It was meant to be one of the sure-fire wins for Brexit, but plans to bring back imperial measurements face criticism over claims of a biased government review.
Ministers were keen to launch a review to revive imperial measurements – such as pounds and ounces – and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), now overseen by Jacob Rees-Mogg, conducted a government consultation over the summer. However, the questions appeared to have something missing.
The survey asked consumers: “If you had a choice, would you want to purchase items: i) in imperial units ii) in imperial units alongside a metric equivalent.”
No other option was given.
Officials said respondents who wanted to keep the current metric system could send in an email to the department or give their views in one of the text boxes in the survey.
The BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less last week highlighted concerns about the survey and criticism of it on social media.
One Twitter user commented: “This survey is being punted out by BEIS. It is so slanted that the words nearly slide off the page.”
Dr Pamela Campanelli, a consultant on survey methods who has advised local government, told More or Less: “This is missing the category that you would prefer metric only. We’re going to get a biased answer, because people have to choose something that doesn’t apply to them.
“It seems like they’re actually trying to sculpt or lead the responses towards what they want, because they want people to go back to imperial.”
France adopted a metric system in the late 18th century, and a Decimalisation Assocation was founded in Britain in 1841 to lobby for a new system for currency and measurements. A report by a standards commission in the 1860s recommended metrication for Britain, but it was another 100 years before a government board was set up in 1969 to promote and coordinate metrication.
Once Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973, the government committed to adopting the metric system. Regulations introduced in 1995 required goods to be sold in metric units in the UK.
In a high profile case in 2002, five market traders – know as the “metric martyrs” – lost their court battle for a right to trade in pounds and ounces. The battle was supported by celebrities including the comedian John Cleese and politicians including Boris Johnson.
Rees-Mogg, who had a cabinet role to identify Brexit opportunities, has been a long-term supporter of using imperial measurements. The proposed change is however unlikely to be hailed as a significant Brexit dividend.
“Not one constituent, ever, has asked for this,” Conservative MP Alicia Kearns tweeted earlier this year. “This isn’t a Brexit freedom. It’s a nonsense.”
BEIS officials say the purpose of the consultation was to examine how greater choice could be given to businesses and consumers. The government has not yet said when the response to the consultation will be published.
British prime minister and Micheál Martin understood to have agreed there is opportunity for reset of relations
Hopes that talks between the UK and the EU will resume over a protracted dispute about the Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland have risen after a 45-minute meeting between Liz Truss and the Irish prime minister in Downing Street on Sunday morning.
The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, was one of five world leaders to have “leaders’ meetings” with the British prime minister before the Queen’s funeral on Monday, in what was seen by some as a mark of the UK’s determination to reset soured relations with its neighbour.
Martin offered condolences to the British people over the death of the monarch.
No statements were issued because of the official period of mourning, but it is understood both sides agreed there was an opportunity to reset the relationship between the UK and Ireland, fuelling hopes that talks with the EU will resume within weeks.
Negotiations between London and Brussels were paused in February because of the outbreak of war in Ukraine but have yet to be resumed, amid escalating opposition to the protocol among unionist parties in Northern Ireland.
It is thought Truss and Martin discussed the importance of the wider relations between the two countries and the importance of unity in the face of global challenges, including the energy crisis.
The meeting between the two leaders came just days after the Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, expressed “cautious optimism that we will see in a few weeks’ time the opening of an honest effort to try to settle some of these issues that have been outstanding for far too long”.
Both sides have said in the past fortnight that they are determined to find an agreed path for post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland, with the UK demanding the removal of physical checks on farm produce and other goods.
However, the UK has also insisted it will maintain the right to take unilateral action as an “insurance policy” in the event a solution cannot be found.
A controversial bill proposing to introduce laws that would enable the UK to tear up part of the protocol was tabled by Truss earlier this summer and is expected to reach the House of Lords in mid-October.
But the mood music in the past fortnight has changed, with her elevation to the position of prime minister seen as an opportunity for a reset moment.
Truss is expected to have a formal meeting with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at the UN general assembly in New York this week. Ukraine, the energy crisis and Northern Ireland are likely to be on the agenda.
The prime minister will also have a full bilateral meeting with the US president, Joe Biden, who has expressed his concern that the peace deal in Ireland should not be undermined by the Brexit row.
PM admits talks are not even taking place and plays down hopes from Brexiters that they could start ‘in the short to medium term’
Britain may not strike a free trade deal with the US for years, Liz Truss has admitted ahead of her first bilateral meeting with Joe Biden.
The new prime minister conceded that talks were unlikely to start in the “medium term” as she travelled to New York on her first foreign trip since entering Downing Street.
In a move likely to disappoint Brexiters, she downplayed expectations that any trade agreement was imminent amid concerns that overpromising but then failing to get talks off the ground would damage her nascent administration.
On the plane to the US, Truss admitted to reporters: “There aren’t currently any negotiations taking place with the US and I don’t have any expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term.”
It is the first time the government has conceded there is virtually no chance of getting agreement on an early bilateral trade deal with the US, Britain’s biggest trading partner, despite it being coveted by Brexit supporters as one of the major potential benefits of leaving the EU.
Instead, the new prime minister said her priorities would be joining the trans-Pacific trading partnership of 11 countries, including Australia, Canada and Singapore, as well as striking deals with the Gulf States and India.
