Brexit
Express
A MAJOR Brexit battle is at risk of breaking out over the Northern Ireland Protocol as the UK Government could demand an extension to grace periods for key products which expire next month.
The Protocol, part of the Brexit divorce deal agreed by the UK and Brussels, effectively keeps Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market for goods. This means checks on goods being sent from Great Britain into the single market in some cases could result in prohibitions on certain products that do not comply with EU rules.
Following unionist anger over the Protocol at Stormont, Brexit minister Lord Frost put forward plans to renegotiate the Protocol, which he set out in a Command Paper last month.
Negotiations are currently ongoing with the EU to find a solution.
But this publication has learnt UK ministers are considering another extension as the September 30 deadline to the current extension runs out, sparking a potential “sausage war”.
After October 1, if the EU does not agree to a further grace period, then shipments of chilled meats including sausages into Northern Ireland from elsewhere in the United Kingdom will be restricted.
Express
BRITONS have taunted Remainers after a damning new report exposed a major flaw of EU membership.
Analysis by pro-Brexit think tank Facts4EU has suggested staying in the single market – a key argument put forward by europhiles in the 2016 referendum – would have been detrimental to the UK. A study using figures from the European Commission’s Single Market Scoreboard 2020, suggested Britain did not reap the benefits of the free moment of goods and services as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Compared to the other 28 EU member states at the time, it found the UK ranked 27th in terms of goods and 26th in relation to services.
Tory MP Sir John Redwood has said the numbers show the UK was right to ditch single market
Facts4EU chairman Leigh Evans added the study has debunked myths put forward by Remainers about the economic importance of being in Europe’s largest trading bloc.
Fisheries
Express
A TENSE row over post-Brexit fishing licences between France and the UK could escalate into a second protest by fishermen in the English Channel, Express.co.uk has learnt.
The French Government is getting concerned about the lack of action UK Government officials are taking on granting licences to allow EU fishermen in the UK’s 12-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Paris officials claim the UK “isn’t taking effective action” and stressed some fishermen especially in the Hauts-de-France region were “getting frustrated”.
A Paris source added: “The UK Government appears slow to act in granting licences, despite them receiving the information from us via the European Commission weeks ago.
“This is concerning and we urge the UK to urgently act else we could be facing another Jersey scenario.”
Officials were referring to a separate dispute over licences that flared in May when France and Britain sent patrol vessels off the shores of Jersey.
Scotland
Express
NICOLA Sturgeon’s SNP is living in “fantasy island” if it thinks the EU would permit an independent Scotland to join the bloc with a national debt amounting to £300billion, a UK economist has warned.
David Blake, Professor of Economics at City, University of London, was speaking on the day the Scottish Government published its annual Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) figures. These indicated the country’s budget deficit had more than doubled to 22.4 percent of GDP in 2020/21, the highest yearly figure since the Government’s annual accounts began two decades ago.
Spending increased by 21 percent during the year, reflecting the impact of the pandemic, while average public spending per person also rose to £1,828 above the UK average.Scotland’s First Minister insisted: “Having a deficit is not – self evidently – a barrier to any country in the world being independent.”
Similar stories can be read in the Independent, Morning Star, Order-Order
EU
Express
BREXIT BRITAIN has kept its crown as Europe’s biggest financial centre, a collection of figures and data has indicated.
Despite leaving the bloc in December 2020, a new report from the European Banking Authority (EBA) revealed the UK retains the majority of highly paid bankers in the EU. It revealed 71 percent of the 4,963 bankers in the top pay category across the bloc were in the UK in 2019.
This is despite the annual survey of bankers revealing that 95 bankers earning more than €1million (£850,000) left Britain ahead of its departure from the European Union.
Britain fully left the EU’s orbit for financial regulation in December 2020 and by that time many banks and other financial firms had relocated over 7,000 staff from London to new or expanded hubs in the bloc to ensure customers retained full access to the EU financial market.
