Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

55BC-409
Becoming Europeans
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409-443
Brexit #1
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793-1042
Scandinavian Efta
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1066
Reunion with Europe
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1533
Brexit #2
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1689
Back into Europe
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1815
Brexit #3
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1880
Brexit #4
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1914-75
Two world wars and one sane act
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2021
Ourselves, alone
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Next up

The United Kingdom dies and the English are alone again at last. Happy new year.

Boris Johnson has claimed that the UK would not regress on workers’ rights or environmental standards after Brexit, as Tory MPs in the European Research Group (ERG) pour over the details of his trade deal.

The PM said the deal contains obligations not to regress on standards – but also appeared to downplay the importance of the commitments. “All that’s really saying is the UK won’t immediately send children up chimneys or pour raw sewage all over its beaches,” Mr Johnson said.

The [Irish] deputy premier told Newstalk on Sunday: “They don’t have to pay tariffs or quotas either which is advantageous to them. But it's not unconditional. So what they have agreed to is what we call a level playing field.

“They have agreed to a non-regression clause in all but name, so we said you can only have access to the market if you don’t reduce your standards when it comes to workers’ rights, the environment, health and safety, product standards – all of those things.

“If they do reduce their standards or don’t keep with our standards then that access to our market could be threatened. They have to largely follow European rules where they are relevant.”

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — While corks may have popped in London and Brussels over the end to a four-year saga known as Brexit, there is one rocky speck of British soil still left in limbo.

Gibraltar, a British colony jutting off the southern tip of Spain’s mainland, wasn’t included in the Brexit trade deal announced on Christmas Eve between the European Union and the United Kingdom to reorganize the commercial and trade relations between the now 27-member bloc and the first nation to exit the group.

The deadline for Gibraltar remains Jan. 1, when a transitionary period regulating the short frontier between Gibraltar and Spain expires. If no deal is reached, there are serious concerns that a hard border would cause disruption for the workers, tourists and major business connections across the two sides.

Spain succeeded in convincing the EU to separate the issue of Gibraltar from the greater Brexit negotiations, meaning that Madrid is handling all talks directly with its counterparts in Gibraltar and London.

Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya said Thursday that if an agreement isn’t reached, she fears that the long lines of stranded truck drivers seen at the English Channel crossing this past week could be repeated.

“We do not have much time, and the scenes of chaos from the U.K. must remind us that we need to keep working to reach a deal on Gibraltar,” González Laya told Spanish state broadcaster RTVE. “Spaniards want one, the people of Gibraltar want one, now the U.K. needs to desire one as well. Political will is needed.”

Throughout the Brexit talks, Spain has insisted it wants a say on the future of Gibraltar.

The Rock was ceded to Britain in 1713, but Spain has never dropped its claim to sovereignty over it. For three centuries, the strategic outcrop of high terrain has given British navies command of the narrow seaway from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.

“Neither side is going to renounce its pretensions of sovereignty, but we must set that aside to reach a deal that makes lives easier for those living on both sides of the border,” González Laya said.

Negotiations with the U.K. are ongoing, González Laya said Monday, adding that she believes “a deal in principle is perfectly possible” by the end of the year.

“The best sign that Spain is really trying to reach an agreement is that it is not discussing (the negotiations) in public,” she said during an online news conference.

More than 15,000 people live in Spain and work in Gibraltar, making up about 50% of Gibraltar’s labor force. Gibraltar’s population of about 34,000 was overwhelmingly against Britain leaving the European Union. In the U.K.’s 2016 Brexit referendum, 96% of voters in Gibraltar supported remaining in the continental bloc that they feel gives them more leverage to deal with the government in Madrid.

The territory still remembers how, in 1969, Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco slammed shut the border in an attempt to wreck Gibraltar’s economy.

Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said the post-Brexit trade deal “is a huge relief given the potential difficulties that a no-deal Brexit might have created for the United Kingdom and the European Union.”

But he added that his territory is still at risk.

“This deal does not cover Gibraltar. For us, and for the people of the Campo de Gibraltar around us, the clock is still ticking,” Picardo said in a statement.

“We continue to work, hand in glove with the United Kingdom, to finalize negotiation with Spain of agreement for a proposed treaty between the EU and the U.K. in relation to Gibraltar,” he said.

