Category Archives: Brexit

Net migration to Britain is reportedly on pace to breach 300,000 this year, increasing by more than a quarter over last year as a result of former Prime Minister Boris Johnsons post-Brexit migration plan which opened the doors to millions to come to the United Kingdom.

Despite promises from the Conservative Party to reduce immigration and take back control of the nations borders following Brexit, net immigration will approach record highs this year, according to government data seen by The Telegraph newspaper projecting that 300,000 more people will have moved to the United Kingdom than left over the past year.

This will be an increase from239,000 last year, and would rival net migration during the years leading up to the vote for Brexit which millions of voters believed would result in a more manageable level of immigration.

The increase comes as the government issued a record 1.1 million visas to foreign nationals in the year leading up to June, compared to the pre-pandemic and pre-Brexit year of 2019 when approximately 720,000 visas were granted.

In the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto, Boris Johnson committed to cutting total immigration through the introduction of a points-based system supposedly crafted to resemble the Australian model. However, unlike the Australian system, Johnsons placed no hard cap on the number of migrants allowed in per year, which some warned, apparently accurately, would in fact result in adrastic increasein immigration.

The chairman of Migration Watch UK, Alp Mehmet, said: Given the removal of key controls, like a cap on work permits and the rule requiring employers to look locally first, the skyrocketing of immigration is no surprise.

The answer has to be to restore control and invest much more in training, especially in the IT and health sectors.

Employers could also raise wages and improve working conditions. The continued reliance on cheaper overseas labour is both self-serving and damaging to the UK labour force, he argued.

The Tories previously promised to reduce the numbers of migrants from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands. Yet this pledge, made in their 2010, 2015, and 2017 election manifestos, has never been fulfilled.

In 2017, George Osborne, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and right-hand man to David Cameron,admitted that the party never had any intention of actually reducing migration, and that party leaders privately disagreed with the promise they had made to their supporters that they would do so.

Earlier this month, speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman a daughter of immigrants herself said that she hoped to finally follow through on the pledge to get net migration down to the tens of thousands per year.

One area Braverman said she would target specifically would be the number of student visas issued, which rose by 71 per cent over 2019 to486,868, with Indians and Chinese students making up the two biggest segments of the intake.

Braverman argued that failing universities were being falsely propped up by the foreign tuition cash of these students.

Yet Bravermans tenure at the Home Office was short-lived, and sheresigned earlier this week a move that helped precipitate the downfall of the Liz Truss government reportedly due to disputes over the outgoing Prime Ministers desire to open up to even more immigration to supposedly spur economic growth.

I have had serious concerns about this Governments commitment to honouring manifesto commitments, such as reducing overall migration numbers and stopping illegal migration even the brief time that I have been [at the Home Office], it has been very clear that there is much to do, Braverman said in her resignation letter.

With the likely candidates to replace Truss being former prime minister Boris Johnson, his former right-hand man Rishi Sunak, and the Bill Gates-backed Penny Mordaunt, it is unlikely that the party will seek to fulfil the pledge anytime soon.

They may come to regret this, however, with figures such as Brexits Nigel Farage warning that aside from the political chaos, immigration could be the issue that sends the Tories back to the opposition.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

See the article here:

Net Immigration to Soar to 300,000 This Year in Britain: Report

EXPLAINER: What you need to do in post-Brexit era to vote in Mays municipal elections in Spain  The Olive Press

Visit link:

EXPLAINER: What you need to do in post-Brexit era to vote in Mays municipal elections in Spain - The Olive Press

1. Brexit isnt to blame for our current problems; it is still an opportunity  The Guardian
2. The Guardian view on Brexit and the economy: time to face facts  The Guardian
3. Mark Carney Blames Brexit for Rising BOE Rates and Says He Was Right  Bloomberg
4. Brexit: 3 Reasons People Are (Reluctantly) Talking About This Again  HuffPost UK
5. Brexit isn't to blame for the economic collapse  The Spectator
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

Excerpt from:

Brexit isnt to blame for our current problems; it is still an opportunity - The Guardian

Yachting Monthly experts help you unravel what the new regulations post-Brexit mean for UK and EU sailors

What food can I legally take from the UK into the EU?

Following the recent Brexit news about lorry drivers having their sandwiches confiscated, a pertinent question arises.

Covid-permitting, many sailors are hoping to cross the Channel this coming summer.

