Brexit
A dose of realism seems to have hit the Brexit talks says the Express.
TORY MPs are urging Brussels to “wake up” to the threat of a no-deal Brexit after the latest EU trade talks broke up without any progress.
Boris Johnson’s negotiators warned the discussions for the future relationship between the UK and the bloc were “frozen” with Eurocrats refusing to drop demands for continued control over fishing waters, business regulations and state aid for industry. Senior British officials now admit that securing a deal next month to come into force on schedule at the end of the year “won’t be easy” given the “frustrating” behaviour from the EU while Brussels chief negotiator Michel Barnier claimed a deal was “unlikely”. One senior UK negotiating official said: “Agreement is still possible and we still want it but it won’t be easy to get there.”
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, a leading Brexit supporter, last night led warnings from Westminster that Brussels has most to lose if the talks collapse.
He said: “This is a wake-up moment for the EU.
An insistence that the UK toes the line means the negotiations are going nowhere, reports the Telegraph.
Brussels has made Brexit negotiations “unnecessarily difficult” by insisting that the UK signs up to state aid and fisheries rules, David Frost has warned.
The UK’s chief negotiator said that “any further substantive work” was being delayed by Brussels’ creating roadblocks out of the two particular areas of concern.
It comes as Mr Frost’s EU’s counterpart Michel Barnier accused the British Government of “wasting valuable time” in trade talks with the European Union. After the seventh round of Brexit talks ended in deadlock, a senior negotiating official for the UK insisted that “it’s not us that’s slowing it down”.
The source said: “The process block now is the EU’s insistence that we must accept their position on state aid and fisheries before we can talk about anything else. We’re obviously not going to do that.
The Guardian delights in quoting the bloc’s negotiator’s comment that it’s the UK’s fault.
Michel Barnier has accused the British government of “wasting valuable time” and warned that a post-Brexit deal between the EU and the UK looks “unlikely”.
With two months to go until the EU-imposed deadline of October, the EU’s chief negotiator said: “Frankly I am disappointed and I am worried.” Barnier said he was “a little surprised” because Boris Johnson had told EU leaders earlier this summer he wanted an outline deal by July.
After two days of talks with the British, Barnier said: “Too often this week it felt as if we were going backwards more than forwards.”
The Mirror describes the continued negotiations as a ‘farce’.
The UK’s Brexit trade talks have descended into farce, with Brussel’s and London unable to even agree on if a deal is still possible.
Brussels chief negotiator Michel Barnier warned that a Brexit deal is is “unlikely in a press conference this morning at the end of another week of unfruitful talks between officials.
But No 10 has insisted that a deal is “still possible” even if it is going to be difficult to achieve.
In a scathing press conference, Mr Barnier said there had been “no progress whatsoever on the issues that matter”.
Even the Independent is beginning to appreciate what we Brexiteers have known for weeks.
Brexit trade talks between the UK and EU are actually “going backwards” as negotiators “waste valuable time”, Brussels’ chief negotiator has said.
A visibly annoyed Michel Barnier told reporters on Friday after a week-long round of talks that, on some subjects, there had been “no progress whatsoever on the issues that matter”.
“Too often this week, it felt as if we were going backwards more than forward. Given the short time left … today at this stage an agreement between the UK and the European Union seems unlikely. I still do not understand why we are wasting valuable time,” he said.
David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator, said in a written statement that he believed “agreement is still possible” but that “it is clear that it will not be easy to achieve”.
Mr Barnier stuck to his previous assessment that an agreement was “unlikely”. He said there had been some minor progress on “technical issues”, such as UK participation in EU programmes and anti-money laundering, but that the fundamentals were still out of place.
Sky News reports Barmier’s claims that it’s the UK that refuses to ‘compromise’ – or make concessions.
Brexit talks did not move swiftly forward this week, EU negotiator Michel Barnier has said, adding that he is “disappointed” with the progress of the negotiations.
The EU’s Brexit negotiator accused the UK of showing “no willingness” to compromise on the bloc’s priority areas in order to agree a trade deal before the end of the year.
