Monthly Archives: November 2023

Wednesday 08 November 2023 6:00 am

The government is tackling out-of-date UK regulations by amending several post-Brexit retained EU laws ensuring those like working time rules are fit for purpose to further jobs growth.

A reduction of time-consuming reporting requirements and simplified calculations for annual leave and holiday pay under the Working Time Regulations are part of the reforms, as well as streamlining the regulations that come with new-owner business transfers.

Business Minister, Kevin Hollinrake said: These reforms ensure our employment regulations are fit for purpose while maintaining our strong record on workers rights, which are some of the highest in the world.

Seizing these benefits of Brexit, including a saving of 1 billion for businesses, will support the private sector and workers alike and are vital to stimulating economic growth, innovation and job creation.

The proposals arent meant to disrupt UK workers rights, rather than instead remove operational bureaucracy to benefit from post-Brexit freedoms.

FSB National Chair Martin McTague said: We welcome these sensible changes, striking a balance for workers while offering clarity for employers. Its good to see the Government cutting through excessive burdens without losing the benefits of regulations.

Were eager to see a system thats clear-cut, cost-effective and easy for small businesses to roll out, so these announcements are a crucial step forward.

In a statement last month, business secretary Kemi Badenoch said the government would kick off an in-depth review of how regulators work in the UK.

These reforms further the governments bid to strip back red tape and find post-Brexit regulatory advantages.

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UK ditches company working time rules in further post-Brexit red tape cuts - City A.M.

John Curtice explores whether sovereignty, the economy and immigration are still key to Leave voters attitudes towards whether the UK should be in the EU. UK in a Changing Europes Redfield & Wilton Brexit tracker polls can be found here and the data tables can be downloaded here.

Brexit emerges as a little less unpopular in the latest poll by Redfield & Wilton for UK in a Changing Europe. Once those who say dont know are set aside, 59% say they would vote to re-join the EU, while 41% indicate that they would vote to stay out. That represents a swing of 3% from re-join to stay out since our previous poll in August. Indeed, it is the first time this year that the percentage who say they would vote to re-join has been below 60%. This trend is consistent with the findings of other polls, which in recent weeks have typically been recording slightly lower levels of support for re-joining the EU.

This swing away from re-joining has been accompanied by a range of slight improvements since August in voters perceptions of the consequences of Brexit. For example, 21% now think that the economy is stronger than it would have been otherwise, compared with 19% in our previous poll. Similarly, 34% now feel that Brexit has given Britain more control over its own affairs, up from 32% in August. The proportion who think EU immigration has fallen as a result of Brexit has edged up from 18% to 20%, though, at the same time, the proportion who believe that illegal immigration has increased now stands at 48%, its highest level since we first started asking the question in February.

But which, if any, of these evaluations matter for Leave voters current preferences for being inside or outside the EU? Are their minds still focused on the three issues sovereignty, the economy, and immigration that research suggests were central to the choice voters made in 2016? In particular, are these the issues that help us understand why some Leave voters now have a different attitude towards EU membership than the one they expressed seven years ago?

Table 1 shows how those who voted Leave in 2016 now evaluate the consequences of Brexit for the three key issues in the 2016 referendum. In each case respondents were asked whether, with the UK outside the EU, the position now is better/higher/more than it would have been otherwise, worse/lower/less, or similar to what would otherwise have happened.

Table 1 Evaluations of the impact of Brexit on sovereignty, the economy and immigration, Leave Voters, October 2023

Note that in the case of immigration higher has been classified as worse.

Leave voters have very different views across the three issues. They are inclined to believe Brexit has enabled Britain to have more control over its own affairs, a sentiment that might be thought central to sovereignty, although they are less certain that Britain has more influence outside its borders. On the economy, optimists and pessimists largely balance each other, albeit there is some uncertainty about the impact of Brexit on companies ability to sell goods abroad. However, whatever hopes they might once have had that immigration would fall appear to have disappeared. Around half think that immigration from both the EU and from outside has increased.

This would seem to suggest that the main reason why some Leave voters have changed their mind about Brexit is the perception (and, indeed, the reality) that immigration has increased. However, this is to assume that Leave voters views of what has happened to immigration are related to the probability of them changing their mind about Brexit. That proves not to be the case.

Table 2 Current Brexit preference by perception of impact of Brexit on sovereignty, the economy and immigration, Leave Voters 2016

Those saying they do not know how they would vote or that they would not vote now shown but included in the denominator.

