Monthly Archives: July 2021

Here then is a chance for the UK to adopt a fairer approach, boosting livelihoods and helping to ensure fewer Africans make the perilous trip to Europe. Finished African products could benefit UK consumers thanks to lower prices. Last year, the UK set out plans to boost Africa-UK trade. At the time, the Government said: Africa has 8 of the worlds 15 fastest growing economies and there is huge demand on the continent for clean, sustainable and innovative investment. As home to some of the worlds most enterprising technologies and the financial centre of the world in the City of London, the UK is perfectly placed to meet that demand and be the continents investment partner of choice.

Among the Department for International Developments 370m worth of programmes was 200m to help build trade infrastructure in southern Africa. At that time, African and UK firms announced 6.5bn worth of deals, while the Government announced that the UK had signed trade agreements with 11 African countries, covering 43 per cent of the UKs total trade with the continent. Unfortunately, Covid has disrupted much of this, while the global south has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic and global lockdowns, lacking the financial firepower of the developed world.

This then makes the need for the UK to help African countries develop their industrial capacity all the more vital, connecting the dynamism of a youthful continent with the financial specialism of the City, as well as the technological expertise of the likes of Oxford and Cambridge. The EU has been a poor friend to Africa, all the while talking up its progressive ideals. By contrast, post-Brexit Britain has a unique opportunity to build a new type of partnership to develop African industry, starting with English-speaking Commonwealth countries, utilising diaspora networks, and demonstrating that sound ethics and economics need not be incompatible in the world of international trade.

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Post-Brexit Britain can be the friend to Africa that the EU never was - Telegraph.co.uk

DOVER, England, July 9 (Reuters) - Trade disruption could return if British holidaymakers head for European summer breaks, the head of the country's biggest port said, calling on the government to urgently reconsider funding to redevelop Dover to prevent long-term damage.

Britain's passage out of the European Union was eased by a lack of tourist traffic to France during the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling port staff to process the extra paperwork now required for trucks to access Europe and keep goods moving.

But the government dropped a travel quarantine requirement for fully vaccinated Britons on Thursday, potentially increasing the number of vehicles that could descend on the south-west port over the summer holiday months. read more

A pre-Brexit trade rush led to 20-mile queues, but Doug Bannister, CEO of the Port of Dover, told Reuters the site had so far managed the switch to customs checks well, after Britain left the EU trade bloc at the end of 2020.

"That's because we haven't seen the demand for tourists coming from our facilities, as we would normally expect to see," he said on a bright sunny day as a ferry departed for Calais.

"There will be longer transaction times and more processing," Bannister said, if there was a rapid return of passenger cars to Dover, which was used by some 2.4 million trucks, 2 million tourist cars and 74,000 coaches in 2019.

Britain's transport minister Grant Shapps has said that new vaccination status checks could also cause queues at airports and ports, including the busy cross-Channel route.

BREAKING POINT

British industry had warned in the run-up to Brexit - which took Britain out of the EU's single market and customs union - that the supply chains could be strained to breaking point.

Even the government said that some 7,000 trucks could back up from Dover if they failed to fill out paperwork correctly.

Instead, a December rush to stockpile goods in the country meant trade dropped off in January and enabled manufacturers and logistics groups to adapt to the new demands.

Dover, just 21 miles across the Channel from the French coast, had applied to the government for 33 million pounds in funding to adapt the port for the additional checks it needs to make, an application that was rejected.

It is challenging that in court.

Now it is asking again, and for more, to build increased passport checking capacity, to reroute some traffic and make it easier for trucks with the wrong paperwork to leave a site that is sandwiched between Dover's towering white cliffs and the sea.

Dover is also unclear on what changes it would need to make, if any, before the introduction of a new EU security plan, the Entry/Exit System, that collects data on the movement of people.

"We handle 122 billion pounds ($168 billion) worth of trade every year, and that is significant," Bannister said. "Now if that starts to curtail, then that's going to be felt throughout all regions of the United Kingdom."

"If the money is not forthcoming then we've got some tricky decisions to make."

Bannister said it was only logical that the government should fund the redevelopment because increased customs checks formed part of the Brexit deal it had negotiated. He said an "alternative funding mechanism from government" was now needed.

A spokesman for the government, which has given money to the local area and built nearby customs processing centres, said it could not comment because of the legal proceedings, which it said it would "robustly" contest.

