on Brexit? He says that rather than talking about problems, he identifies what they are and then fixes them. One might have expected that after several years of shadowing Brexit secretaries, he would have identified the inevitable failure of a hopelessly undefined Brexit constrained by Theresa Mays red lines. How does he think hes going to fix this still-open wound which is causing more and more damage to British life and young peoples prospects every day? He cannot and must not be allowed to shrug off the negative impacts of Brexit as Boris Johnson would like him to. Brexit must be addressed honestly and positively. Labours electability is at stake. Graham Webb Saint-Mand, France

Keir Starmer explicitly rules out rejoining the European single market or customs union, thereby ruling out the most realistic solution to Brexit-related problems with import costs, export barriers, food supplies, energy costs, skills shortages and the Northern Ireland protocol, while also ensuring continued long-term economic damage to the UK.

The mood music may vary, but in practice Labours rightwing EU policy remains fully aligned with the Tories, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and Ukip (and its successors), as it has been for the last five years.

If Labour manages to win the next election, it will find itself committed to pursuing a destructive Tory hard Brexit policy, long after the people who wanted it have died off or changed their minds. Chris Webster Gmligen, Switzerland

Surely, I cannot be the only one who thinks that the defection of Christian Wakeford from the Conservatives (Report, 20 January), just over 24 months since standing on their manifesto, and his warm welcome by Keir Starmer says as much about the rightward drift of the Labour party as it does about the chaotic nature of this reactionary and incompetent government? John Richardson Clyro, Powys

Have an opinion on anything youve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.

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Keir Starmers policy on Brexit is fully aligned with the Tories - The Guardian

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has faced calls for his resignation over the holding of parties at Number 10 Downing Street during lockdown. Andrew Ryder argues the scandal runs much deeper than the work culture at the heart of government or Boris Johnsons personal failings. It is emblematic of a decline in public standards that has sharply escalated since the Brexit referendum.

Public standards or what can be termed the principles of public life are:selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership. Britain was once envied and seen as a model for such standards. Sadly, that record has been deeply tarnished by a number of actions in British political life, in particular the actions of the present Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

The ongoing partygate controversy is part of a sequence of scandals that have their origins in Brexit, the decision by the UK to leave the European Union. As many will no doubt be aware, the British political establishment and indeed public have been deeply shaken by the stories of parties being held at Number 10 Downing Street in contravention of rules to halt and stem the flow of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As is often the case in great political scandals, it is not so much the crime but the coverup that has escalated the crisis. First Johnson denied there were any parties during lockdown, then evidence was produced to prove otherwise, then there were claims it was a working meeting within the rules, then an email emerged from Johnsons private secretary inviting guests to bring their own booze, then the Prime Minister claimed no one had told him it was a party despite by his own admission attending the event for around 25 minutes and despite these being the rules he had introduced and was responsible for.

We now await the results of an internal investigation by the civil servant Sue Gray. Leaks suggest she might in part pin the blame on the organisational culture in Number 10 Downing Street. The Conservative party co-chairOliver Dowdenhas said, in an admission of a dysfunctional culture, that he was committed to upping our game and that there was a need for a culture change. But the problems run much deeper than the office work culture at the heart of government or Johnsons moral failings. They are an endemic feature of a decline in public standards, a decline that has sharply escalated since the Brexit referendum.

In a post-truth age of populism, facts and figures seem to be trumped by emotion and sharp practice.

In the Brexit referendum, numerous falsehoods were paraded by both sides, but some of the most glaring came from the Leave campaign. Claims were made that Turkey would be joining the EU and lead to Turkish immigrants flooding into the UK. Although Turkey has been an official EU candidate state since 1999, talks have long since stalled and there is no realistic prospect of the country joining the EU in the foreseeable future.

There was also the famous claim emblazoned on the side of the Leave campaign battle bus that the UK would take back control of roughly 350m a week and that this could be diverted to the NHS. The figure was described by the UK Statistics Authority as a clear misuse of official statistics. As a Leave campaigner, Boris Johnson actively supported these false claims and others. A cavalier disregard for integrity was established during the referendum and it has become a marked feature of the Johnson premiership.

