Category Archives: Brexit

Britain and the EU appear on the brink of a trade war after Brussels accused Boris Johnson of lacking sincerity in negotiations over Northern Irelands future and warned of serious consequences if Downing Street suspended the post-Brexit deal.

As he emerged from his latest tense meeting with the UKs Brexit minister, the EU commissioner Maro efovi said that despite Brussels attempts to find a compromise, we have seen no move at all from the UK side.

The two sides have been locked in talks for three weeks over changes to how the Brexit deal works to ensure the free flow of trade between Britain and Northern Ireland. The EU has offered to cut customs controls in half and health checks on animal and plant products heading to supermarkets by 80%, but efovi suggested there had been scant effort by David Frost, the Brexit minister, to engage with the proposals.

I found this disappointing and once again I urge the UK government to engage with us sincerely, efovi said. From this perspective, I see next week as an important one. We should focus all efforts on reaching a solution as soon as possible.

Our aim should be to establish stability and predictability for Northern Ireland. We hear a lot about article 16 at the moment, but therell be no doubt that triggering article 16 to seek the negotiation of the protocol would have serious consequences.

Serious for Northern Ireland, as it would lead to instability and unpredictability, and serious also for the EU-UK relations in general, as it would mean a rejection of EU efforts to find a consensual solution to the implementation of the protocol.

Under the protocol, Northern Ireland in effect remains in the single market for goods while the EUs customs rulebook is enforced on goods entering from Britain. Brussels has conceded that the implementation of these arrangements has created political disruption in Northern Ireland.

Lord Frost reiterated on Friday, however, that the remedies proposed did not go far enough. The UK government wants to maintain a free flow of trade between Northern Ireland and the wider single market including the Republic but without a role for the European court of justice as arbiter of whether EU law is being followed.

Lord Frost set out the UKs assessment of the negotiations on the protocol, a UK government spokesperson said of the meeting with efovi. He underlined that progress had been limited and that the EUs proposals did not currently deal effectively with the fundamental difficulties in the way the protocol was operating.

Article 16 of the protocol allows either side to take unilateral safeguard measures that would suspend parts of the deal agreed by Johnson with Brussels if it causes serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties.

Such a move would be seen as incendiary in EU capitals, which have been infuriated by Downing Streets refusal to implement a deal agreed in October 2019. Before his meeting in Brussels, Frost nevertheless warned triggering article 16 was very much on the table, adding that time was running out.

We hope to make some progress, but honestly, the gap between us is still quite significant, but lets see where we can get to, he said. Were not going to trigger article 16 today, but article 16 is very much on the table and has been since July.

Time is running out on these talks if we are to make progress.

Frost had set the EU a three-week deadline after the 12 October publication in Brussels of a plan to drastically reduce the level of checks on trade going from Great Britain into Northern Ireland.

It is widely expected that any decision on article 16 will be made after the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow, which are due to end on 12 November.

Frost said: Im not going to give any timescales or any hypotheticals. Theres a significant gap between us. If that gap narrows and the commission listens to what we have said in the command paper and looks at the situation in Northern Ireland, then maybe that will help us move things forward.

There has been speculation the UK could use article 16 to implement its vision for Northern Ireland, as outlined in a July command paper. However, the treaty only allows for strictly necessary actions to remedy the situation. There is ongoing debate in government at what this legally permits.

Should the UK trigger article 16, there will be a range of options available to the EU, including giving notice of terminating the trade and cooperation agreement that ensures tariff-free trade.

EU sources said it was unlikely Brussels would jump to such a decision given the range of other options within the treaty to respond to the UK, including targeted tariffs on British exports.

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Brexit: EU warns of serious consequences if UK invokes ...

Is this it? I thought it was meant to start playing a tiny, tinny version of Land of Hope and Glory and red, white and blue confetti would burst out when opened. As was completely predictable to anyone not in the market for snake oil and fools gold, the new passport entirely fails to make up for what Britain has lost by leaving the European Union.

