Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

Downing Street issues series of dos and don’ts on language department staff must use

Foreign Office staff have been banned from using certain words and phrases in discussing Brexit – including “implementation period”, “no deal”, “special partnership” and even Brexit itself unless in certain narrow circumstances.

The directive underlines the degree to which Downing Street is determined that everyone in the department follows its ideological lead in using language that frames Britain’s departure from the European Union as a clean break.

The memo’s opening sentence says “Brexit is completed. So do not use the term ‘Brexit’, save as a historical event that took place on 31 January 2020”. It then advises “use ‘transition period’ not ‘implementation period’.”

The directive continues: “On 31 December 2020 we will either leave the transition period with a Canada-style free trade agreement’ or the ‘2019 deal’ which will give us a trading relationship with the EU like Australia’s”.

They were told: “Do not use phrases such as ‘deal/no deal’.”

Diplomats have also been urged to stress that “the UK’s priority in the negotiations is to ensure that we restore our economic and political independence on 1 January 2021. That is the government’s primary objective. If asked to expand, we will ensure that we will have the right to regulate and are not constrained by EU law or the court of justice of the European Union.”

Other words that are frowned upon in the guidance include “ambitious”, “unique”, “deep”, “bespoke” or “anything else that can be taken to mean anything other than a typical free trade agreement of the Canada type”. It adds: “If hyperbole is absolutely essential, only make reference to a deal “at least as good as [Canada’s deal with the EU]”.

Another word now banned inside the Foreign Office is “partnership” in connection with the future relationship with Europe, still less “deep” or “special” partnership. The EU will be one of many partners. Staff are told: “Stick to the phrase ‘friendly cooperation between sovereign equals’.”

There are also some EU terms that must be avoided, the core script suggests.

The memo says: “Use ‘subsidies’, not ‘state aid’.” Staff are urged to avoid using trade distortions, and “level playing field”.

“Be specific about what you mean when talking about migration”, and gives examples such as tourism or “immigration to live or work”. It says: “Do not give the impression that we are seeking a unique or novel agreement. Stress that we are looking for a deal based on EU precedent.”

The memo continues: “Stress that we accept the following EU claims: that a free trade agreement comes with ‘friction’. That we are able to negotiate directly only with the commission (and therefore that EU member states must persuade the commission if they need particular areas of cooperation to continue).”

The UK and EU must now work out their future relationship. We asked writers in four EU capitals what their government’s will prioritise

Berlin: The political class is divided on how harsh to be
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Madrid: Looming on the horizon is Gibraltar
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Paris: Macron won’t allow anything that helps Le Pen
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Rome: Cutting Britain adrift totally won’t help anyone
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London: It’s frictionless trade versus full political sovereignty
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Coastal states with strong fishing interest want EU negotiators to be clearer on desire to maintain access

European countries that fish in British waters are pushing for a tougher stance to protect their fishing crews before trade talks with the UK.

Western coastal states made the call at a meeting of European Union ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday evening, the first high-level diplomatic talks on chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s draft negotiating mandate since its publication on Monday.

EU sources said western coastal states with a strong fishing interest wanted Barnier’s text to be clearer that the EU would seek to maintain the same access to British waters, and the same quota shares for 100 types of fish that swim in shared seas.

Boris Johnson has vowed to “take back control” of British waters, saying the UK would be an “independent coastal state” conducting annual negotiations with the EU as Norway does. On Wednesday it emerged that the UK has been quietly increasing its maritime defences in a bid to avoid a rerun of the 1970s “cod wars”.

But the EU wants to maintain the status quo that grants its member states 35% of the quantity of fish from British waters, with the richest harvest for France, the Netherlands and Denmark. France and Denmark, along with Belgium and Portugal, said the text on fisheries needed to be stronger, before ministers approve Barnier’s mandate at the end of the month. A revised text is expected by the end of the week.

David McAllister, a German Christian Democrat MEP, who is leading the European parliament on EU-UK talks, said the issue of access to waters was inseparable from the overall deal, as well as access to European fisheries markets. Two-thirds of fish caught by British boats are exported to the EU.

“The issue of free access to waters is inseparable from the issue of free trade and access of UK fisheries products to the EU market,” the MEP told journalists last week. “So the negotiations of the UK on fisheries cannot be disconnected and will have a direct link with the negotiations on trade in goods. It’s that simple. If the UK grants us access to territorial waters, to fish, then on the other hand the UK will have access to export fisheries to the single market.”

