Brexit

Downing Street needs to be more transparent over the evidence needed to call a referendum on uniting Ireland, an expert has said. Professor Colin Harvey, a professor of Human Rights Law, has called for the UK to collaborate with Dublin to ensure voters are adequately prepared. He wanted to avoid a repeat of the “mess” surrounding the […]

Brexiteer Mark Francois has urged Boris Johnson to stop paying the EU for post-Brexit arrangements after the UK’s decision to leave the EU led to a number of issues in Northern Ireland.  The chair of the European Research Group and Tory MP said the prime minister should reconsider paying £20bn worth of payments over the […]

Independence for Scotland would represent a reckless ‘hold my beer’ response to Brexit. By DOUGLAS ALEXANDER. I’m Scottish, British and European. I’m comfortable with layered identities, with pluralism, and I believe deeply in international cooperation. In a previous life I was the UK’s Europe minister so I’ve seen the EU from the inside. It isn’t perfect, but I continue […]

Boris Johnson has held “frank” conversations with the DUP on the Northern Ireland Protocol as he visited the region. Extra checks on goods passing through its ports from the rest of the UK following Brexit have angered unionists. The prime minister toured a mass vaccination centre in Arlene Foster’s Co Fermanagh constituency. He was joined by […]

Fishing has overshadowed discussion of wider issues affecting the environment since Brexit

A Tory minister has raised eyebrows after claiming “British wind” will soon fuel homes across the UK. Paul Scully, a minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), made the announcement during an interview on Sky News, in which he promoted a new government pledge of £95million in funding for offshore wind farms in […]

Exports of UK goods to the European Union dropped by more than two-fifths in January as the Brexit transition period came to an end. New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that overall exports from the UK fell by £5.6 billion – 19.3%. It was driven by a £5.6 billion, or 40.7%, […]

Schools, colleges and universities can now apply for funding to allow students to study and work abroad as part of the post-Brexit replacement of the Erasmus exchange programme. The £110 million Turing scheme, which will fund global exchanges for about 35,000 UK students from September, will target disadvantaged students and those from under-represented areas. But […]

Irish journalist and academic DENNIS KENNEDY on the consequences of a demographic revolution in Northern Ireland The Northern Ireland Protocol promises to be 21st century Europe’s Schleswig-Holstein Question, the apparently intractable territorial dispute lasting most of the 19th century involving Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Austria and some others over the two provinces straddling south Denmark and northern Germany. Lord […]

Stormont’s agriculture minister has said special cricket pitch soil can be freely moved from Great Britain to Northern Ireland under Brexit rules. The clay-containing material known as loam can be obtained from counties in England to help give the ball a predictable bounce on the pitch. Northern Ireland Protocol bureaucracy has caused problems for suppliers […]

The Northern Ireland secretary has failed to explain the legal grounds for scrapping Brexit customs checks in the Irish Sea. Brandon Lewis was asked to clarify which part of the Northern Ireland Protocol would allow the UK to renege on its committment on customs checks – amid claims it could be breaching international law. “Is it […]

Dominic Raab has written to the European Council president after he claimed the UK imposed an “outright ban” on coronavirus vaccine exports. Charles Michel accused Britain and the US of imposing bans on the movement of jabs as he used a newsletter to hit back at criticisms of the bloc’s vaccine rollout. The foreign secretary […]

UK businesses and exporters have urged Lord David Frost to scrap No 10’s abrasive approach to dealing with Brussels and seek to build a more mutually beneficial trade relationship. Trade groups warned a breakdown in trade would inflict long-lasting damage on the UK economy. James Withers, chief executive of the industry group Scotland Food and Drink, […]

The UK government has unilaterally extended some grace periods associated with the NI Protocol in a bid to avoid a cliff-edge plunge into extra paperwork. The protocol is a post-Brexit arrangement designed to keep the Irish border open by ensuring Northern Ireland continues to follow the EU’s trading rules. The DUP has vowed to overthrow […]

The Jewish community is struggling to get kosher meat in time for the Passover festival due to post-Brexit arrangements, the DUP has claimed. Extra paperwork as a result of the Northern Ireland Protocol has caused a series of bureaucratic obstacles since the end of the post-Brexit transition period. Northern Ireland has a small Jewish community […]

