In this issue of Brexit Watch... 🗞️
This week
News
EM Groups in the news
Opinion & Analysis
Tweet of the week
Think Tank Corner
Podcast of the week
Event replay - A vision for the Future of Europe
Cultural PS
We are hiring - Head of Grassroots Engagement
This week 📰 Different format this week as so much going on… There is ever greater turbulence in Westminster, with the departure of Boris Johnson’s long-term confidante Munira Mirza in protest at smears targeting Sir Keir Starmer. Four other aides left for various reasons, as letters of no-confidence trickle in. Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Tom Tugendhat – an intellectual heavyweight with a deep knowledge of European history - declared he will stand for the Conservative leadership, which should at least ensure that in the event of a contest, hardline Eurosceptics do not have a monopoly on the airwaves.
Focus on efforts to save his political skin led the Prime Minister to cancel a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow was offered another open goal by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s apparent ignorance of basic geography, picked up even by the Daily Mail. The UK continues to support Ukraine bilaterally and via NATO. But our absence from the EU table as Ministers discuss the Ukraine situation shows how, for all the rhetoric about ‘global Britain’, Brexit really means a massive loss of global reach (see also last week’s Brexit Watch).
Key article: Global Britain or Local Britain – Former UK diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall in Byline Times The resignation of Northern Ireland First Minister Paul Givan has extended the turmoil to Stormont, in the wake of the instruction by DUP Minister Edwin Poots to discontinue the checks on goods required by the NI Protocol. Mr Poots’ proclamation went unheeded by civil servants and has now been suspended by a judge. That will be welcomed in EU capitals, but the episode has further undermined trust in the UK. Conservative former NI Secretary Julian Smith was among those calling for the UK to live up to its commitments on the Protocol, pending negotiations to improve the way it works. EM CEO Anna Bird’s statement on Thursday 3 February included a reminder that “the Protocol is only in place because of Boris Johnson’s insistence on a hard Brexit at any cost”.
Key articles: Disbelief and outrage across EU (City AM) Judge suspends Poots’ order to end Irish Sea border checks (Belfast Telegraph) Earlier in the week, Anna described the Brexit Freedoms Bill as “an insult to all the families facing rising prices, lorry drivers stuck in massive queues and businesses mired in red tape caused by Brexit.” The cost of living crisis continues to loom large. In the UK, hard Brexit-related red tape and supply chain problems are exacerbating this global phenomenon, whose root cause is a demand surge as the toughest pandemic restrictions are lifted worldwide, amidst a continuing pandemic-related drag on supply and spiking energy costs. Meanwhile, the hard Brexit government, after boasting that Brexit allows it to remove VAT on energy, has chosen not do so, arguing – probably rightly - that such a measure would help the better off more than those most in need. It seems that this alleged ‘Brexit freedom’, like so many others, is of little value in the real world. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a package to support hard-pressed energy consumers – but much of it is temporary support to be clawed back later. Meanwhile, a number of EU countries – without the need for so-called ‘Brexit freedoms’ - are taking more extensive measures.
Key article: Factbox: Europe's efforts to shield households from soaring energy costs (Reuters) Other stories you may not have seen Manufacturers hit by the cost of Brexit must wonder where the benefits are David Smith in The Times – this article without paywall – writes, drawing on a report by UK in a Changing Europe, that “Britain’s manufacturers should have had a bumper year in 2021, a time when, thanks to the pandemic, people’s purchases shifted from services and experiences to goods. But official figures show that UK manufacturing output has yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels and is more than 2 per cent below its level in February 2020, in contrast to the services sector, which is above it.” In the latest Make UK/PWC survey of manufacturing, two-thirds of firms said they were hampered by Brexit in 2021. Furthermore, according to Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit: “UK goods export growth has lagged that of the eurozone to a striking degree over the past year...” Mr Smith calls the oxymoronic Brexit Freedoms Bill “desperately thin gruel”. Indeed.
