Brexit

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Downing Street has effectively blocked the publication of a potentially explosive parliamentary report on the security threat that Russia poses to the UK until after the general election. The 50-page document from the intelligence and security committee examines allegations that Kremlin-sponsored activity distorted the result of the 2016 EU referendum, but has to be cleared by No 10 before it can be released. Downing Street indicated on Monday that it would not approve publication before parliament is dissolved on Tuesday evening, meaning that it cannot now appear before the election on 12 December.

A No 10 spokesman declined to outline when the report would eventually be published. “There are processes reports such as this have to go through before publication, and the committee is well informed of these,” he said. The committee’s chairman, Dominic Grieve, said the decision to prevent publication before the election was “jaw-dropping” and that he could not understand on what basis it had been made.

“The protocols are quite clear. If the prime minister has a good reason for preventing publication he should explain to the committee what it is, and do it within 10 days of him receiving the report. If not it should be published,” he said. A final draft of the Russian dossier, the product of 18-months work, was sent to Downing Street on 17 October and was originally intended for publication early this week. Political approval had been expected by the end of last week. It was intended to be the last step in what is conventionally a complex sign-off process. The report has already been cleared by Britain’s spy agencies, which contributed to the research.

 No 10 blocks Russia EU referendum report until after election | Politics | The Guardian

• Publication postponed until after the election, what do they got to hide?
  

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Boris Johnson's Brexit plan would prevent the UK and the US striking a free trade agreement, Donald Trump said. 'To be honest with you, this deal, under certain aspects of the deal, you can't do it. You can't trade. We can't make a trade deal with the UK,' the US President told Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage. Prime Minister Johnson has repeatedly talked up the prospect of a free trade agreement with the US after the UK leaves the EU.

 Trump: Boris Johnson's Brexit plan could rule out UK-US trade deal - Business Insider

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The Conservative Party accused of spreading “fake news” after posting misleadingly edited footage of an interview with Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer. The footage appears to show Starmer left speechless by a question on Labour’s Brexit policy. However, full footage of the interview shows that he immediately responded to the question. The row comes as ministers confirm that Boris Johnson’s government will refuse to release a report into Russian influence on recent elections and referendums.

 The Conservatives edit interview footage to falsely suggest Labour's Keir Starmer was left speechless by Brexit question

• Win at all cost..
  
• If supposedly civilized parties in long established democracies already engage in these antics, imagine what happens in countries with less democratic traditions..
  

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No analysis of the likely economic damage from Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal will be carried out, the government has admitted. Ministers have dropped plans to publish a Treasury assessment, amid estimates of a hit to the UK economy of anything between £70bn and £130bn, leaving people thousands of pounds worse off. The stance was attacked as “a dereliction of duty” by Julie Ward, a Labour MEP, who uncovered it after submitting a freedom of information request.

“The government doesn't even know, or don't even seem to care, what their new Brexit deal will mean for the economy, business and families across the country,” she said. Sajid Javid, the chancellor, was strongly criticised for refusing to publish an assessment before MPs voted on the prime minister’s divorce deal last month.

 Boris Johnson government will not carry out any economic impact assessment of his Brexit deal, officials admit | The Independent

• Amazing..
  

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The British economy would be at most 0.16% larger by the middle of the next decade under a comprehensive trade deal with the US, the government has admitted, laying bare the limited benefits from striking an agreement with Donald Trump. In a document published by Liz Truss’s Department for International Trade designed to kick-start post-Brexit trade talks with the Trump White House, the government said the British economy stood to benefit from an “ambitious and comprehensive” trade deal worth a fraction of GDP, equivalent to £3.4bn after 15 years.

 British economy 'to grow 0.16% at best under US trade deal' | Politics | The Guardian

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The 44-year-old Conservative who is the MP for Morley and Outwood is a member of the prominent Eurosceptic organisation Leave Means Leave has been a strong critic of Theresa May's EU withdrawal deal and quit her junior position in the cabinet over the issue back in May 2018. As an advocate of the so-called WTO rules, Jenkyns was asked by host Jo Coburn to name other countries that operated purely on those trading rules. Her answer wasn't exactly clear or right.
Errm...I obviously need to look further into that. Why is this about trading with the EU?
For me, I see a global Britain. Unlike remainers, my borders are not the EU.
I see beyond that and for a global Britain for trading.

This forced Labour MEP Seb Dance to step-in and correct Jenkyns for her inaccurate statement.
It's our EU membership that gives us better terms with the rest of the world. That is how we trade with the rest of the world currently. Your no deal would not just rip us out of our biggest market, it would end our trade relationship with some 60+ plus other countries around the world, which we would then have to negotiate from scratch. The furthest we've got now is the Faroe Islands. I'm sorry but it's total nonsense.

