Chris Riddell on Boris Johnson asking the EU for a Canada-style trade deal
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Continue reading...Category Archives: Foreign policy
UK races to find extra 50,000 staff for post-Brexit paperwork
New recruits needed to process millions of extra declaration forms from 1 January 2021
A race to hire 50,000 people in the next six months to process Brexit paperwork is under way after the government confirmed they would be needed for border operations.
But experts have warned it will be a challenge to train enough people in time to be competent in the complexity of customs declarations and the second layer of red tape involving entry and exit declaration forms that are mandatory for trading with the EU.
Continue reading...UK to withdraw from European arrest warrant
Government document reveals plans to ditch tool that allows for fast extradition of criminals
The UK is to abandon a crucial tool used to speed up the transfer of criminals across borders with other European countries.
Acting against the warnings of senior law enforcement officials, the government said it would not be seeking to participate in the European arrest warrant (EAW) as part of the future relationship with the European Union.
Continue reading...Barnier pours scorn on Johnson’s spokesman ahead of trade talks
EU negotiator signals future relationship negotiations are on course for acrimonious start
Negotiations over Britain’s future relationship with the EU appear on course for an acrimonious start after Michel Barnier poured scorn on Boris Johnson’s spokesman and suggested the new Northern Ireland secretary did not understand the withdrawal agreement.
Barnier said he expected the talks, starting on Monday, to be “very difficult” but pronounced Brussels as “ready” following the official sign-off by EU ministers of their instructions for their chief negotiator.
Continue reading...EU to demand right to punish UK if it fails to shadow Brussels rules
Member states agree EU should have right to apply sanctions if divergence causes ‘disruptions’
The EU will demand the right to punish Britain if the government fails to shadow the Brussels rulebook in the future, member states have agreed, as Boris Johnson was warned that the bloc would not be hurried into a deal on the future relationship.
A final draft of the EU’s negotiating position agreed by ambassadors on Monday, ready for ministerial sign off on Tuesday, establishes the bloc’s developing environmental, social and workers’ standards as the baseline for a trade deal.
Continue reading...Brexit: UK reneging on Northern Ireland pledges risks trade deals with US and EU
Concerns raised after reports negotiating team told to devise plans to ‘get around’ protocol in withdrawal agreement
Reneging on the special Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland will risk trade deals with both the EU and the US, experts have warned.
Concern has been raised after Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiating team has reportedly been ordered to come up with plans to “get around” the Northern Ireland protocol in the withdrawal agreement, which includes checks on goods and food going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Continue reading...Brexit deal ‘a different ball game’ to Canada agreement, warns EU
Brussels aide says UK cannot have similar trade pact because of proximity to member states
Downing Street’s hopes of a Canada-style trade deal with the EU have been dealt a further blow after a senior adviser to Brussels’ chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said the bloc’s relationship with the North American country was a “different ball game”.
As the two sides prepare for the start of negotiations next month, Stefaan De Rynck highlighted the UK’s proximity to Brussels compared with Canada as a key factor, as well as warning that the trade talks could get “rather difficult”.
Continue reading...UK to close door to non-English speakers and unskilled workers
Government plans to take ‘full control’ of borders a disaster for economy and jobs, say industry leaders and Labour
Britain is to close its borders to unskilled workers and those who can’t speak English as part of a fundamental overhaul of immigration laws that will end the era of cheap EU labour in factories, warehouses, hotels and restaurants.
Unveiling its Australian-style points system on Wednesday, the government will say it is grasping a unique opportunity to take “full control” of British borders “for the first time in decades” and eliminate the “distortion” caused by EU freedom of movement.
Continue reading...UK Brexit negotiator accused of treating Britain and EU as ‘two different planets’
Verhofstadt says it would be a ‘hell of a job’ to achieve success using David Frost’s approach
Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator has been accused of treating the EU and the UK as if they are “living on two different planets” after vowing to break all regulatory ties with Brussels.
Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who has led the European parliament’s approach to Brexit, said it would be a “hell of a job” to secure a successful outcome from the negotiation using the British approach.
Continue reading...We won’t budge on escaping EU rules, says UK’s Brexit negotiator
David Frost says democratic consent would snap if UK agreed to EU alignment
The democratic consent of the British public would “snap dramatically and finally” if the UK continued to be tied to EU rules, Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator has said.
In his first public speech since his appointment to the role, David Frost said Downing Street was not engaging in game-playing by rejecting alignment with EU laws after 2020.
Continue reading...Brexit: Britain and EU ‘will rip each other apart’ in trade talks
French foreign minister says it will be hard for UK to strike deal by end of year given differences
Britain and the European Union are going to rip each other apart in talks over a future trade deal, the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has predicted, while also holding out hope that UK defence co-operation with Europe will continue.