($1 = 0.7256 pounds)

Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Alexander Smith and Raissa Kasolowsky

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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EXCLUSIVE Dover warns of Brexit trade disruption as tourists hit Europe - Reuters UK

The EUs latest concessions on enforcing post-Brexit trade rules at Northern Ireland ports dont touch the heart of the problem as Brussels still seeks to impose an impossibly rigorous trade border there, according to U.K. Brexit point-man David Frost.

Frost told the Policy Exchange think tank Thursday hes determined to reduce current volumes of checks on goods arriving from Britain without imposing more, as the EU expects.

He left open the prospect of Britain defying the EU when a ban on shipments of British chilled meat products is due to come into force at the end of September.

The Northern Ireland protocol, agreed as part of the U.K.s Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, requires Britain to enforce EU customs and sanitary controls on goods shipped to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. It's designed to avoid imposing such controls on the 500-kilometer border with the Republic of Ireland.

Seeking to avert a potential trade war, Frosts European Commission counterpart in ongoing negotiations, Maro efovi, last week announced a three-month delay on enforcement of the chilled meat ban. He also pledged new EU legislation to ensure British medicine supplies can keep flowing without restriction to Northern Ireland hospitals and pharmacies.

Yet under terms of the trade protocol agreed by Frost, the EU still expects chilled meat shipments from Britain to stop by October 1. On the same date, it expects Britain to launch customs and sanitary checks on consumer parcels and retail products coming from Britain but staying in Northern Ireland another part of the protocol deal that Britain unilaterally postponed arguing that companies, port staff and IT systems couldnt handle the load.

We need to find a new balance in the way this works. That needs to be taken seriously as a way forward, said Frost, speaking alongside Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis. If operating the protocol on the current basis is making the situation worse, then how can pressing for even more of it be the right response?

Frost said he would present the Westminster Parliament with his negotiating plans before it rises July 22. These plans, he said, foresee a big effort by both sides to resolve their protocol arguments in talks likely to extend into the autumn.

Yet Frost ruled out the EUs central proposal to eliminate four-fifths of proposed checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain: a temporary agreement aligning the U.K. to the EUs food and veterinary standards.

Obviously, aligning with or adopting the EUs agri-food legislation is not going to be a solution, Frost said. We are sometimes accused of being ideological for not accepting that. But actually, the ideological thing is to say that the only solution to these problems is that we adopt EU law. That is simply a non-starter for this problem.

He accused the EU of not providing detailed responses to more than a dozen issues highlighted in U.K. position papers, nor engaging seriously with the U.K.s counterproposal for an equivalence agreement. This would involve the EU accepting that U.K. standards dont currently deviate from EU requirements; it wouldnt bind the U.K. to observe any upcoming EU legislation on food or animal health.

Wed like to discuss this in depth. It hasnt been possible at the moment. But an alternative solution is on the table [and] can be discussed, he said.

Frost said efovis conciliatory moves last week were welcome signs of flexibility, but theyre not really the heart of the problem. This reflected Prime Minister Boris Johnson's assessment Wednesday that they represented only "a stay of execution."

If the protocol is implemented in a way in which the GB-Northern Ireland trade boundary is like any other external boundary of the EU, then we will definitely have problems, because it isnt that and we cant operate it as if it was.

Lewis said the upcoming October 1 rules, if enacted as the EU wants, would require British supermarkets with no outlets in the Republic of Ireland (such as Asda and Sainsbury's) to face the same level of bureaucracy as those like M&S and Tesco that do ship goods there via Northern Ireland ports.

The threat of increased red tape and costs for veterinary certificates would deter many firms in England, Scotland and Wales from continuing to fulfill orders in Northern Ireland, he warned.

If you cant get a product through Amazon or from your supermarket that you used to be able to get, that as a U.K. citizen you should be able to get, that is an issue, Lewis said.

Both Cabinet ministers were asked about blistering criticisms levied against them this week by John Bruton, a former Irish prime minister and EU ambassador to Washington.

Bruton argued that conceding to British demands for lax or loophole-filled controls at the ports of Belfast and Larne would set a dangerous precedent and undermine Irelands own essential access to the EU single market.

Frost and Lewis, he predicted, would spend the three-month extension of the chilled meat ban inciting feeling against the EU and endeavoring to pressurize EU states individually, in the hope that the EU will dilute or corrode the legal foundations of the EU single market in the interest of domestic U.K. politics.

Frost and Lewis declined to respond directly to those criticisms. But Frost said the current poor state of U.K.-EU relations couldnt improve until their deadlock over the protocol was decisively broken.

