Here are the main Brexit benefits and opportunities, and whether they are real
Labour leader Keir Starmer and Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg have both said Brexit has potential benefits which the UK could exploit.
The two politicians come from different parts of the political spectrum but seem to agree on this point.
Mr Rees-Mogg was in fact last week appointed minister for Brexit opportunities, and his job is finding new ones.
The Labour leader meanwhile told BBC Radio Newcastle: “I want to make sure we take advantage of the opportunities, and that we have a clear plan for Brexit. That’s what I’m working on.”
What are some potential benefits that the government, and indeed the opposition, have highlighted? And are they really benefits?
Free trade agreements
The most high-profile benefit the government has talked up on Brexit is the ability to sign free trade agreements unilaterally. While Britain was in the EU it benefited from agreements it had negotiated as part of the bloc, but could not do its own.
This sounds positive, but it is less straightforward than it sounds. For a start, as a smaller country Britain has less bargaining power in negotiations than the whole EU. On the other hand, deals can be tailored to the UK and the political risk of another country blocking a trade agreement disappears.
Overall, however, trade experts say the advantages are marginal at best – especially when balanced against the damage to trade with the EU that has been done by Brexit.
An analysis by the University of Sussex Trade Policy Observatory found that the UK's Brexit losses were 178 times bigger than any gains from new agreements, with all deals combined worth less than 50p per person a year.
Some much-talked-up free trade agreements, like the one with the United States promised by Donald Trump, are yet to materialise.
Controlling immigration
One argument was leaving the EU made during the referendum was that Britain could "control immigration" and end free movement with the bloc. Whether this is an advantage or not depends on your political point of view.
EU immigration fell substantially after after Brexit referendum, as a result of people not wanting to move to Britain – though it remained positive until early 2020 when Covid hit. Covid has muddied the waters and it is difficult to see what impact ending free movement has actually had.
The cut in European immigration has however had a direct impact in the form of fewer migrant workers, which has led to staff shortages across the economy and some crops going wasted in the fields. Covid has also muddied the waters in this regard and had an impact of its own.
This reduction in labour from abroad does not seem to have translated into generalised wage rises; real wages have been overall stagnant across the economy since the financial crisis in 2008 and are now falling again thanks to inflation outstripping wage growth.
Immigration has fallen down the political agenda significantly since the referendum and polls also suggest most Britons are less hostile to free movement with the EU than is sometimes suggested. A 2020 survey by Focaldata found that 57 per cent of people in the UK support a reciprocal right to live and work in Britain for EU citizens.
There were some suggestions during the campaign that Brexit could see a more liberal immigration policy to the rest of the world in exchange for tightening controls with Europe, perhaps liberalising with India. This however has not come to pass, and in addition it never required leaving the EU - member states are allowed to set visa conditions to third countries as they like. Britain has also never been a member of the common visa policy.
Deregulation
Some members of the government, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, have talked up the prospect of removing EU regulations and standards after Brexit.
In 2016 after referendum he told a parliamentary committee that regulations that were “good enough for India” could be good enough for the UK – arguing that the UK could go “a very long way” to rolling back high EU standards.
This approach is not popular, however, and whether low standards are actually a good idea will depend on your political point of view.
The main problem is nobody can agree on exactly what rules need to be scrapped. Labour has opposed changed on workers rights, product standards, and the environment. The government has suggested it might allow US food produced to American standards into the UK, but the prospect of chlorinated chicken has not gone down well.
Other suggestions include the prospect of ditching new EU car safety standards, an idea which has predictably garnered little popular support.
Six years since the referendum the government is yet to explain exactly what regulations it wants to scrap and what the point is.
State aid
One argument pitched from the left of politics in favour of leaving the EU has been to break free from EU state aid rules. These rules require member states not to favour particular companies when it comes to subsidies.
There appears to be little prospect of the UK making use of these changes, however. Labour, who you might expect to be the party to take advantage of these changes, has talks down the prospect of nationalising public services and says it wants to take a more market-based approached.
