The government is facing a backlash from MPs for not joining an EU scheme to get extra ventilators during the coronavirus outbreak.
The bloc has said the UK can take part in the project, which will use the EU's buying power to purchase more stock.
But a No 10 spokesman said the UK was "making [its] own effort.
[...]
The EU scheme will use the bloc's joint procurement agreement, which helps member states get the medical supplies it needs to tackle cross-border pandemics.
It has also created a stockpile of medical equipment - 90% of it financed by the European Commission - to help EU countries.
Last week, the UK was invited to take part in the scheme.
But Downing Street confirmed on Thursday it would not join as "we are no longer members of the EU".
The spokesman added: “We are conducting our own work on ventilators and we’ve had a very strong response from business and we’ve also procured ventilators from the private sector in the UK and from international manufacturers.”
The government says a communications mix-up meant it missed the deadline to join an EU scheme to get extra ventilators for the coronavirus crisis.
Ministers were earlier accused of putting Brexit before public health when Downing Street said the UK had decided to pursue its own scheme.
But No 10 now says officials did not get emails inviting the UK to join and it could join future schemes.
Labour is demanding to know why the government had changed its message.
Brussels laments London’s failure to table comprehensive legal text to work on
Planned negotiating rounds on the UK’s future relationship with the EU have been abandoned as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, with Boris Johnson’s government still to table a comprehensive legal text for both sides to work on.
During a European commission briefing on Thursday, envoys for the EU capitals were told that holding negotiations via video-conferencing had so far proved impossible.
The two sides are trying to find a way to maintain dialogue in the coming weeks and months to kickstart the talks, but a previous schedule for negotiating rounds, with weeks set aside for consultation and preparation, has been ditched.
The fact that the UK was still to table a legal text added an extra layer of difficulty, EU sources said.
The European commission published a 441-page draft treaty on 13 March that covers every aspect of the future relationship. The UK left the EU on 31 January and has until the end of the year to negotiate a new economic and security relationship or face trading on WTO terms with large tariffs on goods.
Despite Downing Street’s public insistence that a similarly comprehensive text would be tabled earlier this month, EU sources said the UK had tabled only four documents covering trade, transport, aviation and nuclear cooperation. London has not tabled legal text on significant issues including security cooperation or fisheries, and nor has it made its texts public.
EU sources also said the UK’s positions in the texts were in a “different galaxy” to those of Brussels.
“The first big difference is that we have a fully fledged proposal in line with the political declaration while the Brits have only tabled a few things, much less than we expected”, one senior EU diplomat said. “The scope is much narrower than we had thought it would have been and that makes it difficult to work with. That’s the basic problem.”
Officials on both sides are also struggling to find a way to get negotiations going, with plans for talks in London and Brussels now abandoned given the Covid-19 crisis.
UK officials said the legal text covering the outstanding areas would be produced at a time of the British government’s choosing, and attempts to find a new method of “continuous dialogue” were being made.
EU sources said the position was desperate. “We can’t even move out of Brussels to our capitals to talk it through,” said one source. “Everything is in the deep freeze.”
The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, is in quarantine having been infected with the coronavirus. The UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, has been in isolation after showing symptoms.
The UK will be powerless to prevent potentially dangerous chemicals being used in everyday goods because Boris Johnson is pursuing an ultra-hard Brexit, campaigners are warning.
The country will become “a dumping ground” for products linked to cancer, thyroid disease, hormone disruption and developmental problems because the prime minister insists on pulling out of the EU’s successful watchdog, they say.
It means the UK must start from scratch in vetting hazardous chemicals itself – but with far less money and staff, in a process expected to take many years.
In the interim, manufacturers will be able to successfully challenge attempts to exclude chemicals banned in the EU – in everything from food and drink packaging and paints to furniture, carpets, clothing and even toys, the groups fear.
“If we don’t have access to the safety data then the government could be challenged in the courts over decisions and it could lose,” warned Libby Peake, of the Green Alliance think tank.
And Dr Michael Warhurst, executive director of Chem Trust campaigning charity, said: “We risk spending most of our time trying to instal a database with no data on it – and not having time to develop any new controls.”
The controversy has blown up after Mr Johnson ditched Theresa May’s plan for “associate membership” of EU agencies, including the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and its database known as Reach.
It would involve following all decisions on chemicals in Reach, without a vote, and oversight by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) – which are both red lines to a prime minister pledging “no alignment”.
In its aims for an EU trade deal, the UK is now arguing for “separate regulatory requirements” – which would rule out access to the database or the exchange of confidential business information.