The issues around the protocol are obviously central to the tensions between us, Frost said. I dont think we will ever get this relationship onto a new and constructive footing unless we can find a good solution to this problem which everybody in Northern Ireland can live with, which we can work with and which the EU can work with."

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UKs Frost says EU dodging heart of problem in post-Brexit trade - POLITICO Europe

More than eight in 10 business owners believe Brexit will have a long-term negative impact on trading with almost half reporting a hit from the UKs exit from the European Union at the turn of this year, a survey conducted for i has found.

Conducted six months after Brexit, the survey of firms by tax and advisory firm Blick Rothenberg also found that 80 per cent of respondents found the Covid-19 pandemic has hit firms harder than Brexit, but that in the longer term the ending of free trade with the EU will have a more detrimental effect.

Alex Altmann, head of the Brexit advisory team at Blick Rothenberg, said: While 47 per cent of the responders said that the first six months after Brexit had either a negative or very negative impact to their business, close to 80 per cent said the disruptions due to the pandemic had an even more negative impact to their business than Brexit.

News and analysis, direct from Westminster to your inbox

However, over 80 per cent of responders also said that in the longer-term, Brexit will have a negative impact overall and their expectation is that the UK economy will shrink due to the Brexit deal.

More than half of businesses said revenue had either declined or strongly declined due to Brexit, and just under 45 per cent said they experienced a loss or a significant loss in the last six months since the UK left the EU.

Mr Altmann added: The main reasons for this seem to be complying with the complicated new customs rules (65 per cent) and new VAT rules (50 per cent). But operational challenges, like new administrative burdens, additional taxes and duties (51 per cent) and difficulties recruiting staff (40 per cent) were also considered some of the main disrupters.

The survey also found 81 per cent of firms believe the UK Government should allow more EU citizens to live and work in the UK.

This reflects the devastating impact the new immigration rules have had to UK employers, who struggle to recruit qualified staff in various sectors of the economy, said Altmann.

The poll also asked businesses how well the Government had supported them since 1 January, with two thirds saying it had been unsupportive or very unsupportive. More than 80 per cent added they had found it challenging or very hard to find out about specific legislation related to Brexit.

Mr Altmann said: Given that Brexit is the biggest economic reform in over 50 years, these responses are a bruising reality check for the Brexit information campaign. The business community seems to have lost trust in how the Government is dealing with Brexit and something will have to change over the next months to help businesses recover.

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Brexit: Eight in 10 businesses believe leaving EU will cause long-term hurt for UK economy - iNews

Playwright and dramatist James Graham predicted future political plays will be about Brexit or its legacy, as he was made an OBE.

Graham wrote the Emmy and Bafta-nominated TV drama Brexit: The Uncivil War, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Dominic Cummings, but he said he is not looking to create a sequel.

Speaking after receiving his honour from the Prince of Wales during a St Jamess Palace investiture ceremony, Graham said: The story just keeps rolling and rolling and the impact of that vote, but I think to be honest Ive done as much as I can find interesting about that particular campaign.

But I think in a weird kind of way almost every political play, or political drama, will in some way be about Brexit or the legacy or the inheritance of Brexit, we wont be able to escape it, its defined the moment were living through.

Graham has a string of successful plays behind him including Ink, about the early days of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and This House, which was praised by some MPs for its rendition of life in the Commons.

James Graham receives his award from the Prince of Wales (Aaron Chown/PA)

The writer said he was honoured to be made an OBE, adding: Its not what you expect when you take your first touring show on the road and you have to build the sets in the back of a pub somewhere.

I think theatre in particular has this perception that its very sort of glamorous, but its often incredibly hard work and especially at the end of the pandemic.

Its really hit freelancers particularly hard, whether youre a playwright or youre an actor or musician.

Graham said he remains optimistic about the future of the arts, with the prospect of venues being able to welcome full audiences next week.

He said: I was really pleased that the Government made the right decision to give sector-specific support and it was at scale, that saved tens of thousands of jobs.

Theres been downsides as well. I understand its a difficult situation for the Government to predict but the yo-yoing and the back and forth between opening and closing, opening and closing thats been devastating for finances but also morale.

But its a really exciting moment to finally be entering the summer and theatres opening up.

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Brexit and its legacy will influence political dramas for years, says playwright - Yahoo Eurosport UK

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EU academics are doing their research and they don't like the look of post-Brexit Britain - FE News