Even if this changed, EU rules are also less restrictive than often imagined; Brussels regularly grants exemptions, and the UK has historically made less use of these exemptions than many other big member states like France and Germany.
Using Imperial weights and measures
One Brexit cause beloved of the tabloid press is the reintroduction of older imperial weights and measures. This may not seem important, but judging by the column inches spent on it in some newspapers, it apparently is to some people.
The government has talked about just one possible imperial measure reintroduction so far: that is, the pint of champagne. The measure's proponents argue that it was beloved of Winston Churchill.
Unfortunately, French Champagne makers have uniformly said they have no plans to reintroduce the measure any time soon even if it is legalised.
How to make Brexit trade run better
The British Chambers of Commerce have identified five issues holding back the flow of goods and services into the EU - and proposed five solutions to address some of these complexity, bottlenecks and pressures on firms.
ISSUE: Export health certificates cost too much and take up too much time for smaller food exporters.
SOLUTION: We need a supplementary deal on this which either eliminates or reduces the complexity of exporting food for these firms.
ISSUE: Some companies are being asked to register in multiple EU states for VAT in order to sell online to customers there.
SOLUTION: We need a supplementary deal, like Norway’s with the EU. This exempts the smallest firms from the requirement to have a fiscal representative and incur these duplicate costs.
ISSUE: As things stand CE marked industrial and electrical products will not be permitted for sale on the market in Great Britain from January 2023. The same is true for components and spares.
SOLUTION: We need action from the Government to help businesses with these timelines. Many firms are far from convinced about a ban on CE marked goods in Great Britain.
ISSUE: UK firms facing limitations on business travel and work activities in the EU.
SOLUTION: Government needs to make side deals with the EU and member states to boost access in this area as a priority for 2022.
ISSUE: Companies starting to be pursued in respect of import customs declarations deferred from last year.
SOLUTION: We need a pragmatic approach to enforcement to ensure companies recovering from the pandemic do not face heavy-handed demands too quickly on import payments, or paperwork.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said unionism is ‘rapidly losing faith’ that a negotiated solution can be found on the trading arrangements.
The EU must drop the pretence that the Northern Ireland Protocol is designed to protect the peace process, the DUP leader has said.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said unionism is “rapidly losing faith” that a negotiated solution to issues with the protocol can be achieved through the ongoing negotiations between the EU and UK.
The DUP leader, who has repeatedly called on the UK Government to suspend the trading arrangements by triggering the Article 16 mechanism, was speaking after a virtual meeting with European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic.
Earlier this month, Sir Jeffrey pulled DUP First Minister Paul Givan out of the Stormont Executive in protest at the protocol – a move that removed the powersharing administration’s ability to make any significant decisions.
Mr Sefcovic has been holding talks with the main Stormont leaders ahead of next week’s meeting of the EU/UK joint committee on implementing the protocol.
On Monday, Ms Truss and Mr Sefcovic jointly chaired an EU/UK committee on the implementation of the protocol.
Afterwards, Mr Sefcovic said intensified negotiations over recent months to find an agreed settlement had so far resulted in “neither a breakthrough nor a breakdown”.
Business minister mocked for ‘ludicrous’ attempt to quantify ‘Brexit benefit’
The government is to launch a study of the economic benefits of reintroducing Imperial units of measurement, to quantify a supposed advantage of Brexit.
Ministers provoked mockery from opposition politicians with the "ludicrous" move, which will be overseen by the business department this year.
In 2019 Boris Johnson pledged to usher in a new "era of generosity and tolerance towards traditional measurements" and suggested measuring in pounds and ounces was "ancient liberty".
This month he appointed Jacob Rees-Mogg as “minister for Brexit opportunities” in order to examine how Britain can benefit from leaving the EU.
Imperial-only labelling fell out of business use when Britain joined the European common market in the early 1970s, but some people who remember the esoteric counting system remain attached to it.
