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BREXIT and the Covid crisis have forced employers to rethink pay and conditions but that could push pint prices up to 10, MPs have heard.

Experts from hospitality, haulage and horticulture told MPs the impact of EU withdrawal and the pandemic have had major impacts on their sectors, with staff shortages now forcing a rethink of recruitment, pay and conditions.

MPs on Westminster's cross-party Scottish Affairs Committee heard that while this is good for the staff affected, continued rise are notsustainable and will force costs up for consumers pushing bar prices up to "Scandinavian" levels.

Stephen Montgomery of the Scottish Hospitality Group (SHG) said: "I would love to pay all my bartenders 12, 15, 18 an hour but whenever you are paying 10 a pint that's when it becomes an issue."

All three sectors are battling to find solutions for the labour shortages affecting businesses, with the shortfall in HGV drivers disrupting supply chains. In turn, that's left supermarket shelves empty and driven the price of goods up. The committee invited key figures to give evidence about how things stand now.

READ MORE: Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney warns EU could ditch entire Brexit deal

David Michie of the National Farmers' Union Scotland (NFUS) told how one Scottish farm had ploughed 2.5 million heads of broccoli and 1.5mheads of cauliflower back into the soil in August as problems piled up, with horticulture worker numbers almost 25% shy this summer and rising operating costs now making Scottish firms "uncompetitive".

Martin Reid, director of Scotland and Northern Ireland for the Road Haulage Association (RHA), said Brexit had exacerbated existing pressures on staffing to create a "perfect storm" and Montgomery called for an Army-style recruiting campaign to attract people to hospitality careers.

And the committee heard that while some bus firms are now seeing their staff drift over to haulage because of higher pay, that's not sustainable and creates knock-on problems.

The speakers were asked if higher pay and better conditions could close the recruitment gaps. The panel heard that this review is overdue, but won't solve everything.

Reid told MPs: "We were so embedded into a system within the EU which was not only about freedom of movement for labour, it was about freedom of goods movement, all those things that we took for granted, the 'just in time' way that we ordered things. You could sit on your laptop on a Friday night with a glass of wine and order something that would come fro Romania and arrive on your doorstep in 24 hours. That world has gone. As an industry, we are having to relearn so many different things."

Montgomery said many furloughed hospitality workers had become delivery drivers and his sector was "known as being a cheap labour, long hours, badly-run area", deterring recruitment despite nine months of pay rises. And he said he could foresee Scotland adopting "Scandinavian country where a pint of lager is seven or eight pounds" if operating costs continue to rise.

READ MORE:Brexit's impact on economy worse than Covid pandemic's, warns OBR chief

He stated: "When the Army advertise for recruits, they don't advertise that you are going to Northern Ireland, you are going to the Gulf, you are going to Afghanistan, they advertise a positive aspect were you are going to have a skill.

"Hospitality needs to get that as well."

MPs heard poor facilities had deterred people from taking up the UK Government's three-month temporary visa for HGV drivers, and that some farm workers recruited through the seasonal scheme by agents had not known what they were coming to. Both programmes, drawn up to alleviate labour shortages post-Brexit, were said to be too short in duration and should be extended.

Meanwhile, there were calls to open up further training opportunities for UK nationals. But Michie said that wouldn't ensure farms have the workers they need, describing berry picking and similar jobs as work for younger people, often those who are taking a year out and travelling. Without opening up visa schemes, he said, Scottish growers face a retraction of activity next year.

On current negotiations between horticulture operations and supermarkets, he said: "Because of the situation we are in with migrant labour, they become very uncompetitive compared to other countries so they are getting undercut and there's likely to be more importation of fruit and vegetables from other countries, which is not great, particularly for perishable products, in terms of climate impact on that transportation."

Montgomery warned: "I don't think this labour shortage is going to be over in two years, I really don't."

