Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

A Cambridge University astrophysicist studying the Milky Way and hoping to play a major part in the European Space Agency’s (Esa) next big project has been forced to hand over his coordinating role on the scheme after the row over Northern Ireland’s Brexit arrangements put science in the firing line.

Nicholas Walton, a research fellow at the Institute of Astronomy, reluctantly passed his leadership role in the €2.8m pan-European Marie Curie Network research project to a colleague in the Netherlands on Friday.

The European Commission had written notifying him UK scientists cannot hold leadership roles because the UK’s membership of the flagship £80bn Horizon Europe (HE) funding network has not been ratified.

Walton was to have led a doctoral network related to Esa’s Gaia mission that is mapping nearly 2bn stars in the Milky Way.

He is one just one of a handful of British physicists approved for a HE grant but must now take a passenger seat in his own project.

The chair of NatWest has dubbed Brexit a “significant mistake” in an interview with the Observer.

Sir Howard Davies shared his concerns about political polarisation and the long-term impact of the UK’s split from the European Union on the City of London in a tell-all interview.

He said Boris Johnson is a prime minister who “hated the Treasury” because of its pro-EU views, “but when he got himself in a hole, who else but the Treasury could bail him out?”

Dubbing Brexit a “significant mistake”, he said: “You don’t solve the problems of the left-behind by damaging the one area of the country that’s been writing the cheques.

“London is paying large amounts of tax and will be damaged by Brexit over time.”

Davies is currently working on a book – The Chancellors, published by Polity Press – about the Treasury’s role in the running of the economy under every chancellor from Gordon Brown to Rishi Sunak.

Asked which of the recent chancellors he has most time for, Davies picks Alistair Darling, whose three years at the Treasury between 2007 and 2010 were dominated by the banking crash.

“Alistair had terrible hand to play. He had no money, a financial crisis and his predecessor as his boss. There wasn’t anything Alistair knew that Gordon didn’t. Yet he was completely unflappable.”

Emails describe strategy in 2018 by Sir Richard Dearlove and others to ensure Britain left EU on WTO terms

A group of Russian hackers is believed to be behind the release of a cache of emails obtained from a former director of MI6 and other Brexiters unhappy with Theresa May’s failure to negotiate a ‘clean’ EU exit deal.

Google said the “clumsy campaign” bore the hallmarks of a Russian group it called Coldriver – and the hackers published the correspondence under the title “Very English Coop d’Etat”, claiming it revealed the existence of shadowy group of pro-Brexit plotters.

But the principal cluster of emails – dated from August 2018 to July 2019 – instead appears to show a group of Brexiters frustrated with May’s willingness to seek compromises with the EU and their attempts to campaign against it.

Shane Huntley, who directs Google’s threat analysis group, said the Russian Coldriver hackers had previously tried to steal people’s login credentials. “This is the first time we’ve seen them step into the disinformation / hack-and-leak space,” he added.

Hack-and-leak operations are part of the standard modus operandi of Russian hackers, who are often linked to one of the country’s spy agencies – and the attack is one of the first detected during the now three-month-long Ukraine war.

A key figure targeted was Sir Richard Dearlove, a former director of MI6 between 1999 and 2004, including the period leading up to the Iraq war. The former spymaster told Reuters, which first reported the story: “I am well aware of a Russian operation against a Proton [email] account which contained emails to and from me.”

The emails describe a short-lived plan to create a hard Brexit campaign group in the summer of 2018 amid growing opposition to May’s proposed Chequers deal, which had already prompted the resignation of Boris Johnson from government.

Using the codename “Operation Surprise” the group was to be chaired by leave-supporting former Labour MP and peer Gisela Stuart with Dearlove among a group of public figures who would sit on its advisory board.

Its goals, the leaked document says, were to “block any deal” to leave the EU arising from the Chequers white paper, to “ensure that we leave on clean WTO terms” and “if necessary remove this prime minister and replace with one fit for purpose”. Later it adds: “May has now been shown to be incapable of office” and lists a group of well known rightwing journalists as part of its “media circle”.

But the group never got going, after Stuart told others on the would be advisory board in August 2018 that she did not believe it was necessary, because other anti-Chequers campaigns were developing rapidly.

Many of the other emails consist of ongoing complaints about civil servants, the drift of May’s policy, and even tittle tattle about anti-Brexiter George Soros, consisting largely of political remarks he had supposedly made to family members over dinner.

Dearlove said that the emails had captured a “legitimate lobbying exercise” which, when seen through “this antagonistic optic” of a Russian hack-and-leak operation “is now subject to distortion”.

The website containing the emails is called “sneaky strawhead” – a reference to Johnson’s often chaotic hairstyle. It was registered on 19 April by individuals using a commercial domain name provider.

Democratic party emails were hacked by members of Russia’s GRU military intelligence in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election and passed to WikiLeaks, where their publication helped pave the way for the election of Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Confidential documents relating to US-UK trade talks were stolen from a personal email account belonging to former trade minister Liam Fox. The 451-page cache was dumped on Reddit and eventually ended up in the hands of then Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, during the 2019 election campaign.