Michael Gove, the minister overseeing the talks, laid bare the government’s stance in recent evidence to MPs, saying: “One of the problems with Reach is that it involves European Court of Justice jurisdiction.”
Defending the decision to leave, he said: “It’s recognising that we have voted to be a sovereign nation – and part of being a sovereign nation means we cannot have courts and institutions which are not accountable to the British people, imposing on the British people laws for which they did not vote, policed in a way to which they do not consent.”
But Chem Trust has branded the decision “a risk to public health and the environment”, highlighting the types of chemicals the EU has banned – or is seeking to ban – including:
* Bisphenols – known to disrupt the body’s hormone system, some are banned from use in babies’ bottles and infant cups and, soon, from thermal paper till receipts. However, firms are starting to use other bisphenols “that raise similar concerns about toxicity”, the group says.
* Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – used in non-stick pans, waterproof fabrics, food packaging and cosmetics, they have been linked to cancers, thyroid disease, obesity and reproductive problems, but only two of 4,000 chemicals in the group have been banned so far.
* Phthalates – added to plastics to increase durability, they are found in furnishings, flooring, clothing, paint and some toys. With pregnant women and children most vulnerable – exposure in the womb has been linked to poor reproductive organ development in boys, early onset of female puberty, and delayed language development – they are partly restricted in the EU.
* Flame retardants – added to sofas, mattresses, electronic products, carpeting, building materials and car seats to hinder the spread of fires, they build up in homes and the environment and some are known to be cancer causing. Many are banned, but – again – similar chemicals are now being used.
The UK expects to spend £13m a year on its regulator, employing 35-40 staff, but Reach boasts 589 staff and a budget topping €100m (£89m) – yet has still failed to vet all chemicals after more than a decade’s work.
Dr Warhurst warned: “There is a big difference between being able, theoretically, to control chemicals and actually being able to do it, with much less data, fewer people – and perhaps under pressure from a US trade deal.
“These chemical companies have a record of going to court when restrictions are imposed.”
And Ms Peake added: “For two years at least after the transition period, we will no longer have access to the EU’s database and, therefore, access to the safety data.
“During that period, there is a risk that companies will try to use chemicals in the UK that have been banned or restricted at an EU level, on the grounds that we don’t have the background safety data to justify a decision.”
But a government spokesperson said: “Spurious claims that the UK will in some way start accepting dangerous chemicals are simply unfounded scaremongering.
“We are ready to provide the essential and safe regulation of chemicals. We will maintain a strong system that safeguards both human health and the environment.”
British economy faces 'double whammy' of coronavirus disruption and no-deal threat, warns largest grouping of MEPs
Boris Johnson is facing fresh pressure to delay the end of the Brexit transition period as countries focus on battling the coronavirus epidemic.
MEPs from the largest grouping in the European Parliament warned the British economy would face the "double whammy" of coronavirus disruption and a possible no-deal Brexit if the prime minister presses ahead with the 31 December deadline.
Extending the transition period is "the only responsible thing to do" as the timetable to hammer out a trade deal between the UK and the bloc is too tight, warned the centre-right European People's Party (EPP).
No 10 rebuffed the calls, saying the date was "enshrined in UK law" after the withdrawal agreement bill cleared parliament earlier this year.
But talks have ground to a halt as both the UK and the EU's chief Brexit negotiators have been diagnosed with coronavirus and officials have been diverted to work on curbing the outbreak.
A recent Focaldata poll found that two-thirds of people in the UK (64 per cent) want the government to request an extension to the transition period.
Christophe Hansen MEP, a negotiator on the parliament's international trade committee, said: "Under these extraordinary circumstances, I cannot see how the UK government would choose to expose itself to the double whammy of the coronavirus and the exit from the EU single market, which will inevitably add to the disruption, deal or no deal.
"I can only hope that common sense and substance will prevail over ideology. An extension of the transition period is the only responsible thing to do."
German MEP David McAllister, who chairs the UK co-ordination group in the parliament, said the EU was open to extending the transition but the "ball is now clearly in the British court".
The British government has rejected an EU request to open an office in Belfast, in the first major row over the implementation of the post-Brexit Irish border protocol.
The EU closed its offices across the UK when the country left the bloc on 31 January but its officials have a right to be present to monitor the checks and controls on goods crossing the Irish Sea.
The Foreign Office has rejected Brussels’ request for a permanent physical presence in Belfast on the grounds that this would go beyond what is stipulated in the withdrawal agreement.
There are concerns that it would be seen by some as a step towards joint policing of the customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
The British government fought during negotiations over the withdrawal agreement to ensure that checks and controls on goods crossing the Irish Sea would not be jointly carried out.