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Brexit and Covid could bring 'Scandinavian' bar prices to Scotland, MPs hear - The National

Last year, the streaming giant spent $1bn (740m) making around 60 TV shows and films including The Crown and Sex Education in the Surrey-based studios. But now, in a major investment move, Netflix is looking to ramp up its British-made content.

Anna Mallett, vice-president of physical production for the UK and EMEA region, said: We are delighted to announce the expansion of our production presence in the UK.

The new contract with Shepperton highlights our commitment to investing in the UK creative industry and will provide a wealth of opportunities and production jobs, from entry-level to heads of department.

This new investment comes as Shepperton Studios is preparing to more than double in size.

The parent company, Pinewood Studios - where the likes of the Bond franchise and Star Wars are shot - received planning permission to expand the studios from 14 stages to 31.

Netflix will now use the expanded site on completion in 2023 but will not take up all the new space.

The Pinewood Group chairman, Paul Golding, added: We are thrilled to be going ahead with the next phase of expansion at Shepperton Studios.

Were especially pleased to be strengthening our partnership with Netflix.

"Their commitment to expand at Shepperton enables us to continue our investment into this great studio.

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It must also make up 30 percent of the number of titles on platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

Other countries have increased their quotas for European works on video-on-demand platforms.

But the document, tabled with diplomats on June 8, said in the "aftermath of Brexit" the inclusion of UK content in such quotas had led to a "disproportionate" amount of British content on EU TV.

The document said the amount of UK content may "affect the fulfilment" of promoting European works and cultural diversity.

It read: "The high availability of UK content in video-on-demand services, as well as the privileges granted by the qualification as European works, can result in a disproportionate presence of UK content within the European video on demand quota and hinder a larger variety of European works (including from smaller countries or less spoken languages).

Therefore the disproportionality may affect the fulfilment of the objectives of promotion of European works and cultural diversity aimed by the audiovisual media services directive.

The concerns relate to how Brexit will impact the audiovisual production sector in the European Union as, according to the European Audiovisual Observatory, the UK provides half of the European TV content presence of VOD in Europe and the UK works are the most actively promoted on VOD, while the lowest EU27 share of promotion spots is also found in the UK.

"Although the UK is now a third country for the European Union, its audiovisual content still qualifies as European works according to the definition provided by the AVMS directive, as the definition continues to refer to the European Convention on Transfrontier Television of the Council of Europe, to which the UK remains a party.

However, industry figures said the move to define UK content as something other than European would hit the British industry hard.

Adam Minns, the executive director of the Commercial Broadcasters Association (COBA), said: Selling the international intellectual property rights to British programmes has become a crucial part of financing production in certain genres, such as drama.

Losing access to a substantial part of EU markets would be a serious blow for the UK TV sector, right across the value chain from producers to broadcasters to creatives.

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Another win for Brexit Britain! Netflix to double size of UK studio in major investment - Daily Express

Today, the latest round of post-Brexit talks is set to take place between the UK and the EU in London. Both parties are discussing trade arrangements for Northern Ireland which, unlike the rest of the UK, effectively remains in the EUs single market for goods. Under the Northern Ireland Protocol, strict EU customs checks have been imposed on some products crossing the Irish Sea from Britain.

Brussels had refused to budge over calls to axe the stringent inspections of goods such as fresh meats, which have wreaked havoc for supply chains.

However, last month the EU caved to the UKs demands and agreed to scrap most of the checks.

The two sides are meeting again to discuss the UK chief negotiator Lord David Frosts call to remove the role of the EU Court of Justice in overseeing the application of the Protocol.

Amid the latest discussions with the EU, Brexit Britain has been given a boost over its secession from the bloc by a new documentary.

The Secret World of Chocolate on Channel 4 charts the fascinating history of some of the countrys most iconic sweet treats.

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Narrated by Dawn French, the series looks at the bittersweet rivalries between Cadbury, Mars and Rowntree.

The documentary lays bare the booming chocolate and sweet industry right here in the UK, giving a boost to the idea of the country going it alone.

