Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

Pro-EU MPs have demanded leading Tory Brexiteers "come clean" on why they abandoned their earlier support for a second Brexit referendum.

Prominent eurosceptics including Jacob Rees-Mogg, David Davis and John Redwood have all previously proposed two separate votes on Britain leaving the EU.

But they have ditched their support since the 2016 referendum and now oppose calls for a “People’s Vote” on the final Brexit deal.

It comes as a petition supporting The Independent’s campaign for a Final Say on Brexit passed 570,000 signatures.

Is Canada really ready to dump Hollywood movies for Bollywood flicks, or start liniug up to hear Chinese metal bands?

Record numbers of nurses and midwives from other EU countries quit Britain last year, fuelling fears that a Brexit brain drain would leave the NHS severely short of staff.

A total of 3,962 such staff from the European Economic Area (EEA) left the Nursing and Midwifery Council register between 2017 and 2018. This was 28% more than the 3,081 who left in 2016-17. The number of EU nurses applying to work in the UK fell by 96% in the 12 months following the Brexit vote, from 1,304 to 46.

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt set out plans last year to address the recruitment problem, suggesting that 2,500 homegrown nursing “associate apprenticeships” would be in place by April this year. But ministers now admit that only 1,018 had started by that date – a shortfall of over 60%. Overall, the government had a target of recruiting 100,000 NHS apprentices by 2020. Based on the latest data, Labour says this target will be missed by over 26,000 places.

Future historians of Britain’s greatness, mark this week in your diary. The prime minister really has admitted that we will be stockpiling food and medicines in case of a no-deal Brexit.

He told the paper that Brussels' chief negotiator had dismissed the UK's Chequers proposals simply because "we have never done it before".

The UK and EU say they want agreement before the exit on 29 March 2019.

Mr Fox told the paper that he had not thought the likelihood of no-deal was higher than 50-50, but the risk had increased.

He said the EU had to decide whether to act in the economic best interests of its people, or to go on pursuing an approach determined by an obsession with the purity of its rules.

Australian meat industry leaders are heavily lobbying their government to put pressure on Britain to accept products currently banned under EU law after Brexit.

Among the meat products suggested for export to the UK are hormone-treated beef and “burnt goat heads”.

Ministers from both countries met last week to discuss the future of their trading relationship, amid concerns that the Australian government could force the UK to lower food standards.

Trade minister Liam Fox has long mooted Australia as a key trading partner for the UK when it ceases to be part of the EU.
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An investigation by FoE has revealed the extent of lobbying by the Australian meat and livestock industry as Brexit draws closer.

Foremost among their demands has been the insistence that “technical barriers” to trade are removed once the UK’s relationship with the EU ends.

However, farmers and environmentalists are concerned about the impact the removal of such “barriers” could have both on British farms and the quality of food.

“Brexit provides an unprecedented opportunity for the Australian red meat industry to enhance its trading relationship with the UK,” Andrew McCallum from Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) wrote in a letter to Australian Parliament in 2017.

“A more liberalised UK import regime than is currently in place, would deliver substantial advantages not only to the Australian red meat industry but to UK importers, wholesalers, distributors, food service and retail operators as well as consumers.”

David Larkin, the general manager of production at Thomas Foods International, explained in an inquiry last October that the UK once accounted for 80 per cent of Australian red meat exports before joining the EU.

Though still considered important, the UK now makes up only 1.5 per cent of exports by volume.

The Australian meat industry is keen to re-establish itself as a major exporter of meat to the UK, but it is currently restricted by EU rules and quotas that it feels are unfair.

A no-deal Brexit poses a major risk to public safety, with police officers instantly losing vital access to cross-border investigative powers and databases, the home secretary has been warned in a damning letter from the national body of police and crime commissioners.

In the leaked document – marked “official sensitive” – the police leaders urge Sajid Javid to immediately draft contingency plans, warning that officers faced “a significant loss of operational capacity” should the UK crash out of the EU in March.

They say that they are becoming “increasingly concerned that such a loss of capacity could pose significant risks to our local communities”, and urge the home secretary to act swiftly to address their fears.

The letter from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) cross-party Brexit working group, drafted after consultation with the National Crime Agency and the National Police Chief’s Council, expresses alarm that the government does not appear ready for such a crisis.

Theresa May has sought to calm fractious Tory grassroots activists angry with her Chequers Brexit plan, writing individual members a lengthy letter endorsed by sceptical cabinet Brexiters including Andrea Leadsom and Liam Fox.
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In the three-page letter, estimated by ConservativeHome to have cost the party about £70,000, May repeatedly acknowledges the grassroots’ disquiet, referring to the “strong feelings members of our party have on this important national issue”, and saying there had been “a number of questions” about how a common rulebook would affect sovereignty.

The letter takes aim at critics who have described the Chequers’ offer as capitulation. “It is in no sense a concession to their demands,” she wrote. “I have been very clear that we are rejecting the two models they have put forward.”

