Brexit

Macron’s no-deal delusion

The Brexit waiting continues. The negotiators are still talking but, according to one of those close to the negotiations on the UK side, things are ‘still pretty stuck.’ There is, as RTE’s Tony Connelly reports, a deadline of Christmas Eve on the EU side. But it would now be a surprise if a deal came today. If these talks end in no-deal, then Johnson could not — politically — go back and accept the same or worse terms The UK offer on fish has not unblocked things as much as hoped. Michel Barnier has described it as ‘totally unacceptable’, which even accounting for diplomatic posturing is not encouraging. There is

Why Boris Johnson can’t solve the UK’s crisis

The Brexit and Covid crises have merged into one. As of today, 21 December, France has blocked trucks from crossing the Channel as fears about a new strain of Covid — ‘the Kent virus’ to coin a phrase — sweep the continent. Perishable food was rotting, approach roads were jammed… it was as if we were living under a wartime blockade. By the time you read this, the French may have shifted from an outright ban to stringent health checks on exports and imports, but the pressure will still be on. In less than a fortnight, on 1 January, we will have the real Brexit. It will be either without

Matthew Lynn

No-deal Brexit planning has been a lifesaver

The port of Dover has been closed down. The Eurotunnel isn’t carrying any freight for a couple of days. The lorries are already starting to back up in Kent, the supermarkets are working out where they can get fresh supplies from, and flights have been suspended, with the British likely to find they are turned away from most of our neighbouring countries. If you had blanked out all the other news you might think that after some terminal row about herring, Brexit had actually been brought forward by ten days, creating the kind of chaos that even the most swivel-eyed Remainer could scarcely have imagined possible. And yet, of course,

Nick Tyrone

Boris now faces a terrible choice over Brexit

Ten thousand lorries usually travel through the port of Dover in the run-up to Christmas. Now, Dover is completely shut. Over the weekend, this crucial supply chain into Britain has stopped. In the coming days, as Brits stock up ahead of Christmas, there is likely to be some pressure on UK supply chains. And as James Forsyth writes on Coffee House, the coming weeks will inevitably mean a crisis for Britain. As such, it begs the question: can Boris really go for a no-deal Brexit now? Can he go through with it at a time when political crises are piling one on top of each other?  Despite the potential risk, I’m

Robert Peston

Covid and Brexit are about to collide

We are back in a full-scale economic crisis. In London and the south east, the richest part of the UK and engine of the economy, normal commerce has been suspended by the imposition of Tier 4. And the decision of much of the EU and a growing number of rich countries to put the whole UK into quarantine is devastating for trade. What are the immediate priorities? Probably the most important one is basic: the creation of a facility to give rapid Covid-19 tests to all lorry drivers leaving the UK so that the transport of freight can be restarted as quickly as possible. Second, to end the cancerous uncertainty for

James Forsyth

Britain faces a crisis over the coming weeks

This country faces a crisis over the next few weeks. Covid cases are rising rapidly in the UK — there were more than 35,000 new cases yesterday, the largest number recorded during the pandemic and almost double the number a week ago. It seems likely that this rapid rise is, in part, a result of the new variation of the virus which does seem to be more transmissible. It is hard not to think that more of the country will be put into Tier 4 restrictions at the next review. It’ll be surprising if England gets through January without another lockdown. Concern over this new variant of the virus has

The case Brexiteers should make for Brexit

Why are Brexiteers rubbish at making the economic case for Brexit? On a whole range of things from three pin plugs to driving on the left, the UK is so often the odd man out in Europe. So why shouldn’t Britain be better off making its own laws and regulations, instead of making do, as we have done for the last 50 years, with trying to fit our sprawling messy economic life into a one-size-fits-all framework cooked up in Brussels kitchens over too much midnight oil? We have heard a lot of talk recently about the Single Market being a British invention, a way of exporting the Thatcher revolution to

Britain is wise to prepare for a new Cod war

Is it ‘irresponsible’ for the Royal Navy to plan to protect the fisheries of the UK’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) when the Brexit transition period ends? The chairman of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee thinks so. The BBC made much of it. But Tobias Ellwood is wrong: it would be irresponsible not to talk now of a deterrent credible in the eyes of prospective trespassers. And who might they be? Given the importance which France attaches to our punishment on leaving the EU for reasons which have nothing to do with fish, but with much bigger psycho-dramatic issues that Robert Tombs and ‘Caroline Bell’ have recently explained, French

James Forsyth

Fishing could sink the Brexit negotiations

Throughout the Brexit talks it has been declared that the deal wouldn’t fall over fish. But that is now looking increasingly likely. The two sides remain far apart on the subject and time is running short. Fishing is not the only issue, there are still some disagreements over the Commission’s desire to exempt itself and the European Investment Bank from the subsidy control provisions of the agreement when the UK would have no such carve out. But fish is the most problematic area. Johnson is prepared to leave without a deal over the fishing issue The EU, as Michel Barnier made clear this morning, are insisting on an fisheries transition