At the Brussels meeting, Germany and the Netherlands said Barnier should be ambitious on post-Brexit police cooperation with the UK.

As a non-EU country outside the EU’s border-free travel zone, the UK will be switched off from the Schengen information system when the transition period ends in 2020. Germany and the Netherlands said the EU needed to look at alternatives to sharing information, other than the SIS database, which has 64m entries of information on criminal suspects, identity documents and missing people and is used by British police every day.

Diplomats were said to be very happy with Barnier’s text, which sums up the EU’s long-established positions – including the exclusion of Gibraltar from any EU-UK trade deal. Diplomatic sources say the document is more likely to become tougher, rather than weaker under the scrutiny of member states, before its adoption on 25 February.

The meeting took place as MEPs on the newly-created “UK coordination group” met Barnier for the first time to give the European parliament’s input on the unprecedented negotiation with an ex-member state.

Several MEPs told Barnier they were concerned about Boris Johnson’s statements about the Irish protocol, an integral part of the withdrawal agreement he signed last October. The prime minister has repeatedly said there will be no checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, although the agreement makes clear there will be checks.

McAllister told journalists he was hopeful a deal could be struck by the end of the year. “The 31 December is a new cliff-edge we are all heading for but we got it done in the first round [ of divorce talks], why don’t we get it done in the second phase.”

From medicines to aviation, Britain will need to replicate EU agencies, no matter what the chancellor wants

Putting the lead back in paint, the sewage back on beaches and enhancing the lethality of children’s toys. These are just some of the “opportunities” for deregulation offered in Sajid Javid’s call for the public to propose ways to diverge from the EU rulebook.

Slashing European regulation has long been an article of faith for the Tory party, fulfilling both its Thatcherite and Europhobic instincts. No matter that recent history – from the global financial crisis to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower – has taught us that regulation is a public good to be protected, not an evil to be eradicated.

Just like Boris Johnson, Javid has learned to live outside history, eschewing any responsibility for his party’s decade in power. Brexit is presented as a fresh start for the country and the government. The idea of divergence is crucial to provide Brexit with a sense of purpose.

But the truth is Brexit will create a more bureaucratic state rather than a more agile one. The UK now needs to build its own regulatory functions in Whitehall to replace those that were delegated to Brussels. From medicines to chemicals to aviation, the UK will need to replicate European agencies, no matter the chancellor’s ideological bent. Instead of sharing these regulatory functions with 27 other states, Britain will now need to shoulder the responsibility alone. Brexit will be a boon for British bureaucrats.

Good regulation requires deep technical expertise. Neither the public, politicians nor commentators possess the expertise to judge whether medicines are safe or whether complex financial instruments pose a risk to economic stability. Brexit may have been the politics of the gut – the instinct that the country would be better off out – but it is only viable with a vast expansion in the number of technocrats.

So what will these technocrats do? The fundamental error is to think that less burdensome regulation means a lower regulatory burden. In practice it means two sets of regulation to replace one, if the UK and the EU operate with different standards and rules – even if they are lighter touch here than across the Channel. That means complexity goes up, not down.

Moreover, product markets are increasingly global, not local. So any firm that wants to export into the European single market will need to match its regulatory requirements. Products will be produced to the highest standards, not the lowest. For any goods produced here that firms want to export, deregulation is merely a mirage.

But the truth is Brexit will create a more bureaucratic state rather than a more agile one. The UK now needs to build its own regulatory functions in Whitehall to replace those that were delegated to Brussels. From medicines to chemicals to aviation, the UK will need to replicate European agencies, no matter the chancellor’s ideological bent. Instead of sharing these regulatory functions with 27 other states, Britain will now need to shoulder the responsibility alone. Brexit will be a boon for British bureaucrats.

Good regulation requires deep technical expertise. Neither the public, politicians nor commentators possess the expertise to judge whether medicines are safe or whether complex financial instruments pose a risk to economic stability. Brexit may have been the politics of the gut – the instinct that the country would be better off out – but it is only viable with a vast expansion in the number of technocrats.

So what will these technocrats do? The fundamental error is to think that less burdensome regulation means a lower regulatory burden. In practice it means two sets of regulation to replace one, if the UK and the EU operate with different standards and rules – even if they are lighter touch here than across the Channel. That means complexity goes up, not down.