Jenkyns was then told by Coburn that the only countries that trade with the EU purely on that basis are Cuba, Venezuela, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and North Korea. This embarrassing moment for the Brexiteer is hardly the first time someone has failed to competently explain WTO rules 

 Brexit: MP Andrea Jenkyns quizzed over WTO rules during BBC Politics Live debate | indy100 | indy100

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The volume of exports going through British ports to the EU fell by a staggering 68% last month compared with January last year, mostly as a result of problems caused by Brexit, the Observer can reveal. The dramatic drop in the volume of traffic carried on ferries and through the Channel tunnel has been reported to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove by the Road Haulage Association after a survey of its international members. In a letter to Gove dated 1 February, the RHA’s chief executive, Richard Burnett, also told the minister he and his officials had repeatedly warned over several months of problems and called for measures to lessen difficulties – but had been largely ignored. 

In particular he had made clear throughout last year there was an urgent need to increase the number of customs agents to help firms with mountains of extra paperwork. The number now, around 10,000, is still about a fifth of what the RHA says is required to handle the massive increase in paperwork facing exporters. Burnett told the Observer that in addition to the 68% fall-off in exports, about 65%-75% of vehicles that had come over from the EU were going back empty because there were no goods for them to return with, due to hold-ups on the UK side, and because some UK companies had either temporarily or permanently halted exports to the EU. “I find it deeply frustrating and annoying that ministers have chosen not to listen to the industry and experts,” he said.

 Fury at Gove as exports to EU slashed by 68% since Brexit | Brexit | The Guardian

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British firms are warning of an escalation in Brexit red tape as the government prepares to introduce a long list of new controls on imports from the European Union in April and July. In the coming months further checks are due to be phased in at the UK border, controlling everything from the import of sausages and live mussels to horses and trees, as well as the locations these checks can take place. One logistics firm warned the situation had “disaster written all over it”, saying businesses need more time to prepare, while accountancy firm KPMG said some of the “biggest headaches” facing traders are yet to come. Importers fear UK customs are not ready for the new controls, and that logjams at points of entry could cause fruit and vegetable shortages in the spring.


Much of the focus on Brexit trade since January has been on UK exports, as the EU imposed its customs checks immediately – with hauliers reporting that the volume of exports going through British ports to the EU fell 68% last month compared with January 2020. However, the British government chose a phased approach, postponing the introduction of certain import procedures by three to six months. These grace periods were designed to give businesses more time to adapt to the new rules and ways of working, but many are set to expire shortly. The next big change is due on 1 April, when UK customs will begin controlling imports of animal products, including fishery produce and live bivalve molluscs such as mussels; food considered high-risk such as mince and sausages; and plants and plant products..

 UK importers brace for 'disaster' as new Brexit customs checks loom | Brexit | The Guardian

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Covid-19 was a disaster for sales, but then came Brexit. “Having spent the last 25 years developing a successful sales operation throughout the EU, which until recently accounted for about 50% of our sales, we are now facing the prospect of our EU business being wiped out due to the complications of the Brexit deal,” says Bennett. “Feedback from our clients on the continent is that they will not accept the extra customs charges and duties, and will simply switch to our competitors who remain in the EU. Who can blame them? I would do the same.”

Like many other UK small businesses – the British Chambers of Commerce said last week that half of small businesses that export to the EU from the UK were struggling with Brexit rules, regulations and costs – Bennett says he has no option but to shift part of his company from Stockport to France, so it is back inside the EU’s single market. “Our only chance to retain EU business is to create a distribution centre in France,” he said. This, unfortunately, will have the effect of taking jobs and economic activity away from north-west England.

 Brexit: as half its sales are wiped out, silk firm joins exodus to Europe | Business | The Guardian

Hundreds of UK companies could switch operations to countries inside the EU in what is threatening to become a dramatic exodus of investment and jobs caused by Brexit. The Observer can reveal that by 1 January this year some 500 businesses – mostly UK-owned, or UK-based with overseas owners – were already making inquiries about setting up branches, depots or warehouses in the Netherlands alone, for “Brexit-related reasons”. Since then the number of inquiries from UK companies has increased further. If companies switch all or parts of their operations to Europe it will mean the loss of jobs, economic activity and tax revenue at home.

 UK firms plan to shift across Channel after Brexit chaos | Brexit | The Guardian

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British stores could be flooded with “dangerous” bacon and ham from the US, marketed under misleading labels, as the result of a transatlantic trade deal, says the author of a new book based on a decade of investigation into the food industry. The meat has been cured with nitrites extracted from vegetables, a practice not permitted by the European Commission because of evidence that it increases the risk of bowel cancer. But it is allowed in the US, where the product is often labelled as “all natural”. The powerful US meat industry is likely to insist that the export of nitrite-cured meat is a condition of a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal, which the UK government is under intense pressure to deliver. 

“The American processed-meat industry acts just like big tobacco,” Guillaume Coudray, author of Who Poisoned Your Bacon Sandwich?, told the Observer. “It obscures the truth about nitro-meats and clouds the facts for its own commercial benefit – and they have been at it for decades. They have done this despite clear and overwhelming evidence that nitro-meats cause bowel cancer.”

Coudray’s claims echo the row over chlorinated chicken. The practice of washing poultry meat with chlorine is common in the US but banned in the UK. The government has said it will not allow the import of chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef under a transatlantic trade deal, but has refused to sign those pledges into law.

 UK-US Brexit trade deal ‘could fill supermarkets with cancer-risk bacon’ | Food safety | The Guardian