Nick Tyrone

No deal might be the best outcome for remainers

Plenty of Labour figures who voted Remain are now urging the government to complete a trade agreement with the European Union before the end of the transition period. ‘There isn’t a choice between a fantasy deal and no deal,’ says Liam Byrne. ‘It’s this deal versus no deal, and we will not have a manufacturing industry left unless there is a deal.’ Although there is still a battle within the shadow cabinet on what to do should a UK-EU trade agreement come to parliament, the consensus seems to be that Keir Starmer would whip the party to vote for Johnson’s deal. This marks a big shift in Labour’s Brexit strategy

Fishing is now the sole major obstacle to a Brexit deal

Ursula von der Leyen and Boris Johnson spoke this evening to try and give the negotiations a shove. The statement that the Commission president has released after their call makes clear that fishing is now the biggest obstacle to a deal. She says ‘big differences remain to be bridged, particularly on fisheries. Bridging them will be very challenging’. The Number 10 statement is more downbeat. In a clear attempt to pile on pressure, it declares that ‘Time was very short and it now looked very likely that agreement would not be reached unless the EU position changed substantially.’ It says that the ‘UK could not accept a situation where it

Matthew Lynn

BMW is discovering the cost of a no-deal Brexit

Factories will close. Prices will rise. Profits will suffer. Another day, another warning of disaster from one of the major car manufacturers about the catastrophic cost of a no-deal Brexit. But hold on. Before anyone’s eyes start to glaze over, there is a twist to this one. It is a German company that is starting to worry about the hit to its bottom line. And, in truth, it is hardly likely to be the last. Yesterday, BMW, which used to be the most formidable manufacturer of upmarket automobiles until Tesla came along, went public for the first time about the financial impact of Britain leaving the EU without a deal.

Wallace Arnold: Pity the hard-pressed Snuff Community

Could it really be 40 years since one was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature? Borne up the stairs on the shoulders of John Julius Norwich and Sir Roy Strong, I was inducted by Lady Antonia Fraser and the late Paddy Leigh Fermor, resplendent in their ceremonial robes. Meanwhile, I myself was clad in the society’s prestigious tweed ‘posing pouch’, passed down from generation to generation, unscrubbed. The Society has long been a sanctuary of civilisation, allowing a wide range of authors, from James Lees-Milne to Debo Devonshire, to mix and mingle in a spirit of inky camaraderie. So imagine my horror upon hearing that the RSL

Why Britain chose Brexit

None of us will easily forget the emotional response to the Leave vote in 2016, the national and international lamentation and the angry reproaches and insults, heaped on the majority: they were ignorant losers, white, old, xenophobic and stupid, ‘gammon’ who would be better dead or disfranchised. But leave aside the arrogance and snobbery; more fundamental was the basic ignorance of Europe shown by these zealous Europhiles. They mistook Brexit for a British, or English, aberration. In fact, it was the manifestation of a pan-European disillusionment with the ‘European project’. Popular support for that project peaked 40 years ago, and has been in decline ever since. The French only just

Watch: SNP MP suspended from the Commons

SNP tempers were running high this afternoon, as the Commons debated amendments to the Internal Market Bill, which deals with the UK’s goods and services after Brexit. The Scottish nationalists have described the Bill as a ‘full-frontal assault on devolution’ because it hands some EU powers back to London. That might explain the poor behaviour of one SNP MP this afternoon. Ahead of the amendments being voted on, the Nationalist politician Drew Hendry decided to make an impromptu intervention. Despite having finished a five-minute speech on the Bill moments before, Hendry clearly decided that his voice hadn’t yet been heard enough and used the opportunity to launch yet another diatribe at the

Katy Balls

Is a Brexit deal imminent?

Prime Minister’s Questions may have proved a rather dreary affair this week but there was one reply that has become a source of intrigue in Westminster: Boris Johnson on Brexit. When the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford asked the Prime Minister whether he would commit to releasing ‘a detailed economic impact assessment of the cost to the UK of his extreme Tory Brexit plans’, Johnson sounded more upbeat on the prospects of a deal.Where Johnson has previously taken any opportunity going to stress that no deal is the most likely outcome, he did not today. Instead he talked more positively of the chances of a deal:  ‘There’s every opportunity, every hope that

Boris Johnson has allowed himself to be snookered by the EU

The UK-EU trade negotiations have heated up again, albeit from a very cold state. Boris seems to have conceded ground on the ‘evolution clause’ to the European Union, making a path to an agreement on the level playing field issues at least plausible. The UK has accepted that divergence should come at some cost — although the details of how that cost should be managed appear to still be a live issue. With that comes the last hurdle: fishing. Boris Johnson has allowed himself to be snookered by the EU. More than anything else I could point to, leaving fishing to the very end demonstrates the folly of Johnson’s overall

Was the EU ever going to offer Britain a good deal?

The announcement that Brexit negotiations are set to continue will no doubt alarm Brexiteers who fear compromise, sell-out and fudge. In fairness to Brussels however, they set out their stall early on and stuck to the script. The EU is unwilling – as they see it – to let Britain have its cake and eat it, by having large access to the EU’s market while not being a member or leaving the club and not ‘paying a price’. This might explain what could otherwise be seen as an unduly recalcitrant attitude. It also explains why any deal which the EU agrees to is likely to be on its terms. The