Various scam artists of Brexit said the spoils of a Leave vote would be something to be proud of but what I hold in my hands is deeply mediocre and quite embarrassing, like contemporary Britain itself.

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Talk about broken promises its not even the strong, regal navy blue that was talked up in the tabloids and by Home Secretary Priti Patel who claimed the return of the iconic blue and gold design would once again be entwined with our national identity. Well, its here, and what Im looking at is dull matt black.

For some the colour change and its oblique symbolism was deeply exciting, but in Brexit Britain not even the manufacturing of our bureaucratic documents has gone smoothly. Are those who chased after these dubious rewards happy now? Do they sit and stroke the cover of their own passports pretending theyre navy, and that the colour of the thing means anything at all?

Forget that Brexiteer pipe dream of ruddy-cheeked Brits abroad beaming with sovereign pride holding their post-Brexit passports aloft. British travellers are likely to look even more tired and strained under the strip lights of airport security, where well be standing in longer queues, as Germans on mini-breaks zip straight through. This is life in the slow lane, baby. Get used to it. Britain is stuck here for the foreseeable.

At the European table, Britain is the oblivious uncle nobody is listening to, sitting in the corner muttering and picking gristle out of his teeth, three conversations behind. Sure, these islands got a kick out of being spiteful to the neighbours, dancing around and sticking middle fingers up to France throughout the whole sorry Brexit campaign, but hazy memories are all anyone got out of the experience.

Three years ago when passport chat was at peak excitability, Tory MP Andrew Rosindell claimed hed found the Burgundy passport embarrassing and repeatedly referred to it as pink as though identifying it as a threat to his masculinity. National identity matters and there is no better way of demonstrating this today than by bringing back this much-loved national symbol when travelling overseas, he said.

Ive got plenty of time to contemplate the let-down of this bigged-up passport because, now were out of the Schengen zone, Im having to hoof it over to the Finnish consulate at an ungodly hour to ask nicely for a Visa, all of which is costing money and time I took for granted before.

Can you believe weve thrown away the ability to simply rock up to our European neighbours doors without faffing about with stressful paperwork in advance? I still cant! What an idiotic move that was, huh?

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Post-Brexit passport is a fitting symbol for the idiocy of leaving the European Union Laura Waddell - The Scotsman

In late November, the U.S. Commerce Department informed the U.K. government that bilateral talks on lifting Trump-era tariffs on steel and aluminum could not move ahead. The reason was that the British governments continued threats to breach the Northern Ireland Protocol would hurt the citizens of Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government lifted the 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum to European Union manufacturers. The disparate treatment signaled the consequential U.S. treatment of BREXIT. It was a slap in U.K. Prime Minister Boris JohnsonBoris JohnsonBoris Johnson under fire after video shows staff joking about Christmas party amid COVID-19 restrictions Afghan evacuation 'arbitrary and dysfunctional,' British whistleblower testifies Biden holds call with European leaders to talk Russia MOREs face.

After the conclusion of a withdrawal agreement with Brussels, including a protocol on relations with Northern Ireland, Johnson stepped onto the world stage to demonstrate that Britain was a global player. He hosted the G7 in Cornwall and COP26 in Glasgow, gathering world leaders to U.K. shores with the pomp associated with royal parades. While world leaders were deep in critical negotiations, the ongoing dispute with Brussels over the protocol was pushed aside. Now that the global matinees are over, it is time to prepare for the evening performance: worsening row with France and resurgence of threats to revoke the protocol through the use of its article 16.

Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol allows for Westminster or Brussels to take unilateral safeguard measures if either party concludes that the protocol is leading to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties or a diversion of trade that are likely to persist. Neither the word serious nor the meaning of diversion of trade are defined.