The feuding confectionery giants have had many battles over the years, including when Cadbury launched its bubble filled Wispa bar in 1983.

The new brand was a direct rival to existing aerated chocolate bar Aero, which was made by Rowntree.

In the documentary, Norman Hawkins, Cadburys UK sales director from 1976 to 1982, recalled Cadburys emphatic unveiling of its new product.

Sir Dominic Cadbury, who retired from his familys chocolate empire in 2000, also appears in the documentary.

Speaking about the success of Wispa and his memories prior to the launch, the former managing director of the company said: Rowntree could do what they like with Aero.

But there was no way they would blunt the popularity and the acclaim with which Wispa was going to be received.

He added: Wispa sells to the British public in much bigger quantities than Aero does. Its what the British public think that matters.

I'm just simply saying that the British public are right. They love Wispa but they don't love Aero quite as much.

Mr Hawkins said that Wispa was a job well done but that despite the bars huge popularity at the time, Cadbury could not afford to rest on its laurels in the highly competitive chocolate industry.

He said: Now we will face the next challenge because as sure as eggs are eggs, there would be another one coming down the track. It might be a month, it might be a year.

The Secret World of Chocolate is available to stream on All 4.

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Brexit boost as UKs booming chocolate industry laid bare: Sit up and take notice - Daily Express

Frans Timmermans howled with laugher during a Cop26 event on Thursday when asked if Brussels was missing Britain. Mr Timmermans' gleeful display prompted a furious reaction from Express.co.uk readers.

Commenting on this website, a reader with the username FredBadger blasted: "Every day their contemptible attitude reinforces why the people of the UK chose to leave the EU.

"The EU's derision during UK membership whilst we were the second biggest nett contributor was relentless.

"The EU is a self-interest group run by and for the benefit of Germany and France (euro exchange to boost exports and the CAP).

"The UK was nothing more than a captive cash cow which was the only reason they were desperate for us not to leave.

"The language used by the EU and certain members is more representative of that referring to enemies rather than allies and trading partners."

Another reader called missingEUalready wrote: "They certainly miss our money. (bursts out laughing)."

A third with the username mank said: "Should have asked him, 'do you miss the money?'...then he would have burst out crying."

Another, Dickiebird, added: "No we do not miss the U.K. says Timmerman we just miss their money."

READ MORE:Brexit Britain blasts France for 'failing' to stop Channel crossings

"Are there differences between EU member states that are causing this lack of ambition or are you missing the UK being part of the EU delegation?"

The Executive Vice-President of the European Commission threw his head back and could not contain his laugher.

He then replied: "Well, Laurence Tubiana sings the same song at every Cop so I'm not surprised she says this.

"Secondly, she says she doesn't see it but there are many things in life that perhaps you don't see that are still happening.

"I am very proud of my team of negotiators who are negotiating on every single subject right now.

"I'm really very proud of all the ministers here, very actively trying to find solutions to all the problems.

"The European Union, its member states, its Parliament - everyone is very active here to try and bridge difference and find solutions."

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'Self-interested' EU savaged over talks and accused of using UK as 'captive cash cow' - Daily Express

Travel experts have told of many Britons packing their bags and selling up in Spain due to more stringent immigration rules brought in as a result of the UK leaving the EU. UK citizens can now only visit Spain without a visa for up to three months for tourism and business purposes before having to leave. However, from 2022 British nationals will need a visa waiver to enter Spain, according to rules outlined on the Spanish government website. The new rules will mean that Brits can still visit the country without a visa but will need to hold a valid ETIAS visa waiver before arriving.

It appears that those British expats who have remained in Spain have also come to blows, as shown by The Times' report in March.

Michel Euesden, owner of Euro Weekly, an English language newspaper in southern Spain, said: Removal companies have never been busier. Theres an abundance of people leaving.

We were warning about the consequences of Brexit, but nobody took any notice. Now our lives have changed forever.

Gareth Thomas, a 69-year-old former RAF engineer from Kent, said that he has faced threats over his views on the EU.

