Brexit

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British companies risk trade barriers to the European Union if a future government seeks to abandon EU standards on workers’ rights and environmental protection, Michel Barnier has signalled. In an interview with the Guardian and seven other European newspapers, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator said any British government would face a “proportional” response if it sought to roll back core social, environmental and consumer standards. The EU and UK have agreed to negotiate a free-trade agreement as part of Boris Johnson’s revamped Brexit deal, but Barnier stressed that tariff and quota-free access to the EU were linked to maintaining regulatory standards. “Access to our markets will be proportional to the commitments taken to the common rules,” he said. “The agreement we are ready to discuss is zero tariffs, zero quotas, zero dumping.”

 Michel Barnier tells UK: ignore EU regulatory standards at your peril | Politics | The Guardian

There is no “security upside” to Brexit and the best the government can hope to do is minimise its negative impact, the former head of MI5 has said. Lord Jonathan Evans, who was director-general of the Security Service from 2007 to 2013, said it was “absolutely vital” to remain ties with Europol and European Union (EU) countries. “I find it very hard to see any security upside from Brexit. It seems to me that our task is to minimise the downside," he told a debate held by the Policy Exchange think-tank in London. Lord Evans, who sits as a crossbench peer, said Britain’s “security interests remain international and globalised, because that’s where the threats come from”.

 Brexit is bad for UK's national security, former head of MI5 says | The Independent