Monthly Archives: June 2022

Britain today is a poor and divided country. Parts of London and the southeast of England might be among the wealthiest places on the planet, but swaths of northern England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are among Western Europes poorest. Barely a decade ago, the average Brit was as wealthy as the average German. Now they are about 15 percent poorerand 30 percent worse off than the typical American.

The great project of Boris Johnsons government is to unite and level up the country, bringing the rest of Britain into line with the southeast. This is a mission explicitly tied to Brexit and the threat of Scottish secession, the two great revolutionary challenges facing the British state.

Johnson is not alone in believing that the division between the south and the rest is so big that it threatens the very integrity of the United Kingdom. Yet for him, Brexit was both an expression of Britains great dividea vote against the status quoand an opportunity to fix it, by giving the government new freedoms that it did not have within the European Union.

In the 2016 Brexit referendum and then in the 2019 general election, Johnson offered voters the chance to take back control of their destiny, to rebalance the country and to pull it together again. On both occasions, he won.

Six years on, however, we can safely say his project is failing. His government is busy trying to wrest back more control rather than exercising what it has regained. It has not united the country. It has not even begun to level it up.

The truth is, this government wont accomplish any of that. Until Britain stops trying to restore a vanished pastwhether the one imagined by its pro-Brexit Leavers or its anti-Brexit Remainersand begins to construct a viable future, the country as a whole never will.

So now, tell me how was Yorkshire? Cardinal Wolsey asks Thomas Cromwell in the opening pages of Hilary Mantels Wolf Hall, her fictionalized biography of Cromwell. Filthy, Cromwell replies. Weather. People. Manners. Morals Oh, and the food. Five miles inland, and no fresh fish. Appalled, Wolsey asks what they do eat up there. Londoners, Cromwell says. You have never seen such heathens.

In much of the self-excoriating public debate since the referendum, the image of the heathen northerner has once again risen in the national consciousness, blamed by liberal Remainers for dragging the country out of the EU. Todays northerners might be able to find fresh fish, but they dwell in left behind towns, apparently voting for revolution out of desperation because they have so little to lose. Never mind that the bulk of Brexit supporters were comfortable older people, many of them in the prosperous south; the image of the poor Brexit-backing northerner, said to have been conned by clever salesmen like Johnson, is the one that has stuck. The implication is that the 48 percent who voted to remain were smart enough to see through Johnsons lies and promises.

In some important senses, however, the pledges made by the Vote Leave campaignthe official movement calling for Britains withdrawalhave been delivered. In its pitch to the country, Vote Leave claimed that Brexit would achieve five key things: It would save Britain 350 million a week that it could spend on its own priorities; reclaim control of the countrys borders, as well as its immigration system; and leave it free to strike trade deals independently of the EU, and to make its own laws. Of these, only the 350 million figure remains contentious as an outright lie. (The real amount Britain contributed to the EU was lower, once various deductions were taken into account.) The other pledges, however, have been largely fulfilled: Liberated from the EUs freedom of movement principle, Britain now operates its own border outside the EU and its own immigration system; no longer part of the EUs trading bloc, it operates its own trade policy and manages its own internal market, governed by its own laws; and, of course, it no longer contributes to the EU budget. For good or bad, Britain has taken back control. Well, up to a point.

On laws, Britain can be said to have only partially taken back control, given that EU law still applies in one part of its territory, Northern Ireland. (Since Brexit, both Britain and the EU have sought to ensure that no border is erected between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland, a separate sovereign state. The result has been a de facto border between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain, with EU rules and regulations still applicable on one side but not the other.) This means that every time London wishes to scrap an EU law that would continue to apply in Northern Ireland, it risks dividing its own country. Partly for this reasonbut more likely because a lot of EU laws are either sensible or popularthe government has only sparingly used its control to diverge from the EU. Britain continues to run a distinctly European social and economic model, but without the benefits of being in the EUs single market.

On trade, Britain has essentially rebuilt the network of deals that it had as a member of the EU, but it now has a much worse relationship with its biggest trading partner, the EU. It has not pursued a radically different strategy with the goal of changing the nature of its economyusing protectionism, say, to build domestic capacity, or unilateral free trade that would sacrifice inefficient industry. Ironically, the one trade deal that might have made at least something of a difference to Britainwith the United Statesis now politically impossible, in large part because of Washingtons opposition to Britains efforts to take back some of the legal control that it has lost over Northern Ireland. And instead of trying to liberalize global services trade, which would have a huge impact on the British economy, it has prioritized symbolic trade deals with faraway countries such as New Zealand, which make almost no difference.

