The covid-19 crisis exposes the frailties of Germanys biggest firms – The Economist

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The main German stockmarket index holds up a mirror to the worlds fourth-biggest economy

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THE DAX INDEX of Germanys 30 most valuable listed companies holds up a mirror to the worlds fourth-biggest economy. The reflection isnt pretty. In mid-March the average price-to-book ratio of DAX firms market capitalisation to the book value of their assets fell below one, which has previously only happened in 2009 and 2011, amid the global financial crisis and the euro crisis, respectively. It is now hovering barely above one.

The pandemic has hit all of the worlds big stockmarkets. But it is shining a particularly brutal light on the weaknesses of Germanys flagship index, which has underperformed those in other advanced markets (see chart).

On April 29th Volkswagen, Europes biggest carmaker (price-to-book ratio: 0.6) reported that its operating profit sank by 81% in the first quarter, year on year. The day before Lufthansa, which is trading at two-fifths of book value, said it may seek bankruptcy protection, as talks with the government over aid for the airline stalled. Days earlier Deutsche Bank reported a 67% fall in quarterly profits. That this beat analysts estimates is damning with faint praise. Its ratio of 0.2 suggests investors dont think much of its prospects.

Germanys business-software champion, SAP, is doing well enough. The DAXs only other tech firm, Wirecard, is not. On April 28th the payments processors share price fell by 26% when it published incomplete findings of a special audit, commissioned after reports of allegations of accounting fraud. Wirecard also delayed the publication of results for last year, which were due on April 30th.

The MDAX, which consists of the next 60 biggest listed companies, looks perkier, thanks to digital darlings such as Delivery Hero and HelloFresh (online food), TeamViewer and Nemetschek (software), Zalando (online fashion), Scout24 (digital classifieds) and Freenet (telecoms), as well as biotech firms like Evotec, Morphosys and Qiagen. Delivery Hero or Qiagen may soon ascend to the DAX, possibly pushing out Lufthansa.

We think obituaries for the DAX are premature, insists Ulrich Stephan, chief investment officer at Deutsche Bank. He is right. But it would look considerably less morbid with fewer corporate oldies stuck in the pre-digital economy.

Dig deeper:For our latest coverage of the covid-19 pandemic, register for The Economist Today, our daily newsletter, or visit our coronavirus tracker and story hub

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "Despondent DAX"

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The covid-19 crisis exposes the frailties of Germanys biggest firms - The Economist

You Can Now Take an Early $100,000 Retirement Plan Withdrawal Due to COVID-19, but Most Americans Don’t Have That Option – The Motley Fool

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Millions of Americans are desperate for financial relief in the wake of COVID-19. Thankfully, lawmakers recognized that back in March by implementing the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act.

The CARES Act has a number of provisions to help struggling Americans right now. That $1,200 stimulus payment you keep hearing about or may have already received? That's part of it. The CARES Act also raised unemployment benefits and made forgivable loans available to small businesses grappling with payroll concerns. And it made one very significant change with regard to retirement savings plans like IRAs and 401(k)s.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

Generally, if you remove money from an IRA or 401(k) prior to reaching age 59 1/2, you're hit with a 10% early withdrawal penalty unless you happen to qualify for an exception (IRAs, for example, allow you to take early withdrawals to pay for college). Thanks to the CARES Act, you can now withdraw up to $100,000 from an IRA or 401(k) penalty-free if you've been impacted by COVID-19 and need the money.

But while that option may seem like a lifeline, the reality is that it's off the table for many Americans for one simple reason: They don't have $100,000 in retirement savings to begin with.

Americans as a whole have a lot of catching up to do on the retirement savings front. As of the end of 2020's first quarter, the average IRA balance was $98,900, reports Fidelity. For 401(k)s, the average balance was $91,400.

Now let's clarify a few things about these numbers. First, retirement portfolios are generally downdue to COVID-19's battering of the stock market earlier this year. Prior to the crisis, the average IRA balance was $115,400, while the average 401(k) balance was $112,300. In other words, retirement savers are looking at serious losses right now, at least on paper or on screen, so the fact that average balances are below $100,000 isn't necessarily a function of poor saving habits but rather, the toll of the pandemic on the stock market.

Furthermore, while a balance of $98,900 or $91,400 is far from great for someone in their 40s, 50s, or 60s, for a 20-something worker, it's pretty impressive. As such, these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.

Still, even before the crisis, most Americans barely had more than $100,000 in retirement savings to work with. Many must pledge to catch up once the economy opens back up, jobs become more stable, and the overall situation improves.

Though some people neglect their long-term savings unintentionally -- they're low- to middle-income earners who genuinely can't afford to save -- others mismanage their money or plan to fall back on Social Security -- a dangerous mistake, especially with benefit cuts on the table. But the reality is that saving independently is the best way to secure a comfortable retirement, so those in the middle or latter stages of their careers who haven't reached the $100,000 mark should aim to do better once that becomes feasible.

Meanwhile, those whose retirement accounts took a dive in this year's first quarter shouldn't stress. There's a strong likelihood that values will come back up as the stock market gets a chance to rebound and the COVID-19 crisis comes to an end.

As for those who are thinking of tapping their IRAs or 401(k)s early, well, that's just not advisable. Money removed today is money that can't be invested for added growth and won't be available during retirement.

Early withdrawals may be necessary for some people whose financial circumstances have truly taken a turn for the dire, but they shouldn't be the default option during the crisis, by any means.

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You Can Now Take an Early $100,000 Retirement Plan Withdrawal Due to COVID-19, but Most Americans Don't Have That Option - The Motley Fool

Row over EU office in Belfast threatens to derail Brexit talks – The Guardian

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The Irish border question threatens to derail Brexit talks again as the depth of the row over the EUs desire to have an office in Belfast is revealed.

The UKs paymaster general, Penny Mordaunt, has written to the EU to firmly reject a repeated request for an office in Northern Ireland: The UK cannot agree to the permanent EU presence based in Belfast, she wrote.

Mordaunt was responding to a second request this year from the EU for permission to open an office in Belfast on the grounds it was needed to oversee the implementation of new customs and regulatory checks that will apply to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland from next year.

According to the Irish national broadcaster, RT, the secretary general of the EUs external action service, Helga Schmid, wrote in February that there were very particular capabilities and competences required on the ground, distinctive from the more traditional competences of any other EU delegation.

She hoped the office would be up and running by June in order to bed down the new processes for traders, the detail of which has been the cause of major political rows. Boris Johnson has insisted there will be no checks and no new paperwork for traders operating across the Irish sea.

The permanent undersecretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Sir Simon McDonald, refused Schmids request in March, but she argued in a follow-up letter on 25 March that an office would be necessary.

At least during the initial phase of the application of the protocol, the EU will want to avail of these rights on an ongoing basis. To do so effectively, an office in Belfast staffed by technical experts is indispensable, she wrote.

Mordaunt rejected her argument, saying such a presence would be divisive in political and community terms.

The government said in a statement on Saturday: There is no reason why the commission should require a permanent presence in Belfast to monitor the implementation of the protocol.

The row over the office in Belfast has been simmering for months with no sign of a resolution.

Theresa Mays former Brexit adviser Raoul Ruparel tweeted on Saturday:

He rejected reports that the UK had agreed to an EU office in February 2019 and was now backtracking.

As Mays adviser at the time, he said no such agreement had been signed off on a political level. He pointed out that it would have been anathema to the Democratic Unionist party, which May was trying to keep onside ahead of a meaningful vote on the withdrawal agreement.