“Too often this week it felt as if we were going backwards more than forwards,” he said, after the seventh round of talks between the two sides ended.
UK negotiator David Frost said that while the latest negotiations in Brussels had been “useful”, there had been “little progress”.
The Express is more realistically reporting that it’s the EU negotiator’s fault.
EUROPEAN UNION negotiator Michel Barnier is holding up talks over a free-trade agreement by cherrypicking the meaning of Brexit, British sources have claimed.
The Brussels bureaucrat has accused the UK of trying to secure a best of both worlds Brexit with “single market-like benefits” but has ignored his own attempts to keep the country tied to EU rules. His intransigence has blocked progress on the post-Brexit future relationship between Britain and the EU, according to a senior UK negotiating official. Mr Barnier is still asking the UK to remain tied to the bloc’s state aid rules and for continued access to Britain’s fishing grounds.
The UK official said: “As Michel Barnier said, and often says, Brexit means Brexit, and that is correct.
“The EU doesn’t apply that to these two policies, where the position is that we have fisheries arrangements very much like of the Common Fisheries Policy and we are expected to define a state aid policy that looks very much like the one the EU has.
iNews is a little more even-handed, highlighting the refusal to back down on both sides.
The UK and EU have accused each other of slowing down Brexit talks as yet another round of negotiations concluded with “no progress whatsoever”.
In a statement the UK accused the EU of making post-Brexit negotiations “unnecessarily difficult” and warned “time is short for both sides”.
And EU negotiator Michel Barnier said he did not understand why they were “wasting valuable time” and complained it felt like talks were “going backwards more than forwards”.
The EU is trying a bit of emotional blackmail says the Sun.
BRUSSELS sparked fury this morning after using the fate of desperate Channel migrants as a Brexit bargaining chip – as a deal remained on the brink over a huge row over fish.
The EU is refusing to help stop small boat crossings until Britain caves on a slew of unreasonable trade talk demands, sparking a major backlash.
The latest round of talks broke up today without any progress again, sparking a bitter war of words between negotiators Michel Barnier and David Frost.
Sources said the bloc could use the crisis – which Britain has long been pushing the EU for action on – as part of the ongoing Brexit negotiations on a future trade deal.
Elections
Russian interference in our elections could end up with the PM in court, says the Guardian.
A cross-party group of MPs is threatening to sue Boris Johnson unless he orders an independent investigation into Russian interference in recent UK elections and the 2016 Brexit vote.
The MPs say the government’s refusal to investigate Kremlin meddling is a breach of the European convention on human rights, which enshrines the right to free elections in protocol 1.
The group says it will take the prime minister to court if he fails to implement what it describes as essential steps to protect future elections. It has sent him a pre-action letter, to which Downing Street has two weeks to respond.
Lockdown
Back to the pandemic and the Telegraph reports the prospect of another national lockdown.
A second national lockdown could be imposed, senior Government advisers have warned, as the upper limit of the R rate pushed over one for the first time since restrictions were lifted.
The Prime Minister effectively ruled out another nationwide shutdown, stating that the option was now akin to a “nuclear deterrent”, in an interview with The Telegraph last month.
However, on Friday the Sage advisory group said Britain’s reproduction number was now between 0.9 and 1.1, with senior sources warning “more nationwide measures” may be needed.
The Sun also reports the prospect.
THE UK could face a second lockdown as officials warn of a “bumpy autumn and winter” ahead.
More restrictions could be brought in to tackle infections after the R-rate crept over one for the first time since restrictions were lifted.
Yesterday, the Sage advisory group said Britain’s reproduction number was between 0.9 and 1.1, with senior sources warning “more nationwide measures” may be needed.
Manchester and Leicester have already faced local lockdowns, while people in Oldham and Blackburn will not be allowed to meet with any other households from midnight on Saturday.
In an effort to sell more papers, the Mail also runs the report.
Britain could go into a second national lockdown if it sees a rise in cases like Spain, a senior official warned last night.