Then we come to borders. Britain has negotiated itself into the preposterous position of operating two borders, neither of which it wants. The first, as we have seen, sits within its own country; the second sits at Britains busiest trading route with the continent, but which only the EU enforces. Six years after the Brexit referendum, all goods moving from Britain to France are checked by the EU, yet hardly any are checked in return, partly because Britain has not built the capacity to do so. For European businesses, this couldnt be better: Their access to the British market is largely unchanged. For British businesses, the one-sided frontier is a disaster. London argues that the EU is punishing itself by making British goods more expensive to import. The EU simply shrugs, able to absorb this limited cost as the price of protecting its market. Either way, the resultagainis just a version of the status quo ante for Britain, only indisputably worse.

Of the ostensibly fulfilled promises, immigration is the most complex. Here, London has introduced a points-based system that, againon the face of itis different from what came before. Instead of there being free movement within the EU, offering priority to European citizens, Britain today operates a system open to anyone in the world, without a preference for Europeans. Yet it has used this newfound control to effectively maintain immigration levels, rather than reduce them. Supporters of this policy say the fact that Britain is directly in control of who comes into the country means people are more at ease with high levels of immigration. Some initial evidence indicates that this is true. Still, yet againand for good or badBritain has chosen to maintain the same kind of high-immigration economic model it had before Brexit, rather than substantially change it.

So far, Britain has chosen the hardest, most expensive version of Brexit available, one that leaves the country divided and its businesses disadvantaged, without having bothered to do anything that would actually alter the basic nature of the economy. Brexit, then, turned out to be both more radical than its supporters claimed, leaving the British economy indisputably worse off, and far less radical than its opponents warned.

In Wolf Hall, Cardinal Wolsey realizes he really should go to Yorkshire himself at some point, given that he is the archbishop of York and has never actually visited his see. His goal is not to help build that archdiocese, however, but to divert income from his northern monasteries to fund two new colleges in the south. How little things change.

Today, as in Wolseys time, almost all of Britains great institutions and national assets remain in the south, promoted and protected by those in charge in London: the City of Londons finance sector, Heathrow Airport, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the pharmaceutical and technology industries, all of the countrys world-class museums, its biggest media companies, its highest law courts. The U.K.s only core economic asset that remains outside the south is the oil and gas industry in Scotland, and even that is disappearing.

It hasnt always been this way. During the Victorian era, parts of northern England were genuinely wealthy. Thanks to the industrial revolution, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, and Belfast were centers of the world. Today, they are fine cities, but have once again fallen behind their European counterparts. Although we dont like to admit it, they are poor. As the economist Torsten Bell told me recently: Yes, this is what failure looks like.

In some senses, this is just a reversion to the historic mean. In The Shortest History of England, the historian and author James Hawes notes how the north-south divide was buried in the soil of the country, there when the Romans came. When Emperor Claudius looked at Britain, Hawes writes, he only cared about the tribes already advanced enough to be making and using coinsall of whom were in the south. By the time Cardinal Wolsey was running things 1,500 years later, the divide remained in place. We know this because the real Wolsey carried out surveys of England, which show that the areas most heavily Romanized at the turn of the millennium were still the richest in England in the 16th century. As Hawes puts it, despite the fall of the Roman Empire, the English invasions, the Vikings, the Conquest, the High Medieval boom, the Black Death and the Wars of the Roses, the North-South divide was almost exactly the same. And it is almost exactly the same today.

Ultimately, as manufacturing began to wilt after the Victorian boom and the Second World War, so too did the north. Every prime minister since Margaret Thatcher has tried to address the problem, and all have failed. Now it is Johnsons turn.

Yet leveling up, like taking back control, is radical in theory and conservative in practice. Johnson proposes to close a 2,000-year-old divide with a few more bus routes, some free ports, the relocation of parts of government departments out of London, and a leveling up fund of 4.8 billion, equivalent to 0.2 percent of Britains annual GDP.

Brexit seems, if anything, to be making this problem worse, as London, with its service-sector economy, recovers far more quickly than the rest of the country. This, in turn, naturally leaves the Treasury more reliant on the south for its revenue, while being able to spend less to change the reality of the north-south divide than it did before, thanks to a slowing economy. So the cycle continues, nothing changing, only degrading.

Johnson seems to grasp the historic nature of the challenge while also being singularly useless at being able to do anything about it. When I interviewed him last year, he admitted that governments struggled to change the deep-seated historical realities of a nation. Its very, very hard to change the fundamentals, he said. He had been reading about Shakespearean England and some of the challenges that existed then and now. He nevertheless insisted that it was possible to change things quickly. Less than 100 years ago, Liverpool was producing more tax than London, he told me. The regional imbalance can shift quite quickly with local leadership, infrastructure, and great skills.