Even if the UK had agreed to an office last year, it would have had different functions, because Mays Irish border solution was a UK-wide arrangement that would not have involved customs and tariffs on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, he said.

The row illustrates the EUs concerns that the UK will try to row back on the deal signed in January and not implement customs and regulatory checks on animals and food entering the island of Ireland.

This would cause a major international headache because it would force checks back to the Irish border, something many have said could jeopardise peace.

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Row over EU office in Belfast threatens to derail Brexit talks - The Guardian

Coronavirus: We are all paying the price for the Tory government’s preoccupation with Brexit | Latest Brexit news and top stories – The New European

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Opinion

PUBLISHED: 14:24 01 May 2020 | UPDATED: 14:24 01 May 2020

The New European

Prime Minister Boris Johnson stands outside 10 Downing Street as he joins in the applause to salute local heroes during Thursday's nationwide Clap for Carers. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA Wire.

Government negligence over coronavirus comes as a result of Tory preoccupation with Brexit, and we are all paying the price.

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Thousands of deaths in the Covid-19 pandemic is a tragic if inevitable statistic. Dozens of deaths of NHS frontline staff and care workers, however, represents negligence of stupefying dimensions. Now that a leaked Department of Health and Social Care report has confirmed the May and Johnson governments total failure to act on the conclusions of the 2017 Exercise Cygnus report, responsibility for the deaths of so many health workers lies firmly on the heads of the 2017-2019 government and its successor.

The prime minister now refers to the NHS as the beating heart of the nation but he leads a Conservative government and served in the cabinet of its predecessor, both of which have gone some way to starving this beating heart of the oxygen it needs to function properly.

Even Leavers cannot in all honesty deny that the preoccupation with Brexit has contributed to the governments negligence in failing to make adequate preparations for the current pandemic. It is an appalling tragedy that many NHS staff and care workers have paid the ultimate price for these shortcomings.

Anthony West

Kent

While Priti Patels statement hailing the drop in shoplifting has elicited quite a bit of ridicule, it has also done something much worse.

It has deflected attention from the fact that 20,000 people in the UK have died in hospital from coronavirus. That is one of the worst performances in the world and is a damning indictment of this governments tried-and-tested approach of using egregious nonsense to distract people.

People are dying because this government made bad decisions and wasted time while Italy and Spain struggled. They condemned and ridiculed those countries and did nothing to protect the people here.

Do not let them gaslight you into believing that they have achieved anything of merit by seeing a drop in shoplifting or that it would be very unreasonable to hold them accountable for thousands of deaths.

Audrey Christophory

Covid-19 is another one of those epochal moments when immense change happens in a short period of time. The Tories dont have the noddle to see this because it is the (now) utter irrelevance of Brexit that they think is the real story of our time.

Keir Starmer (Starmers battle on three fronts, TNE #191) should be setting up a task force to prepare for the post-Covid-19 and post-Brexit country Labour will surely inherit. The UK cant get left behind again like it did after the Second World War.

Will Goble

Rayleigh

Boris Johnsons experiences in ICU will have had a profound effect on him psychologically. Are we sure he is fit to return to lead a government 18 days later?

In rugby or football where a player on the pitch has suffered a head injury, the rules are that for the safety of the player and the wellbeing of the team, the victim cannot self-declare his own fitness to return to the field of play.

What process is there to safeguard the nation from a situation where an unfit prime minister returns to the head of government?

This is not just a medical question,

this is a constitutional question. Where are the checks and balances in the system?

John Edwards

Shoreham-by-Sea

Have your say by emailing letters@theneweuropean.co.uk

Almost four years after its creation The New European goes from strength to strength across print and online, offering a pro-European perspective on Brexit and reporting on the political response to the coronavirus outbreak, climate change and international politics. But we can only rebalance the right wing extremes of much of the UK national press with your support. If you value what we are doing, you can help us by making a contribution to the cost of our journalism.

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Coronavirus: We are all paying the price for the Tory government's preoccupation with Brexit | Latest Brexit news and top stories - The New European

Brexit trade deal WILL be struck this year say UK negotiators – but only after EU tantrum – Express

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British officials expect a lot of noise between the two sides before Brussels eventually drops its hardline negotiating position. Talks between the UK and European Commission continued last week but ended with the bloc accusing Britain of refusing to engage on its plans for a regulatory level playing field and upholding existing fisheries access. But sources close to the UK negotiating team said a deal can be completed before the post-Brexit transition period expires at the end of the year.

Officials have suggested the row over the two sides redlines must first escalate before they can reach a compromise.

A source said: Im quite positive. I do believe in the core areas of this theres a good understanding between negotiators.

Im confident we will get over the disagreements. Probably a bit more noise has to happen before we get to that point.

Another round of online trade negotiations is scheduled for May 11.

Downing Street is expected to push for more one to one talks between Michel Barnier and David Frost, the EU and UKs chief negotiators, in an attempt to break the deadlock.

No10 wants senior Government officials to be able to open new channels of communications alongside the formal negotiations.

But the source said the UK would not budge on its approach to the talks and would reject the EUs continued access to Britains waters and attempts to lock the country into the blocs rulebook.

The source said: "What is slowing us up is the EU's insistence on extra provision, notably the level playing field area, aspects of governance, and of course there is no meeting of minds on fisheries.

"If they continue to insist on their position on a so-called level playing field and on continuing the Common Fisheries Policy, for example, we are never going to accept that. Draw your own conclusion from that, but I hope they will move on."

"There are some fundamentals that we are not going to move on because, not so much that they are negotiation positions, as they are what an independent state does, they added.

It is understood that British and EU negotiators hope virtual bonding sessions could help build the camaraderie needed to strike a deal.

MUST READ:Brexit snub: UK rejects Brussels' attempts to open embassy in Belfast

British officials remain confident that a deal can be struck despite the COVID-19 outbreak hindering the process.

I don't think the crisis makes any difference, the source said.

"It is a big and horrible thing to affect us but I sense that European Union chief negotiator Michel Barnier himself would like to get a deal and I sensed that before the crisis started."

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Brexit trade deal WILL be struck this year say UK negotiators - but only after EU tantrum - Express

British lawyer sues EU over her removal from its court due to Brexit – The Guardian

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The UKs last judicial member of the European court of justice is suing the council of the European Union and the EU court over her removal from office because of Brexit.

Eleanor Sharpston QC, advocate general to the court in Luxembourg, has lodged two claims challenging her replacement by a Greek lawyer before her term in office was scheduled to end next year.

Her departure will not necessarily end direct British involvement with the ECJ. A claim has been submitted by a team of London-based lawyers arguing that even though the UK as a nation is leaving the EU, its citizens cannot be deprived of EU citizenship without their consent.

Sharpston, whose mandate was due to end in October 2021, has submitted two claims against the council of the European Union, which represents the remaining 27 EU states, and against the ECJ itself.

At the start of the year, Brussels issued a statement saying the mandates of all UK-related members of EU institutions would automatically end on 31 January. Sharpston was the exception to the rule and was told that she would stay on until a successor could take over.

A Greek replacement for her has now been found. The number of advocates general, who advise the courts judges, is fixed at 11.

A fellow of Kings College, Cambridge and a former joint head of chambers in London, Sharpston has been at the ECJ since 2006. Earlier this year, contemplating the possibility of legal action, she told the Law Gazette: It may be that the very last service I can render to my court is to see whether there is something I can do to push back against the member states intruding into the courts autonomy and independence.