In Table 2 we show how those who voted for Brexit in 2016 say they would vote in a referendum on re-joining versus staying out of the EU broken down by their perception of the impact of Brexit across the three main issues of the referendum campaign. The perceived impact of Brexit on the level of control is clearly related to whether Leave voters would now vote to stay out of the EU or to re-join. No less than 87% of those who think Britain now has more control would vote to stay out, compared with just 38% of those who feel we have less control.

Much the same picture is true of perceptions of the economy. Among those Leave voters who think the economy is stronger, 84% would vote to stay out, compared with just 49% of those who think the economy is now weaker. However, how Leave voters would vote in a referendum is largely unrelated to their perception of whether immigration from the EU is higher or lower. Among those who think that immigration is lower 76% would vote to stay out, little different from the 68% level among those who think that immigration is higher. Analysis of the impact of Leave voters evaluations of the impact of Brexit on non-EU immigration or, indeed, of illegal immigration produces much the same result.

We might wonder how important our three issues are compared with the range of other ways in which Brexit might be thought to have made a difference, on which our poll also collected a great deal of evidence. In fact, a statistical analysis in which we ask the computer to pick out the evaluations that are significantly related to how Leave voters would vote now reveals that perceptions of control followed by the economy are, indeed, the two most important influences. Immigration does not feature at all.

Just one other perception plays any kind of role at all the perceived impact of Brexit on Britains response to the coronavirus pandemic. On this Leave voters are inclined to feel Brexit has been beneficial 44% believe that Britains response was better as a result of Brexit, while only 18% feel that it was worse. Meanwhile, as many as 85% of those Leave voters who think that the response has been better would vote to stay out, compared with just 44% of those who feel it was worse. The government certainly argued, albeit the claim was disputed, that Brexit enabled it to implement a vaccine programme earlier than the EU.

Leave voters are then inclined to the view that Brexit has enabled Britain to take back control and that perception has particularly helped ensure that as many as 70% of Leave voters would still vote to stay outside the EU. However, rather more Leave voters believe the economy has suffered as a result of Brexit, and only around one in two of those who express that view would now vote to be outside the EU. It is that pattern that helps us understand why as many as 22% of 2016 Leave voters would now opt to re-join the EU.

Meanwhile, although Leave voters might regret the failure of Brexit to lower immigration, it seems it is a fact of life to which they are now largely resigned.

ByJohn Curtice, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe, Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Social Research, and Professor of Politics, University of Strathclyde.

This blog is also published on the What UK Thinkswebsite.

You can download the October 2023 Brexit tracker data tables in full here.

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Sovereignty, economy, immigration: still the three pillars of the Brexit ... - UK in a Changing Europe

Ahead of a major conference on UK-EU relations in the Sunak era, Simon Usherwood takes stock of the relationship and how it is now being managed.

Brexit is not what it used to be. Cast your mind back to 2018 and 2019 and it seemed that everyday brought a new crisis in either the negotiations between the EU and UK or (more often) in Westminster itself.

However, with the conclusion of the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) and the Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA) in 2020 a substantial amount of heat went out of the debate, even if the question marks over the Johnson governments commitment to its treaty obligations did provide periodic clashes, domestically and with the EU.

The signing of the Windsor Framework in early 2023 seemed to underline this shift, with the fifth post-referendum Prime Minister Rishi Sunak looking to remove those question marks, draw a line under the previous seven years and develop more of a working relationship.

But what can we say about this new stage in the Brexit process? How different is it from what came before, if at all? And what might it tell us about where the relationship is heading?

The framework of relations

The most useful starting point is with an appreciation of the differences between the WA and the TCA themselves.

The Withdrawal Agreement focused on management of issues related to the UK leaving the EU. That meant focusing on specific policy areas, largely time-bound (the Protocol on Northern Ireland notwithstanding), with a consequent need to get substantive content agreed within the text. The EU was focused on making sure that this first treaty would pin down as much as possible before the UK left.

By contrast, the TCA deals with the future relationship and so is a much more open-ended text, setting up spaces for work down the line and often noting topics that might be resolved later. The very brief period available for negotiating the treaty in 2020 further reinforced this pattern.

As a result, the TCA is driven much less than the WA by a need to secure effective implementation of commitments, since it deals with matters that are nice to have rather than essentials.

