Truck drivers tell of long delays for checks at the Eurotunnel as trade barrier goes up between UK and EU
Roger White arrived in France at 2.30pm on Tuesday with a truckload of hard cheese from Somerset.
Before Brexit he would have rolled off the Eurotunnel train and carried on up the A16 to Belgium, unloading his wares a few hours later at his ultimate destination in Utrecht.
Continue reading...Eurosceptic campaign group founded by Arron Banks is now registered in Ireland
Leave.EU has left the UK, as Brexit forced the Eurosceptic campaign group to choose between its name and its country.
According to domain name registration records, the organisation, founded by businessman and activist Arron Banks, picked the former. The website is now registered in the name of Sean Power, the chief executive of the Ireland-based professional services company BSG.
Continue reading...Trucks arriving at GB ports lack paperwork needed to enter region, business leaders say
Northern Ireland is facing disruptions to its food supply because suppliers in Great Britain are unaware of the Brexit-related paperwork needed to send goods to the region, business leaders have said.
Trucks are arriving at GB ports with incorrect or absent documentation that delays their passage across the Irish Sea, they told MPs on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Best TV shows | The European Economic Area | ‘Bigly’ | Classical music | Renaming the Severn Bridge
While I thoroughly enjoy your annual lists of the best TV shows (The 50 best TV shows of 2020, 22 December), I cannot help noticing that non-English speaking programmes are never included. In recent years some of the most gripping and enjoyable shows have come from Germany (Babylon Berlin and Dark, for example), Scandinavia and other European countries. Perhaps, now that we are adrift politically, it is the time to embrace the wonders of European television.
Christina Neal
Cullercoats, Tyne and Wear
• However long it takes to rejoin the EU (Could Britain rejoin the EU? It seems like a hopelessly lost cause – but so did leaving, 1 January), the first aim should be to join the European Economic Area. That would at least restore some of the freedoms which Boris Johnson’s government has deprived us of.
Alan Pavelin
Chislehurst, Kent
Thirteen people barred since Brexit because UK no longer exempt from EU Covid-related travel restrictions
More than a dozen UK nationals have been refused entry to the Netherlands since 1 January because Britain is no longer exempt from Covid-related restrictions on non-essential travel from outside the EU since it left the bloc.
A Dutch border force spokesman confirmed on Monday that up to 13 British citizens had been turned away at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport since Friday because their trips were not necessary and third-country coronavirus regulations now applied.
Continue reading...Readers respond to an article by Larry Elliott calling for those on the left to see the UK’s departure from the EU as an opportunity to rebalance the economy
Larry Elliott is consistent in his criticism of the EU (The left must stop mourning Brexit – and start seeing its huge potential, 31 December). He points out the neoliberalism inherent in the core EU policies of free movement of goods, services, capital and people. He then extols the advantages for the UK of being freed from EU shackles to pursue its own destiny in the world.
But aren’t we committed to chasing the same neoliberalism on a broader canvas? He says nothing of the EU’s social and political projects – health and safety, employment protection, social welfare, retirement rights and other programmes. He ignores the ambitions of a gradual rapprochement between nations that engaged in monstrous wars in the recent past. Brexit UK is moving backwards, self-condemned to continued national decline, as other countries find ways of developing at least some elements of a progressive agenda in a harsh and divided world.
Peter Taylor-Gooby
Professor of social policy, University of Kent
British embassy says ‘this should not be happening’ after airline staff claim pre-Brexit ID documents are invalid
British residents flying home to Spain have been prevented from boarding a joint BA-Iberia flight to Madrid because the airline claimed their pre-Brexit residency papers were no longer valid, while others were deported back to Britain from Barcelona for the same reason.
Max Duncan said the Iberia desk had refused to recognise his green card as proof of residence despite assurances by the British and Spanish governments that both the old foreign national identification (NIE) document and the new foreign ID card (TIE) remained valid.
Continue reading...Amid confusion for lorry drivers in Kent, logistics firms call for greater transparency to help lessen disruption
Ministers are facing demands for more honesty and transparency over any logjams at the UK border in the wake of Britain’s exit from the EU, amid concerns that waves of disruption will last for six months.
Several lorry drivers are understood to have been turned away at Dover for not having the right paperwork following the end of the Brexit transition period last week. It has caused concern among logistics and manufacturing companies that more severe problems could occur as trade flows increase later this month.
Continue reading...Agreement in principle will allow territory to join the Schengen free movement area
Spain will have the last word on who can enter Gibraltar under the terms of the preliminary post-Brexit deal announced this week, Spain’s foreign minister has said, in an assertion that was swiftly challenged by Gibraltar’s chief minister.
The agreement in principle – struck just hours before Gibraltar was poised to become the only frontier marked by a hard Brexit – will allow the British overseas territory to join the Schengen free movement area with Spain acting as a guarantor.