In calling for Theresa May to abandon her ambition to reduce immigration to the “tens of thousands” a year, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is reflecting public opinion better than the prime minister. A YouGov survey of an exceptionally large sample of 10,000 electors finds that 70% are happy for EU citizens with a job or university place in the UK to be free to come to Britain. Only one voter in six wants a sharp reduction in the numbers of workers and students coming from the EU.

The survey, which was commissioned by the People’s Vote campaign, sought to explore underlying public attitudes to Brexit, as negotiations between London and Brussels head towards their climax. One of the trickiest issues concerns freedom of movement. To many in the EU, this sits alongside the freedom to trade goods, services and capital across national borders: the four freedoms are indivisible. Plainly, Britain cannot expect the right to drastically curb immigration from the EU while seeking the right to keep trade flowing freely and without friction.

However, freedom of movement has never been absolute. A number of countries recognise the right to free movement for labour, but not the complete right to free movement of people. They welcome those from the rest of the EU who come to work or study, but not to stay if they don’t have a job or college place.

YouGov has found only limited support for completely unfettered free movement – but clear majority support for the kind of qualified freedom advocated by the CBI.

Even leave voters tend to support qualified freedom of movement; while only 4% favour complete freedom, 58% think workers and students should be free to come to Britain. Just 31% of leave voters want a sharp reduction in EU immigration.

What lies behind this public rejection of the kind of draconian target that May has embraced since she was home secretary? Two further YouGov findings help to explain what is going on.

First, when voters are asked which is more important for Britain, the right to control immigration from the EU or the ability to trade freely with the EU without tariffs or other restrictions, a majority of almost two to one (50% to 29%) plump for trade. Leave voters veer in the opposite direction, but not as decisively as might have been expected: 52% reckon control of immigration is more important, but a significant minority, 30%, would give priority to the economic imperative of frictionless trade.

Second, with recent stories of the NHS finding it hard to recruit doctors and nurses from abroad, voters are in no mood to shut the door. Seventy-three per cent (including 64% of leave voters) agree that “we need nurses and doctors from overseas to keep the NHS running”. Only 16% of the public think “it will be easy to replace the overseas doctors that currently work in our NHS with UK nationals”.

There is a third factor. In recent years, YouGov and Ipsos Mori have found that many voters, and especially those most critical of the EU, believe that far more EU immigrants are receiving out-of-work welfare benefits than those reported in government statistics. A big part of the anti-immigration mood flowed from a belief that hundreds of thousands of EU nationals, especially from eastern Europe, regarded the UK as a soft touch and came here as “welfare tourists”.

Spasmodic attempts to show that this was not true came to nothing. But it is increasingly clear that the great majority of British voters are happy to admit economically useful EU immigrants, so long as this freedom is not extended to those who do not have, or do not quickly obtain, a job or university place.

Michel Barnier has been reported this week as being willing to soften his stance on freedom of movement. The CBI has suggested one way forward. The British public are up for a qualified freedom of movement. Can May’s “tens of thousands” target last much longer?

More than 100 Westminster constituencies that voted to leave the EU have now switched their support to Remain, according to a stark new analysis seen by the Observer.

In findings that could have a significant impact on the parliamentary battle of Brexit later this year, the study concludes that most seats in Britain now contain a majority of voters who want to stay in the EU.

The analysis, one of the most comprehensive assessments of Brexit sentiment since the referendum, suggests the shift has been driven by doubts among Labour voters who backed Leave.

As a result, the trend is starkest in the north of England and Wales – Labour heartlands in which Brexit sentiment appears to be changing. The development will heap further pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to soften the party’s opposition to reconsidering Britain’s EU departure.

Researchers at the Focaldata consumer analytics company compiled the breakdown by modelling two YouGov polls of more than 15,000 people in total, conducted before and after Theresa May published her proposed Brexit deal on 6 July.
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Among the constituencies to switch from Leave to Remain is that of Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and face of the Leave campaign. Support for Remain in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency has risen from 43.6% to 51.4%, according to the new model.

Surrey Heath, the constituency of the other Leave figurehead, Michael Gove, also emerged as having a pro-Remain majority. Support for Remain increased from 48% in 2016 to 50.2%. There was also a 12.8-point swing to Remain in shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s seat of Hayes and Harlington.

Surrey Heath, the constituency of the other Leave figurehead, Michael Gove, also emerged as having a pro-Remain majority. Support for Remain increased from 48% in 2016 to 50.2%. There was also a 12.8-point swing to Remain in shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s seat of Hayes and Harlington.

The seats of three pro-Leave Labour MPs switched to Remain. Birkenhead, Frank Field’s constituency, now has a 58.4% majority in favour of Remain. Graham Stringer’s Blackley and Broughton constituency now has a 59% in favour of Remain. Kelvin Hopkins’s Luton North seat now has 53.1% backing Remain.
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