Category Archives: Foreign policy

EU’s vaccine blunder reopens Brexit battle over Irish border

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Tory MPs use short-lived announcement of export ban to call for overhaul of trade deal, as EU chief is attacked over U-turn

The European Union’s threat to impose a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic risks reigniting one of Brexit’s bitterest disputes, as senior Tories said the move proved the need for an immediate overhaul of the bloc’s treatment of Northern Ireland.

The renewed demands emerged with the EU facing an extraordinary backlash over its bungled announcement of potential export controls on vaccines produced within the bloc. The World Health Organization (WHO) condemned the move and the pharmaceutical industry warned that the measures would damage their vaccination efforts.

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‘Half-friends is not a concept’: UK should decide who its allies are, says Macron

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‘History and geography don’t change – I don’t think British destiny is different to ours,’ says French president

Emmanuel Macron has warned that Boris Johnson’s government has to decide who its allies are, insisting that “half-friends is not a concept”.

“What politics does Great Britain wish to choose? It cannot be the best ally of the US, the best ally of the EU and the new Singapore … It has to choose a model,” the French president said, in an interview with the Guardian and a small group of other media.

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UK aid cuts of up to 70% a ‘gut punch’ to world’s poorest, experts say

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Decision to reduce overseas aid represents a ‘major challenge’ to partner countries’ Covid responses, FCDO warned

The British government’s decision to slash at least 50% in overseas aid within the next few weeks has been called a “gut punch” to the world’s poorest.

Reacting to the news that diplomats had been ordered to cut billions in aid over the next six weeks, experts warned that many lives would be lost and the UK stood to lose its reputation as a global “force for good”.

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UK diplomats told to cut up to 70% from overseas aid budget

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Officials have just weeks to slash costs, prompting fears that speed of cuts could cost lives

British diplomats have been instructed to find at least 50% cuts in UK overseas bilateral aid in the next few weeks in advance of the next financial year, the Labour party has said.

Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of parliament’s international development select committee, said: “Our ambassadors have today been instructed by the Foreign Office to cut 50-70% from the aid budget.”

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EU citizens offered financial incentives to leave UK

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European nationals added to voluntary returns scheme, which can include flights and up to £2,000 for resettlement

EU citizens are being offered financial incentives to leave the UK, the Guardian has learned, months before the deadline to apply for settled status.

From 1 January EU citizens have quietly been added to the government’s voluntary returns scheme where financial support is offered as an encouragement to return to their country of origin.

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Brussels warns Britain against downgrading EU ambassador’s status

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Denying mission full privileges under the Vienna convention risks poisoning diplomatic ties, No 10 told

Downing Street has been warned by Brussels that downgrading the status of the EU’s ambassador to the UK will poison diplomatic relations for years to come.

The UK has so far declined to grant the bloc’s representative, João Vale de Almeida, and his 25-strong mission the privileges and immunities afforded to diplomats under the Vienna convention.

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Move to EU to avoid Brexit costs, firms told

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Exporters advised by Department for International Trade officials to form EU-based companies to circumvent border issues

British businesses that export to the continent are being encouraged by government trade advisers to set up separate companies inside the EU in order to get around extra charges, paperwork and taxes resulting from Brexit, the Observer can reveal.

In an extraordinary twist to the Brexit saga, UK small businesses are being told by advisers working for the Department for International Trade (DIT) that the best way to circumvent border issues and VAT problems that have been piling up since 1 January is to register new firms within the EU single market, from where they can distribute their goods far more freely.

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‘A Brexit nightmare’: the British businesses being pushed to breaking point

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Less than a month after leaving the EU, trade is flowing so badly that small firms are moving operations abroad to survive

Christophe Fricke lectures in German at the University of Bristol and adores living in England. He was born in Germany but his anglophilia became so strong after moving here that he wrote a book called 111 Gründe, England zu lieben (“111 Reasons to Love England”) in 2018. He selected the gardens of Cornwall, the National Portrait Gallery, the way the English use collective nouns for groups of animals (herds, packs, and so on) and their fascination with murder cases in his varied list of reasons for loving this country.

