News review – Monday 2 August 2021

EU 

Express 
THE EU countries who have suffered the most because of Brexit have been revealed in a new report.
Facts4EU.Org revealed the financial carnage that losing the UK has wreaked on the bloc’s members. Not surprisingly, Germany came out as the biggest loser after its economy was down £12.2billion in the last 12 months compared with 2016 – the year of the referendum vote.
It was followed by Belgium (£3.7billion), France (£3.3billion), the Netherlands (£2.7billion), and Spain (£2.6billion).
The website also revealed that UK consumers bought £28billion less from the EU last year than in the referendum year.
In data gleaned from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) it found that Sweden sat in sixth place – down £1.2billion.
It was followed by the Czech Republic (£1.1billion), Italy (£0.7 billion), Slovakia (£0.4billion) and Portugal (£0.4billion).
The website claimed this loss of trade was not a “Covid effect” or because of new border controls.
In a statement it added: “As the EU’s largest economy, it is not surprising that Germany has lost most in terms of financial totals.
“If an EU country sells more, it loses more if there is a trend away from buying from EU countries.
“The actual totals in pounds can therefore disguise the impact on individual countries.” 

Illegal migrants 

Mail 
A record 3,500 migrants arrived in Britain across the Channel last month as the total number of people who have made the dangerous 21-mile journey from France so far this year hits a staggering 9,300.
The total number of crossings has already surpassed last year’s record of 8,410, while in July Border Force intercepted more than 120 overcrowded boats of migrants from Africa and the Middle East.  
In a bid to handle the crisis, ministers will speed up deportations by bringing in new laws to ban migrants from judicial reviews of their rejected asylum applications to prevent lawyers making spurious claims.
Migrants whose appeals have been rejected by the immigration tribunals will no longer be able to challenge the decision if they have been refused permission to appeal, the Sunday Telegraph reports.
The tactic has accounted for hundreds of cases which have delayed the removal of rejected asylum seekers or illegal migrants who crossed the Channel for months at enormous cost to the British taxpayer.
Ministry of Justice data showed just three per cent of such immigration claims are successful in the high courts compared with 50 per cent for other cases. 
The changes will be part of the Government’s bill reforming judicial review and overturn a landmark 2012 Supreme Court ruling which allowed for these cases to be subject to judicial review. 

Vaccine 

Guardian
The NHS is facing pressure to redistribute tens of thousands of vaccine doses nearing expiry as demand from younger adults drops.
An internal email seen by the Guardian warned of 170,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine at risk of expiry within the next fortnight, as doctors across England have raised alarm at the unpredictability of vaccine take-up among young people meaning more doses will go to waste.
The government is to unveil a raft of new initiatives to increase vaccine uptake among young people, including discounts on car-hailing companies such as Uber and Bolt, as well as the delivery service Deliveroo.
It is understood the NHS has managed to redistribute 40,000 of the spare Moderna jabs. However, concerns have been raised about the number of jabs wasted as uptake slows among younger people eligible for the Moderna and Pfizer jabs.
The Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation recommends an interval of eight to 12 weeks between doses, initially as a way to offer more people first doses because of limited supply, but studies have since shown that the larger gap could give longer protection. 

Mail
Tens of millions of Britons are expected to be offered a Pfizer booster jab this autumn as the vaccine has proved to be the most effective against the Delta variant.
The booster scheme, which was announced earlier this year, is set to start in September and should see 23million over-50s, vulnerable Britons and  NHS  and care home staff offered a third dose.
Extra vaccines would be rolled out in two stages — prioritising those most at risk of Covid, before the programme is extended.
While patients were initially expected to be offered the jab they were originally inoculated with, it is understood all patients will be offered the Pfizer jab as it has proven to be the most effective against the Delta variant.
The Department of Health has yet to confirm the official details of the booster scheme, plans of which were first shared by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in June.
The JCVI is expected to issue its final advice in regards to the booster scheme in the coming months.  