In July, Lord David Frost, the U.K. negotiator stated that the threshold for applying article 16 had been reached. But the government chose not to use the safeguard, allowing more time to negotiate with Brussels. Maro efovi, the E.U. lead negotiator made concessions, allowing food and pharmaceutical products to cross the Irish Sea without tariff controls so long as those goods remained in Northern Ireland. However, goods whose final destination was the Republic of Ireland, and thus the E.U., were subject to regulatory control. The negotiators appeared to be focused on what goods would move onto the E.U. and which would be consumed in Northern Ireland. Sense prevailed.

Then, Johnson raised a new hurdle, namely the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over the people of Northern Ireland. According to the prime minister, the jurisdiction of that court in Northern Ireland would infringe upon U.K. sovereignty and is unacceptable. Brussels argued that the court ensured protection for the human rights of Northern Irish people. How could those rights protect the people of the Republic of Ireland, but not apply to the people in Northern Ireland? The impasse was glaring. Pragmatic solutions could be found for cold meats, but a Solomonic division was impossible over the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

Thus, on Nov. 17, Frost indicated that he was prepared to apply the safeguard measures in article 16. Brussels objected, as did Taoiseach Michel Martin, leader of the Irish Republic. Confronting this challenge, powerful persons in Congress stood up. President BidenJoe BidenHouse passes 8B defense policy bill House approves bill to ease passage of debt limit hike Senate rejects attempt to block Biden's Saudi arms sale MORE and House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiHouse approves bill to ease passage of debt limit hike Ocasio-Cortez: 'Embarrassment' that Democratic leaders are delaying Boebert punishment Overnight Health Care Biden mandate faces Dem resistance MORE have repeated their support for peace on the island of Ireland. That peace, signed in April 1998, ensures the free movement of people and goods across the land border between the two countries. It also ensures that the rights of the Northern Irish are equal to the rights of those in the Republic. Thus the quandary over the European Court of Justice.

Westminster could pass legislation ensuring the protections, currently given by the European Court, to the people of Northern Ireland. But so far there is little indication that the prime minister will submit that bill to parliament. On the contrary, Johnson appears to relish battle with Brussels, France and whomever else creates a problem that stirs instinctive nationalist sentiment.

Now he confronts the Biden administration; a fight he surely does not relish as he pursues the dream of Global Britain. The impasse is complex and ensures that Johnson will not wield article 16 until the curtain rises on a harmonious performance with Washington.

Diana Villiers Negroponte is a global fellow, focused on the U.K.s global role following its departure from the EU. She is the author of Master Negotiator: the Role of James A.Baker, III at the End of the Cold War.

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How the US impacts Brexit's Northern Ireland protocol | TheHill - The Hill

Ireland is set to get a massive cash payment from Brexit.

Although complicated talks between the EU and the U.K. continue, with a hard border a continuing threat in Ireland, the country is still set for a payout of more than 1 billion.

The European Commission has approved a 920.4 million subsidy to Ireland over the next two years as part of whats called the Brexit Adjustment Reserve fund. That was set up to ameliorate the economic impact of the UKs exit from the EU.

Ireland is to be the largest beneficiary of a 5.4 billion emergency fund as it is deemed to have been the hardest hit by the disruption to trade from the new arrangements. It is also the first member state to receive funding under the initiative.

Ireland will receive 361.5 million in 2021, 276.7 million in 2022, and 282 million in 2023 with the first installment disbursed by the end of the current year.

In total, Ireland will receive 1.16 billion from the fund. The balance, estimated to be 244 million, will be paid in 2025 once expenditure incurred between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2023, has been accounted for, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform confirmed.

The department said on Monday the fund would be used to help counter the adverse economic and social consequences of Brexit in areas such as enterprise supports, supports for the fisheries and agri-food sectors, reskilling and retraining and checks and controls at Irelands ports and airports.

European commissioner for cohesion and reforms Elisa Ferreira said, Brexit has had a negative impact on many peoples lives. Within the EU, it is the people in Ireland who feel it the most.

