BREXIT! BREXIT! BREXIT!

[Scot Dutchy]

[Scot Dutchy]

Brexit: EU to launch legal proceedings against UK 'very soon'

Threat of action follows UK moves to unilaterally delay implementation of part of deal relating to Northern Ireland

Brussels has warned it will launch legal action “very soon” following a move by the UK to unilaterally delay implementation of part of the Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland.

The European commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, said the announcement by the government on Wednesday had come as a “very negative surprise”.

David Frost, the Cabinet Office minister, said the UK was extending a series of “grace periods” designed to ease trade between Northern Ireland – which remains in the EU single market for goods – and Great Britain while permanent arrangements are worked out.

Tories in the Chumocracy cant be trusted. I wonder if Johnson realises the vast resources the EU can call upon.

[Brian Peacock]

It's better to have stories about how the plucky British govt isn't going to let the big EU bully push us around in the headlines following the budget than stories about the govt reneging on international treatises or being caught giving more money to Tory constituencies.

[Scot Dutchy]

Food scarcity fears prompt plan to ease post-Brexit checks on EU imports

Ministers considering ‘lighter touch’ regime to avoid disruption to supplies from bloc

Ministers are preparing to relax post-Brexit plans for border checks on food and other imports from the European Union because of fears that they will further damage trade and could lead to severe shortages in UK supermarkets.

The Observer has been told by multiple industry sources that Boris Johnson’s new Brexit minister, Lord Frost, is considering allowing “lighter touch” controls on imports from 1 April than are currently planned, and scaling back plans for full customs checks, including physical inspections, which are due to begin on 1 July.

One source said he had been told that Frost was preparing to put the plans, which could mean imports being allowed in even if clerical errors have been made by European companies, before fellow cabinet ministers this week, as evidence grows of how Brexit has hit trade with the EU.

A Downing Street source confirmed on Saturday night that Frost had already ordered “a review of the timetable to ensure that we are not imposing unnecessary burdens on business” but added that it was “early in the process and no decisions have been made”.

With UK exporters to the EU having been severely hit by new rules, regulations and costs of operating under the post-Brexit regime, business organisations and senior figures in Whitehall now fear that EU exporters to the UK – particularly those involved with food – could be even less prepared than their UK counterparts were at the start of this year.

A big worry is that delays resulting from checks could hit food supplies including the “just in time” delivery network.

One senior industry figure said: “The worry is that if we go ahead with more checks and move to checks on imports, then exporters will not be prepared and on this side we are not ready for that either. There is not the infrastructure in place yet or the number of customs officials necessary to carry all this out. We have already seen exports badly affected. The next nightmare could be imports.”

Of course it is the EU's fault.

Frost, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, has called on Brussels to “shake off any remaining ill will” towards the UK for leaving and argued the government is acting legally to protect the everyday lives of people in Northern Ireland. “I hope they will shake off any remaining ill will towards us for leaving, and instead build a friendly relationship, between sovereign equals.”

[Scot Dutchy]

Another example of how governments deal with data:

UK Statistics Authority rebukes Gove over Brexit figures

Cabinet Office used ‘unverifiable data’ to rebut a Road Haulage Association survey showing export volumes dropped by 68%

The Cabinet Office run by Michael Gove has been officially reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority for using unpublished and unverifiable data in an attempt to deny that Brexit had caused a massive fall in volumes of trade through British ports.

The criticism follows a story in the Observer on 7 February that cited a survey by the Road Haulage Association (RHA) of its international members showing export volumes had dropped by a staggering 68% in January through British ports and the Channel Tunnel.

The RHA wrote to Gove at the time saying: “Intelligence that we are collecting on an ongoing basis from international hauliers suggests that loads to the EU have reduced by as much as 68%, which can also be evidenced by the increased number of empty trailers which are not currently considered in the statistics.”

The RHA also accused Gove of failing to heed its warnings that trade would be damaged unless there was a dramatic increase in the number of customs officials.

[Scot Dutchy]

An opinion piece but good IMHO:

Strong on rhetoric, weak on substance – so much for the ‘vision’ of Global Britain

The evangelists in government claim that a new era of greatness in trade and influence is on its way. But the evidence of disaster is piling up

Global Britain is a catchy slogan. There is the delicious hint of recovered greatness – though this time not imperial but global. It also neatly deflects the charge that leaving the EU is rampant little Englandism; instead, it is the EU that is made to seem parochial and inward-looking. What’s more, it represents ambition.

Global Britain will be a great power as we used to be – cutting trade deals with the world, sending our fleet east of Aden again to project naval power as part of a pivot to Asia; and taking the lead in upholding democracy and the rule of law. The wartime entertainer Bud Flanagan can rest easy. “Who do you think you are kidding, Remainers, if you think old England’s done.”

The government has the country locked in a Dad’s Army mindset – Boris Johnson as Captain Mainwaring and his cabinet of Stupid Boys orchestrating our global advance against the Remainer naysayers. Witness he jubilation last week over the US lifting punitive tariffs on scotch whisky trumpeted as victory for post-Brexit Britain – as embarrassing as it was ignorant.

