Category Archives: Brexit

ART in the 1990s. If it wasnt Damien Hirst electrocuting flies and encasing sharks in formaldehyde, it was Douglas Gordon slowing Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho down so much that it took 24 hours to finish.

Conceptual art was in. The installation was king. And yet some artists were still painting pictures.

Lucy McKenzie was one of them. People have been daubing stuff on walls for thousands of years, she reminds me. Its not going anywhere.

Today, its going to an art gallery beside the River Mersey. We are on the fourth floor of Tate Liverpool and McKenzie is looking around her at 30 years of work on the walls. The Glasgow artist, who now lives in Brussels, is here for the press day of her first major UK retrospective.

Shes pretty pleased about it. Or least I think she is.

Of course, Im very grateful that there is the interest. And it takes so much effort to get all this work together.

But you might think from the work that Im a nostalgic person. But when it comes to my own work, not particularly. Im already thinking about a show in January.

She looks around the room we are standing in. But the great thing is to be able to see things that would never have been put in proximity before and I take it as a learning exercise to see what kind of threads have gone through the work.

Kingo in "Ruby" housecoat, 2011 Lucy McKenzie. Image courtesy of the artist

There are a few. Cats and clothes and culture for a start. A love of trompe loeil, a fascination with trying on other peoples styles, a willingness to engage with commercial artforms whether it be sign-writing of book covers, a love of marrying conservative form to subversive messaging, a sparky, punky spirit that might not be evident at first glance but is there in both her work and in McKenzie herself.

Its a Monday morning and Im being given a guided tour of the exhibition by the artist herself. In passing we will talk about her life in Brussels, Brexit, the male gaze, Atelier E B, the fashion label she set up with her designer friend Beca Lipscombe and how this whole adventure all started for her back in Glasgow at the beginning of the 1990s.

McKenzie made a splash straight out of the gate. At the turn of the century her work was included in the British Art Show, and as part of the Becks Futures in 2000, a year after she started exhibiting.

McKenzie was very much part of the Glasgow scene of the time. Franz Ferdinand played early gigs in her studio and the city turns up again and again in her work, in the form of maps shes created or sketches of places she used to go.

But earlier this century she moved to Brussels and now really likes the distance between past and present. I found it a very useful way to be an outsider, she says.

I have a really wonderful working situation there. I have a studio and Im renovating this big house, so I have no plans to leave.

Her early work played with ideas about power and geopolitics in sport. She painted striking fractured images of gymnasts such as Olga Korbut.

Untitled 1997 Lucy McKenzie Courtesy of the artist and Cabinet London

For Top of the Will (1998-99), she and her friends even dressed up as Olympic athletes.

The idea was to combine all this official photography with images of normal people sitting around a bit knackered, she says.

It was a way of contrasting the symbolism of such events and the political reality they represent. Like the world fairs, its very passive-aggressive geopolitics, she suggests.

In the next room we stand in front of one of her many Quodlibet paintings. They offer a distinctive take on trompe loeil, rendering familiar objects in an ultra-realistic manner. Its a painting of a pinboard with knitting patterns, scraps of notepaper, a pair of knitting needles and some wool and a photocopy of an annotated map of Scotland. Its a bravura example of McKenzies technical skill.

This is a pinboard I made as a portrait of the woman who did all the hand knitting for us for our collection, McKenzie explains, referring to her work with Lipscombe. And she just gave me a bunch of things that were connected to her job.

She points out a series of dots on the photocopied map. Thats where the women who knitted for them lived. Chronic knitters, she says. These are women who have to knit because if they didnt, they would smoke themselves to death.]

Quodlibet XIII (Janette Murray) 2010 Collection Nicoletta Fiorucci Russo De Li Galli London

The canvas next to it offers a blue backdrop on which she has placed letters from the Royal Bank of Scotland and HMRC. I just got photocopies and just pasted them into the picture so its not hand-painted.

The reason? She was worried that people were marvelling at the style and not the content. You build up a system so you can undercut it and say, No, this is interesting not because it took hundreds of hours to make. Ive actually got something to say.

So, what are you saying here, Lucy? Its the nuts and bolts of having a fashion label. Its the boring grunt work. Its not about beautiful Russian girls on a catwalk its about f****** RBS and what a pain in the a*** they are.

What becomes clear is that McKenzies work is playful but purposeful too. She loves trickery and surprise, but she wants to speak about the world around her. Perhaps that comes from her childhood. Art growing up was the very air that she breathed, she says.

But always in a balance with other things. My parents were part of the anti-nuclear movement. My mum worked for Womens Aid. So, it was always connected to other things as well. And it was very sociable.

I learned from very young that art wasnt something you could be excluded from. Thats a very lucky thing to feel.

She has been in Liverpool two weeks now. Her first proper visit to the UK since Brexit.

Now being here I just feel sad. At least in Scotland you have that bat-squeak of hope. There are still things in the game that could radically change in Scotland if you think about independence.

But you just wonder, what is the future for England?

In the last room of the exhibition there are two paintings of the same subject painted 10 years apart. They show a woman sitting beneath a reproduction of a pornographic panel by the Italian comic-book artist Milo Manara. One disappeared for years so she decided to repaint it.