The measurements are an alternative system of measuring weights and volume of products that were used more or less exclusively in Britain – though the US maintains a parallel system with similar names but different measurements.
Instead of 1,000 grams weighting one kilogram as under the metric system, the Imperial system says are 14 pounds in a stone, 16 ounces in a pound, then 256 drachms to the pound.
For liquid, there are 20 fluid ounces in a pint and 160 in a gallon, instead of metric’s 1,000 millilitres in a litre.
While the measurements have largely been out of use for some 60 years they are believed by politicians to be beloved of some older voters, and so occasionally become a political issue. In reality Britain operates a mixed system, with businesses using metric weights and measures and imperial miles used on roadsigns and pints of beer used in pubs.
Paul Scully, a Tory business minister, said reintroducing Imperial labelling was "an important step in taking back control" and that a planned "assessment of the economic impact on business will be carried out in due course".
But Liberal Democrat business spokesperson Sarah Olney accused the government of "wasting taxpayer money" and said there were more important things to worry about.
“The fact the Government is undertaking a study into this shows just how out of touch they are," she told The Independent.
"It’s ludicrous that they think this will help businesses after they hit them with a national insurance rise and have done nothing to help with their soaring energy bills.
“Ministers must explain how reverting to a system not used in nearly 60 years will help businesses attract new customers, and how imperial units will be of any help to companies looking to trade with the rest of the world - when the vast majority of countries use the metric system.
“Instead of wasting taxpayer money on looking to bring back imperial measurements, the Government should be focusing on the real issues affecting businesses; like the miles of queues at our ports and the reams of red tape thrown up by Boris Johnson’s shambolic EU trade deal.”
Business minister Mr Scully said: "We are reviewing the EU ban on the use of imperial units for markings so that businesses have more choice over the measures they use.
"This is an important step in taking back control of our national rules, and we will consult to ensure that we have the best evidence available on which to make changes.
"An assessment of the economic impact on businesses will be carried out in due course."
Britain has signed a trade deal with New Zealand, removing trade barriers between the two countries.
The deal is the latest agreement signed by the UK since Brexit and will end tariffs on goods between the countries.
But the government's own estimates for the deal published at the start of negotiations suggest that it will either damage the UK economy or have a negligible effect.
The UK already enjoyed relatively low tariffs on exports to New Zealand and those that will now be scrapped include 10 per cent charges on clothing and footwear, 5 per cent on buses and up to 5 per cent on ships, bulldozers and excavators.
The deal's official strategic outline published by the Department for International Trade in June 2020 said the effect on GDP (gross domestic product) from the deal will be "close to zero".
Britain has signed a trade deal with New Zealand, removing trade barriers between the two countries.
The deal is the latest agreement signed by the UK since Brexit and will end tariffs on goods between the countries.
But the government's own estimates for the deal published at the start of negotiations suggest that it will either damage the UK economy or have a negligible effect.
The UK already enjoyed relatively low tariffs on exports to New Zealand and those that will now be scrapped include 10 per cent charges on clothing and footwear, 5 per cent on buses and up to 5 per cent on ships, bulldozers and excavators.
The deal's official strategic outline published by the Department for International Trade in June 2020 said the effect on GDP (gross domestic product) from the deal will be "close to zero".
The government pushed ahead with the deal despite these predictions. Ministers are keen to sign trade agreements with other countries so they can present them as a benefit of Brexit.
Upon signing the tree trade agreement the government said it expected trade with New Zealand to increase as a result of the deal by £800 million – about £12 per person.
An analysis by top trade academics published by The Independent in November found that the losses to trade from leaving the EU are around 178 times larger than expected gains from Brexit trade deals.
The agreement will also make it easier for UK professionals like lawyers and auditors to work abroad and to bring their families with them.
The agreement is the same as the one provisionally announced in October.
Ahead of the signing of the agreement on Monday International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said: “This deal will slash red tape, remove all tariffs and make it easier for our services companies to set up and prosper in New Zealand.