The moves boosted the number of top earners to 492 from 450 in Germany, to 270 from 234 in France, and to 241 from 206 in Italy, the EBA said.
Telegraph
The European Union is “intensifying” its work with Turkey in an attempt to prevent a flood of refugees from Afghanistan from reaching Europe’s shores.
But Turkey, which is already home to more refugees than anywhere else in the world, has warned it is not prepared to be “the border guard or refugee camp of the EU.”
Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said on Wednesday that Ankara would play a “key role” in managing a potential influx of thousands of Afghans fleeing the Taliban.
“They are and will be coming to Europe via Iran, Iraq or the Eastern Mediterranean,” Mr Borrell said. “This shows that we need to work hard with transit countries. A humanitarian crisis must be prevented. Here, Turkey will play a very important role.”
Even as Britain pledged to take in 20,000 Afghan refugees, the EU has been reluctant to open its borders to those fleeing the Taliban.
EU leaders are desperate to prevent a repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis, which saw more than 1.2 million people claim asylum in the bloc.
Express
POLAND has issued a huge challenge to the supremacy of EU law in a move that could rock the bloc’s foundations.
In a seven-page letter to the European Commission, Warsaw set out numerous rulings from continental courts that argue EU law does not always have primacy. Polish European affairs minister Konrad Szymanski even listed Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, which has recently questioned a European Court of Justice judgement on the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programme. The letter comes after the ECJ ruled that Poland’s disciplinary chamber of its judges was in breach of EU law.
Warsaw has since rowed back on its plans, with its Supreme Court halting the work of the chamber in a climb down to avert punishment by EU Commission.
But Poland has now argued that the ECJ should scrap its interim measures that the country’s own tribunal ruled were unconstitutional.
Covid
Mail
Double-jabbed people who catch the Indian variant are just as likely to develop symptoms and spread Covid as the unvaccinated, a major study has found.
The Oxford University research suggests herd immunity is ‘unachievable’ because vaccines do not significantly reduce transmission of the virus.
Although fully vaccinated people are significantly less likely to be infected, those who do get Covid have a similar peak ‘viral load’ as the unvaccinated.
This means infected people ‘shed’ the same amount of virus when they coughs or sneeze, regardless of whether or not they have been jabbed.
Experts said the findings strengthened the argument for a ‘booster’ Covid jab programme this autumn.
However, the study stressed that two doses remain remarkably effective at preventing death and hospitalisation.
And even though the viral load may peak at similar levels in the vaccinated and unvaccinated, scientists say it’s possible jabbed people clear the infection quicker.
Similar stories can be read in the Telegraph, Guardian, Mirror, Times, BBC News
Afghanistan
Mail
The Taliban‘s seizing of Afghanistan could flood British and European streets with deadly super-strength heroin, experts fear.
The Islamist terror group relies heavily on the war-torn country’s multi-billion-pound opium trade.
Production increased last year in the country, which already makes up two-thirds of the world’s opium supply.
Ian Hamilton, a drug addiction researcher at the University of York, claimed it was a problem ‘coming down the road’.
He told MailOnline: ‘Opium production has increased significantly over the past year – and that’s not a coincidence.
‘There’s been less and less official control over production and distribution. That opium yield increase is going to find its way into Western markets.
‘And the worrying thing about that is, if the yield increases, you end up with stronger, more potent heroin because there is less need to dilute it.’
NHS
Mail
Record numbers of children and young people are waiting for treatment for eating disorders amid the coronavirus pandemic, official figures show.
There were 207 under-19s in England waiting for ‘urgent’ care for conditions such as bulimia and anorexia by the end of June.
It is the highest number since NHS records began in 2016 and more than triple the amount at the same time last year.
Nearly a third (31 per cent) had been waiting for up to three months for care, while a smaller proportion (11 per cent) has been waiting even longer.
A further 1,832 young Britons were on waiting lists for routine care for eating disorders by June, up from just 441 a year ago and the most ever.