He added: I have been threatened with violence.

"I was told if I didnt shut up this person was going to smash my face in.

Brexiteers target people like me because they think if we traitors had kept our mouths shut, it would have been plain sailing and we would have got a better deal from Europe.

Baz Rhodes, a pensioner and paragliding guide who lives in The Balearics, hit out at Leave voters.

He said: They think theyre the best in the world, these little Englanders. The ones who voted for Brexit should keep their gobs shut.

Mark Sampson, a former bar owner and fervent Brexiteer, said: I get Remainers trying to tell me their arguments. Ive had a few shouting at me in bars.

"I am 6ft tall and 20 stone so no ones going to take me on in a fight, but if they want to talk about Brexit, I give them both barrels.

Daphne Vallins, 64, returned from southern Spain to live back at home in Surrey, is blaming the new bureaucracy for the decision.

She said: I did not want to apply for residence status. It would mean paying 100 a month in private health insurance, changing my UK driving licence into a Spanish one and having to pay my taxes in Spain."

READ MORE:Brexit has opened up the world to British businesses

New rules also continue to create difficulty for Britons travelling abroad.

Two weeks ago, a British woman was denied entry to Spain when she could not show a particular passport stamp that is now required post-Brexit.

The woman, known only as Linda, told expat publication The Local that she had been travelling to visit her son, who lives in Spain, from Gibraltar when she was refused entry by border control.

She said: I was denied entry to Spain on September 26 due to my passport not being stamped on exit on a previous one-week visit to Spain, which started on June 4.

The guards initially stamped my passport to enter, then they noticed I had no exit stamp from that one-week visit in June, thereby classing me as an overstayer and subsequently marked the entry stamp with the letter F and two lines.

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Linda added that even though she had evidence she had indeed left the country and returned to the UK in June, Spanish airport officials would not allow entry without the exit stamp.

She continued: Even though I have proof of returning to the UK via banking activity as well as the test and trace Covid app, the border guards would not accept or look at any proof nor let me speak to anyone that could help.

My son, who speaks Spanish, tried to explain that I had other proof of returning to the UK but the guards would not accept or even consider looking at it; they just kept insisting that I had no stamp, that I had overstayed and would be arrested as illegal.

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Brexit fury as British expats in Spain clashed: 'They said they will smash my face in!' - Daily Express

Nowhere is that mistrust more palpable, diplomats said, than between Mr. Macron, a 43-year-old former banker, and Mr. Johnson, a 57-year-old onetime journalist. In both London and Paris, there is a sense that the relationship will not get fixed as long as Macron is in the lyse Palace and Johnson is in No. 10, said Peter Westmacott, who preceded Mr. Ricketts as Britains ambassador to France.

Britains departure from the European Union was a particular blow to Mr. Macron because it upset the power balance that had existed between the blocs three big states: Britain, France, and Germany. Now Mr. Macron is struggling to assert Frances leadership in a Europe dominated by Germany.

France and Macron have made the E.U. such a central pillar of their domestic and foreign policy, said Georgina Wright, a British expert on relations between France and Britain at the Institut Montaigne, a research organization in Paris. It is very difficult for him to cooperate with the U.K. government which continues to have a very antagonistic tone toward the E.U.

At home, Mr. Macron is leading in the polls but faces a robust challenge from the right. His main rivals all express skepticism about the European Union, though none argue for a split from the union. ric Zemmour, a provocative far-right TV star and writer who has shot up to second place in most polls, has said that Britain won the battle of Brexit and argues for a stronger France within Europe. So does Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, who is polling third.

Confronted with these challenges, Emmanuel Macrons message is to assert that being a member of the union entails obligations and rights, and that France takes part in all aspects of European politics, said Thibaud Harrois, an expert on French-British relations at the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle.

Unlike in Britain, however, where tensions with France preoccupy Downing Street and supply grist for headlines in pro-Conservative tabloids, Mr. Macrons hard line toward Britain is mainly a political calculation. There is little evidence that anti-British sentiment galvanizes the broader population.