The row highlights the potential for the protocol on Northern Ireland to be a cause of contention between the EU and the UK in the months to come.
Under the withdrawal agreement, Northern Ireland effectively stays in the single market. It also remains within the UK’s customs territory to allow it to benefit from any future trade deals secured by the British government. But the full EU customs code has to be enforced on goods travelling between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. All goods deemed at risk of travelling from Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland would attract tariffs.
The messy compromise allowed for the avoidance of a border on the island of Ireland but brings with it a host of potential flashpoints.
The issue of a Belfast office was raised on Monday during the first teleconference meeting of the EU-UK joint committee, set up to supervise the operation of the withdrawal agreement. The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove, is the UK’s senior figure on the committee.
Under article 12 of the Northern Ireland protocol, the UK government is “responsible for implementing and applying the provisions of [EU] law” but EU officials “shall have the right to be present during any activities” relating to checks and controls.
The UK is obliged to “facilitate such presence of representatives and shall provide them with the information requested”. The EU wants a base for its customs and veterinary experts.
A European commission spokesman said: “We can confirm that we have sent letters to the UK regarding a proposal to open a technical office in Belfast with specific technical capabilities to ensure the implementation of the protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland. This issue was raised in the joint committee on Monday. We remain in contact with the UK on this point.”
A spokesman for the UK government said it was considering the issue. He said: “We received an initial request from the EU and responded to decline the proposal in February. We have since received a follow-up letter to which we will respond in due course.”
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It is understood Johnson was moved to the intensive care unit just short of an hour and a half ago.
The decision was made by his medical team after his condition worsened over the course of Monday. The prime minister is understood to be conscious and to have been moved as a precaution in case he needs ventilation.
A No 10 spokesman said:
Since Sunday evening, the prime minister has been under the care of doctors at St Thomas’ Hospital, in London, after being admitted with persistent symptoms of coronavirus.
Over the course of this afternoon, the condition of the prime minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the intensive care unit at the hospital.
The PM has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is the first secretary of state, to deputise for him where necessary.
The PM is receiving excellent care, and thanks all NHS staff for their hard work and dedication.
The negotiations over the UK’s future relationship with the EU are going nowhere fast. Following a phone call between the UK’s chief negotiator David Frost and the EU’s deputy head of taskforce, both sides could only say they would try and arrange a new timetable for remote negotiations next week.
The two sides have swapped their rival legal texts for a future treaty and analysis is said to be ongoing but actual negotiations over that text seems to be proving difficult.
Following the phone call on Monday afternoon, a European commission spokesman said: “Last week, the EU and the UK provided clarifications at technical level on their respective legal texts. Clara Martínez Alberola and David Frost spoke by phone this afternoon to take stock of this work. Both sides will remain in contact this week.”
Michel Barnier will speak with David Frost next week to agree a calendar for next steps in order to move the negotiations forward, taking into account the coronavirus outbreak.
The UK government, despite the prime minister Boris Johnson now being in intensive care, attempted to make the situation seem a little more hopeful. The government has put in law an end date of 31 December 2020 for the transition period despite having the opportunity to agree an extension of “up to one or two years”.
A UK government spokesman said: “Talks continue to take place between the negotiations teams remotely. Last week, in a series of conference calls, both sides discussed and provided technical clarifications on their respective legal texts.
“David Frost and the EU’s Deputy Head of the Task Force, Clara Martínez Alberola, and their teams, spoke by video conference this afternoon to take stock of those discussions and to consider next steps. They agreed that there was scope for further productive discussions and that contact should continue in the next few days.
“Chief Negotiators (David Frost and Michel Barnier) have agreed to speak early next week to agree a timetable for negotiations by remote means in April and May.”
Leaked letter reveals scale of bloc’s inability to function during coronavirus outbreak
Boris Johnson’s plan to seal a deal with Brussels on the future relationship with the UK by the end of December has been described as “fantasy land” by EU officials, as a leaked letter revealed the scale of the bloc’s inability to function during the coronavirus pandemic.
The European council headquarters, where member states’ positions are coordinated, is only able to hold one daily video conference due to a lack of facilities. The capacity to carry out work is 25% of what it would usually be.
The leaked letter from Michael Clauss, the German ambassador to the EU, to his political bosses in Berlin said a range of issues not key to rebuilding from the pandemic would need to be sidelined as a result.
An EU official said while the European commission, which is in charge of talks with the UK, had better facilities for remote negotiation, it would be impossible for the member states to have the same input through the EU council. This would make a successful negotiation nearly impossible.