But since 1 January, Fricke has been reminded that there are also worrying things about life in England – and being outside the EU is now chief among them.

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UK insists it will not grant EU ambassador full diplomatic status

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Foreign Office says EU should not be treated as nation state, despite 142 countries granting bloc this status

A near-yearlong row about the UK’s refusal to grant full diplomatic status of the EU mission to the UK has worsened, with the leak of letters revealing the EU foreign affairs chief has serious concerns about the status being given to EU officials in the UK.

The issue is likely to be discussed at a EU foreign affairs council on Monday, the first such meeting of member states’ foreign ministers since the post-Brexit transition ended.

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European leaders hail ‘new dawn’ for ties with US under Biden

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Leaders say Europe again has a friend in the White House but differences with US will not disappear

European leaders have voiced relief at Joe Biden’s inauguration, hailing a “new dawn” for Europe and the US, but warned that the world has changed after four years of Donald Trump’s presidency and that transatlantic ties will be different in future.

“This new dawn in America is the moment we’ve been awaiting for so long,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, told MEPs. “Once again, after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”

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Theresa May accuses Boris Johnson of ‘abandoning global leadership’

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The former prime minister also criticised outgoing US president Donald Trump

Theresa May has accused Boris Johnson of abandoning Britain’s “position of global moral leadership”, in her most unrestrained attack on her successor yet.

Writing in the Daily Mail ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, the former prime minister had stern words about both the outgoing US president, Donald Trump, and her successor.

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Seafood lorries travel to Westminster for protest against Brexit red tape

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Fishers ‘losing their livelihoods’ as delays hamper exports to the EU and trucks return empty

Fishing lorries from Scotland and Devon have descended on Westminster to stage a protest against the Brexit red tape they say is either delaying or ruining exports of their fresh shellfish to the EU.

Trucks with slogans including “Brexit carnage” and “Incompetent government destroying shellfish industry” parked metres from Downing Street on Monday, but they stopped short of carrying out their threat last week to dump fresh fish close to No 10.

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Shock Brexit charges are hurting us, say small British businesses

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Levies to cover the increase in red tape, VAT and customs declarations are hitting trade to the European Union

Government ministers describe the post-Brexit headaches that British exporters have suffered since 1 January as mere “teething problems”. But Alex Paul, who jointly runs a successful family business that features in the Department for International Trade’s list of national “export champions”, disagrees. And he wants the real story to be told.

Two weeks into the supposed golden era of global Britain, Paul and many other British entrepreneurs, large and small, are running into very serious problems.

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Keir Starmer outlines ‘optimistic’ future for UK with Biden as president

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Labour leader uses first address on foreign policy since taking office to build bridges with US and EU

Sir Keir Starmer has set out his “optimistic” vision for a wide-ranging new relationship with the US under Joe Biden.

Speaking before Biden’s inauguration on 20 January, Starmer said he was “incredibly optimistic about the new relationship we can build” and that Britain must once again be “the bridge between the US and the rest of Europe”.

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EU halts imports of seafood from smaller Scottish companies

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Export firms point to post-Brexit delays around health certificates, IT systems and missing customs papers

Deliveries of Scottish seafood to the EU from smaller companies have been halted until Monday, 18 January, after post-Brexit problems with health checks, IT systems and customs documents caused a huge backlog.

Scottish fishing has been plunged into crisis, as lorry-loads of live seafood and some fish destined for shops and restaurants in France, Spain and other countries have been rejected because they are taking too long to arrive.

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Starmer accepts end of EU free movement in Brexit reversal

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Labour leader rules out extensive renegotiation if party wins next election

Keir Starmer has abandoned the commitment to free movement of people in the European Union he made to Labour members during the party’s leadership contest.

The Labour leader said his party had to be honest with the public, and that if it won the next general election a major renegotiation of the Brexit treaty would not be possible.

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‘I’m stuck here’: lorry drivers in Calais begin to feel effects of Brexit

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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.

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Netherlands and Germany refuse entry to UK nationals for non-essential travel

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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.

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Is the leftwing vision of Brexit Britain just fantasy? | Letters

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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

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