For London, however, the fights over fish augur a much larger battle over its relationship with the European Union. Britain is now expected to upend its agreement with Brussels over how to treat Northern Ireland, which awkwardly straddles the trading systems of Britain and the union.

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With Fish, Trucks and Submarines, U.K. and France Bicker Over Brexit - The New York Times

LONDON/BRUSSELS, Nov 5 (Reuters) - The European Union said on Friday that Britain had made no move to seek a compromise on post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland and cautioned London against triggering emergency unilateral provisions in the Brexit deal.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit negotiator David Frost ruled out immediately triggering such provisions, a move that would sour ties with the EU, concern the United States and anger Ireland.

But Frost made clear he wanted Brussels to offer more.

Maros Sefcovic, a deputy head of the bloc's executive European Commission, said the EU had "seen no move at all from the UK side."

"We hear a lot about Article 16 at the moment," Sefcovic said after talks with Frost. "Let there be no doubt that triggering Article 16 to seek the renegotiation of the Protocol would have serious consequences."

Britain has repeatedly warned that it may trigger emergency measures called Article 16 which allows either side to take unilateral action if they deem their agreement governing post-Brexit trade is having a strongly negative impact on their interests.

Sefcovic said triggering Article 16 would lead to instability in Northern Ireland and amount to a rejection of the EU's attempt to find a compromise. He said he would go to London to continue talks next week.

Frost "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," a British spokesperson said of the talks.

"In the UK view, these gaps could still be bridged through further intensive discussions," the spokesperson said.

Britain left the bloc last year, but it has since refused to implement some of the border checks between its province of Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland that the 27-nation union says London is obliged to under their divorce deal.

London says the checks are disproportionate and are heightening tensions in Northern Ireland, putting at risk a 1998 peace deal.

The 1998 peace deal largely brought an end to the "Troubles" - three decades of conflict between Irish Catholic nationalist militants and pro-British Protestant "loyalist" paramilitaries in which 3,600 people were killed.

By putting checks on some goods crossing between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland, many pro-British unionists say the protocol has breached the 1998 peace settlement. The EU says tighter controls are necessary to protect its single market of 450 million people.

"We are not going to trigger Article 16 today, but Article 16 is very much on the table," Frost told journalists.

A spokesperson for Johnson told reporters Britain would press on with negotiations to try to resolve the issues with the so-called Northern Ireland protocol that governs post-Brexit trade with the province.

As expectations grow that London might resort to that option, Frost said the best way of avoiding it was "if we can reach an agreement, an essential agreement... that provides a sustainable solution". He said there was a "significant" gap between the EU and the UK on the matter and that time was running out for his negotiations with Sefcovic.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in London, Christian Levaus and Johnny Cotton, Jan Strupczewski in Brussels and Elizabeth Piper in Glasgow; Writing by Gabrela Baczynska; Editing by Jan Harvey, William Maclean

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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EU warns Britain: Don't press the emergency Brexit button - Reuters UK

In the war of words over fishing rights in the Channel, much attention has been paid to a single line in a leaked letter from Jean Castex, the French prime minister, to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European commission.

The nuances of the offending sentence vary in translation, but the gist is that European public opinion should be left in no doubt that there is more pain associated with leaving the European Union than staying in it.

To the Eurosceptic ear, that was confirmation of a spiteful motive on the continent. France, it was alleged, wants to punish Britain for choosing freedom. Viewed from the other side, Castex was merely restating the obvious logic of Brexit: it is a repudiation of European solidarity and a bet on the advantages that a sole trader might gain in rivalry with a syndicate. The syndicate members have an interest in that gamble not paying off.

British Eurosceptics are weirdly prickly about that banal strategic fact. It is simply the corollary of their own florid rhetoric down the years, denouncing Brussels as a parasite that saps national vitality and extolling Brexit as proof of EU obsolescence the first step in a great unravelling. Self-evidently, the European project is bolstered if Boris Johnson is humbled, and vice versa.