But Johnson offers almost nothing of practical value when it comes to addressing this imbalance. He says he doesnt support jam spreading, taking from the south to give to the north. Instead, Johnson wants the north to level up to the south without anyone suffering any pain and without his government actually exercising much of the control it paid such a heavy price to take back. There is no strategy, no plan, no vision of what Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, or Sheffield need in order to become as wealthy as the south; no idea of what major interventions the government must make to balance the playing field, what is required for the north to reach the kind of prosperity enjoyed across much of Northern Europe. Instead, his government offers ad hoc, politically driven nonsense, pulled in different directions by its voters based in red wall towns that will not be the engines of any rebalancing on one side, and Labour-supporting northern cities that have the genuine capacity to grow on the other.

It is all so depressing, all so familiar. In the 19th century, just a few years after Britain and Ireland formed a United Kingdom, the Anglo-Irish politician William Cusack Smith concluded that England was just not interested enough in making the union work. Can a Unionist avoid blushing when he contrasts the performance with the promise? The same could be said of this government.

Britain today cannot even commit to completing the first new train line outside the south since Queen Victoria died. Instead it has canceled one leg of the project, known as HS2, that was meant to go to the northeast, Britains poorest region, and another spur in the northwest. No one now even talks of extending it to Scotland. In London, meanwhile, a giant new 18.9 billion underground line has just opened, connecting the east and west of the capital, cutting journey times to Heathrow. Outside London, only one other city has any real metro system of note, while Leeds remains the biggest city in Europe without an underground or a tram network. If you want to travel from Leeds to Manchesterthe two richest cities in northern Englandyou must board a train that still runs on diesel.

Even when the government is given the chance to create a regional hub away from London, it misses the mark. Leeds hosts an offshoot of the Bank of England, as well as a new state investment bank. Yet when the Treasury was weighing where to locate a new hub, it chose Darlington, a town selected in large part because it sits within the red wallconstituencies long held by Labour that Johnson won in 2019rather than because it made any economic sense. I happen to be from Darlington and am happy for my hometown, but the decision exposes the governments lack of seriousness about leveling up.

In all of this, we see the same story over and over again. Little bits of government get moved out of London, each to a different place, each welcomed by whichever town has won the race to attract the jobs, but each doing nothing in the grand scheme of things to rebalance the country, a task that requires commerce, industry, infrastructure, investment, and difficult choices that prioritize some places over others. Through it all, London remains utterly dominant; the economy, the political class, and the country plod on.

The truth is, its already too late for Johnsons leveling-up agenda. It may even be too late for the next government, because not a single potential Conservative leadership candidate nor the opposition Labour Party has developed any kind of strategy that might significantly shift the fundamentals of the British economy.

Brexit represents the single biggest upheaval for Britains economic model since the country joined the European Economic Community in 1972. Yet the government seems to be largely attempting to hold the line, only under significantly worse circumstances. Today, no political party seems to be genuinely considering changing the Bank of Englands mandate, or overhauling how the economy is run by the government; building a rival to Heathrow in the north; or even relocating a single national museum away from the south. No party says the great cities of the north should be connected with a transport network the size and scope of Londons or recommends completely different tax, planning, and investment ruleseither for the country as a whole, or just for the parts outside the southeast of England. Nothing radical is ever put forward to prioritize northern growth, pursue a different economic strategy, overhaul the regulatory environment or tax system, or actually do something transformative. Instead, parties propose the most minor, insubstantial tweaks to a basic settlement that already exists, has always existed, and has been failing for much of the country, leading to two successive votes against the status quo.

Perhaps the brutal reality is that the north-south divide cannot be fixed. It existsa part of British life and history to be managed, reflected upon, and even at times celebrated (not everywhere wants to be as expensive and crammed as the southeast of England). And perhaps the British economy cannot be fundamentally altered, though surely it can be a lot wealthier than it is today.

The truth that fewwhether they are Leavers or Remainerswish to face up to is that of Britains economic failure. For Leavers, it is difficult to acknowledge that Brexit has amounted to a bad deal, negotiated from a position of extraordinary weakness, that has left Britain in an obviously worse position than it was before and with no clear strategy to build something better. For Remainers, meanwhile, this means accepting that the British economy, with its high levels of inequality and poverty masked by a wealthy capital, wasnt doing very well inside the EU; its also difficult to acknowledge that though Brexit has been an upheaval, it hasnt changed the basic structure of the British economy or its biggest dilemma, which is how to make the north much wealthier than it is today without undermining its only globally productive region, the south.

Brexit means an up-front hit to the economy, although not necessarily a disastrous one, Duncan Weldon, the author of Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through, an economic history of Britain, told me. With the right policy choices and some sort of coherent plan, the country could still thrive. But we arent seeing much coherence; instead we have a scattergun of short-term, mostly reactive measures.