The December timeline for agreeing a deal with the EU “which was already hopelessly optimistic” was described as “like fantasy land”, by one source. The UK can agree with the EU to extend the transition period by up to one or two years, if necessary, but Downing Street insisted it would not do so.
The planned schedule of negotiating rounds on the future relationship was abandoned after the first week due to the pandemic. The UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, will speak to his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, next week to try to agree a new timetable and method for the talks.
Barnier is recovering after contracting coronavirus but Johnson remains in intensive care with the disease.
Germany takes over the rolling EU presidency on 1 July from Croatia. It will be responsible for chairing key meetings and finding compromise positions on issues, including Brexit.
However, the German ambassador to the EU wrote that it would not be possible to look beyond the need to rebuild the EU economy.
He said: “From now on, the focus will be on the ability of the European institutions to act, crisis management, exit and reconstruction – possibly maintaining the EU integration itself. The success of our presidency will be measured against this.”
Clauss said other key issues would “inevitably be overlaid or completely receded” as the EU’s ability to act will “remain broadly limited until further notice”, according to the letter leaked to German magazine Der Spiegel.
Due to physical distancing rules, which are likely to remain even when lockdowns across Europe are lifted, the usual 21 boardrooms available for internal negotiations will be reduced to five. These will have to be shared with the EU’s foreign affairs wing, the European External Action Service.
“The council secretariat strongly recommends planning only with one video conference per day,” the letter said. It added that the EU was having to use a commercially available end-to-end encryption service.
Four new video conferencing systems set up in the European parliament are also said not to meet the required level of confidentiality.
The ambassador wrote: “Video conferences, even if they can be carried out, will not be able to replace physical meetings on an equal footing. No formal quorum, no marginalised conversations, no confidentiality of the negotiations, no interpreting. Difficulties in text work.”
LONDON — The eight men moved to Britain from different corners of its former empire, all of them doctors or doctors-to-be, becoming foot soldiers in the effort to build a free universal health service after World War II.
Now their names have become stacked atop a grim list: the first, and so far only, doctors publicly reported to have died after catching the coronavirus in Britain’s aching National Health Service.
For a country ripped apart in recent years by Brexit and the anti-immigrant movement that birthed it, the deaths of the eight doctors — from Egypt, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Sudan — attest to the extraordinary dependence of Britain’s treasured health service on workers from abroad.
It is a story tinged with racism, as white, British doctors have largely dominated the prestigious disciplines while foreign doctors have typically found work in places and practices that are apparently putting them on the dangerous front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
“When people were standing on the street clapping for N.H.S. workers, I thought, ‘A year and a half ago, they were talking about Brexit and how these immigrants have come into our country and want to take our jobs,’” said Dr. Hisham el-Khidir, whose cousin Dr. Adil el-Tayar, a transplant surgeon, died on March 25 from the coronavirus in western London.
[... ... ...]
By recruiting foreign doctors, Britain saves the roughly $270,000 in taxpayer money that it costs to train doctors locally, a boon to a system that does not spend enough on medical education to staff its own hospitals. That effectively leaves Britain depending on the largess of countries with weaker health care systems to train its own work force.
[...]
Excluded from the most prestigious disciplines, immigrant doctors have come to dominate so-called Cinderella specialties, like family and elderly medicine, turning them into pillars of Britain’s health system. And unlike choosier Britain-born doctors, they have historically gone to work in what one lawmaker in 1961 called “the rottenest, worst hospitals in the country,” the very ones that most needed a doctor.
Those same places are now squarely in the path of the virus.
“Migrant doctors are architects of the N.H.S. — they’re what built it and held it together and worked in the most unpopular, most difficult areas, where white British doctors don’t want to go and work,” said Dr. Aneez Esmail, a professor of general practice at the University of Manchester. “It’s a hidden story.”
[...]
The coronavirus has taken a devastating toll on migrant doctors across Britain, leaving at least six others dead: Dr. Habib Zaidi, 76, a longtime general practitioner from Pakistan; Dr. Alfa Sa’adu, 68, a geriatric doctor from Nigeria; Dr. Jitendra Rathod, 62, a heart surgeon from India; Dr. Anton Sebastianpillai, in his 70s, a geriatric doctor from Sri Lanka; Dr. Mohamed Sami Shousha, 79, a breast tissue specialist from Egypt; and Dr. Syed Haider, in his 80s, a general practitioner from Pakistan.
Barry Hudson, a longtime patient of Dr. Zaidi in southeastern England, recalled their exam table conversations about England’s cricket team.