In the fisheries dispute, France deserves an ample portion of blame for cynical escalation. President Macron is sabre-rattling with an eye on his domestic audience ahead of elections next year. But his attitude is coloured by seething contempt for a British prime minister whom he sees as a stranger to probity. That feeling was much aggravated by the recent poaching of a lucrative defence contract to build Australian submarines as part of the Aukus security deal with Washington. But it is Johnsons treatment of the Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit withdrawal agreement signing a treaty with no intention of implementing its terms that convinced the French president that Downing Street had gone full rogue.

The crisis in Northern Ireland is vastly more dangerous than a kerfuffle over cod. But they are symptoms of the same syndrome: a Brexit model that makes a sacred principle of sovereignty. All trace of EU institutional leverage must be scoured from the land and dredged from the sea. That fixation guarantees tension at every frontier where old, free-flowing habits are subject to the friction of new checks, forms and licences.

The material gains from maximising sovereignty in this way are nil, while costs are mounting. But conceding that the model is flawed is unthinkable in Johnsons Tory party. Or rather, unsayable. There are MPs who understand what has gone wrong but anticipate only ostracism if they were to speak out. That leads to two policy choices. First, exaggerate or invent fictional benefits from scrapping EU rules. Rishi Sunak dabbled in this with his budget speech last week, disingenuously presenting cuts to alcohol duty as a Brexit dividend. (Booze classifications will indeed diverge from European directives, but the accompanying price drops would still have been permitted.)

Second, turn international rancour to domestic political advantage: cite cross-Channel disputes as proof of Brussels malevolence, then rebadge the economic pain intrinsic to Brexit as a vindictive backlash from the continent. Already this tactic is being rehearsed in Northern Ireland. What the EU calls implementation of a signed agreement, Eurosceptic hardliners denounce as a blockade.

It is a feasible political strategy, albeit a nasty one. But it lacks one crucial element: the heroic destination. Throughout history, revolutionary movements have made excuses for their failures by blaming foreign sabotage. But they have also sustained momentum with visions of a utopian future. That was the Brexit method, too, for as long as EU membership could be made the scapegoat for a whole range of social and economic ills. Now the ills remain but the proposed remedy has already been taken.

In that sense (and only that one) Brexit is a victim of its own success. Britain cannot get any further out of the EU. David Frost is scraping the sovereignty barrel. The Tory awkward squad that hounded David Cameron into a referendum, and then harried Theresa May out of office for seeking compromises with economic reality, got all they could have wanted from Johnson. They know their battle is won and are saddling different hobby horses, riding out to new fronts in the culture war, grumbling about the cost of cutting carbon emissions in the tone they once used for Brussels red tape.

Johnson has tried to sustain the rhetoric of Brexit as sunlit upland. His party conference speech last month promised a high-wage, high-skill economy that would spring up in the absence of migrant labour. But that was an essay-crisis utopia, cobbled together from scraps of news about labour shortages and broken supply chains. Besides, by far the most memorable thing Johnson ever promised about Brexit is that he would get it done. That legacy is diluted every time the issue foists itself into the news, as will keep happening.

The hunt for purer sovereignty will generate tension with neighbouring countries, which will then be cited as proof that only the purest sovereignty will suffice. This is not the typical revolution where the ends can justify the means. The ends have already been reached. EU membership has expired. We are stuck instead in the purgatory of endless means: a sisyphean nightmare of rolling negotiations that reach a certain point of agreement before breaking down and restarting. Johnsons Brexit condemns Britain to re-enact forever the tedious, embittered process of leaving with no hope of satisfaction, because we have already left.

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Boris Johnson has condemned Britain to replay Brexit on a loop - The Guardian

The British government has played down hopes of a breakthrough in a row with France over post-Brexit fishing licences, despite European perceptions of a constructive spirit and positive dynamic.