Boris Johnson is famous for making babies. Now his Brexit is making babies unhappy. It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where Boris Johnson dismisses the unfolding post-Brexit trade fiasco as mere “teething problems”, Michael Gove talks of “issues which I would not describe as teething problems” and manufacturers […]

There were “bound” to be issues that needed ironing out between the UK and Brussels, the prime minister has said, as post-Brexit difficulties continue. Lord Frost, the cabinet minister who negotiated Britain’s trade deal with the European Union, provoked the ire of Brussels last week by unilaterally making changes that impacted upon the Northern Ireland […]

Brexit wasn't the first time leaders tried to stoke up tensions in the name of 'freedom' 

An immigration crisis is facing Britain now that Brexit reality is hitting

The government has moved to unilaterally ease another element of the contentious Brexit arrangements governing trade to Northern Ireland. A ban on importing plants potted in soil from Great Britain to the region has been temporarily lifted. While most agri-food goods are, or will be, subject to extra regulatory processes to enter Northern Ireland under […]

The Northern Ireland Protocol undermines the guiding principles of the region’s historic peace deal, a former No 10 chief of staff has warned. Jonathan Powell, who worked for Tony Blair and was involved in negotiations that forged the Good Friday Agreement, said he understood why loyalists and unionists were upset by the economic border in […]

Readers have their say on the damage Brexit is causing Britain.

Brussels has warned it will launch legal action “very soon” following a move by the UK to unilaterally delay implementation of part of the Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland. European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic said the announcement by Government on Wednesday had come as a “very negative surprise”. The Cabinet Office Minister Lord […]

Former French ambassador to the UK Sylvie Bermann made recent headlines with her very undiplomatic comments about Boris Johnson. She talks to TIM WALKER about how the country changed in her time here, and what she sees for its future. Almost a month after the EU referendum, the newly-appointed foreign secretary Boris Johnson bounded into the opulent residence […]

The Police Service of Northern Ireland is investigating sinister graffiti in a loyalist area of Belfast mentioning Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove. The message painted on a wall in Sandy Row included Gove’s name and an address above the words “We don’t forget, we don’t forgive”. It is the latest example of anti-Northern Ireland Protocol graffiti […]

MEPs have dropped plans to approve Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal after the UK government was accused of violating the agreement. The UK’s latest Brexit move saw the government unilaterally extend the Northern Ireland Protocol grace period until October, despite on-going conversations with the EU. In a damning statement, Maroš Šefčovič, vice president of the European Commission, said the move announced […]

Labour’s shadow environment secretary has called on George Eustice to apologise for Brexit trade barriers which have left seafood companies on the verge of collapse. Luke Pollard said the deal had left the shellfish industry in a “mess” and that many fishermen felt “betrayed” by the government’s handling of their interests during the Brexit negotiations. The EU has […]

Ireland’s foreign affairs minister has said the EU is negotiating with a partner it “simply cannot trust” after the UK’s latest Brexit move. Simon Coveney described the UK’s government’s unilateral decision to continue Irish Sea border grace periods until October as “very frustrating”. Speaking on RTE Radio 1, Coveney said Downing Street is breaking the […]

The UK government has defended its unilateral decision to continue Irish Sea border grace periods until October as the minimum step necessary. The first of the light-touch regulation schemes on goods from the rest of the UK transiting to Northern Ireland had been due to expire at the end of March. Supermarkets would have had […]

Loyalist paramilitary organisations have told prime minister Boris Johnson they are withdrawing support for Northern Ireland’s historic peace agreement. The outlawed groups said they were temporarily withdrawing their backing of the Belfast/Good Friday accord amid mounting concerns about the contentious Northern Ireland Protocol governing Irish Sea trade post-Brexit. However, they stressed that unionist opposition to […]

MITCH BENN with his weekly look back at some of the highlights and lowlights of recent days… BLAME-DODGE OF THE WEEK So at last we know whose fault the spectacular and ongoing implosion of Brexit is. And it’s a bit of a jaw-dropper.  So who is to blame? The prime minister? The previous prime minister(s)? […]

Steve Anglesey brings you your weekly check on how Project Fear is becoming Project Reality. It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where the government accused the EU of being selfish over shellfish. Environment secretary George Eustice started the tussles by claiming Brussels was flexing its muscles on mussels, […]