Would the EU even be interested in having the UK back, should you get a different government?

And just reading about all your cancelled flights - another nightmare. I would just stay home.

Mame wrote:

And just reading about all your cancelled flights - another nightmare. I would just stay home.

That's only partly (if at all) due to Brexit.

Holidaymakers who battled lengthy queues and delays leaving the UK could encounter further problems on their return journey as hubs in Europe and the US struggle with their own travel disruption.

Tourists have faced severe hold-ups at UK airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham as they took advantage of relaxed Covid travel restrictions to enjoy a break at half-term.

In Ireland, passengers at Dublin airport faced lengthy queues that stretched out of the terminal doors. Pauline Moore, who missed her Ryanair flight from Dublin to Stansted on Sunday morning, said in a Facebook post that the situation at the airport was “total bedlam”.

Dutch airline KLM last week largely suspended ticket sales for flights leaving from Amsterdam Schiphol airport – Europe’s third busiest – after queues stretched into the streets.

The Paris Authority, which manages Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, also warned of major disruption. A tweet from its account said it was having software problems that were affecting border control checks and this would lead to delays.

In a statement on its Twitter account on Wednesday, Eurostar said it was experiencing problems for similar reasons: “Our stations are very busy today. Passport and security checks are taking longer than usual due to issues with French authority control systems.”

In Sweden, the CEO of airport operator Swedavia, Jonas Abrahamsson, has been summoned to parliament to answer questions about long queues at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport. Travel blogger Rakhee said on Twitter that queues at Arlanda were “horrendous” and it took “a few hours” to get through security and passport control.

In the US more than 2,500 flights were cancelled over the four-day memorial day weekend. The industry struggled to cope with the increase in passengers, which led to delays at Los Angeles International Airport and Denver International Airport.

Airports and airlines were forced to significantly cut back staff after a succession of Covid lockdowns in Europe crippled the travel industry. But restrictions on travel have now mostly been dropped, and demand has surged as people try to get abroad.

However, despite a significant recruitment, drive airlines and airports have not managed to hire enough key workers, such as baggage handlers, to ensure that foreign travel runs seamlessly.

A senior Conservative MP has called for Boris Johnson’s government to take the UK back into the EU single market to help ease the cost of living crisis.

Tobias Ellwood, the defence select committee chair, said Brexit had left British business “strangled” by red tape – insisting that it was time to “think outside the box”.

The leading Tory MP urged the government to look again at forging a Norway-style relationship with the EU, allowing access to the single market through the European Economic Area (EEA).

Writing in The House magazine, Mr Ellwood said the move would see post-Brexit paperwork costing firms £7bn removed and help ease inflationary pressures on hard-pressed families.

“Sector after sector is being strangled by the red tape we were supposed to escape from,” said the Tory MP – arguing that Brexit has not turned to be what “most people imagined”.

Speaking about his proposal on Times Radio on Thursday, Mr Ellwood said: “I’m daring to think outside the box … that’s what we need to do at the moment, given the economic situation we face.”

He added: “It would strengthen our economy because it would remove so much red tape, it would ease the cost of living crisis, and it would actually settle the difficult Irish question on the Northern Ireland Protocol.”

But David Frost – No 10’s former Brexit negotiator – denounced Mr Ellwood’s surprise call. The hardliner said Mr Ellwood’s intervention “shows Brexit really is not safe in his hands or his allies”.

Senior Tory backbencher Mark Harper also rejected the idea, tweeting: “No. The UK voted to leave the EU. That meant leaving the single market and putting an end to freedom of movement. The end.”

Treasury minister Simon Clarke said he was “pleased to reassure Mr Ellwood” that Britain would not be rejoining the single market – claiming that it would “extinguish half the freedoms that make Brexit so important”.

Mr Ellwood acknowledged that being in the single market would mean signing up to the freedom of movement – something many Tory MPs were determined to avoid in the years running about to the final Brexit deal.

But the senior Tory pointed out that being part of the EU’s Dublin convention could lead to better co-operation with other countries when it comes to asylum seekers.

Mr Ellwood also argued that re-joining the single market would boost the UK’s “European credentials” at a time of greater threat from Russia and bring Britain closer to the US.

He asked: “Would it not be churlish for us not to think would our heads, do the maths and ask ourselves if this economically is in the nation’s interests?”

Brexit has led to a decline in crops and fewer home-grown products on the shelves of Britain’s supermarkets, farming chiefs have warned.

Farmers in Kent told a visiting group of MPs that it has become easier to import some fruits than harvest them because of strict limits on the seasonal workers from the EU.

Winterwood Farms, an agricultural giant based in the county, said its UK farms had been forced to leave 8 per cent of their fruit crop unharvested and would be planting less in future.

Stephen Taylor, managing director of Winterwood in Maidstone, said the government’s advice to replace lost EU labour with British workers and robots shows how “out of touch” ministers have become.