It was based on a real experience, she says. She was invited to a fancy dinner at a private art foundation and when she got there, she found the room decorated by Jeff Koons Made in Heaven series which he made with the porn star Ilona Staller, aka Cicciolina.

I remember turning to the girl at my side and we looked at each other with an exhausted look. This is the backdrop to the art world. People think its absolutely normal that we should eat under a bum hole, Cicciolinas bum hole.

So, I wanted to do something that encapsulated that feeling of fatigue.

She looks around at the work in this room, at the work in the gallery. We all have to define what we consider pleasurable.

Lucy McKenzie at Tate Liverpool. Photograph Brian Roberts

I work with all of these things because it turns me on. The silk, the cats and the dresses.

I have just such profound memories of encountering art as a young person and it just blowing my mind and its always been about things that were a bit weird, a bit pervy and very girly.

And whats great about doing a show like this is some little kid might see something and think thats weird and not be able to get it out of their mind and might make them feel all right about liking cats and dresses.

Lucy McKenzie continues at Tate Liverpool until March 13, 2022

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Beneath the surface: Glasgow artist Lucy McKenzie on cats, clothes and Brexit - HeraldScotland

AS the day on which Scotland was dragged out of the EU disappears in the rear-view mirror, it gets harder to retain our focus on two important facts. The first that Brexit remains the principle reason for an independence referendum being on the agenda, prior to the fabled generation passing by. The second is that that any referendum that does take place is likely to be dominated by arguments over whether Brexit has harmed the Scottish economy and whether independence is the remedy.

The latest question in the Scot Goes Pop/Panelbase poll provides a timely report card on whether the pro-independence camp is gaining enough traction now that the effect of Brexit is being clearly felt in peoples daily lives.

The verdict is: some good progress has been made, but theres scope to do even better.

The positive part of the equation is that there is a healthy 3-2 lead for those who believe that the recent shortages of goods and petrol have strengthened the case for Scotland to become independent in order to restore freedom of movement with the EU over those who believe the case has been weakened.

READ MORE:Brexit shortages 'aids the case for Scottish independence, poll reveals

That gap looks even healthier when its borne in mind that many, and perhaps most, of the respondents who say the case has been weakened are hardcore Unionists reflexively giving the most anti-independence answer to each and every question, regardless of whether they really believe deep down that what theyre saying is true.

By a margin of 34% to 16%, people who voted No in 2014 would have us believe that the shortages have actually weakened the arguments for freedom of movement to be restored by an independent Scotland.

James Kelly of Scot Goes Pop

Does it seem plausible that so many of them truly think that? Probably not. If a British prime minister introduced slave labour camps in the Gorbals, youd probably still find a substantial minority of No voters telling Panelbase with a straight face that it had weakened the case for independence.

Of course, the flip side of the coin is that there will also have been a significant number of dedicated independence supporters in the poll sample who reflexively give the most pro-independence response to every question. However, the 16% of No voters who think the case for independence has been strengthened by the shortages are not really close to being offset by the 9% of Yes voters who think the case has been weakened.

This suggests the shortages are genuinely working in favour of any future Yes campaign as does the fact that 34% of people who didnt vote in 2014 think the case for independence has been strengthened. Only 16% think it has been weakened.

Also worthy of note is that 35% of respondents who were born in neither Scotland nor England think the case has been strengthened, with 25% thinking it has been weakened. This group contains EU citizens, who are arguably the voters most likely of all to have been driven from No to Yes by Brexit.

READ MORE:Gap between UK and EU standards to grow, report warns

But the main frustration here is the sizeable minority of voters who dont seem to see the very obvious connection between the shortages and the arguments for independence and for restoring freedom of movement. Thirty-two per cent of the whole sample say that the supply problems make no difference to the case for independence, as do 43% of No voters, 17% of people who didnt vote in 2014 and 30% of voters who were born outside Scotland or England.

This perhaps raises a question mark over whether the Scottish Government and other independence campaigners have been relentless enough in making the linkage between Brexit and the difficulties people are now facing from day to day although admittedly its harder to do that when the broadcasters, and the BBC in particular, seem determined to portray the shortages as random acts of God with no particular cause.

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Why Brexit continues to dominate the Scottish independence debate - The National

Britains Brexit chief has refused to publish details of his plans for changes to the Northern Ireland protocol, despite having already shared them with the EU.

Lord Frost said the legal text which opposition parties want to scrutinise was not a new stage or evolution in our position and simply reflected the UKs position set out earlier in the summer.

But despite claiming that the text contained nothing new, and having already shared it with Brussels, the minister said he would not be making it public or allowing parliament to look at it.

Its a negotiating documents for the purposes of negotiations. It does not change the UK government's position in any way, he said.

Lord Frost also appeared to suggest the government had not explicitly consulted with ministers in Northern Ireland during the process of drawing up the final legal text.

Asked whether he had done so, he said: We discuss with elected politicians all the time in Northern Ireland, what our position is. We did that as part of preparing the command paper. The command paper was an earlier document published on 21 July.

Baroness Chapman, Labours shadow Brexit minister and Keir Starmers former chief of staff, criticised Lord Frosts approach.