Picardo recently told Spain’s Cadena SER radio that “an agreement in the fashion of Schengen would be the most positive” outcome to facilitate the 30 million annual border crossings between Gibraltar and Spain.

The Europe’s Schengen area consists of about two dozen nations who have agreed to eliminate general travel checks within the group, although some local checks have been reintroduced due to the pandemic. Britain is not in the Schengen group.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government also said it’s committed to finding a solution that includes “ensuring border fluidity, which is clearly in the best interests of the communities that live on both sides.”

Actors, musicians and comedians have reacted with alarm to provisions in the Brexit trade deal that will prevent British performers moving around many European countries without a work permit.

Leaders of the culture sector fear the clauses will severely curtail the ability of performers to go on tour in Europe, and will hamper the recovery of the arts after the devastating impact of the pandemic.

The clauses in the deal will affect tens of thousands of people in the UK’s creative industries, including film-makers, technicians and models as well as performers.
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The agreement allows people to make visa-free business trips to the EU for 90 days in any given six-month period, but there are restrictions on the activities they can perform. Activities such as meetings, attending conferences and conducting research are fine, but selling goods or services directly to the public will require a visa.
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they won't be the last who suddenly recognize something not so nice in the deal!

Carriers must comply with European Union rules on airline ownership from 1 January and become majority controlled by EU citizens

Ryanair and Wizz Air will strip UK investors of their voting rights from 1 January to comply with European Union rules on airline ownership.

After the Brexit transition period ends, UK and other non-EU shareholders will not be able to vote at annual general meetings, the two airlines said in separate statements.

The EU requires carriers that operate flights between two destinations within its borders to be majority controlled by EU citizens.
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Ryanair has previously said that the airline was 55% owned by EU nationals while UK-based investors controlled 20% of the shares. Its chief financial officer, Neil Sorahan, has said that he expected half of them to re-domicile to the EU if the UK opted for a hard Brexit.

The Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air has a higher number of UK-based investors because it chose London for its main stock market listing.

Stripping non-EU shareholders of their voting rights will affect about 60% of its stock. If it took no action, it said more than 80% of its shares would be held by non-EU citizens, threatening its licence and its ability to fly EU-only routes.

The issue was not resolved in the Brexit agreement reached on Christmas Eve, although the UK and the EU agreed to look into a possible relaxation of ownership rules over the next year.
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they won't be the last who suddenly recognize something not so nice in the deal!

Cables under Channel meet 8 per cent of demand - raising threat of higher prices and possible blackouts

The EU has secured the ability to shut off gas and electricity supplies if the UK tries to seize control of disputed fish stocks in future, experts are warning.

The sanction – which would hike prices and possibly trigger blackouts – makes a mockery of the prime minister’s claim to have “taken control” of British waters in his trade agreement, they say.

The little-noticed clause in the vast 1,255-page text allows Brussels to kick the UK out of its electricity and gas markets in June 2026, unless a fresh deal is agreed.

The date set is – deliberately – the same as for the review of fishing rights, when Mr Johnson has insisted the UK will finally grab a large share of stocks, having failed to do that in his agreement.

The Institute for Government said Brussels had been determined to secure a connection “between energy and fish” in the negotiations that finally concluded on Christmas Eve.

“It seems that, in the weeds of the deal, they’ve succeeded,” Maddy Thimont Jack, the IfG’s associate director, told The Independent:

“By including annual negotiations on energy from 2026, it would be very easy to leverage access to the EU’s energy market in the annual talks on fish – also starting in 2026.

“This is just another reason why the UK will likely struggle to take back control of any more of its waters in the years to come.”

Losing power supplies could have a significant impact on the UK, which brings in about 8 per cent of its demand through huge power cables under the Channel.

It has previously been suggested that costs could rise by £2bn and that it would be difficult to find replacement supplies to prevent blackouts at times of peak demand.

An EU source confirmed to The Independent that Brussels would limit or withdraw access to its electricity and gas, unless a new agreement was struck in 2026.

Furthermore, future deals would be subject to “annual negotiations” – increasing its leverage over attempts by London to break free of the deal on fish.