This is reflected by the shifting patterns of UK-EU meetings under both treaties. As can been seen in our tracker of meetings since 2020 (see figures), once the initial flurry of sub-committees in the WA had passed reflecting the need to provide further operationalisation to treaty commitments we have settled into a much slower rhythm of interactions. The TCAs governance framework was particularly slow to get started, especially its advisory bodies, suggesting that substantive negotiations through this framework have been limited.

Figure 1: Meetings of the bodies of the Withdrawal Agreement. For a PDF version click here.

Figure 2: Meetings of the bodies of the Trade & Cooperation Agreement. For a PDF version click here.

Managing relations

Just as the treaty context has changed, so too has the internal management of relations on both sides.

Under Boris Johnson, more or less all aspects of Brexit policy management were centralised in the Cabinet Office under Lord Frost. This included not only direct interactions under the WA and TCA, but also implementation of the new arrangements for all of the UKs border and the maximisation of Brexit opportunities across government.

Currently, only the border implementation work remains in the Cabinet Office, with the Department for Business and Trade picking up what still exists of the Brexit Opportunities Unit. If there is a central coordinating body, then it is now the Foreign Office, which has built up capacity to triage WA/TCA activity across Whitehall, while also being the contact point for direct relations. This relocation to the Foreign Office highlights how EU relations are now seen as been comparable to those with every other part of the world, rather than a special case.

On the EU side too, there has been change.

The groups established after the 2016 referendum in the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament were all characterised by their proximity and access to the highest levels of decision-makers and by very close interactions with each other.

Following the entry into force of the TCA in 2021, these groups were reconstituted into more technical bodies, broadly akin to those that exist for other third-country relations, albeit while remaining the responsibility of more senior officials. While the Commissions Service for the EU-UK Agreements, the Councils Working Party on the UK and the Parliaments UK Contact Group all still provide an institutional focus within the EU, it appears that they have moved on from the highly politicised work of 2016-20.

What this all means

It is that fall in politicisation across the board that is perhaps the key feature of this new period in relations.

To a considerable extent, Brexit has moved from being Chefsache to something managed by multiple individuals at the next level down in seniority. The original framing of Brexit as an upheaval of the political order (on the British side) and as an existential challenge (for the EU) necessarily pushed the matter up to the very highest levels of political decision-making. But with the immediate critical questions tied off in the WA, and with the belated British acceptance of these via Windsor, the need to mobilise and engage so much resource appears much less.

One consequence of this is that there is arguably less gatekeeping on either side of the relationship too. The shift from basic choices over what type of relationship to have into more minor and technical questions of how to make the WA/TCA system work is seen in the new management systems on both sides, each of which give more opportunity for other interested parties to articulate their needs and interests.

This also means that ever more of the substance of Brexit is becoming internalised into other policy domains. As the UK continues to work through its choices post-membership, so UK Departments and Commission Directorates-General are drawn into technical discussions about what to do and how to do it.

All of this change suggests that there will be more scope for technical and technocratic fixes to address emergent issues between the parties, e.g. batteries for electric vehicles. The trade-off is that the TCA framework itself becomes more baked-in and the emphasis will be more on making the most of the opportunities and options therein than on making big shifts in arrangements.

By Professor Simon Usherwood, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe.

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Just because Brexit isnt on the frontpages, doesnt mean its settled - UK in a Changing Europe

Regulators will initially take a qualitative approach when assessing how much euro derivatives activity European Union firms must push through central counterparties based within the bloc, a representative for the European Parliament told an ISDA conference on Tuesday, in a move that represents a softening in the EU's stance on post-Brexit derivatives clearing.

Proposed requirements to bring more euro derivatives clearing within the EU's shores have faced widespread criticism from the finance industry and provoked disagreement among EU member states. Critics have focused on the design of the EU's active account requirement, or AAR, which will dictate how much activity local firms will have to clear at EU-based CCPs.

Nicolo Bertoncello, economic policy adviser at the European Parliament, told the ISDA conference there was a need to be "cautious" in the rollout of AAR. He said the European Parliament is in agreement that a qualitative approach should be slowly phased in first, where regulators would have discretion over what constitutes an "active account" at an EU-based CCP. A "quantitative" approach will then be adopted further down the line, which would force firms to direct more clearing to EU CCPs.

"We are focusing on a phased-in approach where the introduction of this requirement depends on a number of conditions," said Bertoncello. "Before we get to a quantitative requirement, we're trying to create some breathing space [and are] currently talking about two to three years."