More ‘nationwide measures’ could be brought in to combat rising infections after the R-rate crept over one for the first time since restrictions were lifted in July.
Senior officials said local outbreaks could skew the reproduction number, which needs to stay below one to avoid another rise in infections, but another nationwide lockdown could soon be necessary to curb the spread.
Infections
And yet the Mail also says the virus could be in retreat as the number of infections drops off.
England’s coronavirus crisis could be in retreat for good as official data today suggested the number of people getting infected has plummeted by a third in a week.
The Office for National Statistics estimates 2,400 people are contracting the disease every day, down 37 per cent from the 3,800 the previous week.
Statisticians at the Government-run agency said that while cases had been on the climb since July – prompting fears of a second wave – the epidemic’s upward trajectory had now been stopped in its tracks.
Concerns about a Covid-19 resurgence sparked panic among ministers and prompted Boris Johnson to ‘squeeze the brakes’ on easing rules at the start of August. Daily confirmed infections breached the 1,000 mark this month for the first time since late June but have started to slow down again.
The latest report estimated that 24,600 people in England had the coronavirus at any given time during the week ending August 13, the most recent study period. It suggests 0.05 per cent of the population is currently infected with the disease, or around one in 2,200 people.
Deaths
And the number of deaths is also dropping, with just TWO more reported yesterday, says the Sun.
THE UK has seen the lowest coronavirus deaths rise in 24 hours since lockdown began.
Today the Government logged another two deaths as the total killed by the virus rose to 41,405.
It comes as the coronavirus R rate is above the crucial value of 1 across the UK, the country’s top scientists say.
Four regions in England have seen a slight increase in the vital measure since last week – while every range is at or above 1.
Quarantine
The question of whether travellers coming in from abroad must go into quarantine is changing on a daily basis, says the Times.
Holidays to islands such as the Canaries and Balearics may be possible without quarantine despite travel restrictions applying to Spain, the transport secretary has suggested.
Grant Shapps said the government was considering allowing holidays to individual islands with lower coronavirus infection rates than the mainland. He said there was a “case for regionalisation” when it came to travel corridors.
His comments suggest that the government’s blanket quarantine restrictions on travellers from “high-risk” countries may be softened in the coming months.
The Independent outlines the current rules.
Islands like the Canaries could be excluded from coronavirus travel quarantine restrictions even where their home country is included, the transport secretary has said.
Grant Shapps raised hopes that holidays could be made easier after he said the government was looking at ways of exempting low-infection areas of some countries from restrictions.
The inclusion of the Canaries in the measures imposed on Spain was controversial, with local authorities pointing to a lower infection rate than on the Spanish mainland and even parts of the UK.
The issue could raise its head again if Greece is added to the UK’s quarantine list, given the island nature of its geography and its popularity with sun-seeking tourists.
But Mr Shapps said the government needed accurate data before it was able to separate out different regions within countries for different measures.
Education
Schools are due to open next month, but will parents send their children back? The Mail reports a poll.
Just over two thirds of parents intend to send their children back to school when classrooms in England reopen next month – but almost a third do not feel comfortable with the restart.
The Government wants all pupils to return to class full-time in September but an exclusive poll for MailOnline suggests many parents are yet to be convinced it is safe.
Meanwhile, the survey conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies also showed voters believe Gavin Williamson is most to blame for the Government’s education omnishambles.
And the Mail also points out that a union could refuse to teach.
A left-wing teaching union faction is protesting today and threatening to boycott the reopening of schools if its demands over coronavirus safety are not met.
The Education Solidarity Network, part of the National Education Union, is holding a ‘day of action’ as it calls for measures including free PPE, smaller classes to allow social distancing and weekly Covid tests for teachers.
Campaigners are also demanding that parents who don’t feel comfortable letting their children return to the classroom should not be fined as demanded by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson earlier this summer.
If local infections top 50 per 100,000 people, classrooms should close to all but priority children, protesters argue, despite Boris Johnson wanting a full reopening in September.