That agreement has been condemned by industry leaders as a “betrayal” of Mr Johnson’s promise to “take back control” of fisheries, with some warning they will be worse off.

The UK conceded to the EU’s demand to give up only 25 per cent of its catch, at the end of a five-and-a-half-year transition – setting the scene for a future bitter dispute.

The pre-2026 gains are puny for many stocks, including for cod (up just 2 per cent), plaice (3 per cent), hake (3 per cent) and sole (4 per cent).

Downing Street is still refusing to accept that it has conceded the EU’s right to inflict wide-ranging sanctions for any breach of the fishing agreement, despite it being clearly stated in the deal.

Tariffs could be imposed in numerous other sectors – including other goods, services, transport, intellectual property and energy – the IfG has pointed out.

But Mr Johnson told MPs: “Under this deal, we have taken back control of our waters, and indeed Scottish fishermen from the get-go will have access to bigger quotas of all the relevant stocks.

And he claimed: “Once the adjustment period comes to an end, there will be no limit – other than the limits that are placed by the needs of science and conservation – on our ability to make use of our marine wealth.”

Boris Johnson has claimed his post-Brexit trade deal with the EU allows the UK to have its cake and eat it.

The prime minister refused to acknowledge it will mean new barriers to trade, in an interview BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg.

He conceded that there would be "changes" for business when the UK leaves EU trading rules on Thursday.

But he insisted the deal would allow the UK to "go our own way but also have free trade" with the EU.

Critics had said "you couldn't have free trade with the EU unless you conformed with the EU's laws", said the PM. and "that that was having your cake and eating it".

"That has turned out not to be true," he added. "I want you to see that this is a cakeist treaty."

It comes as MPs approved the legislation implementing the deal by 521 votes to 73 in a Commons vote. It now goes to the House of Lords and is expected to become law later on Wednesday.

Mr Johnson was repeatedly pushed to admit that businesses and citizens will face new hurdles when the UK leaves the EU single market and customs union at 2300 GMT on Thursday.

'Changes'

The trade deal, agreed with Brussels on Christmas Eve, avoids tariffs, or taxes, being imposed on imports from the EU.

But it does mean more paperwork for businesses and people travelling to EU countries, such as customs declarations, export health checks, regulatory checks, rules of origin checks and conformity assessments.

Asked to concede that there will be more red tape, the PM said: "There will be changes. And we've been very clear with people that they have to get ready for 1 January, things will work differently.

"But from the point of view of UK exporters, for instance, they'll now have the advantage, that they'll only have one set of forms they have to fill out for export to around the whole world.

"And at the moment, people have to choose that are they going to think about the EU markets or are they thinking about a global market? Now it's a totally global approach. And I think it's a wonderful thing."

He added that the UK can "not only exploit the advantages of zero tariffs, zero quota deal with the EU, do things differently, take back control of our money, our borders, and our laws, but also do free trade deals with other countries around the world".

Asked if he had ended the Conservative Party's agonies over Europe, Mr Johnson said: 'I'm very hopeful that that is the case."

Spain has extended rights to British Citizens included in the Withdrawal agreement to Gibraltarians until the 30th of June 2021 as part of their no-deal mitigation.

Meanwhile negotiations to achieve a deal before the 31st have been ramped up.

The rights are reciprocal with Gibraltar having published a host of mitigations by regulation this month.

The decree extends to Gibraltarians all workers rights as well as the right to free health care in Spain. Driving licences will also be recognised until the 30th of June.

Gibraltarians will be able to carry on working in Spain until then.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s statement:

"Today, working side by side with the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, and following intensive discussions with the Spanish government, we reached agreement on a political framework to form the basis of a separate treaty between the UK and the EU regarding Gibraltar."

"We will now send this to the European Commission, in order to initiate negotiations on the formal treaty. In the meantime, all sides are committed to mitigating the effects of the end of the Transition Period on Gibraltar, and in particular ensure border fluidity, which is clearly in the best interests of the people living on both sides."

"We remain steadfast in our support for Gibraltar, and its sovereignty is safeguarded. I am grateful to Foreign Minister Laya and her team for their positive and constructive approach. We have a warm and strong relationship with Spain, and we look forward to building on it in 2021."