Britains choice, as Bell, the economist, put it to me, is the same as it was inside the EU: to double down on what its good ator to get poorer. Brexit will not bring back manufacturing, as some hoped, or magically turn the country into a laissez-faire trading hub like Singapore. Britain is a service-sector economy that can do well inside or outside the EUif it governs itself properly.

But ultimately, what Britain has been doing hasnt been working. Voters said so in 2016, and again in 2019. The country needs to start doing something different. And yet it wont, because that would be too difficult. That would mean not simply taking control, but exercising it.

Read this article:

What Brexit Promised, and Boris Johnson Failed to Deliver - The Atlantic

A truck arrives at Larne port in County Antrim, where a customs post has been established as part of the Northern Ireland Protocol, on November 29, 2021. Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A truck arrives at Larne port in County Antrim, where a customs post has been established as part of the Northern Ireland Protocol, on November 29, 2021.

When the United Kingdom officially left the European Union, Northern Ireland stayed behind in one significant way.

The country effectively remained part of the EU's single market for goods, a concept that allows goods to move freely among the member states. That condition was called the Northern Ireland Protocol.

This week, the U.K. government announced a proposal to rework part of the agreement it made with the EU during Brexit in a move one European official called "illegal."

It's set off an international trade dispute between the U.K. and the EU, and threatened to disrupt the relative peace in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement was reached in 1998.

"When we look at people's concerns around the protocol, above all else, no matter what background people are from, their concern is for political stability in Northern Ireland," Katy Hayward, a professor of political sociology at Queen's University Belfast, told NPR.

"I think this is why a majority of people are very keen for the UK and the EU to find their way back to the negotiating table fairly quickly."

When Brexit took effect, it meant that the Republic of Ireland remained in the EU while Northern Ireland left the bloc.

In lieu of creating a land border on the island of Ireland, officials agreed to allow Northern Ireland to effectively stay in the EU's single market, a deal that was known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.

That meant that goods coming into Northern Ireland from England, Scotland and Wales had to meet EU standards and were subject to other rules governing the single market.

Britain has delayed implementing post-Brexit import controls several times, Reuters reported.

The government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who narrowly survived a recent no-confidence vote, is now the driving force behind a new bill that would undo parts of the protocol.

The proposal by Johnson's government would allow goods to flow into Northern Ireland under either UK or EU rules. It aims to lessen costs and paperwork for businesses in the UK.

Finally, disputes that are currently resolved by the European Court of Justice would instead go to independent arbitration under the proposal.

"This is a reasonable, practical solution to the problems facing Northern Ireland," Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement.

"Let's call a spade a spade: this is illegal," Maro efovi, the European Union's vice president for interinstitutional relations and foresight, said on Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had spoken with Truss and discussed the "need to continue negotiations with the EU to find solutions" regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The UK proposal also renewed fears of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, a possibility that the protocol explicitly aimed to avoid to maintain the relative peace between the two countries.

Decades of violence between nationalists and unionists known as the Troubles largely ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

But Hayward said she heard concerns about the return of a hard border while doing research in the region during the Brexit withdrawal negotiations from 2017 onward.

"It wasn't so much the question of customs checks and controls that people were concerned about," she said. "It immediately evoked those memories that people had of the Troubles and of blocked roads and of army checks."

In response to the recent proposal, the European Commission announced on Wednesday that it was launching infringement proceedings against the U.K. for violating the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The complaints include accusations that the UK is understaffed at border control posts in Northern Ireland and isn't carrying out the required controls. Additionally, the commission said the UK has failed to provide certain trade data related to Northern Ireland.

The commission also relaunched another infringement proceeding it first filed in 2021 "notably regarding the certification requirements for the movement of agri-food."

A spokesperson for Johnson said the government was "disappointed" by the commission's legal action.

Read more here:

A trade dispute between the U.K. and the EU erupts over post-Brexit deal - NPR

Remainer George Osborne has predicted that the UK will be back in the European Union in 20 years' time.

The former Conservative Chancellor claimed Brexit has "caused a lot of damage to Britain's economy".

Speaking to LBC, Mr Osborne said: "Politics can't defy reality it's not unimaginable in 20 years time, to have a set of economic arrangements with the EU which aren't too distant from the economic arrangements we had when we were in the EU.

"In many ways, the people I respect most are the Brexiteers who say there's an economic cost to Brexit, but there are other benefits, such as parliamentary control, and sovereignty over our borders.

"What was nonsense and remains nonsense are the people who say Brexit was a great economic move to benefit the British economy, or a great act of free trade.

"It was the biggest act of protectionism in British history, and that is only now really, now it's fully implemented, becoming clear, and that's why free trade with Europe has got to be a priority for whoever the government in the next few years."