The commission said it expected to adopt Brexit Adjustment Reserve decisions for the other EU member states in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the Irish government now puts the likelihood of the U.K. triggering Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol at 50:50. The protocol is intended to ensure there is no longer a hard border on the island of Ireland. Britain, in an on-off-on-again basis, has threatened to press the Article 16 button which would collapse the deal if difficulties persist.

One Irish diplomat told RTEs EU correspondent Tony Connolly, London has been taken aback by the Democratic Unionist Partys under-performance in going into elections, and by the rise of Sinn Fin in the south. So those two things might lead to some form of arithmetic in London that they need to trigger regardless.

Connolly says his sources tell him that U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has given his Brexit negotiators a mandate to negotiate through December to see what kind of agreement emerges.

Then they are likely to decide in the first two months of 2022 whether they think it's satisfactory, or whether theyre back to pressing the Article 16 button.

*This column first appeared in the December 8 edition of the weekly Irish Voice newspaper, sister publication to IrishCentral.

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Ireland to get Brexit payout of more than 1 billion - IrishCentral

By Frank Kane*

One hundred years ago this week, a peace agreement was signed in London between British and Irish politicians that aimed to put an end to centuries of intermittent, but intense, conflict between the two countries.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 allowed for the establishment of an independent Ireland, while also allowing Northern Ireland to remain within the UK. It was always a stop-gap arrangement, designed to defuse an escalating war while satisfying the aspirations of the two historical traditions of Ireland Catholic nationalist and Protestant unionist.

Perhaps the agreement was the best that could have been devised in the circumstances but, on the evidence of the past century, it was deeply flawed. All that followed the Irish Civil War, trade disputes with Britain, the impoverishment of immigration, and sporadic and low-level sectarian violence culminating in nearly three decades of open warfare during the Troubles show the treaty to have been an abject failure.

So how ironic that now, in the wake of Brexit and amid rising populist nationalism in the UK under Boris Johnson, the end of the treaty era looks in sight. The reunification of Ireland under one political system appears more likely and more imminent than at any time since the Act of Union in 1801 that set up the UK.

Full disclosure: I am an Irish citizen and believe that the reunification of Ireland is a legitimate aspiration and a desirable goal as long as it is achieved with the consent of a majority within the whole of Ireland and, crucially, with the consent of the people of Northern Ireland.

For most of the past 100 years, it looked extremely unlikely that such a majority would come in the north. The state, sometimes misleadingly called Ulster, was set up explicitly to keep Northern Ireland in the UK and London underwrote that goal, constitutionally and financially.

The founders of Northern Ireland were acutely aware of the demographics. Because Catholic nationalists had a higher birth rate than Protestant unionists, at some stage they would overtake them in population terms and likely vote for a united Ireland.

So a whole arsenal of techniques was employed to ensure that nationalists born in Northern Ireland would not want to stay there much past voting age. Discrimination in housing and employment, alongside the actions of a blatantly sectarian system of law and order, meant many Catholics gave up on their own country and left for Britain, the US and other parts of the world.

Not many went to the Republic of Ireland, which speaks volumes about the other failure of the treaty. The independent Irish state it created was poor, conservative and dominated by the Catholic Church to such an extent that even their co-religionists in the north did not want to live there.

All that began to change with the entry of Ireland into the EU in 1973, at the same time as the UK. Capital began to flow from Brussels to the whole of Ireland, but more to the poorer south. Things began to look up in the republic, just as the north was descending into sectarian mayhem.

Socially and culturally, too, Ireland was changing. It was becoming more liberal and tolerant, less Catholic, even though the vast majority still formally ticked the box labeled RC for Roman Catholic (as do I). By the early 2000s, the Celtic Tiger economy was roaring in the south.

In the north, the economy was improving, too, largely thanks to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which effectively ended the Troubles.

The vote for Brexit in 2016 threw all this up in the air. The north voted to remain by a big majority, underlining the difference between it and the rest of the UK. The frontier between the two parts of Ireland often a killing zone during the Troubles was suddenly the only land border between the UK and the EU, and nobody wanted to see it closed down again in a renewed cycle of violence.