Instead of making Brexit work, his high handed bluster and lack of plan is holding up progress and prolonging uncertainty, she said.

This is damaging the UKs international reputation, risks instability in Northern Ireland and is all completely unnecessary. Perhaps he just likes the drama.

Boris Johnsons government negotiated the Northern Ireland protocol two years ago, but now wants to renegotiate parts of it.

The government blames the Brexit deal, which creates new bureaucracy for businesses, for disruption to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

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Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton

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Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland

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Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral

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Government refuses to publish Northern Ireland Brexit plan legal text for scrutiny - The Independent

Contemplating a Christmas this year without turkey, toys or a tree, I wondered to myself what it might take for people to decide that Brexit was maybe not as great as it was cracked up to be, and start thinking about whether being in the European Union might not be so bad, after all. Maybe this is the start of a backlash. Soon the opposition parties will start to mumble about a closer relationship with our closest friends, neighbours and economic partners, with whom we have so much in common. Then thered be a few brave souls making the case to rejoin the EU. The tectonic plates of public opinion would shift again, and the politicians would follow. Could it happen? Could Brexit be reversed?

Seems not. The latest British Social Attitudes Survey, the most authoritative and insightful portrait of the changing views of the public, reveals that the country is as bitterly divided as ever. About nine out of 10 of Leave and Remain voters, respectively, hold firm to the vote they cast five momentous years ago. Theyre not for turning. Maybe its not so surprising, given that Brexit still hasnt been done, the government is currently attempting to renegotiate the UK-EU withdrawal agreement, and there is talk of the French cutting the electricity off because they cant fish as they used to in UK waters. So there isnt, even now, a Brexit that everyone can muster around in a spirit of shared national endeavour. On the contrary, the bitterness is as ugly as ever.

In an especially nasty exchange in the House of Commons in 2019, Boris Johnson, then using confrontational language and unconstitutional tricks to get Brexit done, told MPs that the best way to unite the nation and honour the memory of Jo Cox was for everyone to get behind Brexit. He was rightly vilified for his performance and, of course, the general election and passage of the necessary legislation merely served to generate fresh traumas. There is little sign among the prime ministers followers of magnanimity in victory, as Churchill famously recommended. Brexit did not unite us.

Unlike the usual games of party politics, where voters switch sides relatively freely, Brexit seems to be an issue where people feel personally invested in its success, or failure, and inclined to dismiss any evidence to the contrary. They are entrenched, and when bombarded with arguments and experiences to the contrary, they just dig a deeper trench. Brexit is in a different category of political identity to mere party allegiance, and the voters devotion to their 2016 vote has something of the quality of religious, cultist fervour, infused with patriotic ardour. By the looks of it, it will last for decades, and the wounds are not going to heal.

Politically, this suits the Conservatives, who can exploit the issue and rerun the 2019 election endlessly, but in the longer run demographics will work against them. Older Leave votes will die off and the younger, pro-EU cohorts will form a more and more substantial pro-EU majority because they seem unlikely to ever get used to Brexit, or reconciled to the events of 2016. The Remainers will morph into Rejoiners, not reluctant Brexiteers.

The only good news here is that the divisions are so deep that the Festival of Brexit has had to be reimagined. You might remember this jolly project, which was supposed to be a cross between VE Day, the 1951 Festival of Britain and a royal wedding yes, that grim supposedly to celebrate our collective liberation from the largest and most prosperous trading bloc on the planet. In reality, it was just going to be a giant taxpayer-funded victory parade for the Leave campaign, and its so unacceptable that even Nadine Dorries has had to pack it in. Instead, its going to be rebranded as Unboxed unhinged, more like and theres to be no mention of Brexit. Its just another arts festival.

Apparently, Unboxeds Galwad project, based in Wales, will use futuristic streets as a backdrop to live performances and television dramas about a dystopian 2052 future. Its probably not what Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg would want to go and see, but it sounds about right.

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Not even possibly cancelling Christmas can change minds on Brexit the nation is as bitterly divided as ever - The Independent

Brexit divisions in UK society appear to be as entrenched as ever, according to the latest British social attitudes survey, with little sign that the issue is losing its polarising force. Nine in 10 of leave and remain voters said they would vote the same way again, it found.

Although Britains departure from the EU pushed overall public trust and confidence in government to its highest level for more than a decade, the survey reveals that this surge in support for the UK political system came almost entirely from leave voters with remainers as disillusioned as they were previously.

The survey co-author Sir John Curtice said the latest findings contained little to indicate that Brexit wounds were healing. As a result, Britain is left divided between one half of the country who now feel better about how they are being governed and another half who, relatively at least, are as unhappy as they have ever been.

The annual poll is Britains longest-running tracker of public opinions, building up a comprehensive and authoritative picture of how the countrys attitudes and expectations have evolved over the past four decades across a diverse range of moral, social and political issues.

The survey found that the pandemic pushed public concern over inequality to its highest level since 1998, as well as raising support for welfare benefits and public spending, but it concluded there was little evidence so far that Covid had proved a reset moment that indicated widespread desire for radical social or political change.