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Brexit LIVE: 'Real threat' EU mask slips as bitter plot to punish Britain backfires - Express

In the resurfaced BBC EU Election debate clip the then Sinn Fein MEP and convicted IRA bomber clashed with other Northern Irish politicians over the Brexit backstop which later transformed into the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol. Martina Anderson, who has since stepped down as an MEP, was slapped down after suggesting the backstop was needed to prevent "contaminating" produce from reaching the island of Ireland from Great Britain.

In the BBC Northern Ireland EU election night debate from 2019, Ms Anderson told the audience that the Brexit backstop is needed to prevent "contaminated produce" from Britain.

She said: "What [the backstop] presents is contaminated produce perhaps coming from Britain onto the island of Ireland."

"Oh come on!" a fellow panellist can be heard yelling which sparks a round of applause from the crowd.

TUV leaderJim Allister then makes a pointed remark about Ms Anderson's former involvement in the Irish Republican Army's bombing campaign.

He told the audience: "This is someone who contaminated GB with bombs!"

Michelle O'Neill has warned that the British Government's plan to enact legislation to scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol will have "colossal political and economic consequences".

The Sinn Fein Stormont leader said that Boris Johnson's plan to override parts of the protocol has "sounded alarm bells" across Europe and America.

Speaking at the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown, Co Kildare, the first minister-designate told the crowd that it was an "irrefutable fact" that the protocol is working.

"Boris Johnson is incapable of accepting in a straightforward, honest, and truthful way that this is the case," Ms O'Neill added.

"The attempts this week by Boris Johnson to sabotage the protocol in plain sight have sounded the alarm bells right across Ireland, Britain, Europe, and America, awakening all those who value the Good Friday Agreement and who care deeply about safeguarding our peace and progress of the past quarter-century.

"It is not taken lightly that this British Government discards international law at a whim in such a reckless way, and only ever in their own selfish interests.

"Boris Johnson knows that to gamble the protocol is to jeopardise the British Government's agreement with the EU on their withdrawal and future trading relationship with colossal political and economic impact.

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"The Tories have no mandate on this island.

"However, a majority of those MLAs recently elected do and there is a majority in the Assembly who support the protocol because it is working, giving us continued access to the European single market, creating jobs and economic benefit."

Ms O'Neill called for all of Northern Ireland to re-enter the EU and said the Irish Government "must plan for constitutional change".

"We need re-entry back into the EU for all of Ireland," she added.

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Brexit backstop needed to stop UK 'contaminating' Ireland, MEP warns in unearthed clip - Express

The Prime Minister penned a piece in the Telegraph which championed the Commonwealth and praised Brexit Britain for taking advantage of the opportunity to strengthen ties with old allies after leaving the European Union. The Commonwealth has played a leading role in 2022 and will continue to do so until the year comes to a close.

Many people in the 54 countries which are members of the Commonwealth marked the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations earlier this month.

Commonwealth countries will come together yet again in little over a month's time as athletes descend on England's second city to contest the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

However, Mr Johnson, who became the Telegraph's Eurosceptic-leaning Brussels correspondent in 1989, will also jet off to Rwanda this week to meet with Commonwealth leaders.

Linking the Commonwealth relationship with Britain's departure from the EU, the Prime Minister wrote: "That is why we are mobilising the UKs regained sovereignty to sign free trade or economic partnership agreements with as many Commonwealth countries as possible.

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"So far weve done 33, including Australia and New Zealand, and were aiming for India, the biggest of them all, by Diwali in October.

"You only have to look at the sheer scale of economic expansion in many of the clubs biggest members to see why the Commonwealth trade advantage is going to become ever more important for British jobs and livelihoods."

He added: "The Commonwealths GDP - $13.1 trillion has risen by a quarter since 2017.

"Over the next five years, its forecast to jump by close to another 50 percent to $19.5 trillion.

"Here are the growing markets for British exports that will create jobs at home and, at the same time, ease the pressure on the cost of living."

The Prime Minister's comments came just days after the Brexit-backing Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt revealed the UK will soon enjoy a $2trillion (1.65trillion) trade partnership with 27 Commonwealth countries.

The Portsmouth North MP, who has been tipped as a dark horse candidate in the eventual race to succeed Mr Johnson, unveiled the plan during international trade questions in the House of Commons.

However, critics of the UK's departure from the Brussels bloc claim trade deals with antipodean allies are too small to make up for the drop in goods exported and imported from the EU.

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According to ONS data, UK goods exported to the EU in 2021 fell by 17.2billion and goods imported from the bloc faced a 46.5billion hit compared to 2019.

In comparison, goods exported outside the EU witnessed a 24.8billion drop and non-EU goods imported outstripped those from the bloc, with a 18.6billion increase over the same period.

However, the proportion of the UKs total trade with the EU has been falling for some time.

Member states made up around 55 percent of total UK trade in 1999 but the figure was reduced to just 43 percent in 2021 after steadily declining for many years.