The location of euro derivatives clearing has been a major sticking point across financial services regulation following the UK's exit from the bloc in 2020. While more credit default swap clearing activity has moved to Paris after ICE shut its London-based CDS clearinghouse this year, the EU has so far struggled to engineer a mass migration of euro-denominated interest rate swaps clearing out of LCH in London.

About 51trn of euro-denominated interest rate swaps were cleared at LCH in 2022 compared with the 3.4trn that was cleared at Germany's Eurex, according to analytics firm ClarusFT. LCH is part of LSEG, which also owns IFR. EU derivatives users are able to clear euro-denominated trades through non-EU CCPs until mid-2025.

The EU hopes that AAR will lead to a permanent reduction in the volume of euro derivatives cleared offshore in what it says is a necessary development to enhance financial stability. But critics have dismissed the EU's incoming clearing rules as a post-Brexit land-grab that would increase costs and risks for EU derivatives users.

"The [AAR] is not worth it in the sense that it would result in clients having to split their portfolios and their books", which would have a negative impact on margining efficiencies, said Sachin Dehra, EMEA head of trading legal at BlackRock, who was also speaking at the ISDA conference.

Finance trade bodies have criticised the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, for failing to produce a "robust" cost-benefit analysis of how AAR would impact EU market participants. "The fact that costs are difficult to quantify does not mean these costs will not materialise," according to an ISDA paper in February in response to the AAR.

Bertoncello said that the impact of AAR "has not been proven or even assessed" and that the first qualitative phase of the rule would allow for "better data collection and a better assessment of the effect of a possible quantitative requirement".

"Some groups [in Parliament] were proposing a 40% threshold on the proportion of clearing that should be cleared at a European CCP [within a quantitative approach], while others wanted to start at 50%," said Bertoncello. "At this point, it's not beneficial to talk about numbers as we're lacking clear data and material evidence to base these numbers upon."

While it remains to be seen what quantitative clearing thresholds are enforced under AAR in a secondary phase, ISDA chairman Eric Litvack cautioned against the introduction of robust, high clearing thresholds.

"Ultimately, that would act as a distortion of competition and would work against EU market participants," said Litvack, noting that three-quarters of euro interest rate derivatives trading activity doesn't involve an EU firm. "The more you pressure EU actors to relocate, the more you're effectively forcing them out of the market," he told the conference.

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Post-Brexit EU clearing rules set for more relaxed approach - International Financing Review

Stock-out is a new phrase for me, but the meaning is obvious it is just supermarket shorthand for being out of stock. And when a supermarket is out of stock, the result is empty or partially empty shelves.

These are being seen once again in UK supermarkets, and images of them are being shared on social media. And it is worth stating once again that there is a simple reason why stock-outs happen more than they used to: Brexit. Leaving the EU has seriously stymied the UKs food importation and distribution sector.

Shane Brennan is head of the Cold Chain Federation, the industry that transports and stores perishable foods across the country. As he told me: One of the reasons why you see stock-outs on supermarket shelves is that supermarkets have tended to operate on a day one for day two system. So, the store manager will make an order for their goods the night before, for the next day.

But that has been changed by Brexit, so now supermarket managers have to make predictions about what they are going to need not for tomorrow but for two or three days ahead. Youre going to make more predictions around what youre going to sell or youre not going to sell. And actually, you end up having to be more risk-averse in what you order, to avoid wasting stuff, says Brennan. So, you end up tolerating more stock-outs. Thats essentially what happens.

Simple geography means that the UK is a messier, more complicated market to supply than many in Europe it is overseas from lots of its suppliers and therefore it is at the end of the supply chain. But that has always been the case, and it all worked perfectly well before Brexit.

Since then, however, foreign suppliers have decided that they dont really need the red tape and added expense associated with supplying the UK. There are easier and closer markets without any hard borders to navigate. As a result, the added delays, bother and cost of Brexit just make ordering what supermarkets need for tomorrow more difficult. They have to plan further ahead and that means they are far more likely to get things wrong. The result? Stock-outs and empty shelves

Of course, the government wont say the B-word when discussing this. It is trying to blame stock-outs on bad weather in Spain, the weird supermarket culture in the UK and anything else that comes to mind. But the fact is the shelves in continental supermarkets are groaning under the weight of fresh fruit and veg and ours arent.