The rise in support for progressive views on these issues was an extension of existing changes over several years rather than an abrupt shift in attitudes caused by Covid. These trends do not signify a new direction in the public mood. Rather, in many ways the pandemic has reinforced opinions and attitudes that had already become increasingly common in Britain in recent years, said Curtice.

Nonetheless, there was a sharp rise in 2020 in the proportion of 18- to 44-year-olds who thought Britain was unequal and favoured the rich. Younger adults were also more likely than older cohorts to agree that the government should redistribute income from the better-off to the less well-off and this could have lasting effects, the survey said.

It may be that the exposure [young people] have had during the pandemic to relatively high levels of precarity in their early adult years will prove a formative experience that leaves a legacy of a more egalitarian generation only future survey research will affirm whether or not that proves to be the case, it concluded.

The most recent poll of 4,000 British adults was carried out by the National Centre for Social Research between October and December 2020, with an additional survey of 2,400 adults conducted in July 2020.

Getting Brexit done had marginally reinvigorated overall trust levels in the UK political system which had hit a record low in 2019. But this mainly reflected a major shift in the attitudes of Eurosceptics, who were for the first time more likely than remainers to agree that governments put the nations needs before party interests.

The reversal of some of the damage to trust in government caused by Brexit deadlock might be regarded as a development to be welcomed if democracy was to function effectively, the survey said, though it added: Restoring the trust and confidence of remain voters looks as though it is still very much a work in progress.

While few respondents who voted in the 2016 referendum appeared to have changed their view in the intervening five years, there was evidence of a shift among those who had not participated. More than twice as many (43%) in this group said they would now vote remain rather than back leave (18%).

Trust in government had been in decline for decades, the survey said. In 1987, 47% of respondents said they trusted government to put the needs of the nation above party interests most of the time. This slid to a 15% low in 2019 amid parliamentary wrangling over the UKs exit from Europe, before recovering to 23% in 2020.

This recovery, however, was largely on the back of leave voters, 31% of whom expressed trust in government, up from 12% in 2019. Remain voters largely distrusted government in 2019 (14%) and this view had changed little (17%) a year later.

The debates around inequality sparked off by the pandemic caused a small shift in public attitudes. Nearly two-thirds (64%) agreed that ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nations wealth seen as a proxy for levels of concern over inequality. This was up from 57% in 2019, and the highest level since 1998.

However, this was not accompanied by markedly increased support for the redistribution of wealth from rich to poor. The survey found that 46% agreed with redistribution up from 39% in 2019 but the number disagreeing increased too, from 27% in 2019 to 30%.

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British leavers and remainers as polarised as ever, survey finds - The Guardian

Here comes the destroyer, as David Frost, the Brexit minister, stomps into talks on the Northern Ireland protocol this week with European commission vice-president Maro efovi. His mission from Boris Johnson is to stir up Brexit trouble, and keep stirring: yes, even at the risk of stirring the darkest shadows of Northern Irelands history. Let Brexit never be done if it can keep alive the antagonisms that shot Johnson into No 10.

Johnson may miscalculate the publics appetite for new Eurostrife: Get Brexit done worked with many voters who never wanted to hear the word again. But he may be hoping that EU trade wars against the despots of Brussels can distract voters from his pile-up of crises: shortages of HGV drivers and butchers, port blockages, NHS and social care at tipping point, music and arts crippled for lack of EU visas, soaring energy bills. EU noise might help drown out some of the bad news from next weeks austerity budget.

Ignore any pretence that this bellicose posturing is done to help Northern Ireland or its businesses. Fuck business, Johnson said, and he has done just that with his hardest of Brexits: Northern Irelands businesses suspect he has even less concern for them. Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Manufacturing NI, which represents 5,500 Northern Irish firms, tells me not one of his members has raised the obscure question of the governments attempt to remove the European court of justice (ECJ) as arbitrator of trade disputes. Everyone knows a treaty needs legal backup. There have been border problems with the rest of the UK, he says, but the ECJ is nothing but a Brexit purity issue.

Northern Irish businesses have good reason to be alarmed, as the protocol gives many of them an extraordinary opportunity: staying in the single market from which the rest of the UK is excluded. Scotland would give its right arm for a deal like ours, Kelly says. Sales of goods to the Irish Republic have risen by 61% in just eight months, he reports, as Irish buyers switch from harder to access English goods. Manufacturers have brimming order books, he says.

Nuprint Technologies of Derry sells packaging and labels across both sides of the Irish border, but little to England until now. Its managing director, Gavin Killeen, says hes been suddenly inundated with orders from English companies whose suppliers from the EU have cancelled contracts due to delays and paperwork at Channel ports. Nuprint can access materials easily from the EU across the Irish border, and send finished labels to English companies leaving here at 4pm and arriving at 10am next day. Killeens sales have shot up by 15% in six weeks.

Ask Killeen about Frost, who has threated to trigger article 16, which allows either side to suspend the protocol, and he is appalled at the trouble he is making. This is all just politics, so take the nonsense out of it.

Frost came to Newry to meet businesses, among them Deli Lites, a fresh food supplier in Warrenpoint, which sells 70% of its products over the nearby border to the Irish Republic. We told him business is really thriving, but he wasnt listening to us. We told him the real problem was political uncertainty, said its chief executive, Brian Reid.