The economy
Things are getting better quicker than expected says the Times.
Britain is bouncing back faster than expected as businesses return to normal and shoppers return to the high street, figures suggest.
Business surveys indicate that the economy is on course to expand at its fastest pace on record after shrinking by a fifth during lockdown. However, the recovery is likely to stall towards the end of the year.
The data company IHS Markit’s “purchasing managers index”, which measures confidence in the economy among 1,500 businesses in the manufacturing and services sector, reached 60.3 this month. This was up from 57 last month and above predictions of 57.1. Any reading above 50 indicates that the economy is growing.
Retail sales also shot up as people returned to the high street in droves once restrictions were lifted.
But the country has borrowed a lot of money, says the Telegraph.
Five years of borrowing have compressed into the past four months.
Back in March, just as this crisis was beginning, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicted that the national debt would pass the £2 trillion mark in 2024-25.
Instead, the coronavirus and its recession sent borrowing spiralling past that terrifying threshold in just four months.
Remarkable as it may seem, this is actually slightly less bad than feared.
The OBR’s July predictions indicated that vast spending programmes combined with a recession which is literally off the charts of recent downturns would force the Government to borrow almost £180bn between April and July.
Cancer
There’s a huge backlog of patients that could cause more deaths, says the Times.
Scores of MPs and former ministers have urged the prime minister to tackle a backlog in NHS cancer care that threatens to lead to thousands of early deaths over the next decade.
More than 100 MPs have written to Boris Johnson after the coronavirus lockdown caused severe disruption to cancer diagnoses and treatments. They have called on him to deliver an emergency boost to treatment capacity.
One senior oncologist has claimed that in a worst-case scenario the effects of the pandemic could result in 30,000 excess cancer deaths over the next decade.
Pensions
Old age pensions could be pegged back, reports the Times.
Rishi Sunak’s plans to shelve pension protections to stop big rises are being resisted by Boris Johnson who fears that they would lead to a backlash from older voters.
The chancellor has publicly raised concerns about the “anomaly” caused by the “triple lock”, which is used to calculate rises in state pensions, and wants to tackle the issue in his autumn budget. He is considering temporarily suspending the mechanism to help to bolster the public finances, in breach of the Conservative manifesto.
Mr Johnson has pushed back. “The prime minister hates it [pausing the triple lock] because it was a manifesto pledge,” a government source said.
Nuclear war
And in the sub-continent, there has been a threat of a nuclear strike, claims the Sun.
A PAKISTANI minister has threatened India with a nuclear attack in “the bloody last war” and says only Muslims will survive.
Sheikh Rashid made the threat of nuclear war, claiming that Pakistan has very precise weapons which are “small and perfect” and are able to target specific regions.
The federal minister warned that Pakistan will have no option in a conventional war and “if something will happen, it will be the end”, indicating a nuclear war of mass destruction.
“If Pakistan gets attacked by India, there is no scope for conventional war. This will be a bloody and nuclear war,” he said during an interview with Pakistani media channel Samaa TV on Wednesday.
“It will be a nuclear war for sure. We have very calculated weapons which are small and perfect.
“Our weapons will save Muslim lives and will only target certain regions.
It is not so much Tory MP’s wanting the European Commission to wake up, but the 17.4 million of this country’s citizens who voted to leave in 2016 and the millions who voted Conservative last year, wanting the Tory MP’s themselves to wake up. They must hold the feet of our lacklustre prime minister to the fire, and ensure that he delivers a clean break from the European Union. How much longer do they expect these futile negotiations to go on. I think by now most rational people in this country have realised that Boris Johnson is not the strong prime minister he promised to be in December 2019, and instead has turned out to be rather weak willed and lacking a backbone to call time on this charade. And if he doesn’t start to buck his ideas up, they, the Tory MP’s, should also start to think along the lines of selecting a successor to him post Brexit. The alternative to this is being hammered at the local elections next year by a reformed Brexit Party , and ultimately losing the next general election. This conservative fakery has gone on long enough now, and a major change of direction needs to be imposed, not just on Brexit, but on everything else as well.