To avoid this, the Johnson government put the border in the Irish Sea, effectively making Ireland a common economic and customs zone, including the north. Die-hard unionists did not like that, but the effect has been transformational. Trade between north and south is at record levels, while exports from Ireland to the UK are also booming.

Meanwhile, Catholic nationalists no longer forced into exile by economic and sectarian pressure are approaching a majority in the north. Nobody can say when it will happen, but at some stage in the next decade, they will be dominant.

There is one big unknown: How will unionists react when they find themselves in a minority in their statelet? Given the history, the auguries are not good.

The choice is between peace, economic development and rising living standards under a united Ireland and sectarian violence and conflict under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. As its era draws to a close, Ireland is at a historic crossroads.

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Thanks To Brexit, Anglo-Irish Relations Are At A Crossroads OpEd - Eurasia Review

Horizon Europe is the EUs key funding programme for research and innovation which aims to tackleclimate change, help to achieve the UNs Sustainable Development Goals and boost the EUs competitiveness and growth. However, a recent report has revealed the UK has been left out of the scheme despite other non-EU countries being granted associate membership on Tuesday.

Non-EU countries Georgia, Israel, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia were all granted associate membership of Horizon Europe on Tuesday.

The Telegraph has reported the EU is preventing Britain from joining because it does not trust the British Government due to the ongoing row over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

A European Commission spokesman told The Telegraph: The UKs association to Horizon Europe and other EU programmes will be finalised in due course.

This requires a level of trust that the attached conditions will be complied with.

READ MORE:Brexit Live: James Dyson furiously slams EU 'stifling innovation'

"I'm convinced that the issue of medicines could be a blueprint for how to approach and solve together the remaining outstanding issues.

The Irish government has joined many world leaders urging the UK not to trigger the article and has warned the move will likely spark retaliation from the EU which could result in a trade war.

Irelands deputy leader Leo Varadkar said last month: The message Id send to Boris Johnson is that we have an agreement in relation to Northern Ireland, we have an agreement in relation to trade with the European Union dont jeopardise it.

You were part of negotiating it, you own it, it was hard-won, its a mistake to think that by escalating tensions or by trying to withdraw from any part of it, that youll end up with a better deal: you wont.

Progress on rules restricting the flow of goods between the UK and Northern Ireland has been said to be disappointing but discussions on the issue were described as constructive.

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Brexit snub as EU leaves Britain out of Horizon initiative because bloc 'doesn't trust UK' - Daily Express

The current deal, struck when the UK voted to leave the European Union, needs to be overhauled and replaced with a fairer and more efficient agreement, German agriculture publication Agrarheute admits. Farmers' associations in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are calling for more fair relations with the EU as the industry battles a myriad of problems. Pig farmers have been struggling as a result of the coronavirus pandemic which has disrupted supply lines and reduced capacity in slaughterhouses.

There has also been a string of pork plant closures and the suspension of exports to China from some plants.

To make matters worse, the industry has faced an exodus of workers as a result of the pandemic and Brexit, which saw many foreign workers returning to their home countries.

NPA chief executive Zoe Davies told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: The issue is that because, for whatever reason, a lot of workers have left processing plants and gone home because a lot of them are eastern European.

The abattoirs themselves cannot process the number of pigs that we supply them with on a weekly basis.

So for the last six to eight weeks, all of the major processers have been cutting their kills by up to 25 percent, which is leading to pigs being kept on farms for far longer than they should be.

And that is leading to an absolute crisis for us on the pig side.

According to official figures, pig farmers in the UK have been forced to cull around 16,000 animals as a result of these compounding factors.

But this number could be even higher due to unreported cases, the specialist magazine Farming UK and the National Pig Association (NPA) has claimed.

The Government has released a support package including 800 visas for foreign workers, aid for private storage and incentives for slaughterhouses but farmers insist a more efficient system is also needed.

German publication Agrarheute notes: "In the past week, the situation of British pig farmers has deteriorated overall.