This was perhaps most marked in the decision to prorogue parliament. In 2019, parliament had been nudging towards supporting a second referendum or a softer version of Brexit. In response, Johnson suspended parliament, raising fundamental questions about the nature of British democracy. Scotlands Court of Session concluded that Johnsons advice to the Queen to prorogue parliament had been motivated by the improper purpose of stymying parliament. The Supreme Court in London ruled that a lengthy parliamentary suspension at that time was unlawful.

Then we had the 2019 election, with Johnson and the Conservatives centring their campaign on a pledge to get Brexit done and claiming to have an oven ready deal. In reality, Johnson negotiated and signed the withdrawal agreement with the EU in bad faith as he has consistently sought to renege on that agreement by rewriting and reinterpreting aspects of the deal. This has exasperated the EU and tarnished Britains reputation for honouring international agreements.

Before the election, Johnson had promised unionists there would be no need to fill in extra paperwork when sending goods across the Irish Sea. After the election, he has claimed the withdrawal agreement undermines Northern Irelands place in the union and must be changed. It was clear from the start that the agreement meant many goods flowing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland would require forms to be filled in and increased bureaucracy. The price of this could be escalating tensions in Northern Ireland.

At the heart of this decline in public standards is a style and approach to government that is rooted in populism. In a post-truth age of populism, facts and figures seem to be trumped by emotion and sharp practice. When Johnson goes, Britain will still be confronted with a Conservative Party that is unwilling to exorcise itself of the populist phenomenon. However, the hope is that partygate might be the first step toward a much-needed reckoning and process of national transformation.

Andrew Ryder is the author of Britain and Europe at a Crossroads: The Politics of Anxiety and Transformation (Bristol University Press, 2022)

Note: This article gives the views of theauthor, not the position of EUROPP European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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Boris Johnson, Brexit, and the decline of public standards - EUROPP - European Politics and Policy

While it remains to be seen whether Tory opponents of Boris Johnson can generate enough MPs letters to trigger a confidence vote in the prime minister, let alone win one, it is clear that the parliamentary party contains a series of factions with their own gripes and wishes, some overlapping.

By no means do all of them actively want Johnson gone at least not yet but they do at least hope his current woes could prompt a No 10 reset in a direction they would like. Here is a brief guide to who is seeking what.

1

Singapore-on-Thames brigade

Grouping together the largely overlapping contingents of fervent Brexiters and low-tax, low-spend Tories, these MPs are frustrated that after departure from the EU Johnson has not fully seized what they believe are the opportunities for slashing regulations and focusing on growth through unfettered free enterprise. Often citing Singapore as an example while ignoring elements of the city-states model such as mass social housing they want the government shrunk and taxes cut. As a starting point they would like the imminent rise in national insurance cancelled. Steve Baker is a key proponent of this (and several other) issues.

Best represented by the European Research Group, which played a pivotal role in toppling Theresa May, these share many of the small-state views of the above, but with a particular focus on Brexit-related issues, particularly the impasse over Northern Ireland. They would like Johnson or his successor to trigger article 16 as a means to resetting the Irish border issue, and to take a combative line more generally with the EU. A key No 10 role for David Frost would be welcomed.

Also largely represented by a formal and influential body the Covid Recovery Group, headed by the former chief whip Mark Harper these MPs will have been cheered by the announcement on Wednesday of government plans to phase out more or less every remaining pandemic rule in England over the next few weeks. However, they would still like more assurances from Johnson and from the health secretary, Sajid Javid, that such restrictions will never return.

A group that often crystallises wider Tory worries over the cost of living, this increasingly influential contingent says the best way to reduce energy prices would be to not just remove VAT from bills but also green-based taxes, which pay for renewable energy schemes and the like. More widely, some such as Craig Mackinlay oppose targets for an end to conventionally powered cars and gas boilers, while some want investment in domestic gas and shale gas production.

By no means a unified or coherent group, not least because there are 107 MPs who first joined the Commons in the landslide Tory election win, 2019ers have nonetheless been at the centre of efforts to remove Johnson due to the party allegations, in the so-called pork pie putsch, named after the Rutland and Melton constituency of one member, Alicia Kearns. The motive appears to be largely that they feel let down and worry that the man who helped propel them into parliament is now electorally toxic. Some longer-standing Tory MPs say part of the rebellion is down to some 2019ers annoyance at missing out on promotion, but this is arguably a factor in most attempts to change prime ministers.