She is understood to be arguing that she should be be allowed to stay in office until her current six-year term expires and that her removal undermines the judicial independence of the court. Court rules, it is said, ensure that judges and advocate generals can only be removed when they reach the end of their mandate or reach the obligatory retirement age.

The ECJ told the Guardian it could not confirm the identity of claimants in the two cases submitted. The courts last British judge, Christopher Vajda, lost his seat in February despite the UK remaining within the single market and customs union until the end of 2020. There are 27 judges sitting on the ECJ one for every member state.

A separate action legal action has been lodged at the ECJ this month by lawyers acting for Prof Joshua Silver, a physicist at Oxford University. The claim is being led by Prof Takis Tridimas of Matrix Chambers and lawyers from the London firm DAC Beachcroft.

They argue that while the withdrawal agreement between the UK government and the EU has resulted in the UK as a nation leaving the EU, the fundamental status and rights of the British citizens of the European Union cannot be removed without their consent.

Stephen Hocking, a partner at DAC Beachcroft, said: In the withdrawal agreement, the EU council purported to remove fundamental individual rights from a group of citizens of the European Union, namely UK nationals, without any due process and without any reference to them. In doing so it acted unlawfully.

EU citizenship is a citizenship like any other, and it confers individual rights on citizens that cannot be taken away by an agreement between governments.

If he is successful, UK citizens would retain their rights as EU citizens, for example the right to live and work in EU member states.

This week Guy Verhofstadt, the former Brexit coordinator for the European parliament, tweeted in support of the legal action: People received European citizenship with the treaty of Maastricht. Will be interesting to see, if a government decides to leave, its citizens automatically lose their European citizenship. They shouldnt do!

The case, for which more than 67,000 has already been raised, is being supported by crowdfunding through the website Crowdfunder.

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British lawyer sues EU over her removal from its court due to Brexit - The Guardian

Tory MP David Davis urges government capitalise on coronavirus outbreak to seal a Brexit deal | Latest Brexit news and top stories – The New European

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PUBLISHED: 11:34 01 May 2020 | UPDATED: 12:16 01 May 2020

Adrian Zorzut

David Davis listens in the House of Commons, London. Photograph: PA.

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Davis made the claim on LBC radio with Nick Ferrari, arguing the EU were lunatics if they did not accept British demands for a no-tariff, no-quotas-style trade deal.

He said: What the European Union should do, if it has any sense at all, is to go for the option we are talking about of which is no tariffs and no quotas.

Youd have to be a lunatic to put tariffs and quotas on under the current economic circumstances so now is the time to do it. That is what we should do.

He said prolonging negotiations would create more uncertainty for UK businesses: The one time, apart from whats happening now, that we had an economic downturn since the [2017] election was when we delayed departure.

The uncertainty made all the businesses, even though claiming they didnt want to leave, suffer. You dont want to change that. You dont want to have another level of uncertainty.

The UK has ruled out seeking an extension to Brexit transition period, which ends on December 31. Recent talks in April failed to reach a breakthrough, causing the EU to ramp up preparations for a no-deal Brexit.

Almost four years after its creation The New European goes from strength to strength across print and online, offering a pro-European perspective on Brexit and reporting on the political response to the coronavirus outbreak, climate change and international politics. But we can only rebalance the right wing extremes of much of the UK national press with your support. If you value what we are doing, you can help us by making a contribution to the cost of our journalism.

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Tory MP David Davis urges government capitalise on coronavirus outbreak to seal a Brexit deal | Latest Brexit news and top stories - The New European

UK will need to extend Brexit transition, Merkel ally warns Britain – The Guardian

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Boris Johnson must extend the UKs transition out of the EU for up to two years to avoid compounding the economic damage of the coronavirus pandemic with a hugely disruptive and disorderly Brexit, according to a close ally of Angela Merkel.

In an interview with the Observer, Norbert Rttgen, chair of the Bundestags foreign affairs committee, said it was now impossible to see how the UK and other EU countries could agree even a minimal outline free trade agreement this year because the talks were so behind schedule.

The transition period is due to end on 31 December unless the UK asks for a prolongation by 30 June. The maximum extension would be two years, under the terms of the withdrawal agreement. Rttgen said he could not see any sensible option other than for the UK to apply for the extension to avoid even more damage to the British and European economies. On Friday, Michel Barnier said there had been limited progress in the initial stages of virtual negotiations, which he said was disappointing.

Rttgen, a member of Merkels Christian Democratic Union party, said: Before the current coronavirus crisis, I think it would have been possible to have a minimum agreement with the UK on the broad outlines to avoid a crash [the UK crashing out with no deal], with more detailed negotiations then taking place afterwards.

I cant imagine now that this is possible, given the fact that all the EU countries, Brussels and London are so absorbed by the pandemic and this will go on. Given this situation, I dont believe that there is a realistic possibility any longer to even achieve the necessary minimum. So you have to extend.

But he said it would be up to Boris Johnson to realise the consequences of a disorderly exit amid this pandemic.

The pandemic will cause more economic damage than we can now imagine. To think that you could then add to this extraordinary situation a very disorderly exit, to me is not imaginable. I think everyone will say that this is not in the British interest or in the interest of any of us.

The Brexit transition began when the UK left the EU on 31 January. The arrangement under which the UK is outside the EU but continues to be subject to its rules and a member of the single market and customs union was negotiated by both sides to smooth the UKs exit.

The transition was also designed to allow the UK to continue much of its previous relationship with the EU while the fine details of a future trading relationship and security co-operation were negotiated.

Barnier cited an alarming lack of progress in four of the most crucial areas of the talks. Sources said he was greatly frustrated that the UK did not appear ready either to discuss detail or make compromises.

The four areas of difference were the so-called level playing field (the extent to which the UK would adopt EU standards to have access to the single market); fisheries, particularly EU access to UK waters; security co-operation and governance issues.

The German MEP David McAllister, who chairs the UK co-ordination in the European Parliament (correct) said both sides were now under enormous time pressure to organise a half-way orderly exit of the UK from the single market and the customs union.

It had been hoped that an outline deal could be concluded over the coming months, in time for it to be signed off over the summer by EU leaders. But talks between the UK and EU sides are well behind schedule, although the second set of discussions, effected by video link, ended last week.

I think there is a recognition by some of the UK side that they will have to extend but no one knows how to do it

EU officials have said that concluding deals on such complex issues already a lengthy and tortuous process is far more difficult without face-to-face meetings. One high-level EU source said: You can get so far but what you cant do is go away into small groups of six or eight people in a dark room and hammer out the final, vital details. That is not possible in a virtual meeting.

The UK is also understood to have redeployed some of its staff who were posted to the EU trade talks to coronavirus duties since the Covid-19 pandemic developed.

The issue of whether to apply for an extension is now emerging as a huge additional problem for Johnson, who prides himself on having got Brexit done. Until now, Downing Street has said it will not contemplate asking the EU for an extension under any circumstances.

To do so, Johnson would have to reverse legislation that, in effect, bars him from seeking an extension, and he would have to agree additional financial contributions to the EU to pay for that extension.

Another senior EU politician involved in the talks said there were signs of division appearing on the UK side, with some civil servants and Tory MPs believing the UK had to find a way to abandon its opposition to extending the transition: I think there is a recognition by some on the UK side that they have to extend but no one knows how to do it. The question is what Johnson will decide when he returns to Downing Street after his illness. It is a big political problem for them.