Vaccine passports 

Guardian
The prime minister is facing a renewed backlash against plans to introduce domestic vaccine passports for entry into large-scale events, with demands for parliament to be recalled from its summer recess to allow debate on the issue.
The Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen has called for the return if the government is “serious” about its plans.
His comments mean that cross-party backing is emerging for the House of Commons to return before September. Last week, the Liberal Democrats said a change rolled out to the NHS app – enabling users to prove they had been double-jabbed in order to access domestic settings, as well as for international travel – warranted a recall.
Bridgen, a member of the lockdown-sceptical Covid Recovery Group, is one of 43 Conservative MPs to have signed a declaration opposing vaccine passports.
Speaking on Sunday to LBC, the MP for North West Leicestershire said: “I think if the government is serious about the threat of bringing in domestic vaccine passports, then of course parliament should be recalled.
“This is a very serious infringement on people’s liberties. It is basically unprecedented in this country, and I and a number of colleagues would oppose it. 

Intensive care 

Mail
The average age of Covid patients in intensive care has plummeted by ten years because of the vaccine rollout.
Over the past three months, the critically-ill have been 49 on average, compared with 59 in the second wave of the pandemic.
Around half of those admitted to intensive care units are under 50, and nearly one third under 40.
The NHS figures illustrate the dramatic success of vaccines in protecting older adults, almost all of whom have been double-jabbed. 
Wards are instead filling up with those most likely to be unvaccinated, including young adults, pregnant women and people from black or deprived communities.
Coronavirus is still in retreat across Britain, boosting hopes that the third wave is ebbing.
Weekly infections are down by 30 per cent and yesterday 24,470 cases were reported, down from a summer peak of 54,674 on July 17.
Another 65 deaths were logged while the number of patients in hospital with the virus has dropped slightly.
Daily hospital admissions for Covid have still not topped 1,000 a day despite warnings from scientists that this was inevitable.  

Social care 

Telegraph
England’s Covid care home death toll is likely to be thousands higher than official figures show, amid claims the watchdog excluded key dates when patients were discharged from hospitals without tests.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) declared there were 39,017 Covid-related deaths across care homes in England when it published official figures for the first time in July.
But care providers told The Telegraph the numbers were likely to be far higher, as only people who died with Covid between April 10 last year and March 31 this year were counted.
They claim that “thousands of elderly residents are likely to have died” in the days leading up to April 10 because just eight days earlier the CQC had signed off on a controversial government policy that allowed Covid-positive patients to be discharged from hospitals into care homes.
Last night, one manager said the regulator “failed every one of its own standards” and described the CQC signing off on the policy as “a death warrant”. They added: “They were neglecting what they were supposed to be doing for a living.” 

A similar story can be read in the Mirror. 

Travel 

Mail 
The creation of an extra travel alert level hangs in the balance today amid a mounting Tory revolt and a warning by Rishi Sunak that the industry faced devastation – while travel experts push for 17 destinations to be added to the quarantine-free green list.
Ministers signed off proposals last week to create an ‘amber watch list’ that could plunge the plans of hundreds of thousands of British holidaymakers into turmoil.
Travellers would be warned that destinations – possibly including hotspots such as Spain and Italy – face being placed on the red list while they are away, forcing them to quarantine on return in a state-selected hotel at huge expense.
But Whitehall sources last night told the Mail that the plans could now be scrapped – amid a growing backlash from Tory MPs. 
It comes as yesterday it emerged that Mr Sunak had written to Boris Johnson to warn the Government risked damaging the travel sector by imposing more ‘draconian’ measures than EU rivals. 
The Chancellor said UK border policy was ‘out of step with our international competitors’ in a way that threatened to damage jobs.   

Similar stories can be read in the  Telegraph, Times, Independent. 

Crime 

Mail
Criminal gangs are choosing to use ‘quieter’ e-bikes as their getaway vehicles and wear brogues over trainers as they attempt to blend in with crowds, police officers have revealed.
The new tactics, which sees criminals attempting to pose as commuters, comes amid a police crackdown on rising moped thefts in London in recent years.
Met Police officers explained they have seen criminal groups ditch the traditional motorised vehicles and instead opt for ‘quieter’ e-bikes that can cost up to £3,000.
The Telegraph reports these e-bikes are stolen by gangs before they are modified, allowing them to travel both on and off road at speeds exceeding 35mph.  
The criminals then drive around in small groups, snatching up to 40 phones every day from the hands of unwitting pedestrians at their peak.
The Met has since launched the Look Up and Look Out campaign to help commuters who are returning to their normal routines recognise the tactics used by the gangs. 