"In order to create prospects for the agricultural sector, the British farmers' associations are calling for a fresh start in the relationship with the EU."

The farmers' associations now want to make the 70,000 British farmers more present in the Union which they have previously been marginalised.

The associations in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales released a joint statement explaining that they would be revitalising the British Agriculture Bureau (BAB) in a bid to stand up for British farmers.

They highlighted the importance of cooperation between all European farmers in a report published on Friday December 3 which promotes their vision for a more balanced relationship with Europe.

A key objective of the new relationship is to open up new trade opportunities while defending high British standards.

To make this a reality, the BAB suggests they should be responsible for dealing with trade and standards, science and innovation, the environment and animal health and welfare.

Furthermore, a strong, competitive agricultural economy must be supported by British trade policy.

The report also states that moving forward, British farmers want to improve productivity, conserve resources and reduce the ecological footprint of agriculture.

Additional reporting Monika Pallenberg

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Now they get it! German media wake up to reality of hated EU deal as 'pig bottleneck' high - Daily Express

A new "Interpretation Bill" is rumoured to be in the pipeline from the Prime Minister, giving ministers the opportunity to effectively throw out any rulings they disagree with. The bill has been written up in the hope that it would be introduced annually. ButExpress.co.ukreaders have warned the Prime Minister to be cautious in his approach to this new bill.

Robert Ward wrote: Yes the judges were an absolute disgrace in their thwarting of Brexit.

Those judges should be removed.

Yes laws regarding future referendums (if we have any more that is) should be beefed up so judges cant attempt to alter the democratic will of the people on a technicality.

But this? NO.

This is a very dangerous step towards dictatorship.

Government Ministers should not be allowed to do this.

And god help us if they do.

MissingEUalready wrote: As the ultimate law maker Parliament has superiority over the judicial system.

If you don't like the way Parliament runs the country then change your voting habits.

READ MORE:PM issued savage warning

Parliament is best placed to determine what it intended.

Ladynotforturning wrote: Bravo - when it comes to politics the judiciary should not have ultimate power as that belongs to the electorate that voted in the ruling party.

In this case Brexit was voted for and should not have been obstructed.

Judges cannot make a judgement without bias as has been demonstrated.

Attorney General Suella Braverman hinted at the possibility of this new bill being introduced in a speech to the Public Law Project Conference.

She said: "What we have seen is a huge increase in political litigation that is to say, litigation seeking to use the court system, and judicial review, to achieve political ends."

She added: "If we keep asking judges to answer inherently political questions, we are ignoring the single most important decision-maker in our system: the British people."

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Boris urged against 'dangerous step to dictatorship' in Brexit revenge on UK judges - Daily Express

Thursday 09 December 2021 6:15 am

By: David Collins

David Collins is professor of international economic law at City University

Since leaving the EU, there is no doubt that the UK has made impressive progress in signing Free Trade Agreements, including not only roll-overs of EU agreements like those with Canada and Turkey, but entirely new ones with Australia and New Zealand.

The UKs application to join the CPTPP mega-regional trade agreement is also well underway. It is hard to imagine that the EU would have been able to conclude so many FTAs so quickly.

The crucial question of whether these deals make up for the shortfall in reduced trade with the EU, which, thanks in part to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, has not been as severe as many predicted, remains to be seen.

Since the EUs portion of the UKs trade had been steadily declining for years and the EU comprises an ever-smaller component of the global economy, the UKs global trade volumes under various FTAs and WTO rules are poised to grow in the longer term. Outside of the EUs tariff zone, many goods are now cheaper than they were before, even if Covid-induced inflation has muted these gains.

Of course, the greatest opportunity of Brexit was not about trade but in escaping the clutches of EUs costly, anti-business regulatory control. The burden of complying with EU rules was estimated to cost the UK 33bn per year in lost productivity.

But, frustratingly, a year on from Brexit and we see very little evidence of the UK adopting a streamlined, permissive approach to regulation distinct from the EUs proscriptive, prohibitive one.