The French transport minister, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, said he had spoken to his UK counterpart on Tuesday evening. The spirit is a constructive one, he said, noting that French fishers had been granted 49 more licences on Monday.

But a UK government spokesperson said the Brexit minister, David Frost, would reaffirm our existing position when he meets Frances Europe minister, Clment Beaune, in Paris on Thursday to discuss the issue.

Tensions could be eased, however, by a French court ruling on Wednesday that a British scallop dredger seized by French authorities last week could leave immediately with no requirement to pay a 150,000 (127,000) deposit.

The rancorous dispute over French fishing rights in the six to 12-mile zone from the UK shore and around Guernsey and Jersey has helped take British-French relations to a post-Brexit low.

The European Commission sounded a more optimistic note. Officials from the UK, France, Jersey and the commission have been meeting for the past two days, a spokesperson said on Wednesday. These talks have allowed us to chart the way forward on several aspects and have created a positive dynamic aiming at a solution.

The spokesperson said technical talks would continue on Wednesday, including with some officials from Guernsey. The talks have allowed for better understanding of the outstanding issues, which have been impeding quicker progress and we hope that the positive engagement on all sides will soon translate into concrete results, they said.

UK government sources said they were going to the meeting on Thursday with a solutions focus but cautioned against expecting any big breakthrough. While not ruling out progress, they said they did not anticipate all the issues would be resolved at the Paris meeting.

A UK government spokesperson said Lord Frosts response to Beaune would reaffirm that vessels must provide the relevant evidence if they want to receive a license [sic] to fish in our waters and that our licensing criteria and methodology remains unchanged.

They added: We remain open to considering new evidence and will continue to talk to the French government, EU commission and Jersey authorities, as we have been doing for months.

Only days ago the dispute had threatened to tip into a trade war. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced that talks would continue on Monday as he stepped back from a threat to impose full customs checks on UK goods and ban UK boats entering some French ports from 2 November.

Beaune then invited Frost for an in-depth discussion over the difficulties in applying the agreements between the EU and the UK in Paris on Thursday. Beaune said last week that the language of strength seems to be the only thing this British government understands.

The two men clashed on Twitter over the weekend, both setting our their claims as to why the other side was in breach of the post-Brexit trade agreement.

Frost said the UK government had granted 98% of fishing licence applications and was acting in good faith to meet its obligations. He said that if the French threats were implemented, the EU would be in breach of the post-Brexit trade and cooperation agreement (TCA).

Beaune countered that more than 90% of licences had been granted for the EU as a whole, but the missing ones were all French. After 10 months, when such a significant amount of licences, targeting one country, is missing, its not a technical issue, its a political choice and a breach of the TCA, he said.

Under the trade agreement, French fishers can continue to fish around the Channel Islands and six to 12 miles off the UK shore until 2026 as long as they obtain a licence from British authorities.

To receive that licence they must provide evidence of having fished in those waters between 2012 and 2016, but Britain and France have disagreed over the kind of evidence required. France says the requirement for GPS data is unfair on small boats, which do not have the equipment. The UK government says it determines the evidence required, while stressing there is no deadline to submit proof to get a licence. Jersey said it had granted the 49 licences issued on Monday on a temporary basis.

The prime ministers official spokesperson said the government was keen to discuss the Northern Ireland protocol with Beaune. Asked what success would look like at Thursdays talks, he said: We are seeking substantive changes to the protocol with the EU. These changes are necessary because the protocol as its currently being enforced is extremely damaging to the people of Northern Ireland and the businesses therein.

He insisted relations between the UK and France remained friendly.

The UK and EU are deadlocked over revising the Northern Irish protocol, the Brexit agreement that kept the region in the EU single market and customs union to prevent a land border. Frost is due to meet the European Commission vice-president Maro efovi for further talks on Friday, as both sides try to settle the issue before the end of the year.

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UK set to take inflexible line over Brexit fishing row in next talks - The Guardian

The Government is readying itself for a very difficult period in Anglo-Irish relations and a further deterioration in the already fraught situation between the European Union and United Kingdom.