Delays and checks preventing supplies from Britain are serious. According to Manufacturing NI, a fifth of usual imports from the rest of the UK are being replaced with produce from Northern Ireland or the Irish Republic. Reids company has benefited, growing 30% this year by winning contracts from the likes of Asda and Boots in Northern Ireland that were previously supplied from England. Reid fears that Frost might spark an EU trade war, shutting the border between north and south. Business is really thriving, property prices are shooting up with companies moving here. The last thing we need is Frost threatening to use article 16. Our only risk is from politicians. We didnt want Brexit, but we need stability now. Theres no problem with the ECJ. He calls on businesses in Northern Ireland to speak up louder against the politicians, but fears the islands history keeps many silent.

The EUs latest offer to sweep away 80% of customs and health checks on animal and plant products and medicines entering Northern Ireland will fix many of the border difficulties. But Johnson has sent Frost in with a hand grenade to demand the impossible removing the ECJ from the deal they signed and praised. As a legal pretext for triggering article 16, the courts our courts would throw it out in judicial review, according to the former justice secretary David Gauke. The EU could retaliate with tariffs on UK imports or by aborting the entire trade and cooperation deal. Who would be damaged most the lonely UK or the EU26?

Invest NI reports an unprecedented 50 live inquiries from companies wanting to relocate to Northern Ireland to join the EU single market. But hesitancy remains. Ask companies that might consider shifting to there and their one fear is that Johnson and Frost will use and abuse the country for their own nefarious political ends, to keep Brexit on the boil. Already Johnson has encouraged unionist unrest, with the DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, threatening to pull down the power-sharing government.

Frost ended his jingoistic party conference speech with ludicrous bombast: The long bad dream of our EU membership is over. The British renaissance has begun. Northern Ireland knows all about nightmares, but Johnson thinks any price is worth paying (by others) to keep him in office.

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, promised policies to make Brexit work in his conference speech, while Johnsons strange mission is to make his own deal fail. Its time for Labour to shake off old remoaner phobias and turn its full firepower on every aspect of Johnsons Brexit disaster.

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The Tories are sacrificing Northern Irish businesses on the altar of Brexit purity - The Guardian

A damning new report on trafficking in the UK has warned that Brexit and the Home Offices new plan for immigration are increasing the risks to trafficking victims.

The report has also found links between terrorism and trafficking in cases involving families from the UK ending up with Islamic State in Syria and an increase in the recruitment of trafficking victims via social media.

The influential Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (Greta), part of the 47-nation Council of Europe, monitors the implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, which came into force in the UK in April 2009.

The number of possible victims of trafficking referred to the UKs national referral mechanism (NRM) has grown tenfold, from 1,182 in 2012 to 10,627 in 2019. The number of referrals in 2020 was 10,613.

The proportion of male victims referred to the NRM has increased over the years: of the possible victims in 2019, 68% (7,224) were male and 32% (3,391) were female. In 2019, possible victims of 125 different nationalities were referred to the NRM. The largest number of referrals were for UK nationals, accounting for 27% of the total, followed by Albania, Vietnam, China and India.

There has been a significant rise in the number of children referred to the NRM, from 1,279 in 2016 to 4,946 in 2020, the majority of which were from the UK and involved in county lines gangs.

Labour exploitation continues to be the most common type for adults. Sectors considered at high risk include the garment industry, construction, hospitality, domestic work, car washes, nail bars, waste management, logistics and warehousing.

There has been an increased trend of using social media and online platforms to recruit victims; in sex trafficking there has been a shift to the use of online platforms. Traffickers can move victims quickly between residential properties pop-up brothels and holiday rental properties.

The report urges the UK authorities to take further steps to improve the identification of victims of trafficking and to ensure that victims, in particular children, receive legal assistance during the identification process. It also called on the UK to increase efforts to guarantee effective access to compensation for victims.

The report welcomes efforts to establish specialised anti-trafficking bodies, the UK governments active participation in international cooperation to fight trafficking, and a commitment to prevent and eradicate human trafficking from businesses and supply chains, including in the public sector.

The authors of the report are concerned that the Home Offices new plan for immigration risks increasing the vulnerability of victims of trafficking who are undocumented migrants, as they may be reluctant to approach the authorities for fear of being prosecuted for immigration-related offences.

The report cites cases of potential victims of trafficking recruited in the UK to join a terrorist organisation abroad and says the government should ensure that victims of trafficking are identified as such and receive support and assistance.

A report by the NGO Reprieve documents the circumstances in which numerous British families currently detained in north-east Syria were recruited in the UK and potentially trafficked to territories controlled by IS.

The Greta report states that Brexit has heightened the risk of exploitation for EU workers and warns that victims of slavery may have difficulty applying for the EU settlement scheme.

It adds: Frontline and migrant organisations have noted that the offence of illegal working, part of the UKs hostile environment for undocumented migrants, acts as a major driver of exploitation and a barrier to justice.

A Home Office spokesperson said: Modern slavery and human trafficking have absolutely no place in our society and we remain committed to tackling these heinous crimes. The UK has led the world in protecting victims of modern slavery and we continue to identify and support those who have suffered intolerable abuse at the hands of criminals and traffickers.