Moreover, product markets are increasingly global, not local. So any firm that wants to export into the European single market will need to match its regulatory requirements. Products will be produced to the highest standards, not the lowest. For any goods produced here that firms want to export, deregulation is merely a mirage.

Sinn Féin won the most first-preference votes in Saturday’s Irish general election, delivering a shock to the country’s political landscape after decades of domination by the centrist rivals Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

However, the fragmented results will produce a hung parliament with no party close to 80 seats, meaning there could be weeks – possibly months – of negotiations between party leaders before a government is formed.

Whatever happens, Leo Varadkar the Fine Gael prime minister who broke the Brexit impasse in a summit with Boris Johnson in the Wirral in October, is unlikely to survive, forcing a new set of politicians on Downing Street and Brussels just as the critical next phase of Brexit talks begin.

All three of the leading Irish parties are pro-EU, and whoever is in government will adhere to the Brexit deal and the Northern Irish protocol, which involves checks along the Irish border.

But Sinn Féin, more than any party, is advantaged by the Brexit deal because Northern Ireland remains a de facto member of the EU single market, pushing it into closer economic union with the republic.
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The government has told businesses frictionless trade with the EU will end this year with the introduction of import checks at the UK border.

EU trade will not be waved through with zero checks which had been the plan under a no-deal Brexit.

Traders will not be able to use special arrangements to lodge new paperwork after a grace period at a later date.

Officials said firms will have enough notice to prepare for changes in time for 1 January.

Cabinet Minister Michael Gove told attendees at a Border Delivery Group event: "The UK will be outside the single market and outside the customs union, so we will have to be ready for the customs procedures and regulatory checks that will inevitably follow."

Closure of UK bank
With the UK having left the EU at the end of January, we will in due course no longer be able to operate in the UK with our European banking licence. As such we can no longer open new N26 accounts and will be closing existing accounts on 15 April 2020. We have prepared a list of FAQs which you can find below in order to answer any questions you might have. We are sorry to be leaving and we understand this will be disappointing for our customers.

More than 100 officials have acquired dual nationality since article 50 invoked, data reveals

More than 50 British nationals working for the European commission in Brussels have obtained Irish passports, which can help secure career progression, it has emerged.

Data released by the commission shows 120 officials with British nationality have secured additional passports of an EU state since March 2017, when the official article 50 notice was given that the UK was leaving the bloc.

According to the Irish broadcaster RTÉ, 10% of the 569 Irish passport holders working for the commission were originally British passport holders.

Anyone with an Irish parent, or a grandparent born in Ireland is entitled to an Irish passport. Securing dual nationality with another member state may improve the career prospects of British citizens working in EU institutions but it is not guaranteed.

To be eligible for an EU career, candidates must be a citizen of an EU country and be entitled to full rights as an EU citizen.

However, in a notice issued after article 50 was invoked, the commission said: “The commission has taken note of the fact that a number of UK nationals among its staff have requested or may request a change towards a different first nationality. These changes are of an exceptional nature and therefore deserve a specific handling.

“As a consequence, staff members from the United Kingdom who declare a change of nationality after 29 March 2017 shall still be considered to have kept the UK nationality as first nationality for the purpose of ensuring a balanced representation of staff within the commission, notably at middle-management and senior management level,” said an official notice.

This is to ensure staff nationalities are in proportion to the membership of the union.

UK nationals in the commission were not the only Britons to have sought security in dual EU-UK nationality.

Last month, it emerged that 1,403 British nationals in Belgium had naturalised and have Belgian passports, up from 506 in 2016 and 127 in 2015.

This is part of an EU-wide trend, with more than 350,000 UK citizens living in Britain or a member stat

The European parliament has called on Michel Barnier to keep Britain permanently tied to its employment, environment and competition laws as the price for maintaining free trade with the EU.

In a resolution adopted by 543 votes to 39, with 69 abstentions, MEPs said there needed to be “dynamic alignment” with EU standards across a range of issues.

As MEPs gave their seal of approval for the maximalist position, the European commission for the first time wielded its powers under the withdrawal agreement to order the British government to change its domestic law, despite the country having left the EU two weeks ago.

Under the terms of the transition period, during which the UK stays in the single market and customs union but none of Brussels’s decision-making institutions, EU law continues to be superior to UK national law.

Under the terms of the transition period, during which the UK stays in the single market and customs union but none of Brussels’s decision-making institutions, EU law continues to be superior to UK national law.

Under the terms of the transition period, during which the UK stays in the single market and customs union but none of Brussels’s decision-making institutions, EU law continues to be superior to UK national law.