It is universally expected in Dublin that the British government will trigger article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol, suspending its operations, in the near future. That view is widely shared in Brussels. UK sources do not demur, even if they downplay the significance of the move.

Nobody is buying that in Dublin or Brussels, where the triggering will be taken as final and irrevocable proof that British prime minister Boris Johnsons administration does not negotiate in good faith, and cannot be trusted. Brexit is going back to the future.

We are now in the worst period of Dublin-London relations since then prime minister Margaret Thatcher and taoisech Charles Haughey glowered at one another in the 1980s. Things have deteriorated in recent months. Both Tnaiste Leo Varadkar and Taoiseach Michel Martin have tried to cultivate personal relationships with Johnson. Senior officials now wonder if there is any point in this. I have never heard such gloom about it all, one senior figure tells me. Its very, very, very dark.

The alarm bells rang in Dublin on Tuesday evening when the Financial Times posted a story that reported the British government had sought external legal advice on the protocol, taking the unusual step of going outside its own legal advisers whose approach may have been more cautious.

This was taken as a sign triggering article 16 was imminent. The working assumption in recent times had been that it was likely once Cop26 was out of the way, but now officials wondered if the timetable had been moved up.

They fretted it could happen within a few days.

In the Dil, Martin made his most explicit and direct statement on the matter yet, warning that triggering article 16 would be irresponsible, it would be unwise and it would be reckless. There would be, he said, far-reaching implications for the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. I think it would also have implications for relationship between the United Kingdom government and the Irish Government. This is as blunt a warning as youre likely to see.

So what happens if and when article 16 is triggered? At one level, not all that much. A months notice is required under the treaty to invoke the provision. And article 16 is not, despite what some people appear to believe, a magic wand that causes the protocol to disappear. Instead, a new stage of consultation and arbitration commences. Now that you have met article 16, its time to meet our new friend, annex 7, which lays out the process, its requirements and so on. As part of those processes, the agreement allows for rebalancing acts by the EU, which could involve the imposition of some tariffs on UK goods, say officials.

But for Brussels and Dublin, triggering the article after the public and private appeals, after the proposals made by European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic, which meet an awful lot of the practical concerns of unionists and the British (they are refusing to take yes for an answer, one senior official tells me) and with the consequences spelled out in the advance will change things fundamentally from the EUs perspective.

There is a complete disconnect between the way the British see the move and the way Brussels sees it. As Mujtaba Rahman, one of the best analysts of EU-UK hostilities put it last week, the British see this as a limited tactical move; the EU will see it as a nuclear strike.

The EU may take the view that the British are in open breach of the EU-UK agreement and give notice that it intends to suspend the entire trade and co-operation pact. Because that requires a years notice, it would mean that 2022 sees a rerun of the countdown to a no-deal Brexit that we saw previously, with the EU and UK wrestling with each other to reach an agreement to avoid such an outcome, and Northern Ireland again the sticking point.

It would be different this time, though. There would be basically zero trust on the EU side, making any new deal that much harder. How could you make an agreement with someone who has walked away from a deal you made with them two years ago?

There will definitely be some sort of trade war between the EU and the UK, a sources familiar with discussions on the matter at the highest levels of Government here tells me. Another person in similar position says there will 100 per cent be a trade war. Nobody in Brussels believes otherwise. Later, he adds: And we will be stuck in the middle.

The twin concerns in Government Buildings will be the effect of all this on the situation on the ground in the North where protests against the protocol turned ugly this week and the need to protect Irelands place in the single market.

As a general principle when trying to figure all this out, we should be careful about putting on the green jersey or reflexively taking the side of our own country. We see enough cheerleading masquerading as journalism in the UK. But it is impossible to conclude that the UK has behaved honourably and decently in this affair. The Irish Government will find itself in a horrible situation through no fault of its own. It will hard to extricate us all from this mess.

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Pat Leahy: Brexit goes back to the future - The Irish Times