The terms of the withdrawal agreement allow a UKEU joint committee to extend the transition period by up to two years, but it must sign off on the length of any extension before 1 July. EU lawyers say that once that window is missed, EU law makes it very difficult to agree to any extension.

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, who is regularly in touch with diplomats in EU capitals, said: It will be very hard for both sides to reach the outlines of a free trade agreement by autumn, or indeed by June, which is when the PM wants to take a decision on whether it is worth pursuing a free trade agreement.

Last week should have been the fifth round of negotiations, but it was the second. The bottom line is that on both sides the top politicians attention is focused on coronavirus, not Brexit, which makes a deal in the short term highly unlikely.

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UK will need to extend Brexit transition, Merkel ally warns Britain - The Guardian

UK seeks access to EU health cooperation in light of coronavirus – The Guardian

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The British government is quietly seeking access to the European Unions pandemic warning system, despite early reluctance to cooperate on health after Brexit, the Guardian has learned.

The UK is seeking something akin to membership of the EUs early warning and response system (EWRS), which has played a critical role in coordinating Europes response to the coronavirus, as well as to earlier pandemics such as bird flu. According to an EU source, this would be pretty much the same as membership of the system.

The governments enthusiasm in the privacy of the negotiating room contrasts with noncommittal public statements. Detailed negotiating objectives published in February merely stated that the UK was open to exploring cooperation between the UK and EU in other specific and narrowly defined areas where this is in the interest of both sides, for example on matters of health security.

Health was not even mentioned in the governments written statement to Parliament, aside from a reference to pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reported on 1 March that No 10 had blocked the Department of Healths request to be part of the EWRS.

A government spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether the UK was seeking a form of membership or participation in the EWRS, but referred back to the February negotiating objectives.

In private, the coronavirus, which had claimed at least 26,771 lives in the UK by Thursday, appears to have altered government thinking.

There was not much appetite from the UK at the beginning, said the EU source, referring to cooperation on health. Thats been corrected. They are keen and they are keen to be seen to be keen. Both sides want close cooperation.

However, the EU is not prepared to offer the UK full membership of the EWRS, an online platform set up in 1998 where public authorities share information about health emergencies.

Instead, EU officials propose to plug the UK into the system when a pandemic emerges, similar to arrangements for other non-EU countries.

Health security does not feature in the UK negotiating text sent in private to the EUs chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, although EU officials have received a non-paper outlining government aims on health.

In another sign of rising British interest in European cooperation, the Guardian has established that the UK attended all five of the EUs health security committee meetings on the coronavirus pandemic in April, a perfect attendance record, compared with a 70% British presence between 17 January and 30 March.

During the April meetings, officials discussed lockdown exit strategies and launching a joint procurement scheme on therapeutics in intensive care. No decision has been taken to launch this bulk-buying programme.

The Guardian first reported in March that the UK was not taking part in any of the EUs four procurement schemes, missing bulk-buying efforts on personal protective equipment for medical workers, ventilators and testing kit despite having attended relevant meetings.

Meanwhile, among NHS senior managers there is anxiety that Brexit talks risk significant elements of health being forgotten about, said Layla McCay, the international director of the NHS Confederation.

NHS organisations have been stood up and stood down and stood up again for potentially a no-deal Brexit, she said. If a quite thorough future relationship for health matters is not on track come June, then the NHS is going to have to start to prepare for specific disruption next year as a result of Brexit, and it will have to do so while also facing both winter and coronavirus challenges. It will be a significant extra ask.

British membership of the EWRS and broader EU health network strengthen our ability to respond as effectively as possible to health emergencies, McCay added.

The UK government spokesperson said: The safety and security of our citizens is a top priority. The UK is ready to discuss how our citizens can be kept safe and benefit from continued international cooperation on health security following the end of the transition period, where it is in our mutual interest.

Any such arrangements must align with the fundamental principles of respecting the UKs political and economic independence, recognition of the UK and EUs status as sovereign equals, and ensuring the UK has control over its own laws.

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UK seeks access to EU health cooperation in light of coronavirus - The Guardian

Boris gives green light for Brexit Britain to start formal US trade talks NEXT WEEK – Express

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Downing Street has reportedly agreed for negotiations to kick off on Wednesday despite the coronavirus crisis. Donald Trump is said to be desperate to reach a deal ahead of the US presidential election in November.

A source told The Sun: No10 gave the green light late this week for the talks to start.

The process has been significantly speeded up.

The talks will be carried out remotely while coronavirus travel restrictions are in place.

The first round, which will last two weeks, will be held between International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

Boris Johnson is said to have put off trade talks with the US until now due to ongoing negotiations with the EU.

The UK is in a transition period with Brussels until the end of 2020 as the two sides thrash out a free trade agreement.

READ MORE:UK/EU fishing plan on table 'in weeks' - but Barnier MUST give ground

The Prime Minister has repeatedly insisted he will not push back the deadline despite claims the timeframe is too tight.

Mr Trump promised to strike a massive trade deal with the UK after Mr Johnsons general election victory in December.

The US President said the agreement could be far bigger and more lucrative that any deal with the EU.

DON'T MISSBrexit deal now much more likely says Gove as he makes bold prediction[VIDEO]Former MEP reveals why Boris Johnson will not extend transition period[INSIGHT]EU WILL collapse to UK demands over no deal Brexit threat[POLL]

He tweeted: Congratulations to Boris Johnson on his great WIN!

Britain and the United States will now be free to strike a massive new Trade Deal after BREXIT.

This deal has the potential to be far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that could be made with the E.U. Celebrate Boris!

Stumbling blocks in a trade deal between the UK and the US could include food standards and the NHS.

Mr Trump sparked a backlash during his state visit last year when he suggested the health service could be on the table in an agreement.

But the US President later rowed back on the comments.

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Boris gives green light for Brexit Britain to start formal US trade talks NEXT WEEK - Express

Campaigners file case that argues EU citizenship is permanent regardless of Brexit | Latest Brexit news and top stories – The New European

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PUBLISHED: 10:37 28 April 2020 | UPDATED: 10:45 28 April 2020

Anti-Brexit demonstrators wave European Union and Union flags outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Credit: Yui Mok/PA

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A group of campaigners have filed a court case with the General Court of the European Union that argues EU citizenship is permanent status regardless of Brexit.

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The pro-EU activists believe legally all 66 million continue to hold the status, even when the transition period ends, allowing them to freely move and work in all 27 countries of the bloc.

As The New European reported last month, the legal case acknowledges that not all rights will applicable to UK residents - such as the right to vote or stand in European elections - but believe freedom of movement rights can still be preserved.

The campaigners argue that such status cannot be removed without their consent.

If successful it would allow UK citizens to remain EU citizens.

Dr Alexandra von Westernhagen, one of the lawyers behind the case, explained to The London Economic: Our case is formally an action partially to annul the decision of the EU Council of Ministers of 30 January 2020 which approved the UK/EU Withdrawal Agreement, insofar as it deprives the applicants, without their consent and without due process, of their status as EU citizens and their rights resulting from that status.

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The case asks what is the nature of the EU itself: is it a Union for its member states only? Or is it also a Union for and between the people of Europe? This is a fundamental question for all 515 million EU citizens and everybody else who believes in the idea of an international, value-based citizenship.

The European Commission denied to comment further, but said: We take note of the intention to begin legal proceedings.

Remain campaigners had hoped associate EU citizenship would allow those that did not support Brexit to retain links with the EU after the end of the transition period at the end of the year.