If supply problems were just a matter of a slight shortage of cucumbers in December we might just be able to laugh this off. But remember the UK has yet to introduce its checks on food and food products entering the UK. The EU managed to introduce tests on our produce and food exports on day one of Brexit, a move that stopped 30% of UK food firms exporting at all.

It seems safe to assume that when the UK finally gets round to introducing the long and repeatedly delayed checks next year the consequences will be much the same for goods coming into the UK. Many continental firms will be put off by the costs of veterinary inspections, government fees and checks causing delays.

The problem will be especially bad for smaller firms which might only put one or two pallets on a lorry that carries produce for a dozen other firms; the red tape and delays will strangle the business, as just one mistake on one form for one pallet will mean the whole lorryload is rejected. The result of all of this will be higher inflation, less choice, more delays and more stock-outs.

This should hardly come as a surprise, Professor Michael Gasiorek is head of the UK Trade Observatory at Sussex University, and co-director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy. As he points out, the collapse in trade between the UK and the EU post-Brexit was not mainly on exports by the UK to the continent but the other way round; it was UK imports from the EU that have collapsed.

Gasioreks explanation is simple: For many EU suppliers, the UK is not that important a market. And in the face of the uncertainty, the possible bureaucracy and all this, they have just decided its not worth it. We dont need to worry about trying to export to the UK, its not so important to us, we can export elsewhere. Whereas for many UK firms, thats not the case the EU was a very important destination, therefore, they needed to make sure they could continue to trade.

This is easy to understand if you look at the numbers. The UKs population of 66million is now, for EU exporters, a market behind trade barriers, the European Economic Areas 453million customers are a vital market for UK firms which must be supplied at any cost.

As a result, EU exports to the UK are down by 20-25% and seem unlikely to recover. Remember many of the foreign companies that set up in the UK did so because it had access to the EUs single market; now the UK has left they are far less likely to base themselves in the UK. Which helps explain the decline in inward investment into the UK, and also why supermarkets here are so less well supplied than the ones on the continent.

There is some hope that things might improve in the near future. Labour says that it will seek an agreement with the EU on food standards that will reduce, if not eliminate, the need for checks and red tape. Keir Starmer will not seek full alignment with all EU standards but would try to get an agreement on dairy and meat produce and products, which is, to be fair, the major stumbling block.

But Shane Brennan has his doubts about whether that would work. I would be sceptical about whether or not an incoming Labour government can deliver on that promise quickly and in a straightforward way, he told me. And there are several reasons for that scepticism.

First, Lord Frost tried the same thing during the original Brexit negotiations. He sought an equivalence agreement that is, British standards may differ over time from the EUs, but they are still deemed so good as to be equivalent.

The EU refused to allow this and insisted there could be no deal unless the UK agreed to full regulatory alignment. The UK would have to follow EU rules, no questions asked, to the letter, for ever. They seem very unlikely to change their minds now, after all their own supermarkets shelves are full.

Secondly, the EU is not interested in a deep re-opening of negotiations and if it did deign to do so, it most certainly does not want a pick and mix deal like the one it has with Switzerland, which is what the UK would be asking for. The EU basically sees its relationship with the Swiss as a pain in the neck and wishes it had never gone down the road of allowing the Swiss to negotiate a one-off deal; it is not about to start another such deal with a much larger neighbour.

Third, the UK has already signed trade deals with countries with lower food standards and renegotiating with the EU would endanger those deals

Finally, if Starmer makes it to No.10 he will have an agenda as long as his arm and solving the supermarkets supply chain problems will not be at the top of the list not unless we actually run out of food.

Brexit and the damage it does is increasingly being hard-wired into the British economy. Supermarkets, other stores, the catering industry and cold chain suppliers are just suffering under the added costs, delays and bureaucracy; things that can only get worse once the UK introduces checks on its food imports in 2024.

Meanwhile, a thousand other industries have either given up bothering to trade with the EU, have just decided to swallow or pass on the costs involved to their customers or have come up with a workaround which isnt perfect and isnt as good as the pre-Brexit arrangement but which they can live with. And even a future anti-Brexit government could shrug its shoulders, decide it has bigger fish to fry and just blame Boris Johnson for any problems.

This is Brexit writ large: Higher costs, more bother, less choice, more red tape, lasting damage, a less attractive place to do business. And for the residents, a place where they will just have to learn to live with stock-outs and empty shelves.