Continued here:

Boris hails Brexit Britain's 'regained' ability to boost relationship with Commonwealth - Express

When the British government announced its latest Brexit dividend at the start of the yeara return to stamping a tiny crown onto our beer glassesI was surprised. Mostly because I had not noticed that wed stopped. Clearly I gave up pretending to like beer sometime before 2006, when the rules supposedly changed.

Except they didnt. A close reading of the government press release revealed that in 2006, the European Union began to ask manufacturers to apply a common markCE, referring to the French acronym for European conformityto certify that their glasses held a full pint. There was no requirement to drop the existing crown stamp. And now, in the glorious post-Brexit land of freedom, the government was merely providing this guidance on how manufacturers can apply a crown symbol to beer glasses as a decorative mark on a voluntary basis.

Read: Why Britains Brexit mayhem was worth it

So the EU never forced us to remove the crown mark, and the government is only suggesting we reinstate it. Freedom! But whats this? The guidance also notes that any manufacturer who wants to keep supplying glasses to the EU, that huge single market on our doorstep, must continue to use the CE mark on them. So must anyone trading in Northern Ireland, too, because of its fluid trade border with the Republican issue Boris Johnson failed to sort out in his Brexit deal and is now desperately trying to renegotiate.

The saga of the crown mark is the perfect metaphor for Brexit: invested with enormous symbolism, fiendishly complicated and faintly absurd in its implementation, and, above all, a complete waste of everyones time.

Yet no one should be surprised that this is what Brexit has amounted to. Notoriously, before Johnson was a politician, he built a career in journalism on the back of stories like the crown mark. As a correspondent for The Telegraph in the 1990s, he sent regular dispatches about the alleged evils of Brussels bureaucrats and their petty rules against bendy bananas and insufficiently large condoms. (The man in charge of the condom standards, the improbably named Willy Hlin, was still annoyed nearly three decades later about how Johnson had misrepresented his work: We had had requests from medical institutions across Europe to check on the safety of condoms, he told The Guardian in 2019. That has nothing to do with the size of dicks.) These stories created a potent mythology of the British bulldog muzzled by gray-faced bureaucrats.

And so it shouldnt shock anyone that Johnsons government still indulges his most florid op-ed writers impulses when trying to advertise the benefits of Brexit. Leaving the European Union does have tangible consequences, but they are not ones that his government would like to boast about: For example, Britain might have taken back control of our borders, but immigration has remained high, while it has also become harder for British musicians to tour abroad and European students to study here. This country has made billions of pounds worth of new trade dealswhich largely replicated the old trade deals.

The British government has also taken back control of our laws. But as the 14 paragraphs about the regulation of beer glasses in that press release makes clear, Britain doesnt need Brussels to impose meddling fine print on us. We can do that all by ourselves. Our Parliament rolled the Measuring Instruments Regulations 2016 into English law, and there is very little appetite now to unpick it clause by clause. (If you polled a thousand Britons on how they felt about red tape, they would be against it, but the answer would be very different if you asked: Would you like to make it easier for pub owners to cheat you out of beer that you have paid for?) One of Johnsons predecessors as prime minister, David Cameron, once hired an alleged blue-sky thinker named Steve Hilton to cut through the alleged swaths of bureaucracy holding back Britain. Hiltons campaign faltered when officials gently told him there was a very good reason to ensure that sofas werent flammable. He did not so much collide with reality as arrive late to meetings with it, shout at it, question what makes it tick and then storm off, appalled at realitys obstinacy, wrote one former colleague.

Rather than fight reality, Johnson ignores it, hoping it will eventually give up and go home. More than anyone, he knows the value of being the leader who got Brexit done, even if no one is quite sure what that means. Brexit, like the crown mark, is more about symbolism than reality.

Read: Boris Johnson has only delayed the inevitable

Recently, I attempted to come up with ways that my life had visibly, materially changed since Britain left the European Union in January 2020. No catastrophic food shortages have occurred, although there have been sporadic supply-chain problems, particularly in Northern Ireland. Friends tell me that shopping for anyone with food allergies is harder now, because specialty products free from gluten or nuts come and go. Last year, I could not get the chicken pasty I wanted at a roadside caf, but I dont think the United Nations food program needs to become involved. We did not have an immediate recession, despite what George Osborne, the former chancellor of the exchequer, predicted. And while the British economy is now sluggish and afflicted with high inflation, the economic effects of Brexit are impossible to separate from those of the coronavirus pandemic, which arrived two months later. (One economist recently suggested that 80 percent of British inflation was caused by Brexit, but Johnsons government can gesture across the Atlantic to Americas similar problems, which makes his critics argument more difficult.) Small businesses have borne the brunt of Brexit, because of the increase in customs paperwork required to move goods between Britain and the EU. In other words, Brexit created its own red tape. But to most Britons, such problems feel abstract, rather than obviously unjust. The occasional Amazon package arrives late, or with extra packaging. So what?