Go here to see the original:

Brexit and UK immigration policy increasing risks to trafficking victims - The Guardian

Poland will be a focus of European attention this week, with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki addressing the European Parliament and leaders at a European Union summit expected to grapple with a legal conundrum created by a recent ruling by Poland's constitutional court.

Some opponents of Poland's nationalist government fear that the court's ruling has put the country on a path to a possible Polexit, or a departure from the 27-nation EU like Britain did with Brexit. The government denounces those spreading the idea, which it calls fake news. Here is a look at the differing views on the matter and why Poland's departure from the bloc is unlikely.

THE BACKSTORY

Poland's government, which is led by the conservative Law and Justice party, has been in conflict with EU officials in Brussels since it took power in 2015. The dispute is largely over changes to the Polish judicial system which give the ruling party more power over the courts. Polish authorities say they seek to reform a corrupt and inefficient justice system. The European Commission believes the changes erode the country's democratic system of checks and balances.

ANTI-EU RHETORIC EMERGES FROM POLAND

As the standoff over the judiciary has grown more tense, with the Commission threatening to withhold billions of euros in pandemic recovery funds to Poland over it, ruling party leaders have sometimes compared the EU to the Soviet Union, Poland's occupying power during the Cold War.

Ryszard Terlecki, the partys deputy leader, said last month that if things dont go the way Poland likes, we will have to search for drastic solutions. Referring to Brexit, he also said: The British showed that the dictatorship of the Brussels bureaucracy did not suit them and turned around and left."

Marek Suski, another leading party member, said Poland will fight the Brussels occupier just as it fought the Nazi and Soviet occupiers in the past. Brussels sends us overlords who are supposed to bring Poland to order, to put us on our knees, so that we might be a German state, and not a proud state of free Poles, he declared.

A KEY RULING OVER LAWS

This month Poland's constitutional court challenged the notion that EU law supersedes the laws of its 27 member nations with a ruling saying that some EU laws are incompatible with the nation's own constitution.

That decision made by a court dominated by ruling party loyalists gives the Polish government the justification it had sought to ignore directives from the European Union's Court of Justice which it doesn't like particularly on matters of judicial independence.

The ruling marks another major test for the EU after years of managing its messy divorce from the U.K.

WHAT DOES THE POLISH GOVERNMENT SAY?

Polish leaders say it's absurd to think they want to leave the EU and they accuse the opposition of playing with the idea of Polexit for political gain.

Morawiecki, the prime minister, said last week that the opposition is trying to insinuate that we want to weaken Poland and the European Union by leaving the EU. This is obviously not only fake news, it is even worse. It is simply a lie that is made to weaken the EU.

Morawiecki spoke soon after Poland's leading opposition leader, Donald Tusk, a former EU leader, organized mass nationwide protests voicing support for Poland remaining in the EU.

COULD EXPULSION HAPPEN FOR POLAND?

The EU has no legal mechanism to expel a member. That means for Polexit to happen, it would have to be triggered by Warsaw. At the moment, the idea seems farfetched, because EU membership in Poland is extremely popular, with surveys showing more than 80% of Poles favor being in the bloc.

When Poland entered the EU in 2004, Poles won new freedoms to travel and work across the EU and a dramatic economic transformation was set in motion that has benefited millions.

Yet some Poles still fear that could change. They worry that if new EU funds are withheld from Poland over rule of law disputes, Poles might eventually come to feel that it's no longer in their benefit to belong to the bloc.

Some simply fear a political accident along the lines of what happened with Britain's departure from the EU. The former British prime minister who called for a referendum on EU membership, David Cameron, had sought to have the country remain in the bloc. He called for the vote to settle the matter, believing Britons would vote to stay. A majority in 2016 did not, and Cameron quickly resigned.

See the rest here:

Polexit: Why some fear a Polish split from the European Union - The Independent

In an interview with Wanted in Rome the Consul General answered the most frequentlyasked questions from a series of in - person and online meetings, and underlined the importance of requesting the new residency card.How does the UKs withdrawal from the EU affect the status of UK citizens living in Italy?If you were lawfully living in Italy before 1 January 2021, your rights are automatically protected under the Withdrawal Agreement. You continue to have broadly the same rights to live, work, study and access benefits and services as you had before Brexit. And your close family members can join you in Italy at any time in the future.

You have these rights even if you do not hold the new carta di soggiorno elettronica (biometric residency card) issued by Italy under the Withdrawal Agreement. But we still recommend you ask for the carta di soggiorno elettronica, because it provides the clearest evidence of your rights.

You and your family members have the right to request a new residence document,thecarta di soggiorno elettronica. and we strongly recommend that you do so. This card is a separate document to the biometric identity card (carta didentita), and is the best evidence you can obtain to show that you have the rights defined in the Withdrawal Agreement. It shows your right to enter Italy and exempts you from European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) and visa requirements.

You should also check you are correctly registered for healthcare if you are eligible. And you should obtain an Italian driving licence if you are a resident in Italy.

If you are a UK national wishing to settle in Italy after 1 January 2021 you may well need a visa to move here. On arrival in Italy you will then need to request a non-EU national residency permit (permesso di soggiorno) within 8 days of arriving. You can request this from your local questura (immigration office). Once you have the permesso or a receipt of application you can use this to register your residency with your local town hall.