‘I didn’t vote to stand in a queue for over an hour [while] some jobsworth checks our passports’

A Brexiteer who was forced to wait in an immigration queue at an EU airport in Amsterdam has complained that "this isn’t the Brexit I voted for”.

Colin Browning, who described himself as one of the 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit, said he was forced to wait for nearly an hour at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol before his passport was checked.

“Absolutely disgusting service at Schiphol airport. 55 minutes we have been stood in the immigration queue. This isn’t the Brexit I voted for,” he wrote on Twitter.

When another user commented on Mr Browning’s post saying he “got what [he] voted for”, the Brexit supporter replied: “I didn’t vote to stand in a queue for over an hour why [sic] some jobsworth checks our passports.

“I spent more time at immigration than I did in the air getting to my destination.”

Although some commenters have suggested that the Twitter post may be a parody, the account has consistently shared posts about Brexit and other issues in recent months which do not appear to be satirical.

Mr Browning has been approached for further comment on his experience at the airport.

Officials at Schiphol have previously warned that people travelling from the UK could expect delays upon arriving in Amsterdam after Britain's exit from the EU.

Analysis by the Dutch government has suggested it could take between an extra 50 minutes to an hour for passengers on busy flights to get through the system due to additional document checks.

However, it is unlikely that current delays have been caused by Brexit as the UK is currently in a transition period with the EU during which travel arrangements will not change until January 2021.

Frances Coppola, a finance journalist for Forbes and the Financial Times, said airports such as Schiphol appeared to have “jumped the gun” by directing British passport holders to non-EU gates but noted that the change would be implemented across all EU countries from next year.

“I'm afraid it is exactly what you voted for. You were told by Remainers that this would be the consequence, but you dismissed their warnings as #ProjectFear,” she wrote in response to the tweet.

Exclusive: ‘If the government thought it had a very strong case they would publish these studies ... it’s an indication that there’s nothing there’

Studies expected to show the UK will gain little from post-Brexit trade deals with the US and the big Asian economies are being suppressed by the government, The Independent can reveal.

Analyses were completed as long ago as 2017 into the probable impact on growth from agreements long hailed as the prize for leaving the EU, but ministers are refusing to release them.

One trade expert said he had little doubt they were being concealed because they would – like independent studies – reveal that significant damage from new trade barriers with the continent will far outweigh the gain from other deals.

Alan Winters, professor of economics at the University of Sussex, joined with Labour in calling on ministers to reveal what they had been told, saying: “The entire Brexit debate has been conducted in a great fog of obfuscation.”

Paul Blomfield, Labour’s Brexit spokesperson, said: “These reports must be released immediately. If Boris Johnson wants to risk European trade to secure a deal with Donald Trump, we need to know the cost.”

The controversy comes after the Treasury refused to even carry out an evaluation of the prime minister’s plans for a “Canada-style” deal with the EU, cutting ties with the single market and customs union.

Economists have estimated that will deliver a hit to the UK economy of anything between £70bn and £130bn in the long run, leaving people thousands of pounds worse off.

Now, in response to a freedom of information request submitted by The Independent, the Department for International Trade (DIT) has said internal analysis into other trade deals is “a work in progress”.

But it also revealed academics at the Centre for Economic Policy Research had evaluated the benefits from a US deal, an agreement with Japan and from membership of the CPTPP, a trade partnership of 11 Pacific nations.

The last two were completed in August 2019 – while the study into an agreement with Washington has been gathering dust since July 2017.

Brexiteers have called for the UK to join Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Chile and others in the CPTPP, despite the UK being thousands of miles from the Pacific.

And Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, recently spent several days in the region, saying: “Now is the time to put global Britain into action. The Asia-Pacific region is full of opportunities.”

However, DIT has refused to release any of the three studies, citing an exemption “if information clearly relates to the development of government policy”.

“Premature release of this analysis would be detrimental to the progress of future trade discussions once the UK has left the EU,” the department said.

Professor Winters, of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex, said: “If the government thought it had a very strong case that these deals would be big and strong then they would publish these studies.

“It’s an indication that there’s nothing there. To the extent that we have any analysis, it suggests that the benefits of these deals are very small.

“And, with any modelling, what we gain from an agreement with the US and Japan is a lot smaller than what we lose from the EU.”

And Mr Blomfield added: “The government is embarking on the most important negotiations in our postwar history. The British people deserve to know the impact of the decisions being made on their behalf.”