Most of the concrete effects of Brexit on my lifethe ones I can connect to our relationship with Europe with absolute confidenceare minor. When I renew my passport, it will be blue-black rather than burgundy. The more vindictive European countries now make me stand in a longer queue at immigration.

Anne Applebaum: Brexit reveals a whole new set of political wounds

The very worst effects of Brexit are felt by a small enough number of people that even my most ardently Remainer friends have bowed to the inevitable: Britain is not rejoining the EU anytime soon, and there is no political appetite to keep fighting that battle. You can even see the loss of Remainer enthusiasm online. Many of those who built a Twitter identity on being pro-European switched their political focus in the spring of 2020 to calling for strict coronavirus lockdowns.

Even so, Johnson and like-minded politicians cant give up the specter of the meddling Brussels bureaucrat, a figure that has served them well for decades. What was the prime ministers big Platinum Jubilee policy announcement? Forging ahead to remove the ban on selling [goods measured] in pounds and ounces. Not doing itno, that would be too much like hard workbut forging ahead in its general direction, presumably as measured in furlongs or yards or barleycorns. For too long has proud Britannia chafed under the unjust yoke of the overly comprehensible metric system, which operates in base 10 and can therefore be easily explained to schoolchildren. (In Britain, the only people who still think in ounces are Boomers and weed dealers.) Why not go further, and undo the decimalization of our money? Maybe the cost-of-living crisis wont feel so painful if we have to pay for fuel in shillings and guineas.

An honest analysis of Brexit would reveal that it has been neither as catastrophic as its fiercest critics predicted nor as utopian as its champions claimed. What it did do was clog up Parliament for three solid yearsan opportunity cost that is hard to fathom and even harder to forgive. I can live with the blue-black passport and the crown mark. Ill even learn, if I must, how many meters are in a furlong. My greatest disappointment is having to accept that the cultural side of Brexitthe forever war against the banana regulators and condom checkershas not ended, and will never end, because it is simply too politically useful. As the former Cabinet minister David Gauke commented on the potential return of pounds and ounces: The announcement of the return of imperial measurements is an important recent tradition which we should all celebrate. Im already looking forward to the next time this is announced.

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The Brexit Revolution That Wasn't - The Atlantic

The Labour leader is understood to be preparing a speech on the UK's immigration strategy outside the EU in a bid to prove his party can be trusted on taking back control. The party suffered humiliation at the polls in 2019 after Labour's manifesto promised a second EU referendum and outlined plans to protect the rights of free movement even if Britain voted for a second time to quit.

Dozens of constituencies in former strongholds for the party backed the Tories for the first time in decades in order to "get Brexit done".

Just months after the drubbing at the ballot box, when Sir Keir was campaiging to be made Labour leader, he pledged to continue supporting the UK's former open borders policy.

He promised the party's members he would "defend free movement as we leave the EU".

But fearing his party will still not be trusted by voters unless he shifts his stance, he is now preparing a speech to fully set out Labour's policy.

READ MORE ON OUR BREXIT LIVE BLOG

Set to be delivered ahead of the annual party conference in September, he will promise not to reverse free movement and set out how he would tackle matters such as illegal immigration.

A Labour source told The Times: "Keir recognises that its time to put a line in the sand and stop any speculation about what our position on immigration might be."

The Opposition leader has been vocally critical of the Government's deal with Rwanda to resettle those who arrive illegally in the African country.

But he had failed to explain what he would do if in No10 to address the issue himself.

Sir Keir has struggled to keep his own MPs on message when it comes to Brexit and free movement.

Just last week it emerged a member of his frontbench had hinted the party could push for a full return to EU membership.

The chairwoman of the Labour Movement for Europe added: "We cant solve the cost-of-living crisis without revisiting what leaving the single market and customs union has done to grocery shopping."

A spokesman for Sir Keir was forced to shut down talk of rejoining the single market in the wake of Ms McMorrin's remarks.

He said: "Policy is clear.

"We need a strong relationship with EU partners but that does not involve membership of the customs union or the single market."

The pressure from Labour MPs comes amid continued speculation that the party has done a deal with the Lib Dems to help oust the Conservatives.

The Lib Dems remain fierce critics of Brexit and have been unashamed in promoting the overturning of Brexit.

Last month the party's leader, Ed Davey, indicated he was looking to force Sir Keir to adopt a more pro-EU stance if Labour was a minority government after the next election.

He said a hung parliament means "you can exercise influence in many, many ways".