You can find more information on how to apply for a non-EU national visa on the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs website here.

If you were registered as a resident before 1 January 2021 you should now obtain the new carta di soggiorno elettronica from your local questura. This is issued under the Withdrawal Agreement and is evidence of your rights under the Agreement. You should request this even if you are married to an Italian national, for example.

You should ensure you are correctly registered as a resident in Italy if you are settled here.

UK nationals living in Italy usually access the Italian health system in one of these ways:

Under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement if you move to or travel to Italy after 1 January this year your UK issued S1 or GHIC/EHIC remains valid if you are eligible for one.

If you live in Italy you should obtain an Italian licence. You will need to take a driving test. If you started exchanging yourUKlicence before 1 January 2021,you do not need to take a driving test.

We continue to negotiate with the Italian government on the right to exchange a UK licence for an Italian one without the need to re-take a driving test.

It is our priority to reach an agreement before the end of the grace period 31 December this year.

Please continue to check our Living in Guide and our social media channels for updates and be sure to sign up for alerts to keep up to date.

It has a dropdown menu so you can choose under which category you are planning to travel to Italy (employed, self-employed, student etc). The website provides information on what type of visa you need to apply for as well as a link to the application form.

For example for postgraduate students the website details what criteria will need to be met including evidence of accommodation in Italy, financial self-sufficiency, some form of health insurance and evidence of enrolment in an authorised postgraduate course.

You should also contact your local Italian Consulate for more information.

The Embassy team have been running a programme of events for UK nationals such as campaigns across TV and printed media, a series of How-to videos on social media and we continue to hold monthly online Q&A sessions as well as residency roadshows targeting different areas of Italy. These are announced on all our social media channels (Facebook) and on gov.uk and via the Embassys mailing list. You can sign up to our mailing list via our Living in Italy guide.

Our Living in Italy guide on GOV.UK provides further information and all other essential information for UK nationals in Italy.

For questions concerning your rights as a British citizen in Italy you can contact us also via our Living in Italy guide.

And you can check the Living in Europe page on gov.ukfor more information about your rights under the Withdrawal Agreement.

Follow this link:

All you need to know about Brexit and how it effects UK Nationals living in Italy - Wanted in Rome

Boris Johnson and Jacinda Arden announce post-Brexit trade deal

Shadow trade secretary Emily Thornberry has accused the government of failing to secure trade deals that deliver for Britain, telling the Commons ministers are allowing the Asia-Pacific region to take the UK to the cleaners.

In a question to trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Ms Thornberry said the newly announced UK-New Zealand free trade agreement (FTA) failed on every count to deliver benefits at home compared with those secured abroad.

There is a real problem that this is now the third Asia-Pacific agreement in a row - Japan, Australia and now New Zealand - where more than 80 per cent of the projected growth in trade, by [the trade] department, has gone to exporters in those other countries, and less than 20 per cent has gone to exports to the UK, she said.

The Labour MP also suggested the new deal would allow NZ farmers to undercut British farmers by shipping in meat produced to lower welfare standards.

Ms Trevelyan replied sternly that the Tories would never compromise standards for food coming into the UK, though her assurances have done little to assuage angry UK agricultural workers who say they arent so sure what opportunity the deal offers them.

Good morning, and welcome to The Independents rolling UK politics coverage. Stay tuned as we bring you reaction to the newly-announced UK-New Zealand trade deal, with international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan set to take questions in the House of Commons at 9.30am.

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 07:42

The UK has secured a trade agreement with New Zealand, the government has announced.

Sealed on a Zoom call between Boris Johnson and his Kiwi counterpart Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday, the so-called agreement-in-principle is a major step towards a full free trade agreement.

The deal is expected to offer similar provisions on areas like business travel to the Australia agreement, The Independent understands. Provisions easing travel requirements for contractual services suppliers who want to work in New Zealands market are a first for the country in any of its trade deals. In return, the UK has given New Zealand greater market access for agricultural products such as lamb.

Boris Johnson said the deal would cement a long friendship with New Zealand and noted that it followed the 9.7 billion in investment announced alongside Tuesdays Global Investment Summit, reports our economics editor Anna Isaac.

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 07:52

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 07:53

Heres a schedule for all sessions set to take place in Westminster today.

9.30am International trade questions

10.30am Urgent questions/statements, including business questions

Backbench business debates on (i) Cop26 and limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C (ii) World Menopause Month

A short debate on Black History Month

1.30pm UKs climate progress: the Committee on Climate Changes 2021 progress report

11am Introduction of Lord Sedwill

11.10am Oral questions, including questions to Brexit minister Lord Frost

12.15pm Skills and Post-16 Education Bill - report stage (day 2)

A short debate on government plans to consult on measures to enhance the integrity of electoral processes

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 07:58

Lets get some news on the economy now. Borrowing in the UK hit 21.8bn in September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) down from 28.8bn a year earlier but still the second highest September for borrowing since records began in 1993.

The governments interest payments bill on the huge debts built up during Covid stood at 4.8bn in September due to rising inflation, the ONS added. The latest figure is the same amount as September last year, despite borrowing levels in the month falling and tax receipts rising year-on-year. This is due to the Retail Price Index measure of inflation rising - which is linked to government interest payments - as the economy recovers.