Continue reading...As first ferries arrive under new trade rules, Simon Coveney warns of disruption to come
Brexit is “not something to celebrate”, Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney declared after the UK formally severed ties with the EU, as he warned of trading disruptions due to fresh red tape.
Related: Political demands of Brexit now face economic reality
Continue reading...As Brexit’s tangible effects kick in, we look at the impact the EU’s most far-reaching project has had on British society
Historians of the future will judge the politics of the half century before the Brexit transition ended on 1 January 2021. What, though, of social and cultural historians, those who study how we live?
Perhaps the most symbolic cultural artefacts of the last 50 years will turn out not to be a blue flag but a bottle of Blue Nun, a block of mozzarella, a Ryanair boarding printout or a ticket to a Bayern Munich v Manchester City football game.
Continue reading...For many, Friday marks a departure as mind-boggling as it is heartbreaking. But the path to Brexit was laid years before the referendum
As a previous Tory prime minister trying to find his way through difficult times once said: this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Brexit is hardly complete. The last-minute nature of the UK’s trade deal with the EU and the fact that it barely covers whole swaths of the economy – financial services are a good example – means some negotiations will have to grind on. The new bodies set up to arbitrate between the two sides will soon have work to do. Northern Ireland remains part of the single market for goods and will be enforcing EU customs rules, the most vivid example of the deal’s contorted provisions, which may have no end of political consequences. Certainly, given that public opinion in Scotland now suggests unprecedented levels of support for independence and that elections to the Scottish parliament will take place in May, what Brexit means for the increasingly fragile union between the UK’s four countries will now start to become clearer.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson largely ignores Brexit in new year message to focus on toll of Covid and ‘the grimness of 2020’
Four years, 27 weeks and two days after a referendum that split the country almost down the middle, the UK left the EU’s orbit on Thursday night in a departure that was notably low key, and marked by warnings of likely disruption to come.
In a sometimes sombre new year message, Boris Johnson largely ignored Brexit, an outcome he arguably shaped more than any other politician, to focus instead on the toll of Covid-19 and what he called “the grimness of 2020”.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson signed his post-Brexit trade deal with the European Union on Wednesday, adding his signature to that of EU chiefs after the document was flown from Brussels to London
Continue reading...British and Spanish negotiators have reached a draft agreement on the future of Gibraltar after Brexit. Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, welcomed the deal which she said meant the British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula would be able to join EU programmes and policies such as Schengen
Continue reading...British overseas territory had been left out of deal announced on Christmas Eve
A last-minute deal between the UK and Spain – agreed just hours before Gibraltar was poised to become the only frontier marked by a hard Brexit – will allow for free movement between the British overseas territory and much of the EU.
“Today is a day for hope,” Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, said on Thursday as she announced that an agreement in principle had been reached. “In the long history of our relations with the UK, related to Gibraltar, today we’re facing a turning point.”
Continue reading...European commentators weigh in on what Britain’s departure from the EU means
Britain faces an uncertain future as it finally pulls clear of the EU’s orbit, continental commentators have predicted, its reputation for pragmatism and probity shredded by a Brexit process most see as profoundly populist and dangerously dishonest.
“For us, the UK has always been seen as like-minded: economically progressive, politically stable, respect for the rule of law – a beacon of western liberal democracy,” said Rem Korteweg, of the Clingendael Institute thinktank in the Netherlands.
Continue reading...As Britain embarks on its solo journey, we celebrate the places put on the map by the UK’s rocky relationship with Europe
Ioannina is no Mykonos. A city on the northern Greek mainland near the border with Albania, it is landlocked and rarely on any tourist trail. As far as guidebook mentions go, it’s silverwork, feta cheese and local spring water.
But back in spring 1994 it burst on to front pages across Europe, seizing the minds of politicians. Ioannina joined the ranks of little-known European cities to host a European summit and become a household name for a fortnight.
Continue reading...Prime minister thanks MPs and peers after Queen gives royal assent to bill redrawing ties with EU
Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels has passed into law following a whirlwind 14-hour parliamentary process that has radically redrawn the UK’s ties with Europe.
The prime minister thanked MPs and peers for passing the European Union (future relationship) bill in one day, in a statement urging the nation to “seize” the moment when the transition period with the bloc ends at 11pm on Thursday.
Continue reading...Prime minister to celebrate bill to MPs ahead of vote, but fast-tracking of legislation faces condemnation
The UK’s post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels delivers a “historic resolution” making the country a “friendly neighbour” to the EU, Boris Johnson will tell MPs on Wednesday as they vote on the agreement.
The deal is expected to sail through the parliamentary approval process in just a day, with the backing of Labour and after the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Conservative MPs indicated on Tuesday that it would support it.
Continue reading...