The europhile added: "They key thing for me is making sure that we have the numbers to be able to influence that, so we can move away from this frankly indecent Government that's got no moral authority, that's got no plan for our country, and replace it with a Parliament where - it may be different parties put their ideas together - we work for the national interest."

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Sir Keir Starmer plotting major Brexit intervention as he seeks to 'come clean' on plans - Express

Areas across Europe are seeing temperatures in the mid to high 30s with some areas, including Spain hitting 42C last week. Meanwhile, the UK is set to also see warmer weather but within the pleasant climbs of mid 20s for the most part and possibly up to 30C by the middle of the week.

Remainer Alex Taylor tweeted: The one and only time Ill tweet wishing I wasnt in the EU.

The caption was tweeted with a picture of a weather map of the continent and the southern area of the UK showing the difference in temperatures between the two.

He added that to cope with the heat: I must still be very English after all as the only thing I can be arsed to do is make endless cups of piping hot tea.

Extreme heat has been plaguing Europe with warnings of crop failures coming from Italy where areas are suffering the worst drought in seven decades and several wildfires in Spain.

The temperatures in areas such as Italy, Spain and France are unseasonably high, which is bringing concerns about the later summer months which are traditionally hotter.

In France and Spain May was the hottest month on record in at least 100 years with temperatures being on average 10C hotter for this time of year.

On June 10, temperatures in Badajoz, Spain hit a high of 41.6C and at the same time Portugal recorded its first 40C temperature of the year.

In the days that followed, Seville went above 41.6C and was entirely above the average high of 33C.

READ MORE:Fatal flaw in Europes plan to save Ukraine laid bare

Meanwhile, firefighters in Spain have been battling wildfires as temperatures in the south reached the 40s last week.

One fire in the Castile and Leon region destroyed over 60,000 acres of pine forest, though thankfully the heatwave in the central region has subsided.

However, firefighters in northern Spain have fought multiple fires leading to the evacuation of many communities in Navarre.

While temperatures in Spain are thought to subside this week, those in France are forecast to worsen before moving towards Germany and Poland by the weekend.

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Staunch anti-Brexit Remainer wishes to return to UK - 'One time I wish I wasn't in the EU! - Express

Next Thursday marks six years since Britain voted to exit the European Union. Although I was too young to vote, I was a committed supporter of leaving. And along with most of those ticking the Leave box, I hoped our exit would remove the spectre of Brussels from our politics forever.

Yet we are marking this anniversary amid headlines about the ongoing influence of the European Court of Human Rights, the governments controversial proposals over the Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit agreement, and whether Labour wants to rejoin the EUs single market or not. All of this comes, of course, after several years of bitter debate over whether we should actually leave, and what an exit would look like.

So contrary to my partys 2019 promise, we are without a clear sense that Brexit has been done. Were my fellow Leavers and I naive that Brexit ever would be done, however? We certainly underestimated the hostility the vote would generate, and the determination of many to prevent Brexit going ahead. Then again, this is hardly surprising: a romantic faith in democracy is what fundamentally drove my Euroscepticism.

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Yet many Brexiteers were also far too naive as to how easy getting a deal would be. Many didnt understand the technicalities of Article 50, the customs union or the single market, and assumed mutual self-interest would prevent Brussels from making an example of us. Tory incredulity over the European Court of Human Rightss decision to block deportations to Rwanda this week, with various figures asking how it can have control over our laws after Brexit, also suggests that many do not understand that the court is not part of the EU.

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Moreover, splits within the Eurosceptic coalition clouded pictures of what our Brexit should and would look like. Some, like Daniel Hannan, would have been happy for us to have remained a member of the European Economic Area or European Free Trade Association, accepting freedom of movement for the sake of the ability to do free trade deals. Many Brexit voters instead saw the priority as reducing immigration a promise that has hardly been fulfilled.

In that sense, we were also misguided to believe that Brexit would really constitute a new departure in British politics. Whatever the intentions of Cummings et al, and whatever the promises made by leading campaigners, the institutional inertia of British politics has meant we have hardly used Brexit to diverge from the European Union. Our economic model still requires ever-growing taxes, tariffs for key industries and high levels of immigration.

This is not to say I believe Brexit was pointless, or that it should not have been delivered. The Covid vaccination programme alone highlights the benefits of shrugging off the dead head of Brussels. If the campaign to overturn the vote had succeeded, it would have permanently damaged our democracy. The nation state remains the best way of keeping politicians accountable, and the recent crisis in Ukraine has ably demonstrated the EUs dysfunctionality.

Yet six years on, it cannot be said that Brexit removed the European Union from our political life, or that leaving has been an unalloyed success. It is worrying to think we went through so much pain to take back control and get Brexit done, only to waste the opportunity it provides.

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Brexiteers like me are realising it's impossible for Brexit to ever be truly done - The New Statesman