Like any sensible sailor, we like to be well prepared for a trip and fully stocked with suitable food and drink for both the crossing and for regular staples.

It seems that this is going to be a significant problem as many items are currently restricted.

These hindrances might prove a complete barrier to planning such trips.

What, if any, information do you have that would either mitigate or remove these barriers?

Edward Vivian

Answer:

The RYAs Cruising Manager, Stuart Carruthers responds: It is becoming clear what the impact of taking back control actually means for recreational boaters, many of whom have known nothing else than the freedoms that life in the EU afforded them.

Nothing illustrated this more clearly than the seizure of ham sandwiches from lorry drivers arriving from the UK by Dutch officials at the Hook of Holland.

Although this is mildly amusing, there is no rule that singles out ham sandwiches per se, but the fact is that as the UK is now regarded by the EU as a third country, personal imports intothe EU of UK meat, milk and products containing them has been banned since the transition period ended on 31 December 2020.

Continues below

As Europe begins to open up again for cruising, Lu Heikell looks at the implications of Brexit on UK sailors

Yachting Monthly experts help you unravel what the new regulations post-Brexit mean for UK and EU sailors

Following confirmation that recreational sailors in England, Wales and Scotland can still use red diesel, what impact will that have

Following Brexit, sailors arriving in France from the UK were only allowed to enter through a Port of Entry. Now

It would appear that food being sold to passengers on ferries will not be exempted from this if taken ashore for personal consumption.

Stuart Carruthers joined the RYA in 2005 and is their cruising manager

The European Commission has provided information on the legal situation applicable to travel between the EU and the UK after the end of the transition period.

This states that Union law prohibits the introduction into the EU of certain products of animal origin where they form part of travellers luggage these prohibitions apply in relation to travel from Great Britain to the EU or Northern Ireland.

This would suggest that provided food is not actually landed in the EU, it will not form part of a travellers luggage and it will be fine to have food produced in GB on board.

It is also likely that checks will only be undertaken at the border, if at all.

A subscription to Yachting Monthly magazine costs around 40% less than the cover price.

Print and digital editions are available through Magazines Direct where you can also find the latest deals.

YM is packed with information to help you get the most from your time on the water.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Read more from the original source:

Brexit: What food can I legally take from the UK into the EU?

1. Brexit crisis pushes N Ireland to brink of new election  ABC News
2. Northern Ireland moves closer to fresh elections over post-Brexit impasse  EURACTIV
3. Northern Ireland Faces New Election to Break Brexit Impasse  Yahoo News
4. Northern Ireland: Why is there still no assembly and what does Brexit have to do with it?  Sky News
5. View Full Coverage on Google News

Read more here:

Brexit crisis pushes N Ireland to brink of new election - ABC News

1. Behind Britains turmoil, an unfinished Brexit  The Christian Science Monitor
2. Brexit, Rishi Sunak, and the reason the U.K. is such a mess right now.  Slate
3. What everyone knows but no one says about Brexit  The Spectator
4. UK impacted by a Brexit-induced crisis  New Straits Times
5. Brexit is the hot potato Sunak can neither swallow nor spit out  News9 LIVE
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

See the article here:

Behind Britains turmoil, an unfinished Brexit - The Christian Science Monitor

1. Is Brexit at the roots of British Prime Minister Liz Truss' quick exit?  NPR
2. The Brexit cult that blew up Britain  POLITICO Europe
3. The Brexit cult blowing up Britain - POLITICO  POLITICO
4. EU media and leaders blame Brexit for UK political insanity as Truss quits  The Guardian
5. Britains Crisis Brexit Revenge and Why We Need to Bring Back Boris  Kyiv Post
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

Link:

Is Brexit at the roots of British Prime Minister Liz Truss' quick exit? - NPR

Brexit sparked greater attachment to the European Union in UK and EU citizens living abroad, survey suggests  The Conversation

Go here to see the original:

Brexit sparked greater attachment to the European Union in UK and EU citizens living abroad, survey suggests - The Conversation

ROME, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Britain's political and economic turmoil has been greeted with thinly veiled satisfaction among pro-European and leftist politicians abroad, with some commentators drawing parallels to chaotic Italy.