News 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 Other Brexit news from UK ‘The day I left was the saddest of my life’: EU nationals on the pain of leaving UK(Guardian) Boris Johnson accused of manifesto ‘breach’ over EU regional funding (FT – paywall but Peter Foster’s excellent Twitter summary here) ‘It is soul-destroying’: lorry drivers face hours stuck in queues at Dover (Guardian) The big news in the EU What is the EU’s sustainable finance taxonomy? (Reuters – video) This week’s controversial European Commission proposal aims to classify which parts of the economy can be marketed as sustainable investments. This will have a major knock-on effect on the UK, especially the City of London, as Capital Monitor explains …but now without the UK at the negotiating table. Macron’s African Waterloo: France’s failure in Mali spells trouble for Europe’s collective defence strategy (Politico) (More on this escalating crisis here from African Business and earlier from Politico, on EU sanctions against the sinister Russian-backed mercenary group Wagner.) The Le Pen family firm – reaching the end of the Line? (Guardian editorial) Belgian civil servants gain right to disconnect: now legally allowed to ignore out-of-hours work calls (This made news worldwide….including Down Under) EM Groups in the News With many thanks to James Ryder, great coverage on the South-West Londoner website for our Wandsworth & Merton branch’s small business survey. Please see hereand here - the second one includes video and audio content. Opinion & Analysis 🗣️ Putin knows exactly what he wants in Eastern Europe – unlike the West (Professor Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian)
Tweet of the week Tom Scott of westcountryvoices.co.uk (independent regional online newspaper) on Twitter : I had a look at the "Brexit Freedoms Bill" through the prism of Orwell's Politics & the English Language. It exemplifies everything Orwell says about the ways vacuous rhetoric is used to disguise malignant lies. Think Tank Corner 🗣️ This from Hansard Society – thanks to Jennifer Monahan for spotting it - asks: what happens to parliamentary scrutiny of Brexit now Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has taken titular responsibility for UK-EU relations?
While we are on parliamentary scrutiny, a read of this transcript of oral evidence to the House of Lords sub-committee on the highly complex issues around the NI Protocol will repay the effort for those who have time. Professor Catherine Barnard’s contributions are especially informative.
Podcast of the week Gina Miller talks to Matt Forde: The woman who ensured Parliament got a vote on implementing Brexit joins Matt to discuss identity and nationhood. PS See this link for tickets for EM UK President Michael Heseltine’s talk with Matt Forde at the Duchess Theatre in London on Monday 7 Feb. This should soon be a podcast, too Event Replay - A Vision for the Future of Europe
As signalled in last week’s Brexit Watch, we hosted on Thursday 03 February at 6.30pma special online event entitled "A vision for the future of Europe". Featuring former British MEPs Richard Corbett, Molly Scott Cato, Charles Tannock, and Catherine Bearder and introduced by EM UK's International Officer, Richard Morris, the event discussed what could be in store for the future of Europe and how people in the UK can be involved in shaping it. Click here to watch the replay.
Cultural PS Suggestions welcome on mark.english@europeanmovement.co.uk. It’s got to be good, recent and European (in some way). If yours is used, you will be rewarded with a name check and unofficial status as an EM cultural influencer….
The Netflix film Munich the Edge of War is also now in cinemas and provoking passionate discussion. (I’m still finishing the book by Robert Harris.)
We are hiring - Head of Grassroots Engagement We are looking for a Head of Grassroots Engagement to put local groups and activists at the heart of delivering EM’s strategy to campaign step-by-step to rejoin the European Union and to improve the European Movement’s ‘offer’ to local group members and volunteers. More details and how to apply here
That's it for this week! Let me know what you liked and what you didn’t, what you would like added/removed, etc. on mark.english@europeanmovement.co.uk
Please note that the external sources quoted or linked to in this newsletter do not necessarily represent the view of the European Movement UK
Promoted by Hugo Mann on behalf of European Movement UK, c/o WeWork The Cursitor, 38 Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1EN
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