“Our trade with New Zealand will soar, benefiting businesses and consumers throughout the UK and helping level up the whole country.
“Like all our new trade deals, it is part of a plan to build a network of trade alliances with the most dynamic parts of the world economy, so we set the UK on a path to future prosperity.”
The government's strategic outline said: "A trade agreement with New Zealand could have limited effects on UK GDP in the long run, with the estimated impact on GDP being close to zero under both scenarios compared to the UK not having a trade deal with New Zealand (between 0.00 per cent and 0.01 per cent in scenario 1 and -0.01 per cent and 0.00 per cent in scenario 2)."
Dear Jacob Rees-Mogg,
I have been worrying about the difficulties you face in your new departmental role as minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency. On the sidelines you have a job to do in what I called a new department. That is a bit of an exaggeration. I see the address and the telephone number are the same Cabinet Office occupied by David Frost, your predecessor.
You are, realistically, the fifth holder of that office in six years. David Davis was appointed by Theresa May to the Department for Exiting the European Union in 2016, followed by Dominic Raab and then Stephen Barclay before it was closed in 2020. It popped up again when Lord Frost was given the grand title of minister of state in the Cabinet Office with oversight of trade and cooperation agreement and withdrawal agreement. He packed it in at the end of last year, complaining to the prime minister about the direction of travel.
Now the prime minister has demonstrated great faith in you not only to conjure up the potential of Brexit but, at the same time, to improve government efficiency. I would quietly postpone this aspect of your title if I were you. The chancellor would make a bad enemy when you start poking about in the Treasury to try to find the millions lost to fraud. Perish the thought, but perhaps that’s why the prime minister gave you the title in the first place!
You are right about the need to secure cuts by controlling recruitment. Margaret Thatcher was so impressed by the way I did this that she asked me to present my methods to a special meeting of the cabinet. That proved disastrous when the great figures of the time were told by this young ex-businessman that they had to micromanage their departments.
The officials advising you won’t have changed much, and that seems to me to be your first problem. I served in different departments for 19 years. I well remember the first day in each new job. There were all those files bursting with outstanding jobs, with new proposals and with lists of manifesto commitments yet to be fulfilled. Sometimes I was even asked if I had any ideas of my own. It all added up to a formidable workload. You will want to be cautious. You are not the first to seek Brexit gold at the rainbow’s end. Theresa May rightly put Eurosceptic colleagues Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox into the top jobs. Davis resigned because May’s deal was no good. Fox said it was the only deal on offer. Johnson left both out of his government and was denounced publicly by Davis in the House of Commons in consequence.
Five years after the EU referendum, the baton has passed to you and your Cabinet Office team.
Your friends and your supporters in the media will have warned you about these officials. They are an inert, inactive blob, remoaners to every last man and woman, they will say. That is why you have been put in charge. Even a machine as excellent as a Rolls-Royce goes nowhere unless the driver chooses the direction and fills the tank.
That is why your appeal to the people themselves to fill this intellectual void – so eloquently expressed in the Sun – was so ingenious. I was at first a sceptic about this constitutional innovation in the democratic process, taking the rather elitist view that that was what ministers were for.
That is why I felt compelled to try to help. It is important that your invitation reaches the widest audience. You will not want to rely on a few cranks, or on a regurgitated splurge from Nigel Farage. You will want to protect your career from any such association.
So how can we help you to find out what people are really thinking and saying, and thus enable you to reverse the present polls, which reveal that a significant majority of people now think that Brexit is going badly?
A key target for your message must be the small entrepreneurs and the larger British companies, which you must show how to exploit the new commercial opportunities. You must not be put off by that cruel cartoon in the Financial Times that showed a microscope on your new desk through which you could find out what these are.
I am president of the European Movement, and as our contribution, we are going to provide you with a website that will collect the latest news and allow people to register their advice as you have requested. It is possible that you will not like everything they say, but that is an opportunity for you to use your formidable debating skills to rebut them.