Like the Brexiters, this contingent has probably got much of what it wanted out of Johnson. Such efforts are led by Munira Mirza, a key figure in No 10 policy, who has helped oversee initiatives including a report on racial disparities that largely dismissed structural factors, and a robust defence of the rights of statues. However, some want more, perhaps not least the Common Sense Group, led by the veteran MP John Hayes, which opposes what it calls subversives such as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter. Some of these MPs suspect Johnson remains an Islington liberal at heart, and might prefer someone such as Liz Truss.

The final group is the most disparate but is united by one thing: they have openly called for Johnson to step down. A handful, such as Caroline Nokes, are from the more obviously liberal wing of the party, and never had a huge amount of faith in Johnson. Others, such as Andrew Bridgen, are former supporters who have become disillusioned. Their policy ask is very simple: that he quits.

Excerpt from:

From Brexit ultras to net zero sceptics: what the Tory factions want - The Guardian

The news comes as the UK emerges at an unprecedented rate from the slump caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen Britain enjoy one of the highest growth rates in Europe. Payouts surged more than 46 percent on 2020 levels, bolstered by a record number of frothy one-off special dividends which boosted the headline total by a record 16.9bn, three times their normal level, according to the latest Dividend Monitor from financial IT firm Link Group.

Underlying payouts also rose by 21.9 per cent to 77.2bn in 2021, driven by a strong boost in the second and third quarters of the year which took the total payouts to levels not seen since mid-2017.

Ian Stokes, managing director of corporate markets at Link said: The recovery in UK dividends is not complete, but the easiest part of the catch up is now behind us.

As the pandemic continues, it would be easy to take a knife to our expectations for dividends for the coming year. We are, however, cautiously optimistic that most sectors can deliver growth.

Mr Stokes predicted banks and oil companies would be the main engines of progress in 2022 after mining companies fuelled the boom in payouts in 2021.

Mining investors enjoyed a bumper year with profits in the sector driving dividends to three times larger than the long term average.

Reinstated banking payouts also bolstered the overall rebound last year after they were curtailed in 2020 as the economy battled the worst of the pandemic.

Banks cut nearly 8bn in payouts in March 2020 before they were reinstated eight months later.

READ MORE:EU in Brexit revenge plot as ECB launches clamp down

Mr Stokes added: The dominance of big mining groups has overshadowed the income-generating capacity of the broader market and left UK payouts too heavily dependent on a single, highly cyclical sector.

Link has forecast underlying growth of dividends of 5 per cent bringing total payouts to 81bn this year.

The resurgence in UK dividends reflects a wider trend seen across the continent as new figures reveal European investors enjoyed a similar uptick in returns.

After a slump in dividend payments in 2020, companies in the European equity index MSCI Europe raised their payouts again last year by around a third, to a record 378 billion, according to Allianz.

The firm said it was anticipating an 8 per cent hike in European dividends in 2022, which will lead them to hit record highs.

Dr Hans-Jrg Naumer, head of global capital markets, said: Dividends continue to make a substantial contribution to return on equities in Europe.

Link:

Brexit Britain victory as City of London stocks soar - Express

Hermann Kelly, leader of the pro-Irexit Irish Freedom Party has branded Ireland's Leo Varadkar and Michel Martin"invertebrate europhiles" for the leading politicians' anti-Brexit stance. Mr Kelly warned thatIrish taoiseach Mr Martin and Mr Varadkar, his coalition partner, "will do everything possible" to prevent the UK from making Brexit a success.

Mr Kelly told Express.co.uk: "So the Irish taoiseach [Prime Minister]at the time Enda Kenny and Irish commissioners, Irish ambassador to Britain, they were all campaigning, actively campaigning against Brexit in Britain.

"Which I think is a bit of a cheek actually you shouldn't interfere.

"But they campaigned actively against Brexit they were very disappointed, and I think shocked that the vote was passed.

"They've done everything to inhibit a Brexit taking place ever since.

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"Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin are invertebrate europhiles who are happy for all of Ireland to be under Brussels' control.

"So they do not want Brexit to happen," added the Irish Freedom Party President.

"If they can use what is going on or what could possibly happen in Ireland on the border with trade in any way that could inhibit Brexit, they will.

"They will do everything possible to make sure that happened."

But Mr Johnson's Government is trying to renegotiate the deal, arguing that it is hampering the movement of goods between Britain and NorthernIrelandand damaging community relations.