New British finance minister Jeremy Hunt will set out tax and spending measures on Monday, two weeks earlier than scheduled, as he races to stem a dramatic loss of investor confidence in Prime Minister Liz Truss's government. read more

"How's Brexit going?" tweeted veteran Belgian politician Guy Verhofstadt, an ardent pro-European, on Saturday. "One thing is for sure: the mess didn't start in 2022 but in 2016," he added, in reference to Britain's referendum to leave the EU.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comRegister

There was a similar hint of schadenfreude in remarks by Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who slammed Truss's original tax cut proposals as Britain's crisis unfolded last week.

"The neoliberal path failed in the previous financial crisis, created a great deal of suffering and will again lead to failure for those who follow it as we have just seen in the UK," he told the Spanish parliament.

Truss on Friday fired her finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng to replace him with Hunt, and scrapped parts of the government's economic package after it sparked a financial market rout including a steep dive in the value of the pound.

With the Conservative party plunging in opinion polls, social media has been full of memes and jokes revelling in its woes.

"Did you hear Kwasi Kwarteng flew back from the U.S. first class? Apparently they didn't want him near Business or Economy" read one joke doing the rounds on Twitter in reference to Kwarteng's rushed return from Washington to be fired by Truss.

Outside Europe, U.S. President Joe Biden called Britain's plan to scrap the 45% top income tax rate a "mistake".

Biden, a Democrat, frequently criticizes conservative "trickle down" economic policies, associated in the United States with former President Ronald Reagan and Republicans.

"I think that the idea of cutting taxes on the super wealthy at a time when - anyway, I just think - I disagreed with the policy," he told reporters in Oregon on Saturday. read more

Even Britain's staunchly conservative newspaper the Telegraph, which backed the Brexit referendum, acknowledged in a column on Sunday that its economic goals had failed.

"Britain's transformation into the new Italy is almost complete," was the headline of the article which drew numerous parallels between the two countries' economic declines and political instability.

Britain has had four prime ministers in the last six years, a new trend akin to Rome's notorious revolving door governments.

Officials in Washington last week for International Monetary Fund meetings said the upheaval in London could prove a salutary lesson for high-debt Italy, which has just elected a right-wing coalition also promising unfunded tax cuts.

"We have a lesson to learn perhaps, because what happened showed how volatile the situation is and so how prudent we should be with our fiscal and monetary mix," EU Economics Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, an Italian, told a news conference without naming Italy directly. read more

Other officials in Washington were more open, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The UK example of how quickly and aggressively markets can turn on you, is likely to keep Italian policy cautious. I am sure Rome is watching carefully what is happening in the UK," one senior euro zone official said.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comRegister

Additional reporting by John Chalmers and Jan Strupczewski in Brussels, David Latona in Madrid and Jeff Mason in Washington, Editing by William Maclean

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read more:

'How's Brexit going?' British politics mocked at home and abroad - Reuters UK

Since the 1990s Ive been interpreting events in Britain for an American audience through my journalism. Sometimes its easy: Londons glorious renaissance, Tony Blairs rise. Sometimes its less easy: the strangeness of a special relationship where one side cares too much and the other too little, the post-imperial hangover that courses through British life.

And sometimes its hard: the puzzle of Brexit, the precipitous downfall of the Conservative party. It helps that for Americans still living through the Donald Trump saga, nothing is outside the realm of possibility any more. It also helps when I explain to them that those two latest chapters of British history are connected.

I tell them that from the 2016 referendum onward, Brexit increasingly gave the Tories a focus. Never mind that Brexit was the most divisive event in postwar Britain; over time, the struggle to make it happen unified the party. Boris Johnsons Get Brexit Done 2019 election campaign cemented the transformation and, as far as Brexit went, silenced Labour.

Within six weeks, however, the Tory tide would turn. Once Britain formally left the EU, the Brexit-imposed discipline within the Conservative party began to unravel. Admittedly, the pandemic would have thrown any government off course, but Johnsons conduct in office didnt help the Tory brand or party unity. Swamped by scandal, he was out. Enter Liz Truss.

As the US and the world looked on, Trusss first weeks in office did not exactly restore confidence in Downing Street. Suddenly, the new government was shredding the Tories reputation for fiscal prudence and sound economic management. Friends of mine in the States could barely believe what they were witnessing. Even Americans who are ideologically opposed to the Conservatives were shocked to see the party of Churchill and Thatcher flying off the rails.

The Truss-Kwasi Kwarteng Growth Plan 2022 started out as a budget at war with itself, with vast emergency spending sitting alongside big unfunded tax cuts. It was also at war with Bank of England monetary policy. That was bad enough. Then came U-turns, the defenestration of Kwarteng and the naming of a new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, hardly an ideological soulmate of the libertarian prime minister.