Borrowing so far in this financial year has reached 108.1bn since the end of March - 101.2bn less than the same period a year ago, the data shows.

However, as a result of continued low tax receipts and high expenditure, the public sector borrowed 319.9bn between end of March and September - the equivalent to 14.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest ratio since the end of the Second World War when it was 15.2 per cent.

Government debt now stands at 2.2tn at the end of September - around 95.5 per cent of GDP - the highest ratio since March 1963.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said:

Our recovery is well under way - with more employees on payrolls than ever before and the fastest forecast growth in the G7 this year - but the pandemic has had a huge impact on our economy and caused our debt levels to rise.

At the Budget and Spending Review next week I will set out how we will continue to support public services, businesses and jobs while keeping our public finances fit for the future.

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 08:13

Priti Patel told the Commons last night the threat facing MPs has been elevated to substantial in the wake of the murder of Sir David Amess.

A review by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre linked to MI5 was launched after the Tory MP for Southend West was stabbed to death on Friday at a constituency surgery.

While it did not find any specific or imminent threat to MPs safety, the home secretary said the threat level to MPs was now deemed to be substantial and counterterror police will ensure the change is properly reflected in the operational posture.

While we do not see any information or intelligence which points to any credible or specific or imminent threat, I must update the House that the threat level facing members of parliament is now deemed to be substantial.

This is the same level as the current national threat to the United Kingdom as a whole, so I can assure the House that our world-class intelligence and security agencies and counterterror police will now ensure that this change is properly reflected in the operational posture.

Substantial means an attack is likely, while the lower level of moderate means an attack is possible, but not likely.

Patel delivered the update last night following concerns around the safety of MPs

(PA)

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 08:26

On that note, Matt Hancock has returned to the spotlight not, this time, with a job announcement only to be rejected in public later with a piece in The Times urging the government to tackle online abuse.

Teaming up with rival politician Rupa Huq, the pair said Sir David Amess murder should spark permanent change to tackle online hatred of politicians and set public debate on a better path.

In a co-authored Times column, the pair said Parliament had been shocked to its core over veteran MPs death, and that they had also been disgusted to see MP Michael Gove harassed in public only days later.

They said democracy cannot survive a continuing coarsening of public debate and called on social media companies - the creators of algorithms that feed people content that only reinforces what they already think - to bear responsibility. They also shone a light on the difficulty of enforcing libel laws in the internet age.

It is female politicians, particularly from ethnic minority backgrounds, who receive the worst online abuse, they said, but white men were not immune, citing one social media post calling for Mr Hancock to be executed live on BBC1.

Acknowledging the challenge ahead, they wrote:

It is hard to prove that a single post by a social media user with a few hundred followers causes significant damage, but when that post is shared and added to by hundreds or thousands of others, it has the same effect as a defamatory newspaper piece in days gone by.

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 08:34

Health minister Edward Argar has claimed the NHS is under sustainable pressure despite the alarm being raise by a major doctors union urging the government to introduce measures to control the spread of Covid.

It comes after Sajid Javid, the health secretary, suggested the country could see 100,000 cases a day, but resisted demands to implement plan B, which includes advice to work from home, making face masks mandatory and vaccine passports, reports our political correspondent Ashley Cowburn.

Defending the governments approach this morning, Mr Argar told Sky News on Thursday: Well we continue as you expect to look at all the data. The NHS while under huge pressure at the moment, and I pay tribute to all those working in it, is that its sustainable pressure at the moment.

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 08:41

A huge leak of documents has revealed countries are trying to change a crucial scientific report on how to tackle climate change.

Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia are among the nations asking UN officials to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels, according to BBC News who published the leak.

It also shows some wealthy nations are questioning paying more to poorer states to move to greener technologies.

The lobbying comes at a particularly crucial time for the government, with just 10 days to go until the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow at which world leaders will be asked to make significant commitments to slow down climate change and keep global warming to 1.5C.

The comments from governments the BBC claims to have read are overwhelmingly designed to be constructive and to improve the quality of the final report, the news service says.

Justin Rowlatt, the BBCs climate editor, had the following to say on Breakfast earlier:

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 08:51

Health minister Edward Argar claimed today the original plan for tackling Covid is still working, despite cases rising on Wednesday to levels last seen in March.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme, he said:

What Sajid [Javid] has highlighted now is that we are facing a challenging period winter.

People are indoors, infection rates are rising, and I think what hes done is levelled early with people, here is what were seeing, but there are ways you can... the single biggest way you can impact on that and mitigate it is to have the jabs, thats the thing.

Plan A in that sense, if you want to call it that, is still working. But what he highlighted is its a race - and Ive used this phrase with you, I think, before when Ive been on your programme - it is a race between the vaccines, and getting those in peoples arms, and the virus.

Were still winning that race at the moment, but its narrowing, that lead is narrowing. So what we need to do is that sprint for the line.

Sam Hancock21 October 2021 09:11

Link:

Brexit news: Asia taking UK to the cleaners on trade deals, says Labour after New Zealand agreement - The Independent