You will not be surprised to learn that I was persuaded to make this helpful suggestion by the sort of comments I received in response to my article in the Guardian last month. One told me that Brexit had wrecked his wife’s UK export-to-Europe business.
Then there was the report in the Times of the latest survey by the British Chambers of Commerce into the views of its members. A thousand companies were asked to assess the results of Brexit for them; 320 complained of the disadvantages compared with only 59 who were positive. These are the foot soldiers upon whom you have to rely in your ambition to get this great public debate going. You may have noticed that two of your staunchest supporters, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, did not print the story at all. I suppose we can console ourselves with the thought that the privilege of a free society is the freedom not to publish what you don’t like.
The truth will out. What does it say so far? That the government’s Office for Budget Responsibility has said it expects Brexit to hit the economy twice as hard as the global pandemic.
That the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency says that “since the referendum in 2016, 316 companies have chosen the Netherlands because of Brexit”.
That the president of the National Farmers’ Union, Minette Batters, believes labour shortages related to the end of free movement without adequate replacement schemes led to “40,000 healthy pigs” being “culled and simply thrown away … an utter disgrace and a disaster for the pig industry”.
That the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations says it expects an enormous public relations campaign to portray the deal as a fabulous victory, but that it will inevitably be seen by the fishing industry as a defeat. That the Food and Drink Federation says sales to Europe fell 23.7% in nine months in 2021.
Nothing so reveals the reality of Brexit as the meeting of European leaders in Brussels, in the aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine. Our continent faces a threat as severe as anything since the end of the cold war. I am ashamed that the country that in my lifetime saved European democracy has now absented itself as others determine Europe’s response.
There will, Mr Rees-Mogg, be more councils covering the climate crisis, our environment, international crime, control of the internet. In every case we will be absent. That is what Brexit means.
• Michael Heseltine is a former Conservative deputy prime minister
A Conservative MP who campaigned for Brexit has said it is "monstrous" that British businesses now have to fill in forms to trade with Europe.
Desmond Swayne, a supporter of the Leave Means Leave group, was mocked for complaining about new bureaucracy a hard Brexit had created.
UK businesses wanting to trade on the continent now have to deal with significant extra paperwork since Britain left the European Union, its single market, and its customs union.
Mike Freer, international trade minister, replied that the government planned to improve border systems by 2025.
The government's border strategy will however not remove customs and veterinary checks on goods, which are required by the UK's new status.
Speaking in the Commons during a discussion about trade, Sir Desmond said: "UK aid promoted trade in Africa by making borders seamless through digitising all the administrative processes.
"Is that on our agenda for trade with the EU at all? It's monstrous that we're filling in forms."
[...]
Goods leaving UK ports for the continent are now subject to full customs controls, meaning they requite full HMRC declarations, veterinary and market information, and sometimes physical checks.
If there is one caesura in the recent history of Western Europe that had to please Vladimir Putin, it is Brexit. After all, the British exit from the EU is emblematic of what the Russian president is striving for: the division of Europe. But the hope in Moscow that Brexit would not only drive a wedge between the remaining EU states but also destabilise Nato has not been fulfilled. The rift between Britain and continental Europe has widened, but now Putin, of all people, is ensuring that London moves closer to Brussels again.
With his war of aggression against Ukraine, Russia's president has shown the British government how closely its security interests are linked to those of the EU. Since Putin's invasion, Britain and the EU states have been pulling together. Intelligence information is exchanged immediately, economic sanctions are closely coordinated with each other, including of course with the US. The Western allies act in unison, they have a common opponent: the ruler in Moscow.
For the British government, Putin's war means a turning away from the illusions that Brexit had nurtured. "Global Britain", i.e. the plan to detach itself economically and in terms of security policy from Europe and to orient itself more strongly towards the Indo-Pacific, no longer plays a role. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his ministerial team are going through a process of political purification these days. They need to realise: Britain's place in the world is clearly in Europe - and not just geographically.