This story is far from over. From the outset, the reaction to the new governments fiscal event abroad was awful. Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers said the worlds fifth-largest economy was behaving a bit like an emerging market. President Biden himself said that Trusss original plan was a mistake. The International Monetary Fund, which usually reserves its sermonising for developing economies, said: we do not recommend large and untargeted fiscal packages at this juncture, as it is important that fiscal policy does not work at cross purposes to monetary policy. Furthermore, the nature of the UK measures will likely increase inequality.

Still, with all the opprobrium heaped on Truss, its easy to forget that the damage began long before she got hold of Britains finances. Whats happening today cannot be separated from what happened in the last decade, leading up to Brexit. To explain those days to non-Britons, you have to wade into the weeds of British politics. There, we come upon Nigel Farage, who though never elected to parliament had an extraordinary influence on Westminster politics. Had it not been for the threat Farage and Ukip posed to the Conservative party, David Cameron may never have decided to call for a referendum. But, fatefully, he did.

As a dual US-UK citizen whos lived in London since 1996, the closest I could get to understanding a rationale behind Brexit was to see it in the context of what Blair once called post-empire malaise a vague if deep-seated yearning to regain the confidence and sureness of identity that, at least in the imagination, went hand in hand with running an empire. Take back control was surely part of that, fuelled also by heightened economic insecurity in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis and a concomitant unease about immigration.

Setting that logic aside, I have to say that virtually all the economic arguments in favour of Brexit looked specious at best and cynically misleading at worst. In that sense, Brexit is a kind of original sin that sits at the heart of todays UK economy. That should have been evident in the myriad dire economic forecasts blithely dismissed as remoaner scaremongering in the run-up to the 2016 referendum forecasts that turned out to be mostly accurate. And it should have been obvious as it was to the rest of the world in the downward trajectory of the Brexit pound, which fell from 1.50 to 1.33 to the dollar overnight after the 23 June 2016 vote and ultimately hit its lowest-ever recorded level of 1.03 on 26 September of this year.

Being liberated from the EU was never going to live up to the counterfeit promises made by the Vote Leave campaign before the referendum. Britains borders are no less porous than they were. The post-Brexit trade deals the UK has negotiated are insignificant compared with the loss of its largest trading partner. The jewel-in-the-crown deal with the US is not even on the agenda, as Truss admitted last month.

The pandemic, whose arrival coincided with Britains departure from Europe, camouflaged much of the toll Brexit was inflicting on the economy. But the harm is real. A year ago, the Office for Budget Responsibility was estimating that Brexits long-term impact on economic growth would be more than twice as damaging as that of Covid.

The effect on trade has been devastating. Modelling by the Centre for European Reform found that solely because of Brexit, British trade in goods was down during the first half of last year, ranging between 11 and 16% month to month. There is evidence that businesses face new and significant real-world challenges in trading with the EU that cannot be attributed to the pandemic, the House of Lords European affairs committee reported in December.

Ending the free movement of labour between Britain and the continent a Brexit cornerstone is hollowing out the workforce. According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of job vacancies stood at 1,246,000 in the third quarter of this year, up from about 823,000 before Brexit and Covid-19 set in. These shortages afflict businesses large and small, from cafes and pubs to farms and manufacturing plants.

Meanwhile, the OBR analysis from May shows a number of economic indicators all going in the wrong direction: as a result of leaving the EU, long-term productivity will slump by 4%, both exports and imports will be around 15% lower in the long run, newly signed trade deals with non-EU countries will not have a material impact, and the governments new post-Brexit migration regime will reduce net inward migration at a time of critical labour shortages. It has been some story to tell.

Theres a scene in the House Commons that keeps playing in my head. Its 2019 and Jacob Rees-Mogg, now Trusss business secretary, is speaking of the broad, sunlit uplands that await us thanks to Brexit. Then I contemplate where Britain is today: heading into a protracted recession under an enfeebled prime minister leading a wounded, fractious party. I hope Im proved wrong, and those sunlit uplands are out there over the horizon. No sign as yet. But Id be pleased to come back and tell everyone who has listened so far that I was mistaken.

Here is the original post:

Economy in crisis, Tories in meltdown: how I have told the sad, strange story of Britain - The Guardian