Almost four years after its creation The New European goes from strength to strength across print and online, offering a pro-European perspective on Brexit and reporting on the political response to the coronavirus outbreak, climate change and international politics. But we can only rebalance the right wing extremes of much of the UK national press with your support. If you value what we are doing, you can help us by making a contribution to the cost of our journalism.

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Campaigners file case that argues EU citizenship is permanent regardless of Brexit | Latest Brexit news and top stories - The New European

SNP warn of ‘chilling prospect’ of no-deal Brexit as UK Gov won’t extend talks – The Scotsman

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NewsPoliticsThe UK faces the "chilling prospect" of a no-deal Brexit and a double blow to the economy because of the Government's refusal to extend the transition period, Ian Blackford has warned.

Saturday, 2nd May 2020, 12:55 pm

The SNP leader at Westminster accused the Conservative Government of behaving with the "height of irresponsibility" by not extending talks with the EU in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

But Tory MP David Duguid argued that keeping the "hardline target" would "focus efforts", despite the disruption and economic damage being caused by the global lockdown.

He also suggested that to push back the leaving date would affect any companies' plans they had devised before the coronavirus lockdown, as well as causing uncertainty for business.

With the withdrawal framework needing to be agreed by June, Mr Blackford said the country is heading towards a no-deal Brexit, describing the situation as a "very chilling prospect".

Calling for the Government to accept the EU's offer of an extension to the Brexit process, he said: "On the back of the health crisis, quite rightly we've had to take measures to protect people and that's meant that we've crashed the economy.

"Many people were talking about the UK economy shrinking by 35% as a consequence of that."I have to say to the Government it's the height of irresponsibility to then threaten this second blow to the economy if we're daft enough to go down the road of a no-deal Brexit."Speaking on BBC Good Morning Scotland, Mr Blackford suggested the Government was pushing ahead with the original Brexit deadlines so they can "blame any economic impact" on the coronavirus crisis, rather than as a result of leaving the European Union.Mr Duguid said that all Conservative MPs signed a pledge before the 2019 election that the UK would leave the UK no later than December 2020 and said not doing so would hinder our ability to negotiate new trade deals.While acknowledging the coronavirus will have a "huge effect on the economy", the Banff and Buchan MP suggested that would be made worse by "kicking the can down the road" and extending the negotiations with the EU."We need to keep that hardline target, that deadline, which will focus efforts," Mr Duguid said.

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SNP warn of 'chilling prospect' of no-deal Brexit as UK Gov won't extend talks - The Scotsman

DAVID EDGERTON: Where Brexit and Covid-19 collide | Latest Brexit news and top stories – The New European

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PUBLISHED: 12:46 30 April 2020 | UPDATED: 12:46 30 April 2020

David Edgerton

Workers in the assembly area of an aircraft factory in the Midlands, building spitfires. (Photo by Hudson/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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Historian DAVID EDGERTON on the cynical fantasies about innovation and exceptionalism providing a common strand.

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The governments response to Covid-19 and Brexit are intimately connected. Recognising this is vital to understanding the politics of both. Indeed as the trade expert David Henig has noted, we will know that the UK is really serious about Covid-19 at the moment in which is prepared to say that a Brexit extension is needed. That moment has not yet come, indeed it has been ruled out.

On the face of it there is a very great difference between the two policies. In the case of Brexit the government has consistently rejected the advice of economists, including its own.

In the case of Covid-19 it constantly reiterates that it is following the science. But there is an underlying connection which is important. Brexiteer arguments are centred on fantasies about British scientific and inventive genius. The government has sought to address Covid-19 at least in part on this deluded basis.

At the beginning, Boris Johnson stood behind the science to justify a UK-only policy of delay of the Covid-19 virus. This involved minimal intervention in what Johnson took to reminding us are the freedom-loving proclivities of the British people. Too late, what looked like a cunning plan to exemplify the virtues of the British way collapsed utterly.

The UK is now, broadly-speaking, following Europe and much of the rest of the world. Following the science now sounds like a way of not answering legitimate questions.

But when it comes to ventilators, a Brexiteer innovation-fixated logic applies. The current crisis has been an opportunity to illustrate the argument that the UK was a powerful innovation nation that could do very well without the EU.

The government launched a programme, the details of which are still murky, to create new emergency ventilators. First off the blocks in the PR blitz was the Brexiteer Sir James Dyson, who was teaming up with another Brexiteer capitalist, Lord Bamford of JCB, to make many thousands of the devices.

This, it turned out was just one of many projects to design new ventilators, and to modify others for mass production. There were lots of allusions to the Second World War, as if Spitfires had been conjured out of thin air in the heat generated by patriotic enthusiasm.

It is telling too that the government decided not to take part in the EU ventilator procurement programme. This had to be a British programme for PR purposes, even though many of the companies making the components in the UK are European, like Siemens, Airbus, Thales

That wartime analogy was deeply misleading the UK was a world leader in aircraft before the Battle of Britain. It had been making Spitfires since the late 1930s, and had huge long-planned specialist factories making them.

What is clear is that we are not in 1940. The UK is not a world leader in ventilator manufacture, far from it. Furthermore, the NHS (and this is a scandal) has been under-supplied with them. The high-end ventilators the NHS now needs will and are coming from abroad.

It looks as if the British emergency ventilators will generally be low-end ones, and one at least has already been rejected. The ones that seem to be going into production are based on simple machines long in production in the UK.

Indeed, there may be a wartime analogy which could become pertinent. Churchill did attempt to conjure up new weapons in a hurry in the face of expert advice. They included anti-aircraft rockets, spigot mortars, and indeed a trench-cutting machine. They were universally late, did not work well or at all, and represented a huge waste of resources.

We should not be fooled into believing that there is a coherent industrial strategy emerging out of the epidemic, a determined move to national self-supply.

For if there were the government would not be throwing manufacturing in Britain to the winds, as its Brexit plans certainly would. For they involve the breaking up of the regulatory and customs market in which they exist, and furthermore, would open the British market not only to European producers, but those from all over the world. That is what being a global champion of free trade means.

What we need to understand is the centrality of a mythical picture of British innovation to Brexit. Brexiteer arguments for a hard Brexit hinge on the UKs supposed leadership in creativity and innovation, which was just waiting to be unleashed.

Dominic Cummings got his 800 million in the budget for a UK version of the US Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The wonderful thing about invoking science is that it suggests action, drive, modernity.

Yet what Johnson and other Brexiteers have rediscovered was a great British liberal tradition of making a lot of noise about science in order to cover up deliberate inaction, in the face of demands for a national and imperial strategy for agriculture and industry.

Before the Great War, faced with calls from the Tories for tariffs on imports, not least food, which he vehemently opposed, David Lloyd George funded agricultural research to help farmers instead.

Of course any help they might receive would be years in the future and trivial by comparison with tariffs. Similarly, in the 1920s, the government resisted protection and imperial preference by creating an Empire Marketing Board, one of whose major functions was research. It had minor impact, as intended, and was wound up the moment tariffs came in the 1930s.

The strategy has been in action for a while. After 2008 there was much talk about the march of the makers, and the northern powerhouse. One of the very few initiatives was the support, with 50m, of the Graphene Institute. Graphene, made by two Manchester University scientists, was seen as a wonder material, which would transform the fortunes of the university, its region and the whole country. It was trumpeted the key to a vibrant new future. It has not arrived. Sums like 50m can buy a lot of media coverage; they cannot buy you a real industrial strategy. Innovation capacity in batteries has been a favourite for some years. Yet there is no significant British battery industry, nor the prospect of one. Electric cars, and batteries for them, are very much more advanced in Europe, in China and in Japan. One cannot magic an industry out of thin air, whether high-end ventilators or batteries, but by referencing innovation one can pretend, for a while.