Johnson should have no great problem with this realisation. It is not without reason that he is regarded as extremely versatile. And so it is not difficult for him to revive the almost lost British pragmatism that characterised many of his predecessors in office. Johnson currently wants nothing to do with fishing conflicts with France. He does not want to further inflame the dispute over Northern Ireland. He wants, at least as of now, to pursue a policy that is guided by realpolitik constraints - and not by ideological fantasies.
It would be naïve, however, to trust that this will remain the case. Johnson has no qualms about switching to an anti-EU course if it benefits him domestically. So, should the Partygate affair boil up again and push Putin's war out of the headlines, Johnson will do anything to save his own skin. Fundamentally, he wants to be unassailable within the party. His resolute stance towards Putin is helping him to achieve this. Examples of this are the early arms deliveries to Ukraine and Johnson's efforts to ban Russian banks from the Swift payment network.
Johnson would not be Johnson, however, if he did not run the risk of promising more than he can deliver. There is, for example, the fight against Putin's oligarch friends. There are more than 25 names on the EU sanctions list, and less than half of those on the British list. The British public is therefore under increasing pressure to move closer to the EU on this issue as well. One can only say: Just do it. In the common interest.
The government is considering using its new Brexit regulatory freedom to allow pesticides banned in the EU on food imported to the UK.
Brussels announced it was banning 10 pesticides on imported fruit and veg in February last year and the UK was at the time widely expected in to follow suit.
But over a year later the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) says no decision has yet been made on whether Britain will follow the EU or continue to permit the chemicals on food.
All the pesticides have not been allowed for use by domestic farmers in either the UK or EU for some years, but were still allowed for imports from outside the bloc subject to "maximum residue levels" checked by border staff.
But last year Brussels regulation 2021/155 cut the maximum residue levels (MRLs) for all the chemicals to the lowest possible level allowed under EU law – effectively banning their use on food destined for the continent.
[...]
The eight chemicals that are still permitted on imports to the UK but not EU were banned for a variety of reasons: chlorothalonil, a fungicide, is considered potentially carcinogenic and is judged to be a possible groundwater contaminant.
Propiconazole, another fungicide used by American rice farmers, is considered "toxic to reproduction", meaning it is classed as potentially dangerous to babies in the womb. Meanwhile chlorpropham, a chemical used to prevent potato sprouting by American farmers, is banned for domestic use in the EU and UK due to toxicity concerns.
The widespread use of the chemicals by US farmers and the foot-dragging by the UK government has raised eyebrows among campaigners, who are suspicious that the UK may be concerned banning the pesticides could jeopardise a future trade agreement with the US and other countries with lax standards.
The US rice industry described the ban on propiconazole as "frustrating" in April last year and while the country's potato industry has described steps to restrict chlorpropham as "disappointing".
The Defra press office declined to provide a quote for this article but confirmed that no decision had yet been taken on the eight chemicals that were as yet not banned for import to the UK. The department did not give a timescale but said decisions would be made in "due course" and independently of the EU.
Defra highlighted that it had taken action equivalent to the EU import ban on two of the chemicals, dimoethoate and omethoate, and said that decisions about which pesticides to permit on food were based on robust scientific assessments.
Friends of the Earth campaigner, Kierra Box, told The Independent: “We’ve known for years that these pesticides pose health risks, which is why the UK already has some restrictions in place to limit residues of these chemicals on imported food.
“However, the EU has already tightened the rules, so why hasn’t the UK followed suit
“Any suggestion that prospective trade deals with countries that commonly use these pesticides may have influenced delays to these reassessments would be deeply concerning.
“We mustn’t trade away health and environment safeguards for the sake of a few pounds or use the UK’s newfound ‘regulatory freedom’ to trash standards that protect people and planet, rather than raise them.”
An investigation by Greenpeace's Unearthed unit published in February found that British companies had shipped more than 10,000 tonnes of banned pesticides overseas in 2020, including propiconazole.