Jarlath O'Keefe, from Grant ThorntonIreland, said: "The CSO figures for November confirmed that there has been a significant increase in cross border trade on the island ofIrelandin 2021 followingBrexit.

"This is due in part to businesses adjusting their supply chains to avoid the administrative burden associated with importing goods from Britain.

"Exports to NorthernIrelandwere 3,305 million euro (2.8 billion) in the period January to November 2021, an increase of 1,078 million euro (900 million) on the same period in 2020."

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'Invertebrate europhiles!' Irish Government savaged over Brexit-thwarting EU pact - Daily Express

The Remain voting Labour peer claimed the 52/48 percent margin of Leave/Remain voters could have been overturned if another Labour leader other than Jeremy Corbyn had been at the helm of the party and pushed full steam ahead with a campaign to "pull back" the Brexit vote with a second referendum.

Discussing the events in the aftermath of the June 2016 Brexit vote, Lord Adonis told Ian Dales All Talk podcast on LBC that he suddenly noticed nobody on the progressive tradition was doing anything to challenge the vote.

He noted how it was at this point when he decided to take matters into his own hands.

He said: I suddenly noticed that four, five months after the 2016 referendum, that largely because of Jeremy Corbyn being leader of the Labour Party

No-one from the progressive tradition was standing up for Europe!

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But in a eye opening claim, Lord Adonis said at that time, in his opinion, there was a potential majority to stop Brexit with a second referendum.

Despite this, he conceded well never know because there was never a second referendum but insisted that the result was pretty close first time around as he stood by his dream of overturning Brexit.

He added: The polls were showing that there was a majority that didnt like the terms of the deal

Theresa May was clearly floundering over trying to get the terms of Brexit.

READ MOREAnn Widdecombe erupts at Truss in rant - 'stop messing about, invoke Article 16!'

And I thought some decent leadership of the Labour Party could probably pull this back, and that the right thing for the Labour Party and the country was to stay in [the EU].

Lord Adonis went on to note how it was "a complete surprise" that the campaign to get Britain back in the EU would "take over his life".

Probed on whether current Labour leader Keir Starmer or former leader Ed Miliband could have changed the outcome of the Brexit result if they had been at the helm, Lord Adonis said he did not know, but was "certain Jeremy Corbyn was the worst possible leader" to have in the aftermath of the referendum.

He claimed the former Labour leader's "anti-European" stance and history of campaigning against "every European Treaty of the last 40-years" was evidence that he was not the right person to push for a second referendum and stop Brexit on behalf of the Remain camp.

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The UK voted to leave the European Union on June 23, 2016, with the Leave vote winning a majority of 51.9 percent, while Remain achieved 48.1 percent of the vote.

Turnout for the referendum was just under 72 percent.

The timetable was set the following year on March 29, when the then British Prime Minister Theresa May took the formal step to start the exit process.

This was done bytriggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. The UK finally left the EU on January 1, 2021 after 47 years of membership.

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Remainer Adonis says there was a 'potential majority to stop Brexit' - 'we'll never know' - Daily Express

European Brexit funds worth 35 million are to be directed to port and coastal communities to improve publicly-owned piers and harbours.

The fund, which will be administered by the Department of Agriculture, will be paid out of the EUs Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR) fund. It will be targeted at rejuvenating public piers and harbours in coastal communities, the department said .

The establishment of the fund was one of the recommendations of a seafood sector taskforce established after Brexit by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue. The taskforce had proposed a fund of 80 million across five years for the development of publicly-owned marine infrastructure.

It was set up to fund works to pieces of coastal infrastructure that have been damaged or declined in structural integrity or have been underused in recent years.

Projects needing funding of up to 1 million will be asked to submit shovel- ready plans during this year and next, although larger projects will be considered where there is particular exposure to Brexit due to proximity to UK waters and loss of fishing opportunities.

Local authorities are to be charged with delivering the projects as they own and maintain the relevant marine infrastructure. So much of the outcome of Brexit has been bad news for local coastal communities, Mr McConalogue said. Now we have this opportunity to support economic growth and mitigate the negative impacts for these communities.

The BAR fund was set up as a special one-off emergency instrument to counter the adverse economic, social and territorial consequences of Brexit. Ireland is the biggest beneficiary of the fund, and was the first EU member state to receive its pre-financing.

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Brexit funds of 35m to be directed to coastal communities to improve piers and harbours - The Irish Times