And that is where the politics of Covid-19, and Brexit, are stuck, in cynical fantasies about innovation.

David Edgerton teaches at Kings College London, where he is Hans Rausing professor of the history of science and technology and professor of modern British history; this article also appears at his blog, http://www.davidedgerton.org

Almost four years after its creation The New European goes from strength to strength across print and online, offering a pro-European perspective on Brexit and reporting on the political response to the coronavirus outbreak, climate change and international politics. But we can only rebalance the right wing extremes of much of the UK national press with your support. If you value what we are doing, you can help us by making a contribution to the cost of our journalism.

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DAVID EDGERTON: Where Brexit and Covid-19 collide | Latest Brexit news and top stories - The New European

Boris Johnson must extend Brexit talks for another YEAR, major Tory Party donor demands – Express

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Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused to extend Brexit any further as the Prime Minister has vowed to get trade talks done by December 31, 2020. But Mr Johnson is facing calls to delay following the coronavirus pandemic which have made trade negotiations challenging. The Conservative Party's leading donor, Alexander Temerko, has said to extend for at least one year.

Speaking to Sky News, Mr Temerko said: "We need a lift. It might be very slowly but very bravely.

"We definitely need to open businesses, maybe restaurants and hotels and return business to construction.

"That is very important today.

"On May 7, we need to start lifting the lockdown."

READ MORE:Labour crisis: Starmers brutal Brexit snub to Corbyn exposed

He added: "Michael Gove, Boris and Alok Sharma totally agree that we need to use our national business to create new capacity for fighting this virus."

Mr Temerko went on to give his advice on Brexit.

He said: "We don't know what kind of rule will be when we leave Europe.

"If we leave Europe, the situation will be tougher.

"My advice is to extend for one year. It's not to continue the Remain idea, I think it would be better for the economy."

Zoom drinks and informal chats could be the way of breaking the post-Brexit trade deadlock, according to insiders.

The first two rounds of trade negotiations between the UK and European Union teams have so far been conducted online via video-conferencing due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But insiders said that while there were efficiency benefits to online working, the ability to "take people off for a coffee and talk stuff through" had been lost without face-to-face contact.

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And with social distancing measures likely to be in place until a COVID-19 vaccine is discovered, both sides are said to want to find "new ways" of establishing informal conversations in a bid to break the current deadlock.

Briefing reporters on Thursday about the progress of the virtual talks, a source close to the UK negotiating team said: "The downside is you can't take people off for a coffee and talk stuff through and have the informal discussions.

"We'll have to find ways of replicating that. We'll have to do it by video-conference, by phone and by other ways and we're going to have to be tolerant of each other.

"Obviously it is still possible to have the conversations, what's more difficult to replicate is the atmospherics.

"But that doesn't mean you can't do it and we will aim to do it over the next couple of months."

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Boris Johnson must extend Brexit talks for another YEAR, major Tory Party donor demands - Express

EU free trade deal with Mexico (started at same time as Brexit) is AGREED – Express.co.uk

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Politicians, scientists, environmentalist and campaigners say the deal struck between EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan and the Mexican Minister for Economic Affairs Graciela Mrquez Coln yesterday will trigger human rights abuses and crimes against the environment. A collective of so-called civil society European organisations which took part in the so-called Toxi Tour in Mexico demand the trade deal is scrapped. The group undertook a high-profile so-called Toxi Tour of Mexico just before Christmas touring some of the nations most polluted areas to raise awareness about environmental problems and denounce companies they blamed for causing them.

On paper the deal includes measures to fight corruption and money laundering as well as investment protection, sustainable development in line with the Paris climate accord and simpler customs rules to boost exports.

But Latin-America news site Amerika21 said though the trade agreement was supposed to cover areas of human rights and the environment it actually gave more power to big business to side-step government regulations.

They added the civic society group also felt all political energies in Mexico should be focused on fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

The paper wrote: The updated trade agreement could lay the foundation for further human rights violations by European companies in Mexico.

Although it fundamentally includes the protection of human rights, while the protection of investments is characterised by the application of binding standards, the EU has always pursued a non-binding "soft law" policy with regard to human rights.

Civil society organisations believe that changing this approach is long overdue.

The new trade agreement between the European Union and Mexico should not be ratified or signed. In doing so, they are joining the global demand that the only commercial priority at the moment must be to remove obstacles to access to medical care and other resources, to strengthen public health systems and other social measures to deal with the current crisis.

But Mr Hogan said: While most of our efforts have been focused lately on tackling the coronavirus crisis, we have also been working to advance our open and fair trade agenda, which continues to be very important.

Openness, partnerships and co-operation will be even more essential as we rebuild our economies after this pandemic. I am very pleased, therefore, that together with our Mexican partners, we share similar views and that our continued work could now come to fruition.

"Todays agreement is clear evidence of our shared commitment to advance our agenda of partnership and co-operation. This agreement once in force will help both the EU and Mexico to support our respective economies and boost employment.

READ MORE:EU to cave as Brussels will give up fishery demands - UK says

The free trade contract will also trigger the interest of Brexiteers as the contract is intended to enable duty-free trade of goods between the EU and Mexico and is part of the global agreement that entered into force in 2000. In addition to political cooperation, development cooperation and human rights are also covered.

Some commentators have pointed out this is largely what Britain is asking for in the Brexit deal.

The biggest complaint from the Toxi Tour critics is it would be the first trade agreement between the EU and a Latin American country to include investment protection clauses.

Amerika21 wrote: This would strengthen the ability of transnational corporations to assert themselves against governments in both Europe and Mexico.2

The Toxi tour through Mexican industrial areas in December 2019 showed the downside of the increase in the number of multinational companies based in Mexico due to free trade agreements.

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EU free trade deal with Mexico (started at same time as Brexit) is AGREED - Express.co.uk

Brexit does not belong to one party, and Labour must play its part – LabourList

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The UK formally left the EU in January, belatedly implementing the result of the 2016 referendum. But clearly this is far from being the end of the road. The UK is bound throughout the transition period by all the obligations of a full member state. There is a great deal of disentangling to be done, and evidently a wide gap between the UKs stated intentions and what the EU appears to have in mind.

The Foundation for Independence, a fully cross-party organisation, has been established to monitor these developments and to hold the government and the opposition to account. Brexit does not belong to one party, and Labour must now fully engage in delivering on the decision of the British people to leave the EU.

The UK governments view, as set out in a recent speech by David Frost the UKs chief negotiator is that the UK should become fully independent of the EU, except in so far as we reach agreements with the EU on an intergovernmental rather than an integrated political basis, covering all the many matters on which we have a common interest.

The EUs view, on the other hand, is that in return for access to the EU market the UK should have to comply with large sections of the single market and customs union obligations to provide a level-playing field for UK-EU trade. This would entail the UK being obliged to follow EU precepts on issues varying from state aid to environmental standards, and from employment conditions to regulation on financial services.

It is the foundations view that it is right to aim for full independence, as is the position for many other countries including such varied economies as those of South Korea, Japan, Israel and Mexico with which the EU has negotiated trade deals. All such deals entail some degree of compromise on total sovereignty but none of them involve anything like the detailed interference and control that the EU is proposing in the UKs case.

