Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

The number of EU citizens being prevented from entering the UK has soared over the past three months despite a massive reduction in travel because of Covid, according to Home Office figures.

A total of 3,294 EU citizens were prevented from entering the UK, even though post-Brexit rules mean they are allowed to visit the country without visas. That compares with 493 EU citizens in the first quarter of last year, when air traffic was 20 times higher.
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Passenger traffic from the EU was down year-by-year by between 94% and 97% over the first three months of this year, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.
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Brexit-backing Wetherspoon pubs boss Tim Martin has added his name to the list of those wanting to relax work visa rules for EU migrants.

Martin, who toured the country’s Wetherspoons pubs espousing the benefits of a hard Brexit, says that the UK should make it easier for lower-skilled EU workers to relocate here.

He’s one of many pub and restaurant bosses who told the Telegraph that recruitment in the industry was so poor that many sites are having to close to lunchtime trade.

EU nationals living in the UK could apply for settled status at no cost, giving them the right to live and work here indefinitely, however the Covid-19 pandemic has also meant a relocation of thousands of citizens back to their home countries.

The bosses of City Pub Group and TGI Fridays told the Telegraph that an inability to fill roles had made reopening harder for pubs and restaurants.
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It’s not the first time the Wetherspoons boss has raised eyebrows. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic Martin told 40,000 staff at his company’s 814 pubs in a video that they should feel free to take jobs at supermarkets such as Tesco while Wetherspoon pubs remain closed.

He said: “If you’re offered a job… if you think it’s a good idea, do it.”

Martin was also a lockdown sceptic, saying the move by the UK Government in March last year would “cripple the economy”, destroy the tax base and subsequently hurt the NHS.

Mr Martin later told the BBC the comment has been taken out of context.

He added that Wetherspoons was not struggling to recruit, and in some towns, such as Northallerton, jobs at its pubs were oversubscribed.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics in April suggest that more than one in 10 UK hospitality workers left the industry in the last year.

UK Hospitality has urged the government to encourage UK-based workers to join the sector.

It is also asking the government to renew its list of shortage occupations and consider a visa scheme for workers who would not qualify under the points-based system.

Over the past 12 months Wetherspoons, which has 871 pubs, has reduced the number of staff by about 6,000 to almost 38,000.

Brussels is preparing to make concessions over Northern Ireland but has warned Lord Frost ahead of a key meeting that the EU’s “patience is wearing thin” over the UK government’s repeated failure to fulfil its obligations.

In response to claims from the Brexit minister in recent weeks that the bloc had been insufficiently flexible, EU officials pointed to a series of decisions by Downing Street that had eroded trust while signalling that it was prepared to bend on some issues.

Construction on border control posts at ports in Northern Ireland had been halted in defiance of previous agreements, it was claimed by EU officials on Monday, while promises to establish tracing systems to ensure that British-made goods do not enter the Republic of Ireland had not been kept.

It was further suggested that the UK’s choice for “confrontation” over finding solutions to ease tensions in Northern Ireland offered Brussels little hope that Frost was serious about making the post-Brexit arrangements work.

Despite the bubbling frustration, Brussels will this week put pressure on the UK to change tack by publicly offering to go beyond EU law to ensure the undisrupted supply of British-approved medicines.

There will also be a derogation from EU law to permit people with guide dogs to travel unencumbered by paperwork to the rest of the UK and solutions to avoid rabies and tapeworm controls for those returning with their pets from Great Britain.

“We’re investing considerable energy to find solutions with the UK and we have done so for months,” said an EU official. “The EU has been patient. But the EU’s patience is wearing thin, and if this continues, we will have to consider all the tools and all the options that are available to us.”

The difficult atmosphere comes as the US president, Joe Biden, is expected to express concerns to Boris Johnson at the G7 summit over the impact of the dispute on peace in Northern Ireland. It is hoped in Brussels that White House pressure could still force a new approach from Downing Street.

But moves open to Brussels, if that fails to transpire, include referring the UK to binding arbitration, which could lead to financial sanctions or the suspension of parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.

Frost is meeting Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission’s Brexit commissioner, in London on Wednesday to try to find solutions to the red tape that it is claimed is the cause of recent political instability in Northern Ireland.

Under a protocol in the withdrawal agreement designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland in effect remains in the single market and EU customs policy is enforced on goods coming from Great Britain.

In recent weeks there has been loyalist violence from those who claim their British identity is being brought into question by the arrangements.

Over the weekend, Frost wrote in the Financial Times that the repercussions of the protocol on the flow of trade between Britain and Northern Ireland had indeed been underestimated and that a change in approach and some “common sense” was required from Brussels.

The comments infuriated key capitals and officials in the European commission. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, suggested Frost had been more focused on “media messaging” in the UK rather than problem-solving.

France’s minister for EU affairs, Clément Beaune, suggested the UK minister had “called into question” the Northern Ireland protocol, but added that it was “not the problem. It is the solution to a problem that we have not created.”

One of the thorniest problems related to this arrangement is the need for controls on food of animal origin and plants entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain. The EU has proposed that nearly all checks at Northern Ireland’s ports could be dispensed with if the UK agreed to align with the bloc’s ​​​​​​sanitary and phytosanitary rulebook.

But on Monday, Frost reiterated his rejection of any “veterinary agreement” that would force the UK to in effect adopt EU law as it developed.

“We have already sent a proposal to the EU – it’s just not one based on alignment, ie losing control over our own laws,” Frost tweeted. “We continue to be happy to talk whenever the EU is ready.”