The British government faces paying a hefty charge to the EU after the European court of justice ruled it had been negligent in allowing criminal gangs to flood European markets with cheap Chinese-made clothes and shoes.
Publishing its final ruling on Tuesday, the court concluded that the UK as member state had “failed to fulfil its obligations” under EU law to combat fraud and collect the correct amount of customs duties and VAT on imported Chinese goods. The failures by HMRC date from 2011 to 2017.
Under the withdrawal agreement signed by Boris Johnson, the UK remains subject to ECJ jurisdiction for any breaches of EU law during its time as a member state. The European Commission has been seeking since 2018 to force the UK to pay more than €2bn (£1.7bn) in compensation to the EU budget.
The complaint emerged in 2017, when the EU’s anti-fraud office said British authorities had allowed criminals to evade customs duties by making false claims about clothes and shoes imported from China. It found that more than half of all textiles and footwear imported into the UK from China were below “the lowest acceptable prices”.
In a blow to the government, the EU’s highest court upheld the complaint, finding “that the United Kingdom has failed to fulfil its obligations under EU law by failing to apply effective customs control measures or to enter in the accounts the correct amounts of customs duties”.
It also said the British government had failed to provide EU officials with all the necessary information to calculate the amount of money owed.
But it was not a complete victory for the commission, which had claimed a €2.7bn payment from the UK government to cover the EU’s losses. The court said the commission’s calculations had not met the “requisite legal standard” and instructed EU officials to recalculate the losses based on recommendations in the judgment.
The UK cannot appeal against this final verdict but has the right to challenge the commission over how much money it should pay into the EU budget, once a revised bill is published. The British government has also been ordered to pay four-fifths of the commission’s legal costs.
The case emerged after a 2005 decision championed by the then EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, to abolish quotas on textiles and clothing from all World Trade Organization countries, including China. In subsequent years, EU fraud officials became concerned that shell companies were using fake invoices that undervalued Chinese-made clothes and shoes. In 2014, the EU’s anti-fraud office launched Operation Snake to check import declarations, which included a method to calculate undervalued goods.
British customs officials declined to use the EU method, arguing it was counterproductive and disproportionate. In court, the UK defence team said its customs officers had done everything required to combat fraud, contending that EU law did not mandate any method to calculate undervalued goods. The government was supported by six member states: Belgium, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Portugal and Slovakia.
The court, however, sided with EU officials, suggesting the UK should have used EU-wide method set out by the bloc’s anti-fraud office, Olaf.
In a statement, the court said: “According to Olaf, fraudulent imports were increasing significantly in the United Kingdom on account of the inadequate nature of the checks carried out by the United Kingdom customs authorities, encouraging the shift of fraudulent operations from other member states to the United Kingdom.”
Irish premier Micheal Martin has said there is an increasing view within Northern Ireland that the Brexit protocol is working.
The Taoiseach said everyone he has met in Northern Ireland wants continued access to the EU single market.
His comments come after Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said on Friday he will not go back into the Stormont Executive until the matter of the protocol is dealt with.
Speaking to reporters at the Embassy of Ireland in London, Mr Martin said the Irish government has good channels of communication with all parties in Northern Ireland.
He said: “What’s very interesting from our perspective though is that what’s increasing and growing is a view within Northern Ireland, particularly in Northern Ireland business and industry, that the protocol is working in terms of inward investment into Northern Ireland, and in terms of access to the EU single market.
“So anybody I’ve met in Northern Ireland all want to continue access to the EU single market. It’s a good basic principle to start off on. And my view, given the improved relationship between the UK and the EU as a result of the partnership on Ukraine, I would like to think that in the fullness of time we will be able to resolve this issue.
“But we’ll take it step by step. And there’s a channel there between the European Union and the United Kingdom that’s ongoing and we’re going to take this step by step.”
Sir Jeffrey was applauded at Crossgar Orange Hall on Friday night as he said his party would not re-enter the Stormont Executive until the Government acts to “protect Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom”.