A day later, the US suspended all punitive tariffs on all EU exports for a four-month truce in the bitter Airbus/Boeing trade dispute during attempts to reach a settlement. In any case we are on the EU side: Airbus and its supply chain are six or seven times more valuable than whisky exports to the US. Moreover, if Airbus retreats from the UK, we lose one of our last remaining big-company stakes in high tech, and a potential champion in the fast-growing space industry. But facts must not get in the way of the Global Britain fairytale.

This month, the government is to publish its much-delayed integrated review of how Global Britain’s new-look foreign, defence, aid and trade policies will hang together. Captain Boris gave a preview in a speech to the Munich security conference last month – again embarrassing. He argued that the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth’s maiden 20,000-nautical-mile-voyage was emblematic of a recovered independent great power ready to shore up the depressed west, complete with 35 borrowed American F-35s and flanked by a US destroyer.

[Brian Peacock]

Yeah, the real reason the govt can't live up to their promises is not because they're the ones with their hands on the tiller and are steering in the wrong direction, it's those without power who disagree with them who are holding the country back.

This is a lesson the Tories have learned from US Republicans.

[Scot Dutchy]

The two are now totally interchangeable. With Biden the threat of the "51st state" has receded.

[Scot Dutchy]

Farage is a waning spirit.

Nigel Farage quits as Reform UK leader in step back from party politics

Former Ukip leader says he can do just as much to influence debate via traditional and social media

Nigel Farage has resigned as leader of Reform UK, the renamed Brexit party, and announced he is stepping back from frontline party politics permanently, saying he had achieved what he wanted to thanks to the Conservatives’ Brexit deal.

The former Ukip leader, who led that party to a high water mark when it secured more than 14% of the vote in the 2015 general election, said he still planned to participate in political debate, but not within a party.

Reform UK, which campaigns on issues including electoral reform and shrinking the state, as well as opposing coronavirus lockdowns, will be led by Richard Tice, the property developer who chaired the Brexit party. Farage will take the post of honorary president.

Farage said in a statement on the Reform UK website that with the May local elections set to take place, he had decided to step back after “reflecting on my role and my life over the course of the next few years”.

Yeah Nige with Trump gone and Brexit Chums have turned their arses towards you there is little shit left to be stirred.

[Brian Peacock]

He wants to step away from the spotlight to spend more time with his money.

[Scot Dutchy]

Still more bad signs:

UK-Germany trade slumps amid Brexit and Covid fallout

First official snapshot comes after collapse of export volumes in first month of Brexit deal

Trade between the UK and Germany slumped in January amid the economic fallout from Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic in the first month after leaving the EU, according to official figures.

Germany’s federal statistics body said imports from the UK fell by more than 56% to €1.6bn (£1.4bn) in January from the same month a year ago, after the end of the Brexit transition period and start of the new trading relationship between Britain and the EU.

In a reflection of disruption at the start of the year from new customs checks and border delays, German exports to the UK also dropped by 29% to €4.3bn. The figures suggest a disproportionate impact on UK-German trade in January

But James Smith, an economist at the Dutch bank ING, said stockpiling alone was not enough to explain the decline. “There is for sure an impact from Brexit disruption,” he said compared with other nations, with import and export activity down by just 6% for other EU states by comparison. Exports to other non-EU countries besides Britain fell by 10.3% and imports by 13.9%.

Alongside the early German snapshot, Smith said figures for UK exports to Italy showed a 70% decline from a year ago, and a drop in France of about 20% between December and January. “It’s a similar picture everywhere,” he said.

Of course the UK will shortly make all those other lucrative trade deals promised by Johnson. The Brexiteers can of course sleep tight knowing their money is nice and safe in the their offshore accounts.

[pErvinalia]

Fairy data.

[Scot Dutchy]

Brexit: trade survey finds 74% of British firms hit by delays with EU markets

Brexit red tape and disruption to global trade from pandemic leaves businesses ‘severely strained’

Three-quarters of British manufacturers are struggling to cope with delays in moving goods in and out of the EU amid continuing disruption caused by Brexit and the Covid pandemic, industry figures said.

Two months after the UK left the EU on trade terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government, research from the manufacturing trade group Make UK has shown that 74% of firms in a survey of more than 200 leading industrial companies are facing delays with EU imports and exports.

Faced with mounting Brexit red tape, customs checks and disruption to global trade caused by the pandemic, more than half of companies said they were suffering from increased costs. More than a third had lost out on sales, while fears over continued disruption was losing firms future business.

The warning comes as pressure grows on the government to resolve difficulties at UK borders amid concern over the impact on the British economy and jobs at a time when businesses are grappling with the Covid recession.

A government spokesperson insisted that freight volumes between the UK and the EU were now “back to their normal levels” and said there was “no general disruption at UK ports”.

Those halcyon plains Johnson promised are even moving farther and farther away.

[Brian Peacock]

Friends in a band have cancelled their much-rescheduled European tour for the autumn mostly because the additional costs of Brexit would leave them poorer than not going at all.

[Scot Dutchy]

The realities of Brexit.