Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Many at the harbour in the Devon town are concerned that their industry has been sold short
Anton Bailey had just taken a delivery of a new set of fishing nets and was patiently sorting them on the harbour-side at Brixham in Devon. The skipper, who first boarded a fishing boat four decades ago when he was just three, was feeling a mixture of optimism and frustration.
He is optimistic that when he chugs out to fish for pollock with his fresh nets in the new year he will be lucky and return with a good catch, but frustrated that, to his mind, the Brexit fishing deal has sold the British industry short.
MPs including John McDonnell say party must not ‘fall into trap of rallying around rotten deal’
Keir Starmer is facing a high-profile rebellion against Labour’s Brexit position on the eve of the vote in parliament, as prominent MPs including John McDonnell and Clive Lewis accused him of “falling into the trap of rallying around this rotten deal”.
Labour is likely to contain a major rebellion of frontbench MPs but an increasing number of prominent supporters are urging Starmer to change course. Backbenchers have also raised concerns on private WhatsApp groups that Labour’s endorsement for the deal has been given without the legislation being published.
Backing of EU27 paves way for new arrangements between UK and EU to come into force on 1 January
The post-Brexit trade and security deal has been unanimously backed by EU member states, paving the way for the new arrangements to come into force on 1 January.
At a meeting of ambassadors in Brussels, the 27 member states gave their support for the 1,246-page treaty to be “provisionally applied” at the end of the year. The decision will be formally completed by written procedure at 3pm central European time (1400 GMT) on Tuesday.
Chancellor aims to firm up agreements that would allow institutions to trade as if still in EU
Rishi Sunak has offered financial services firms the prospect of closer access to EU markets than outlined in the Brexit trade deal, after Boris Johnson conceded that this aspect of the agreement fell short of UK hopes.
With MPs and experts still poring over the 1,246-page details of the agreement ahead of votes in the Commons and Lords on Wednesday, increasing focus has fallen on the relative lack of provision for the service sector, which makes up about 80% of the UK economy.
The then British PM told her Irish counterpart that the bureaucracy in Brussels was a ‘politburo’ and was tying the UK up in regulations, papers show
Margaret Thatcher branded the European commission’s plans for a single currency as a “rush of blood to the head”, according to 30-year-old documents released from the Irish government archives.
In an echo of the divisive political debate that ultimately led to Brexit, the then British prime minister hit out at the “politburo” in Brussels and vowed not to be dictated to, during talks with her then Irish counterpart.
‘UK caved in on fish to win a wider treaty’, industry bodies say, while leading Brexiter David Davis says one-day debate is ‘too fast’
Senior Conservative MPs late on Saturday expressed alarm at plans to rush the historic UK-EU trade deal through parliament in just one day, as fishermen’s leaders accused Boris Johnson of “caving in” at the 11th hour to clinch agreement on Christmas Eve.
And there were growing fears among senior Tories, who will spend the next three days poring over the 2,000-page agreement published on Saturday, that details in the fine print could still allow the EU to impose punitive tariffs on British exports if businesses fail to follow European rules.
PM says he is confident trade deal will withstand ‘ruthless’ scrutiny from Eurosceptics
The EU and the UK government have published the full text of the Brexit trade deal less than a week before it is due to be implemented, as Boris Johnson urged his backbenchers to support the agreement when it reaches parliament next week.
The deal, which comes to more than 1,250 pages, will be voted on in the House of Commons on Wednesday, a day before the Brexit transition period ends.
Parliament should be recalled to deal with the crisis of coronavirus, not just that of leaving the EU
In January 1979, a beleaguered Labour prime minister, James Callaghan, returned from a Caribbean summit to a country that appeared in crisis. A week earlier, truck drivers had gone on strike, cutting off petrol supplies in the “winter of discontent”. When the prime minister arrived at London’s Heathrow airport, he held a press conference in which nothing memorable was said. Instead, in a phrase that has become code for political complacency, Callaghan became for ever associated with the following day’s Sun newspaper headline: “Crisis? What crisis?”
His fate was sealed. Callaghan lost the next general election to Margaret Thatcher. The lesson for politicians is the importance of perception in a crisis. If something feels like a crisis, it is effectively a crisis. Britain now confronts its most serious emergency since the second world war. It faces the unprecedented challenge of coronavirus while adjusting to a new diminished status outside the European Union. The country’s health service is at breaking point, and its future as a unified state is on the line. All this goes unmentioned by Boris Johnson, perhaps because he disingenuously promised that Brexit would save the NHS.
Experts across Europe, from Berlin to Paris and Rome, will now pore over the 1,246-page text, although much of it is well-known in the capitals and there is little doubt that the agreement will be signed off.
Last-minute agreement assessed as either a welcome economic boost or a bad move in a world that has become dominated by uncertainty
Britain should be congratulated for coming to a Brexit deal with the EU, but be wary of the very different world they are walking into, international analysts have said.