Certainly if we don’t get clean brexit, and possibly even if we do; it is I feel pointless to elect a new Tory leader, who will be just as bad or worse; as the Tories have already abdicated the job of running the country. They have thrown the country to the globalist wolves who are now in effect ruling over us. Or will be if we let them.
BREXIT (The Express) :
“TORY MPs are urging Brussels to “wake up” to the threat of a no-deal Brexit”…… But a No Deal Brexit will be a genuine Brexit and honour the Leave victory on the 23rd June 2016. Whereas any trade deal with the EU will be lead to Brexit In Name Only.
Why? Well yesterday Michel Barnier insisted that a trade deal was only possible if “progress” was made on the “level playing field”, in other words if Britain agrees to be bound by EU rules & regulations. (Inevitably the EU Court of Justice will find that Britain is straying from that “level playing field” and levy heavy fines on us). That won’t be self-government for Britain, won’t be Independence for Britain, and it won’t be a genuine Brexit.
Brussels uses trade deals as a spider’s web to ensnare and devour its victims. Tory prime minister Ted Heath told us in 1972 that the Common Market was only about trade, and was no threat to our sovereignty. We found out that Heath was lying. Let’s hope David Frost doesn’t get caught in that spider’s web again.
Absolutely Ralph. As I said yesterday, the gloves are off.
It looks more and more like WTO ‘cos ‘no deal’. Just so long as our negotiators continue to stand firm.
It is so blindingly obvious that Brussels are being unreasonable in their demands for a ‘level playing field’ I am amazed they have the nerve. It is basically like them saying ‘no one can EVER leave’.
That’s it; their anthem should be “Hotel California”.
Economy,
The growing of our economy is complex but there are no signs as yet that this Retail led growth is going anywhere longer than a year to 18 months. I would have expected by now to at least show signs that our politicians/ civil service are aware and looking further than a few idiotoc infrastructure projects in terms other than next years tax. Some hopes !
All the fuss about this trade deal is ignorance , big business, corruption, and headlines. Not important. Everybody with any experience knows and understands this. It’s blatant. And the deals are already done and probably paid.
Is there a slect committee ( Advisory only and one for each of for various 5 year intervals, and secret. If there’s a leek start again. criminal offence )
PS. Will the Hag’s treacherous WA disappear or not ? Everybody political seems suspiciously quiet. Trade deals are neither here nor there. Inividual firms can make their own, until a government intervenes. Then. they can police their own smugglers Stupidity except to politicians and dreadful big business protection. Espousing clean up of this would be a game changer, but fraught.
The “Hag’s WA” is good reason, if one were needed, to avoid any further discussion with the EU. The error was in negotiating in the first place when we could have left by repealing the 1972 treaty,
I still cannot bring myself to trust Boris and will not do so until he walks away from EU talks.
It’s becoming blindingly obvious that the talks are going nowhere. Neither side will give ground (yet!). Are our negotiators so stupid that they don’t realise that? I accept that neither Frost nor Barnier will want to be the one who calls off the talks but surely Boris should see the writing on the wall. Does this mean he simply hasn’t got the cojones to call a halt?
Debbie, hear, hear, hear and hear………….
🙂
Quite Jack Thomas. My heart sank when she triggered article 50. By the sound of it so did yours. WE know what was needed, was to repeal the 1972 treaty. Gerrard Batten warned us so.
Perhaps, like Debbie says B.J. lacks the cojones to be the one calling a halt.
Think of the outcry from the C.B.I., Trade Unions (?), etc.
What a tangled web. Can they actually destroy our road haulage industry I wonder. That feels dangerous because of our proximity.
Meanwhile nothing is being done for small businesses and one man bands. Things that Ukip wanted to encourage.
I suspect tit for tat will cause them more problems than us.
Big mistake going for a referendum, only to put the job of implementing the Leave result in the hands of the europhile tory party.