“He was a big figure in the community,” Mr. Hudson said. “He had a proper doctor’s manner. He didn’t rush anybody.”
The last thing UK business needs in the current economic climate is a "chaotic exit" from EU trading rules, Labour's new shadow chancellor has warned.
Anneliese Dodds urged ministers not to put "ideology over national interest".
The UK has let the EU but has given itself until 31 December to negotiate a trade deal, until which time most EU rules will still apply.
New Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said it was "a mistake" to put that date into legislation.
Downing Street has insisted the Brexit timetable remains unchanged.
Ms Dodds, who served in her predecessor John McDonnell's shadow Treasury team, warned against the "kind of chaotic exit that has always been a threat under this Conservative government".
She called for "desperately needed" co-operation with the EU and other international bodies on the coronavirus crisis.
Ms Dodds, who represents the Oxford East constituency, was an MEP before entering the Westminster Parliament in 2017.
A significant majority of voters want Boris Johnson to extend trade talks with the EU which have been interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey.
Some 47 per cent of those questioned by BMG for The Independent said the prime minister should ditch his 31 December deadline to complete talks or walk out of the EU without a trade deal, against just 23 per cent who said he should stick to his timetable. Another 21 per cent said they neither opposed nor supported a delay and 8 per cent did not know.
And there was growing support for rejoining the EU, with 49 per cent saying they want the UK to seek renewed membership less than three months after it left on 31 January, compared to 51 per cent who want to stay out.
At least one planned round of talks between UK negotiator David Frost and his EU counterpart Michel Barnier has been cancelled because of the outbreak, which saw both men infected with Covid-19.
But Mr Johnson and key ministers have repeatedly said that they are sticking to the New Year’s Eve deadline for concluding the transition period to Brexit, which they wrote into law in the EU Withdrawal Act - and the PM has not stepped back from his threat to walk out on talks in June if no progress is being made.
Brexit day: UK says goodbye to EU
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Businesses are increasingly concerned at the prospect of a disruptive no-deal Brexit on 1 January, coming hot on the heels of the economic damage caused by coronavirus.
The government’s most recent economic assessment, issued by the Treasury in 2018, found that departure from the EU without a trade deal could cost the UK up to 9 per cent of GDP over the coming years.
Pauline Bastidon, head of European policy at the Freight Transport Association, has called for an extension to talks saying: “There’s absolutely no bandwidth for anything other than Covid-19. There’s no time, energy, money or interest at the moment to focus on Brexit.”
Support for delay was shared by more than a third of Conservative voters (35 per cent) and Leave voters (34 per cent) taking part in the BMG poll. Some 42 per cent of Tories and 45 per cent of Leave voters thought Mr Johnson should press ahead with his plan to halt talks at the end of 2020, deal or no deal.
Almost two thirds (64 per cent) of Labour voters, 72 per cent of Lib Dems and 66 per cent of Remain backers thought the deadline to conclude negotiations should be pushed back.
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And an extension to talks was backed by a plurality of voters in every part of Britain and every age group.
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The director of the UK in a Changing Europe thinktank, King's College London professor Anand Menon, told The Independent: "What these figures reveal is that a large proportion of the public understand - even if the Government still seems not to - that Covid-19 changes everything. And that should include the timetable for ending the transition."
The CEO of the Best for Britain campaign, Naomi Smith, said: "Since the UK went into lockdown, poll after poll has shown the country is in favour of extending the transition period.
"That includes a sizeable chunk of those who voted for the Conservatives at the last election, who will be dismayed at their party's refusal to give the the country some breathing room to continue negotiations with the EU once we are in a better place.
"Most people just want the government to get on with the job at hand so that lives can be saved and normality restored as quickly as possible.
“With senior ministers falling ill, the government lacks the capacity to split its focus right now."
The poll found support for rejoining the EU up three points to 49 per cent since a similar survey in March, with only a wafer-thin majority now in favour of Brexit.
Support for rejoining was strongest among the young (68 per cent of 18-24 year-olds and 59 per cent of 25-34 year-olds), people with degrees (60 per cent) and voters from ethnic miniorities (67 per cent).
However, there is a majority for staying out in every part of the country except London and Scotland and among all over-55 age groups.
Rejoining is backed by supporters of all major parties except the Tories, 84 of whom want to stay out. Some 8 per cent of Leave voters now say they want to rejoin the EU.
A significant majority of voters want Boris Johnson to extend trade talks with the EU
Quote:how do EU voters feel about it? any interest in extending the timeline?A significant majority of voters want Boris Johnson to extend trade talks with the EU