However, a Downing Street spokesperson said: “New FTAs represent a significant economic opportunity. With new freedoms to strike these ourselves, independently, we can open up our markets, increase wages and improve living standards across the UK.”

In the last parliament, Labour was able to secure the release of similar studies by laying a “humble address”, but this route has been shut off by the 80-strong Conservative majority.

The secrecy leaves a November 2018 Treasury document as the only official forecast – putting the GDP gain from deals with the US, Australia and New Zealand at a puny 0.2 per cent.

It has frequently been dismissed by Brexit-backing Tories because Philip Hammond, the then-chancellor, opposed a hard Brexit – but has not been updated.

The hoped-for US deal is already in trouble over Washington demanding access for lower-quality agricultural goods and to the NHS drugs market, and because of the bust-up over the UK’s planned tech tax.

The UK enjoyed a deal with Japan as an EU member and is in a race against time to secure hoped-for improvements before the Brexit transition period ends in December.

UK’s withdrawal has left £62bn hole in bloc’s purse for the next seven years

Presidents, prime ministers and chancellors across Europe will pack their bags later this week in preparation for a long weekend in Brussels. They won’t, however, be taking in the baroque majesty of the Grand Place or savouring the local culinary treats. Instead, they will be preparing for that most infamous of events, a “four shirter”, to use the clothes-packing gauge adopted by male diplomats to measure the length and horror of EU leaders’ summits in the Belgian capital. The thorny subject this time around? Money. And the problem? Britain.

The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union has left a huge €75bn (£62bn) hole in the bloc’s budget for the next seven years, 2021 to 2027. “And now we are fighting like ferrets in a sack,” said one EU diplomat with a sigh.

Covering items ranging from agricultural subsidies to science programmes and the EU’s efforts to combat the climate emergency, the new multi-annual financial framework (MFF) needs to be agreed by the leaders and an increasingly unpredictable European parliament before the end of the year. Without agreement, everything risks grinding to a halt in just nine months’ time, including the flow of cohesion funds, the cash dedicated to supporting the poorest member states.

Budget discussions in Brussels are always rancorous affairs. But this one is of a different order: everyone will have to pay more. No one wants to. EU capitals are bristling for a fight when they come to Brussels on Thursday for day one. Ominously for the diplomatic corps, an end date for the summit has not been fixed, but four days of talking are on the cards.

There are two main rivals in the budget battle. On one side are those who proudly describe themselves as “the Frugals” – the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Denmark (although there are some concerns within the camp that the new Austrian coalition government, being a bit Green now, has been lost to them, and that the Swedes are going soft). As the biggest net payers, the Frugals have been insisting on a budget of no more than 1% of the EU’s gross national income. The European commission’s initial proposal was for 1.1% – around €1.25tn over the seven years.

Then there are the “Friends of Cohesion”. “The Friends of Corruption, you mean?” spat one EU diplomat from a Frugal state.

The 15 under the FoC flag are the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Croatia, Malta, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Portugal and Greece.

The Frugals say that the commission’s €90bn in cuts to agriculture and cohesion funding are not enough. The FoC say they are being unfairly targeted and that the richer countries should cough up some more, setting up a battle between east and west.

The debate is all the more toxic as the commission has proposed that cohesion funds should also, in the future, be conditional on member states respecting the rule of law. It is a red rag to the bulls in the nationalist governments of Hungary and Poland, who are already in a battle with Brussels over their judicial reforms, among other issues.

Then there is France and Germany. Berlin’s main concern is that they don’t come out of it looking worse than the French. In Paris, the government just worries about how much cash is going to go to its farmers, said one senior EU official. The fragmentation of the national debates leaves it impossible to say what will happen, said a second official, with even Irish politics in turmoil following the election that has made Sinn Féin the second largest parliamentary party.

Going in to the summit, the European council’s president, Charles Michel, a former prime minister of Belgium, has been engaged in furious shuttle diplomacy around the capitals.

Michel has put forward an alternative proposal for the budget to be 1.074% of the bloc’s gross national income (€1.094tn) in an attempt to split the difference between the warring camps.

“In this negotiation, we are not expecting member states to be happy, but the degree of dissatisfaction will be key,” said a senior EU official. “No chance,” responded a Frugal diplomat. “There is not a lot to say, except we won’t pay. And as the Rolling Stones song goes, ‘Time is on my side’.”