Experts warned the pandemic and lockdowns had fuelled a rise in the conditions, by disrupting their schooling and social lives.
It comes amid growing evidence that the Covid crisis has triggered a silent mental health epidemic, particularly in the young.
A similar story can be read in GB News
Education
Mail
Headteachers have reacted with fury after the Government suggested they move classes outdoors to prevent the spread of Covid.
The Department for Education said it was an extra measure to ‘think about’ if schools see a cluster of cases, in official guidance published this week.
The document also suggested assemblies and exercise could be held outdoors to reduce transmission.
Head teachers’ union ASCL said yesterday it would soon be too cold to make children learn outside.
Geoff Barton, the union’s general secretary, said: ‘The suggestion that schools could realistically consider holding assemblies and lessons outdoors during the autumn term, as temperatures plummet, is a total fudge. What is needed is ventilation equipment in school buildings as soon as possible.’
Similar stories can be read in the Telegraph, Sun, Mirror, Evening Standard
Times
The University of Cambridge will stop offering training courses for teachers if the government pushes ahead with reforms of how educators are taught and qualify in England.
The Department for Education announced plans last month to shake up teacher training. The proposals, which are under consultation, would involve all universities having to be re-accredited if they wished to continue training new candidates, as well as placing stricter controls on institutions’ ability to decide their course content and mentoring processes.
Cambridge warned that it was unlikely to continue offering teaching courses: “The proposals appear to confuse quality with uniformity and conformity. We cannot … envisage our continuing involvement with ITT [initial teacher training] should they be implemented in their current format.”
Morrisons.
America using monopoly money to buy British fixed and permanent land and buildings. These people are Asset Strippers of the worst kind. ( Probably heroes to our City. )( But actually scavenging rats and vultures ). It is yet another Cadburys where USA promises are WORTHLESS. and the basis of the destruction of the West values.
A good example of using free printed money ( Quantitive Easing given free to Banks and then lent free to cronies to buy such as Morrisons ). Only industrial scum of the nature that scurry around the City, indulge in this stinking behaviour ( And that includes the politics that ennables and profits from this behaviour)
The Australian government are rounding up children en mass to vaccinate them in a stadium and parents aren’t allowed in.
Look at this insanity:
“Australia Gov’t Tyranny: Man’s Daughter Ripped Out Of Her Father’s Arms”
https://odysee.com/$/embed/Aussie-daughter-ripped-from-fathers-arms/010a8c7987436a03e0f85c2064fb2240a27ff072?r=4mtg3xQ8UnqqTGHLSwHuqaKEWvXD8EiV&sunset=lbrytv
Opium heading our way.
Like illegal immigration to our shores being encouraged by the refusal of the Tories to remove the ‘pull factors’ we may expect them to fail to deal harshly with the dealers, users and pushers thus ensuring easier access to life/society ruining opiates.
It’s in our prescribed and OTC drugs too. Codeine, included in coproxamol. Morphine, still used in A&E, for pain control.
If Conan Doyle ‘researched’ opium dens to write his ‘Sherlock Holmes’ books it didn’t do him much harm!
Just stop the bl**dy immigrants say I.
Where I wrote coproxamol I probably should have said co-codamol.
This Conservative government have been found severely wanting on Immigration since coming to office and the Law and Order issue and the Brexit/Northern Ireland utter cock up are not too far behind being near disasters. The problems are starting to gang up upon the resident clown in Downing Street, but has he the where with all to withstand it and do something positive about his obvious failings. Somehow I doubt it and I think the problems mounting at his doorstep will progress movement toward a possible resignation or replacement especially as time moves closer to the next general election. He will I think lose ground to UKIP in the opinion polls just like the Conservatives did before the referendum. Whilst the media at large and the majority of MP’s in the House of Commons seem to be keen on a massive influx of refugees into the country from Afghanistan, I sense the population of the county do not, so a disconnect is opening up, which may allow a party like UKIP tp hoover up opinion poll percentages and votes in future byelections.