Speaking at the Munich security forum, he added it would be tough for Britain to achieve its aim of a free trade deal by the end of the year given the differences between the two sides.
Continue reading...Macron sets out 10-year vision for EU with call for more integration
French president says EU must have effective defence policy, larger budget and integrated capital markets
Europe’s middle classes will only remain reconciled to the European Union if it becomes more integrated, with an effective defence policy, a larger budget and integrated capital markets, and is shorn of vetoes that slow decision-making, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said.
Setting out his 10-year vision for Europe on Saturday, Macron said he still wanted to see the UK involved in defence, but urged European countries to recognise that in terms of social welfare, Europe had a different values to the US.
Continue reading...Marie Yovanovitch: former ambassador warns of ‘amoral’ US foreign policy
She cited a need for the country to be ‘principled, consistent and trustworthy’ while accepting an award for diplomacy
The former US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, has warned that the US had adopted an “amoral” foreign policy that “substitutes threats, fear and confusion for trust”.
In her first public remarks since leaving the US foreign service two weeks ago, Yovanovitch said that the Trump administration’s handling of foreign policy risked alienating allies and driving them into the arms of other partners they find more reliable.
Continue reading...UN passes UK-backed resolution calling for a ceasefire in Libya
Proposal for multinational operation to oversee truce comes as fighting grew more complex by the day
The UN security council has passed a resolution mandating a multinational operation to oversee a ceasefire in Libya, despite serious doubts that any of the conflict’s key players will abide by its terms.
The UK-backed resolution, calling for a ceasefire without preconditions and an immediate end to the supply of arms to both sides, was passed by 14 votes to zero, with one abstention from Russia.
Continue reading...Tunisia to shelve plan for UN vote on Trump’s Middle East plan
Security council vote was seen as test of support for deal and of Britain’s relations with US
Arab plans for a UN security council vote on Tuesday designed to show international opposition to Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan are expected to be shelved after the US and the UK raised separate objections to the draft text.
In what was being seen as a key test of the diplomatic support for Trump’s “ultimate deal”, Tunisia, with Arab League and Palestinian support, had tabled a resolution saying it breached basic undertakings to the Palestinian people.
Continue reading...What does the Irish election result mean for Brexit?
A Sinn Féin coalition will rattle unionists, who consider Boris Johnson’s EU deal a betrayal
Sinn Féin won the most first-preference votes in Saturday’s Irish general election, delivering a shock to the country’s political landscape after decades of domination by the centrist rivals Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
However, the fragmented results will produce a hung parliament with no party close to 80 seats, meaning there could be weeks – possibly months – of negotiations between party leaders before a government is formed.
Continue reading...UK unprepared for COP 26 conference, warn climate leaders
Former UN climate envoy joins list of experts frustrated at Britain’s lack of leadership
The UK is showing a “lack of coherence” in its leadership of vital UN climate crisis talks this year and giving the damaging impression that the talks are not a high priority, one of the world’s leading voices on the climate crisis has said.
Mary Robinson, a former UN climate envoy and Ireland’s first female president, also said the perception that major British politicians, including the ex-prime minister David Cameron and former foreign secretary William Hague, were unwilling to take on the role of leading the COP 26 summit was damaging.
Continue reading...Inquiry strikes blow to Russian denials of Syria chemical attack
UN watchdog’s investigation rebuts claims it manipulated evidence of Douma incident
A Russia-led campaign that claimed the UN weapons watchdog had manipulated evidence of a Syrian government chemical weapons attack has been dealt a blow by an official inquiry showing that two former employees hailed as whistleblowers had little direct access to the evidence and inflated their role.
The independent inquiry commissioned by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) shows that one of the two had never been on the team investigating the April 2018 attack in Douma and the other was only on the team for a brief period.
Continue reading...German MPs taken aback by Johnson’s hardline trade rhetoric
In London for LSE symposium, politicians express confusion at Britain’s post-Brexit stance
A flood of senior German politicians visiting the UK this week have been left confused and unnerved by the hardline rhetoric set out by Boris Johnson on trade talks, prompting warnings that the risk of a breakdown, or a no-deal Brexit, is as high as it has ever been.
Germany takes on the EU presidency in the second half of this year, and will have a crucial role in helping the European commission to steer the talks on a future UK-EU trading relationship to a successful conclusion by the end of the transition period in December.
Continue reading...‘No more deal or no deal’: Brexit language diktat for Foreign Office staff
Downing Street issues series of dos and don’ts on language department staff must use
Foreign Office staff have been banned from using certain words and phrases in discussing Brexit – including “implementation period”, “no deal”, “special partnership” and even Brexit itself unless in certain narrow circumstances.
The directive underlines the degree to which Downing Street is determined that everyone in the department follows its ideological lead in using language that frames Britain’s departure from the European Union as a clean break.
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