“The flow of people coming from Europe to work for the summer has declined every year since Brexit, particularly the last two summers, and as a direct result we are now growing less and importing more,” he said.

Calling for more flexible seasonal work visas, he added: “The government could still allow the same people to carry out the harvest – but it has inexplicably decided to choke the industry instead.”

Labour MP Hilary Benn led a delegation MPs and industry chiefs to visit Winterwood’s farms in Kent to see the difficulties they are facing with labour shortages.

They were told the problem had hit the whole farming sector – resulting in less fresh, more expensive imported fruit in British supermarkets to cover the shortfall.

The UK Trade and Business Commission delegation, which is examining the impact of Brexit, also heard that British farmers’ off-season trade has also been badly hit.

Farmers could previously sell any surplus from overseas operations to EU markets, but new Brexit red tape means they must now pay to dispose of this fruit.

Mr Benn, co-convenor of the commission, said the government’s immigration and trade policies were “raising questions over our food security”.

The senior Labour MP added: “It is essential that ministers urgently consider the introduction of more flexible visas for seasonal workers and negotiate better trading terms on fresh produce with our European neighbours.”

Mr Benn and co-convenor Peter Norris have written to home secretary Priti Patel and environment secretary George Eustice to request urgent meetings on the problems affecting British farms.

Naomi Smith, chief executive of the internationalist campaign group Best for Britain, said Boris Johnson’s ministers may have to stomach with “more European berries in their Pimms this summer”.

She added: “The government’s insufficient Brexit deal, far from being oven ready, actually means quality home grown produce is left to rot, and leaves British supermarkets with no choice but to import, meaning consumers have less choice, less fresh produce and higher prices.”

Plans being drawn up by Boris Johnson’s government to set an expiry date for great swathes of EU law enshrined in the UK could cause “chaos” for businesses, experts have warned.

Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg is said to have told cabinet that he plans to introduce a five-year expiry date for around 1,500 pieces of EU regulatory legislation.

But lawyers and business groups have warned that “blanket” changes risk creating extra complexity and uncertainty for firms struggling with so many new rules after Brexit.

Eleonor Duhs – a lawyer who worked on the 2018 EU Withdrawal Act – told The Independent that a “self-imposed cliff-edge for retained EU law is a recipe for potential chaos”.

Warning of the “danger” in changing so many rules affecting the economy without scrutiny, the partner at Bates Wells law firm added: “This proposal has the potential to drive investment away from the UK at a time when we really need it.”

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) – also warned against “deregulation for its own sake”, though the influential business group said it would carefully consider how any changes may affect British firms.

“We should not complicate our trading relationship by diverging so far it makes UK goods and services unsellable into Europe,” William Bain, the BCC’s head of trade policy, told The Independent.

The government is keen to use the forthcoming Brexit freedoms bill to get rid of EU rules by bringing in “sunset clauses” that will force ministers to stick to them, amend them or ditch them by at the end of a five-year period, according to The Times.

Mr Rees-Mogg was said to have told the cabinet earlier this month about the plan to set the expiry date on 1,500 pieces of EU regulation in a bid to “force radical thinking” from government departments.

Jonathan Jones QC – the government’s former legal chief who quit over its Brexit policy – said the latest plan was “potentially very dangerous” since it would make it almost impossible for parliament and relevant industries to scrutinise each change.

“Having sunset clauses in a blanket way for huge amount of legislation is a very bad idea,” he told The Independent. “To change swathes of the law automatically is a recipe for uncertainty for businesses and consumers and everyone else.”

Mr Jones said: “If you scrap some rules on food safety automatically, for instance, then that is potentially very dangerous. Either there will be no rules, or do you revert to some existing laws in Britain from 1973? It’s bizarre.”

Ms Duhs added: “To keep, change or scrap 1,500 pieces of legislation is a huge job at a time when ministers want to cut civil service resource. Who is going to undertake this exercise and what is it that won’t get done because of it?”

The TUC also demanded that the government makes clear that workers’ rights will be protected during the so-called “bonfire” of Brussels’ regulations.

The leading union fears that Mr Rees-Mogg’s plan could see some protections “removed or watered down” without proper scrutiny by parliament.

Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary, said: “Important workers’ rights and legal principles are being put at real risk by the government’s reckless plans.”

This weekend the TUC releases figures showing that the planned cuts would mean the ratio of civil servants to members of the UK population would fall beneath the low recorded after former chancellor George Osborne’s ruthless austerity drive, when government departments were told to pare back numbers to achieve savings of up to 40% after the 2010 general election.

The TUC figures show that for every 10,000 UK citizens, the number of civil servants fell from 76 in 2010 to 59 in 2016, the year of the Brexit referendum. By last year, in order to deal with the extra workload from planning and implementing Brexit, the numbers had risen again to 70 for every 10,000 UK citizens.

However, if the three-year target to cut numbers by 91,000 were achieved, the TUC says the number of civil servants would drop to a new low of just 56 per 10,000 by 2025 – despite the extra demands placed on government from Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.