The EUs main argument for its stance is that the UK is a large economy very close to Europe, and therefore in a different relationship to the EU than other countries. The foundations view is that this is not a relevant consideration provided that there is agreement on equivalence. This means that the UK and the EU both accept that trade has to be conducted to agreed standards and outcomes but that how these are reached should be up to each of the contracting parties to determine and not laid down by one side, giving the other no option other but to comply.

Labour lost many of its Red Wall seats in December last year precisely because we lost a lot of Leave voters. If Labour is to win back the trust of these voters, it must work to hold the government to account on delivering upon the commitments made in the 2016 referendum namely that Brexit would ensure that we fully take back control of our laws, borders, money and trade.

It is in this context that the independence approach is surely the fairest way to interpret the outcome of the 2016 EU referendum. This was not a vote to remain in the EU in all but name, by formally leaving but staying within the single market and the customs union as some people have proposed. That would leave us with the worst of all worlds: with all the obligations of EU membership that the UK electorate voted against, but without us having a vote on the future direction which the EU may decide to take. The UK voted to have sovereignty over our affairs, and this is what the current negotiations ought to try to achieve.

Success will depend on the resolve of the UK negotiators and on the support that they have, which is partly where the foundation comes into play. Labour also has a key role to play here, and we have some strong cards in our hands. One is the huge balance of payments deficit we run with the EU about 110bn in 2018. The EU sells far more to us than we do to them, putting them in a position where they have much more to lose than we do by the imposition of tariffs. Our huge payments deficit with the EU, incidentally, contrasts with the surplus 26bn in 2018 that we have with the rest of the world. We also pay into the EU budget some 11bn more than we get out of it every year.

The EU badly needs us to continue to pay something towards the provision of common shared services, albeit much less than we pay now. The danger is that we get pushed into making concessions on fishing, as a prime example in order to secure any kind of deal because of a fear that the alternative is another cliff edge. This is the scenario that we must avoid.

The foundation believes that a reasonable deal is in our own, as well as the EUs, interest but not if it is one-sided, in favour of the European bloc. To get there, we may have to be willing to walk away from a bad deal, and Labour should be prepared to support this. There are high stakes, and we will need strong nerves and determination to emerge with a deal that both the UK and the EU are prepared to accept.

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Post-Brexit carte system ‘will be easy’, France says – The Connexion

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The UK has said it will refuse any request to extend the Brexit transition period beyond December 31 even if the EU wants that to happen.

This means that as it stands the UK will fully leave the EUs Single Market and Customs Union by January 1, 2021.

This is also the cut-off for Britons to have established French residency to benefit from the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement (WA) deal and obtain a new residents card.

The WA came into force after the UK left the EU on January 31, and one of its sections allowed for the current transition period.

During this year, the UK temporarily keeps most of the benefits of EU membership and Britons can still move overand establish the right to maintain many rights of an EU citizen, with limited exceptions such as voting or standing in French local elections.

Britons wanting to stay long term in France and benefit from the WA will have to apply for new Brexit deal residency cards. A new French website is due to open for applications in July.

The final cut-off to apply will be six months after the transition ...

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Post-Brexit carte system 'will be easy', France says - The Connexion

Priti Patel allies to ‘demand apology’ over bullying allegations | Latest Brexit news and top stories – The New European

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PUBLISHED: 10:38 30 April 2020 | UPDATED: 10:38 30 April 2020

Home Secretary Priti Patel delivers a speech in London. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA.

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Allies of Priti Patel are demanding that critics apologise to the home secretary as she is expected to be cleared of bullying allegations.

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The Daily Telegraph reports that an investigation into the Tory MP, overseen by cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, found no evidence to support claims she had bullied staff in three different departments.

The report follows the resignation of Sir Philip Rutnam, who is suing for constructive dismissal after accusing Pate of bullying staff.

Labour has called on Michael Gove, Cabinet Office minister, to release the findings of the inquiry into the public so they could be completely assured over the conduct of government ministers.

But Brexiteer allies of the home secretary have called for an apology to Patel before the report had been released or concluded.

Mark Francois, current chair of the European Research Group, said he was glad she has been completely exonerated.

Iain Duncan Smith, former leader of the Conservative Party, said that the government should jump on the issue and bring to account those with an ulterior motive.

Former Tory MEP Daniel Hannan said those who briefed against Patel owed her an apology.

Patel made headlines earlier in the month for a lack of sincerity in her apologies to those who felt that there had been failings in the government handling of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Almost four years after its creation The New European goes from strength to strength across print and online, offering a pro-European perspective on Brexit and reporting on the political response to the coronavirus outbreak, climate change and international politics. But we can only rebalance the right wing extremes of much of the UK national press with your support. If you value what we are doing, you can help us by making a contribution to the cost of our journalism.

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Priti Patel allies to 'demand apology' over bullying allegations | Latest Brexit news and top stories - The New European

Who is on the BBC’s Question Time tonight? | Latest Brexit news and top stories – The New European

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PUBLISHED: 12:32 30 April 2020 | UPDATED: 12:46 30 April 2020

Matt Withers

Fiona Bruce, presenter of the BBC's Question Time programme. Photograph: BBC.

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Tonights audience-free virtual Question Time comes from the ether, with the show having apparently abandoned its pandemic practice of sourcing video questions from a particular town. But whos on the panel? Heres your complete guide

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Grant Shapps

Who? Transport secretary

Brought back into frontline politics by Boris Johnson after being humiliatingly demoted from the cabinet by David Cameron in 2015, Shapps is best known for living a double life as an internet marketing salesman called Michael Green while he was an MP, something he described as a joke or normal, which it is most definitely is, obviously. As Johnsons transport secretary he was expected to be tasked with kicking issues like HS2 and Heathrow expansion, two things which seemed relatively important until about six weeks ago, down the road for the next decade. Has instead been spending this week organising a flypast for Captain Tom Moores 100th birthday and urging people to hold off booking a foreign holiday this summer, advice which, in the statements of the bleeding obvious rankings, stands aside not putting pressure on the NHS by deliberately and repeatedly slamming ones own thumb in the car door.

Anneliese Dodds

Who? Shadow chancellor of the exchequer

Elected to Parliament in 2017, Dodds served 25 days on the backbenches before being promoted to Jeremy Corbyns shadow team and is now Kier Starmers shadow chancellor, being widely seen as an uncontroversial, non-factional pick. Said on Any Questions last year: Well I guess Im anti-Brexit. Well no, not guess, I am anti-Brexit. Expect more fiery rhetoric like that tonight. Anneliese Dodds fact #1: she has used the word bricolage - the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available - twice in parliamentary debates, making her the only MP to use the word in the past 219 years. Anneliese Dodds fact #2: despite being one of the most senior figures in British politics, she has a Wikipedia entry made up of 352 words, 75 fewer than little-remembered 1980s comedy band The Grumbleweeds.

Jeane Freeman

Who? Scottish Government health secretary

SNP health secretary, the inclusion of whom will infuriate nationalist tweeters forced to find something else to get blood-pressure-threateningly angry about tonight, Freeman has held the role since June 2018, having previously been responsible for social security. The former Communist has been considerably more open than her English counterpart in admitting were going to be sat in our pants watching Seinfeld for a very long time, saying we are in uncharted territory and returning to what we regard as a normal life will not be possible in the near future. Dont have nightmares!