Gang rape 

Breitbart
An average of two women or girls is being gang-raped in Germany per day, with foreigners making up half of all perpetrators, according to data from the nation’s equivalent to the FBI.
Figures released by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Germany showed that in 2020, there were 704 instances of gang rape throughout the country. This is compared to 710 in 2019 and 649 in 2018.
The horrific statistics were revealed by the German daily tabloid Bild Zeitung, who reported that half of all suspects in the gang-rape cases were not German citizens and that often the perpetrators came from Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
Afghani migrants were said to be particularly overrepresented in the gang-rape statistics. While migrants from Afghanistan only make up around 0.3 per cent of the population, they accounted for six per cent of all suspects in 2018. Most of the rapes occurred while the migrants were applying for asylum in the country.
It is unclear how many offences are accounted for by people born in Germany with familial roots overseas.
Criminologist Christian Pfeiffer said that there is “always the same basic pattern” among the perpetrators.
“Frustrated young men who don’t make it. They come from a culture of male dominance and live here in an outsider role,” he said.
“They notice that they have a hard time getting on with girls. They would not find a partner from their cultural area because only a few women have fled,” Pfeiffer suggested. 

Scotland 

Mail
Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove has said Westminster would not stand in the way of a second Scottish independence referendum if it is the ‘settled will’ of voters amid a decline in support for secession.
London has repeatedly rejected demands from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon for the powers necessary to hold another vote and split the UK, but Mr Gove – who is responsible for countering the push for independence – has now said if the public desire a second poll, ‘one would occur’.
The Cabinet Office minister, who previously said Westminster had ruled out a second referendum before the 2024 General Election, told the Sunday Mail: ‘The principle that the people of Scotland, in the right circumstances, can ask that question again is there.
‘I just don’t think that it is right, and the public don’t think it is right, to ask that question at the moment. If it is the case that there is clearly a settled will in favour of a referendum, then one will occur.’ 
Following around six months of consistent polling showing majority support for separation last year – with one poll going as high as 58 per cent in favour – the tide began to turn at the beginning of 2021. 
The most recent survey by Panelbase for the Sunday Times found 48 per cent of the 1,287 respondents supported leaving the UK. 

Express
NICOLA STURGEON was condemned by Brexiteers for being “obsessed” with flags and for not accepting the Brexit result, amid a bizarre decision to keep flying the EU flag in Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon’s independence push has stalled in recent months thanks to the pandemic and polls suggesting support for Scottish secession has decreased. A Panelbase poll in June found just 48 percent of people – excluding the don’t knows – would support independence if a referendum were held, down from 52 percent in April. Earlier this month, Dennis Canavan, chairman of the Yes campaign in 2014, told the Daily Record that Scots faced a choice between the Westminster “straightjacket” or independence.
But he admitted there is “certainly cause for concern” as “recent opinion polls should act as a wake-up call”.
He added: “We should never take people’s support for granted. To paraphrase Keir Hardie about the need for continuous campaigning: ‘We are either going forward or we are being driven back. There is no such thing as standing still'”.
While the First Minister is seeking a new vote on independence, she was accused of refusing to accept the result of Brexit.
Conservative MPs accused Ms Sturgeon of being “obsessed with flags” as the Scottish Government continued to fly the EU flag outside its buildings. 

Switzerland 

Express
SWITZERLAND endured a “Brexit moment”, according to an expert on European politics, as the nation decided to end negotiations with the bloc.
The EU has clashed with the UK in recent weeks over the Brexit withdrawal agreement as Brussels and London dispute the Northern Ireland Protocol. The European Commission has offered up two sets of proposals – one on medicine and one on food – hoping to end the dispute with the UK. And now Brussels has even paused its legal action against the UK for alleged breaches of the Protocol.
The EU has already said it will not renegotiate the Protocol but will “consider any proposals that respect the principles” of the deal. 

Electric vehicles 

ITV News
The speed in the rise of UK electric vehicle (EV) sales could slow within the next few years due to a worldwide deficit in the lithium needed for car batteries, according to experts.
Since June, car giants GM and Stellantis, which owns Peugeot, Fiat and Citroen, have pledged 30 billion dollars (£21.6 billion) and 35 billion dollars (£25.2 billion) respectively in electrification investments in the next four years.
But core to this strategy is the need to secure a long-term supply of raw materials including lithium.
As a result lithium demand could triple by 2025 to one million tonnes per year and then double again to two million tonnes per year by 2030 – the year the UK plans to ban new petrol and diesel car sales.