Many of the most egregious examples of the EUs regulatory over-reach, notably the cumbersome GDPR, have been retained as part of UK domestic law.

The UKs uncosted plans for achieving net zero to arrest climate change seem even more draconian than those of the EU with its unscientific devotion to the Precautionary Principle. Much of the anticipated commercial nimbleness, once described as Singapore-on-Thames, has failed to materialise in favour of a business-as-usual Brussels lethargy. The ambitious Free Ports initiative, designed to cut red tape for traders, appears to have faltered.

While it was wise to pull back on the HS2, what happened to useful infrastructure projects like the Crossrail and the third runway at Heathrow? Inexplicably, business-stifling taxes are at their highest level for more than 50 years. And lets not forget the promise that Brexit would secure our borders illegal migration across the channel is at its historic worst.

Is this the Brexit Britain voted for? Despite the weak progress to date, arguably caused in part by Covid, there are glimmers of hope. A quicker vaccine rollout coupled with a measured response to Covid restrictions may yet yield faster post-pandemic recovery than on the continent. The overdue implementation of smart borders to reduce trade friction is encouraging. CPTPP accession is hopefully imminent. Exports of financial services, including to the EU, have actually increased (despite predictions of the Citys collapse). Earlier this year the Taskforce for Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform drew attention to improvements in laws covering areas such as Fintech and gene-editing which may yet gain traction.

So, overall, a year on, was Brexit a success? It is still really too soon to tell. Ask again in five years.

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The Brexit jury is still out as we fail to grasp the vision of freedom we were promised - City A.M.

Polling expert Professor John Curtis told Express.co.uk on Sunday that the Prime Minister will only keep the support of Leave voters if he can convince them Brexit is working.He said: Brexit works for as long as people think it does.

"It is probably true that some of the support for Brexit has been shaved off.

"People might be more likely to say Brexit was negative.

Express.co.uk readers responded thick and fast to the idea that support for Brexit in Britain is on the way down, insisting that it is actually doing pretty well.

NotInEU2 wrote: For an insight into how Brexit is going look no further than the Paris-based OECD 2021 report.

Growth is set to outperform the economies Germany, France, the Eurozone, and all of the G7, according to the OECD.

hindsight added: Brexit is doing pretty well considering it's got the whole of the EU and 48 percent of the UK population trying to make it fail.

robjmckinney also noted that Britain is doing better out of the EU than it would have done if it was still in it.

They wrote: Simply look at the EU and its poor economical situation, if Britain had stayed in the EU would milk us dry.

READ MORE: Boris's GP deal could lead to diabetes time bomb

Yes we are better out and there is no evidence staying in would be better for us. The media still supports the EU and hates Boris, simply pulling him to pieces at every turn. Now his popularity returns after dealing with the biggest crisis since WW2.

Responding to the notion that almost half the country is trying to make Brexit fail, Jonjo said that the result of the Old Bexley and Sidcup by-election suggested otherwise.

They wrote: 48 percent of the UK population are trying to make Brexit fail? Its curious then that the 'Rejoin the EU' party got so few votes that it lost its deposit in the Bexley by-election.

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The pro-Remain Liberal Democrat party also lost its deposit, although some commentators suggested that factors other than Brexit might have been in play there.

Patrick OFlynn of the SDP noted that Labour produced a better result than in previous years partly because the Liberal Democrats did a deal to barely campaign in the constituency.

Other Express.co.uk readers suggested that Mr Johnson should be more fearful of the publics view of other aspects of his time in office than Brexit.

Decaston wrote: What will do him in is the vanity projects like heat pumps and bridges from Scotland.

Pawprint added: Brexit is doing fine. Boris, however, is losing his grip.

He needs to sort out the Northern Ireland Protocol by scrapping it, and get back in control of the English Channel migrant crisis.

He must do better, and do it soon.

Excerpt from:

Half the population trying to make Brexit fail Remainers slammed after Boris warning - Daily Express