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There's trouble in store for post-Brexit Britain - The New European

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SMEs feel the squeeze from Brexit - Financial Times

Newswise The Windsor Framework has reduced the scale of opposition to Northern Irelands (NI) unique post-Brexit arrangements, but not its intensity.

Polling conducted at regular four-month intervals by LucidTalk for Queens University Belfast since early 2021 shows a clear pattern of division on the Protocol and Windsor Framework.

Although, in line with the results of the 2016 referendum, the majority in NI have consistently been of the view that Brexit is not a good thing for the United Kingdom (UK), voters were initially more evenly split over the Protocol the original UK-EU deal intended to mitigate the effects of Brexit on the region.

From late 2021, a pattern settled in NI public opinion that saw a very slight majority in support of the Protocol, with a substantial minority opposed. That opposition was predominantly coming from the unionist community.

The Windsor Framework was agreed by the UK and European Union (EU) to ease some of the impacts of the Protocol arrangements and make further concessions to NIs unique position. The three Queens University/LucidTalk polls conducted in the eight months since the Framework was announced indicate that opposition has indeed reduced in scale (from c.40% to c.35%).

Hardline opposition has remained, however. Almost a quarter of respondents (23%) in the latest poll (conducted from 20 - 23 October 2023, and using a weighted sample of 1,104 respondents) say they will only vote for candidates in a NI Assembly election who are in favour of scrapping the Protocol altogether. The clear majority of those opposed to the Protocol/Windsor Framework self-identify as strongly unionist.

Respondents are evenly split on whether the Windsor Framework is positive (39%) or negative (39%) for Northern Irelands place in the UK internal market. Almost two thirds (65%) believe it provides a unique set of post-Brexit economic opportunities which could benefit Northern Ireland.

A majority (55%) think the Protocol/Windsor Framework is having negative impacts on political stability in Northern Ireland and more think it is negative for NIs place in the UK (43%) than positive (29%). This is not necessarily due to the Protocol alone. 58% of respondents think Brexit makes a united Ireland more likely, including 30% of Leave voters.

The polling was conducted for a report produced by Professor David Phinnemore, Professor Katy Hayward, and Dr Lisa Claire Whitten. This is the ninth in a series of Testing the Temperature reports on NI voters views on Brexit and the Protocol produced by Queens researchers as part of a three-year project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Other key findings include:

Over two thirds of voters (64%) in NI agree that the Assembly and Executive should be restored and fully functioning now that the Windsor Framework has been adopted.

Fewer than one in ten voters (9%) in NI think that Brexit is delivering the benefits envisaged by the Leave campaign. This includes just 15% of Leave voters.

70% of Leave voters in NI believe that the promises of the 2016 Leave campaign have not been forthcoming, even though two thirds of them (67%) still believe that Brexit is a good thing for the UK and would not change how they voted in the 2016 referendum.

6 in 10 respondents (60%) agree that the Windsor Framework is the best available compromise for addressing the concerns of people in NI with the original Protocol; one third (33%) disagree.

A majority (69%) agree that the UK should pursue closer relations with the EU to reduce further the need for formalities, checks and controls on the movement of goods; 17% disagree.

Speaking about the latest findings, Principal Investigator, Professor David Phinnemore said: Views on the Protocol/Windsor Framework have become entrenched. While a majority generally viewthe Protocol/Windsor Framework favourably, the numbers have barely changed since early summer. Most voters are broadly acceptingor supportive of the Protocol/Windsor Framework arrangements; and the clear majority believe the Assembly and Executive should now be back up and running. However, opposition the Protocol/Windsor Framework arrangements persists, particularly among voters identifying as strongly unionist.And that opposition appears for many to be very much a matter of principle with very limited evidence that the position is likely to change.

Co-Investigator, Professor Katy Hayward commented: Three years of polling shows us that views on the Protocol/Windsor Framework and Brexit are, by and large, positions of principle. This affects peoples perceptions as to its impact too. So we see a clear pattern of division reflected in answer to questions about such things as to the impact of the Protocol on the availability of GB-produced meat products in NI supermarket or on the 1998 Agreement. Such divisions are, of course, the most difficult to resolve.

For the full report and findings, please visit:https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/post-brexit-governance-ni/ProjectPublications/OpinionPolling/and follow on Twitter/X: @PostBrexitGovNI.

ENDS...

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Three years of polling on the Protocol reveals the depth of the new ... - Newswise