Outside Europe, politicians, experts, and media took a short break from Christmas and the pandemic to welcome the end of Britain’s long and torturous Brexit process, but there was little in the way of celebration.
Boris Johnson is confident he can sell the trade deal to Brexiters, according to the FT (paywall).
Sebastian Payne and George Parker report that Downing Street has been preparing the ground for weeks with the ERG, ensuring that senior backbenchers were aware of the shape of things to come and compromises being made.
Senior members of the group have already welcomed Johnson’s imminent deal as the “Christmas Eve Agreement”, a reference to the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement that secured peace in Northern Ireland.
Indications from senior figures within the ERG suggest that many of its members will accept the compromises negotiated by Johnson and Lord Frost.
If they want help from the party to stay in parliament, then they’ll back the deal.
In case you’re just joining us, the final stage of the negotiations for a post-Brexit trade deal has been delayed after it emerged that the European commission was using out-of-date figures to calculate the reduction in the amount of fish that member states can catch in British waters after 1 January.
A deal was due to be announced early this morning but the announcement had to be postponed when officials noticed a discrepancy between two sets of fishing figures and realised that the numbers used in the negotiation appeared to be out of date.
Desperate relatives in Britain plead with Home Office for flexibility as paperwork holdups delay family reunions while deadline looms
The Home Office has said it will not allow a group of stranded refugee children to join their families in the UK if their cases do not make it through the Greek asylum system by 31 December when the EU family reunification programme comes to an end.
Around 20 children who are eligible to join their relatives in the UK under the current family reunification scheme are still waiting for their cases to be completed in Greece, before the UK government ends the programme when it leaves the EU on the 31st December.
Britain and Europe still seeking last-minute advantage in final stages of negotiations
A post-Brexit trade and security treaty with the European Union is within “touching distance”, Downing Street said on Wednesday night as Boris Johnson prepared to overcome final disagreements to unveil a hard-fought Christmas Eve deal.
The prime minister is expected to seal the deal following a final call with the European commission president Ursula von der Leyen – but the two sides were battling deep into the night to gain a last-minute advantage.
With a mutant Covid variant out of control and lorries piling up in Kent, Britain feels like a country adrift and rudderless
The rest of the world is calling the UK Plague Island because it’s true: a mutant strain of the coronavirus is out of control, laying waste to fantasies that any region is out of the woods, or that the November lockdown had its desired effect, or that we might manage a “merry little Christmas”, in the words of the prime minister.
The plague phrase carries a lot of resonance, beyond being a reference to the high prevalence of infectious disease: it casts us as a far-flung place, isolated, chaotic, uncivilised, a place that wise and/or decent people stay well away from. But is that how it feels from the inside?
The decision by France to close its borders to incoming freight traffic from the UK has caused chaos in Dover – the gateway to Europe – and roads leading to the port
France and Denmark thought to be most cautious about budging from current demands on fish caught in British waters
EU member states with the largest fishing fleets are being asked by Ursula von der Leyen’s senior team to rethink their “final offer” after Downing Street made a significant move to break the Brexit deadlock.
France and Denmark are understood to be the most cautious about making a counter-proposal, budging from their current demand that their vessels lose only 25% by value of the fish they catch in British waters.
European commission president said to be in constant contact with Boris Johnson as fishing remains key issue
Ursula von der Leyen took personal control of Brexit negotiations in an attempt to strike a deal before Christmas as talks went to the wire over tens of millions of pounds worth of fish.
The European commission president is understood to be in constant contact through a series of unscheduled phone calls with Boris Johnson and the EU capitals as she battles to find a compromise.
UK negotiators reduce demand for EU catch reduction, potentially unlocking sticking point in talks
Downing Street has made a major counter-offer on fishing access for EU fleets in British waters to break the Brexit trade talks deadlock, raising hopes of a deal before Christmas.
After a difficult period of negotiations, with both sides seemingly entrenched, the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, is understood to have tabled a proposal that could unlock the troubled talks.
Britain risks weeks without trade transition plans from 1 January after missing EU parliament Sunday deadline
Negotiators of a Brexit trade deal inched towards a compromise on fishing rights on Sunday but missed a major deadline, raising the prospect of weeks without arrangements from 1 January even in the event of agreement.
The teams led by the chief UK negotiator, David Frost, and his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, were expected to continue talks on Monday despite the European parliament’s notice that it would not vote on a deal if not secured by midnight on Sunday.
European affairs minister, Clément Beaune, says Paris will not be rushed into deal over next 48 hours
The European parliament’s Sunday deadline may pass without agreement on a post-Brexit trade and security deal, France’s European affairs minister, Clément Beaune, has said, as British and EU negotiators continued to haggle over fishing rights.
MEPs have said they will stage a vote of consent on 28 December if terms are agreed by the two sides by midnight central European time on Sunday, raising the stakes for a weekend deal.