Paul Nurse

Who? Geneticist and cell biologist

The latest beneficiary of Question Times recent innovation of booking guests who might actually know what theyre talking about, Nurse won a Nobel Prize in 2001 which, while not shielding him from people online with names like AlbionOverlord accusing him of being a shill/traitor, means hes probably worth a listen. Director of the Francis Crick Institute, he has said of the prime minister: Its galling when people who have denounced experts then come on the stage and start talking about experts. Was then attacked by claret-nosed Daily Mail columnist Nigel Lawson who accused him of sneering from the sidelines, somehow made it all about the euro and anyway, he had been speaking to a friend who knew better. Nurses full title is Sir Paul Maxime Nurse FRS FMedSci HonFREng HonFBA MAE, which must make filling in online forms an irksome task.

George Osborne

Who? Editor of the Evening Standard

In an alternative universe, in which David Cameron did not call an unnecessary and devastating referendum because he was worried about political and intellectual heavyweights like Mark Francois and Andrew Rosindell defecting to the UK Independence Party, Osborne would now be almost a year into his first full term as prime minister, leading the medical and economic fight against coronavirus. But Cameron did, meaning Osborne is now the editor of the capitals evening newspaper, a turn which the former prime minister has revealed his chancellor has expressed to him his frustration by saying: I told you not to do that f***ing referendum. Meanwhile, there is still no word as to whether Osborne has got his shorthand.

Question Time is on BBC One at 10.45pm tonight.

Almost four years after its creation The New European goes from strength to strength across print and online, offering a pro-European perspective on Brexit and reporting on the political response to the coronavirus outbreak, climate change and international politics. But we can only rebalance the right wing extremes of much of the UK national press with your support. If you value what we are doing, you can help us by making a contribution to the cost of our journalism.

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Who is on the BBC's Question Time tonight? | Latest Brexit news and top stories - The New European

Boris Johnson’s perversity on the Brexit cliff edge reminds me of the Free State’s rejection of all things British – Slugger O’Toole

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Warrenpoint Harbour

The UKs stubbornly negative approach to future relations within the EU reminds me of the newborn Free States attitude to Britain after the trauma of independence. They cant wait to be rid of even the symbols as well as the substance of the former power even to the extent of trying to deny the facts of mutual interdependence particularly over the economy. Granted there are vital differences. No blood has been spilled over Brexit and I was going to write that the EU is no imperial power; but that isnt how Brexiteers see it. We have regained our independence and all that.

Today saw the first meeting of an elaborate piece of bureaucracy which will be responsible for shaping quite a bit of Northern Irelands future destiny, the Joint Committee in which NI is represented by a senior civil servant. Its role and potential is explained here by the QUB experts on the EU Katy Hayward and David Phinnemore.

At the meeting the UK reps stuck to their guns. No need to bid for an extension for negotiations and no hurry- or no need? to set up customs at GB ports to check which goods are destined for NI only and which for onward to the RoI /EU.

The EU believes IT systems and databases for customs checks and controls need to be in place in Northern Ireland by June 1 in order for the Irish Protocol to be properly implemented, according to a nine-page note circulated to member states, reports RTEs excellent Europe editor Tony Connelly. After the meeting the EU put out an anodyne statement and the British said nothing. But behind the scenes the EU firmly rejected the UKs almost casual, light touch approach, as Connelly reports:

UK sources say EU customs and veterinary officials could enter and leave NI in the same way the EU agriculture officials periodically carry out CAP audits in member states. EU sources reject this, saying there is no comparison with the Protocol, which involves the EU is implementing its single market and customs rules in an entire chunk of a country which is no longer a member of the EU. The EU appears determined not to let the matter rest. UK sources suggest the second rejection letter means the issue is all but dead. However, I expect there will be more to come on this.

Then there is the neuralgic issue of a new EU office in Belfast to monitor compliance and the operations of the single market in the province. The British attitude to this reminds me of the slow removal from the Viceregal Lodge, of the British residual presence of the Governor General from 1933 and the offices replacement by the President in the renamed Aras an Uachtarain.

Just a few months ago the EU Commission had a full presence in Belfast as the capital of an EU region. The standoff over a new office is explained in characteristic style by Newton Emerson. The EU and the Republic have both upped the ante to open the new EU office in Belfast. Connellys report again.

discussions on an EU office in Belfast need to be advanced as a matter of urgency. This is despite the UK rejecting for a 2nd time this week the EUs request for a physical presence in NI to allow EU officials to support the implementation of the Protocol. While the meeting was regarded as constructive, with the UK putting forward more concrete proposals than they have to date, both sides are still poles apart on the EU office issue, and on how goods at risk of entering the single market (over the landborder) should be handled. Dublin also flatly rejected the idea that such an office would undermine the Good Friday Agreement. In her letter to Michel Barnier and the EUs Helga Schmidt, (the UK cabinet minister Paymaster General) Penny Mordaunt said an EU presence wd be divisive in political and community terms

And of course the DUP and Sinn Fein have fallen for it and over north-south cooperation over Covid, but perhaps not too far to be unable to get out of the hole. The DUP must see the benefit of cooperation and that imitation English nationalism will get them nowhere. But theyve yet to find the language to express it without losing face. The SDLP and Alliance would do well to keep targeting their fire on the Johnson administration while nudging their awkward Executive partners towards the goal of the common good.

Meanwhile Aodhn Connolly, director of the NI Retail Consortium was making the real pitch for our interests to the Commons ironically entitled Committee on Unfettered access. From his twitter notes.

The Joint Committee There is a difference in Perception. EU thinks that it is about the implementation of the laws that are explicit within the Withdrawal Agreement & UK think it is about negotiation & mitigation. That means friction from day one The first iteration of the NI Protocol had very little friction between NI and GB and vice versa. Now there are new regulatory, jurisdictional and enforcement issues to the free flow of goods including different customs arrangement and remember friction = cost.

Joint Comm has to talk to biz it & give an evidentiary threshold of how it will judge what is it and whats not at risk. It needs to make decisions on 100ks products. All guidance/procedures need to be issued the biz & business needs time to implement. Time we dont have!

Retail and consumers in NI dont have room to absorb higher costs if there is friction. Retail is a high vol low profit margin industry c2% for some major retailers so no wiggle room. NI households have half of the discretionary income of GB so they cant absorb rises.. Unless goods can show that they are not at risk then there will be the presumption that they are at risk. The EU priority will be to protect the customs Union and the single market. For them this is not just about Brexit & the UK but every other border they have too.

Theres been talk of possible waivers & facilitations and of a Special 3rd country status. . But that wont happen. There is no Hail Mary pass or gentlemens agreement. This all has to be pinned down in legislation and treaty. We need an FTA & agreements. A legal framework

Its not for business to interpret the legislation. Needs to be clear and unequivocal guidance from the UK govt & Northern Ireland Exec. We also NEED to see a UK draft plan on the custom checks between NI & GB to allow us to prepare properly.

Some talk about fixing 1 part and think the whole of the friction is fixed. Thats not right. This is a jigsaw of friction pieces that need sorted, SPS, customs, VAT, security & Safety, transit, all need sorted if we are to give the NI public the same choice and affordability.

From UK we need: Reconstitution of the Alter Arguments Working Group to look at NI-GB-NI trade. Biz needs access to Joint Comm to explain challenges & support needed An economic impact assessment UKG on the effects of the protocol on NI business & NI households.

Added to the pressure of leaving the EU on 1 Jan we also have the Corona virus to deal with which is already having a devastating effect. It has proved that Just In Time Supply chains when they work are great but delays or problems can have huge knock on effects.

Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London

See the article here:

Boris Johnson's perversity on the Brexit cliff edge reminds me of the Free State's rejection of all things British - Slugger O'Toole