Paul Givan resigned as first minister earlier this year as part of the DUP’s action against the protocol in a move which also removed deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill from the joint office.
‘We have been too purist on this’, concedes minister who rejected EU offer – breaking promise to rescue visa free tours
David Frost has admitted his Brexit trade deal failed touring musicians and other artists by inflicting punishing costs and red tape, in an extraordinary U-turn.
The negotiator of the agreement had staunchly defended the agreement – blamed for making many tours unaffordable – and refused to get involved in attempts to improve it.
But, in a lecture delivered three months after he quit as Brexit minister, Lord Frost has now admitted it was a mistake not to compromise with the EU and called for a rethink.
“We should take another look at mobility issues,” he said, 15 months after The Independent revealed he rejected such a deal in the Brexit talks.
“There is a whole set of problems here that is making life difficult on both sides: youth mobility, movement of specialists like musicians and artists.”
Lord Frost argued “these problems can be solved” without crossing the UK’s red line of ending free movement of EU citizens – despite ministers repeatedly insisting that is not possible.
And he admitted he had been “too purist”, saying a deal removing “excessive paperwork and process requirements” is needed, adding: “We should try to get to it.”
The peer also revealed the government did consider shifting to “a more pragmatic position” last year, claiming the “vaccine wars” with the EU made that “impossible”, but adding: “This time we should try harder.”
The astonishing mea culpa comes amid continuing fears about the plight of musicians, denied the chance to further their careers, after the Brexit deal broke a promise to save visa-free touring.
The UK rejected an EU offer to retain visa and permit-free tours, leaving artists mired in red tape, and no effort has been made to begin fresh talks with Brussels.
Instead, ministers have made “misleading” claims about the paperwork involved – despite Boris Johnson’s vow to “fix” the crisis, made a year ago.
Elton John has led criticism of the government for claiming 21 of the 27 EU countries are offering visa and work permit-free access, when severe restrictions still exist.
Lord Frost’s comments were condemned as “an astonishing admission of guilt” by Labour MP Kevin Brennan, who has pursued the controversy as a member of the Commons culture committee.
“Purist dogma has ruined successful British businesses and hit artists income hard –they will rightly be furious with an incompetent government that sacrificed them for no good reason.”
Deborah Annetts, chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM), asked what ministers are “going to do to fix the problem”, following the admission.
“So Lord Frost has finally admitted that the government may have been too purist and that the trade deal with Europe is making life difficult for musicians,” she said – adding it was, in fact, “a disaster”.
Naomi Pohl, deputy general secretary of the Musicians Union, said: “This is a long overdue admission from Lord Frost that an arrangement to facilitate musicians touring would not undermine the government’s immigration policy.
“What we need is an EU-wide deal which enables our members to tour in Europe or bilateral agreements with individual territories.”
It is uncertain whether Brexit free trade agreements negotiated by Boris Johnson's government will provide any "actual economic benefits", an influential committee of MPs has warned.
In a scathing report released on Friday the Public Accounts Committee said the department of international trade had been too secretive and not kept parliament properly informed about what it was doing.
And the cross-party committee warned there was a risk consumer standards could slip because of the deals – with possible "trade-offs across different policy areas, such as agriculture, the environment and human rights”.
Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who deputy chairs the committee, said the department for international trade was "really struggling to point to tangible wins for British business, consumers or our own agriculture sector" from its programme of negotiations.
The committee's report warns: "There is a lack of clarity about how the department will measure whether it is achieving benefits from its programme of trade negotiations so that parliament can hold it to account for its progress.
"The department currently publishes the impact assessments it makes prior to trade agreements being implemented, but the department has not set any associated targets.
"There is no guarantee that the agreements will deliver actual economic benefits unless the department provides vital support to help businesses use the agreements, particularly for smaller businesses wanting to export worldwide."
Trade economists have consistently warned that the benefits of free trade agreements with other countries are being oversold by the government.