Results from the 2021 census released on Thursday showed that 45.7% of inhabitants are Catholic or from a Catholic background compared with 43.48% from Protestant or other Christian backgrounds. The 2011 census figures were 45% Catholic and 48% Protestant. Neither bloc is a majority.
[...]
In recent elections support for nationalist and unionist parties plateaued at around 40% for each side, leaving 20% of voters in the middle who are non-aligned and reject traditional sectarian labels. Opinion polls consistently show more people favour staying in the UK – citing taxes and the NHS, among other reasons – than uniting with Ireland.
However. the census, the first since Brexit, showed a loosening of British identity. Some 31.86% identified as British only, 29.13% identified as Irish only and 19.78% as Northern Irish only. In 2011 the figures were 40% British only, 25% Irish only and 21% Northern Irish only.
The Scottish Government has a “fundamental opposition” to a UK-wide Bill that would spell the end of EU laws in the UK.
The Retained EU Law (Reform and Revocation) Bill was introduced by the UK Government on Thursday, and would pass into law a sunset clause for the majority of European law that would take effect from the end of 2023.
But a letter from Scotland’s Constitution Secretary to UK Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said the Bill would result in a “race to the bottom” by scrapping EU regulations.
“I am writing to express again my deep concern and the fundamental opposition of Scottish Ministers to the Retained EU Law (Reform and Revocation) Bill, introduced today by the UK Government,” wrote Angus Robertson.
“This Bill puts at risk the high standards people in Scotland have rightly come to expect from EU membership. You appear to want to row back 47 years of protections in a rush to impose a deregulated, race to the bottom, society and economy.
“This is clearly at odds with the wishes of the vast majority of the people of Scotland who will be dismayed at the direction the UK Government is taking.”
Mr Robertson said he had expressed concerns earlier this month about the Bill, claiming that “Brexit ideology, rather than the best interests of our citizens and businesses” would be put first.
“Now that we have received the full print of the bill (disappointingly with less than a day’s notice), it is alarming to see this concern realised,” he added.
The Constitution Secretary also claimed the process around the Bill undermined devolution, because he has not received a request for legislative consent.
The Bank of England raised its key interest rate to 2.25% from 1.75% on Thursday and said it would continue to "respond forcefully, as necessary" to inflation, despite the economy entering recession.
Sept 25 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Liz Truss is set to launch a major review of the country's visa system in a move to tackle acute labour shortages in key industries, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
The prime minister is set to defy some of her anti-immigration cabinet colleagues by making changes to the "shortage occupation list", allowing certain industries to bring in more staff — such as broadband engineers — from overseas, the newspaper said.
The review could also endorse a loosening of the requirement to speak English in some sectors to enable more foreign workers into the country, the report said, citing a Downing Street official.
Asked about the idea that immigration rules might be relaxed, UK finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng told the BBC on Sunday: "It's not about relaxing rules. The whole point about the Brexit debate if we want to go down there was we need to control immigration in a way that works for the UK."
Asked if more occupations would be added to the list of people who could come in, Kwarteng said that the interior minister would give an update in the coming weeks, as he had flagged on Friday.
"The Home Secretary will make a statement in the next few weeks. But we have to grow this economy," Kwarteng said.
Truss, who took office earlier this month but following the death of Queen Elizabeth has had little opportunity to flesh out her vision for the country, said during a trip to New York last week she was prepared to be take unpopular decisions as the government seeks to stimulate economic growth.
The Financial Times in its report also said the UK government was set to lift the cap on seasonal workers from abroad working in agriculture.
Truss' office did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.
Liz Truss is preparing to increase immigration to fill job vacancies and boost economic growth in a move that will anger some of her ministers and MPs.
The prime minister plans to raise the number of workers allowed to enter the UK, government sources have confirmed.
Reports claim the government will lift the cap on seasonal agricultural workers and broadband engineers, and make other changes to the shortage occupations list, which will allow key sectors to recruit more overseas staff.
Truss is said to be keen to recruit broadband engineers to complete a pledge to make full-fibre broadband available to 85% of UK homes by 2025. It has also been suggested that she could ease the English-language requirement in some sectors to enable more foreign workers to qualify for visas.
The proposals faces resistance from cabinet Brexiters including the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and the trade secretary, Kemi Badenoch, according to the Sunday Times.
One Conservative MP said that many new Conservative voters in “red wall” seats will be baffled by any softening of immigration rules.
Post-Brexit border checks have slowed the speed at which Eurostar passengers pass through London St Pancras on their way to Paris, reducing the terminal’s capacity by one-third, according to the cross-Channel rail company’s boss.
The rail operator’s chief executive, Jacques Damas, said central London had only avoided the kind of chaos and queues seen at Channel ports this summer because Eurostar was running fewer trains.
He said the additional border checks now required, with UK nationals having to have their passports stamped, was adding at least 15 seconds per passenger. In London St Pancras International, even after upgrading the border gates, and with all booths staffed, the operator could only process a maximum of 1,500 passengers an hour, compared with 2,200 before the Brexit transition period ended, Damas said.
Damas outlined Eurostar’s problems in a letter to the Conservative MP Huw Merriman, chair of the Commons transport select committee, who had requested an explanation for Eurostar cutting back services to Kent stations and stopping its direct Disneyland Paris route from London next year.
He told Merriman: “It is only the fact that Eurostar has capacity-limited trains and significantly reduced its timetable from 2019 levels, that we are not seeing daily queues in the centre of London similar to those experienced in the Channel ports.”
The company would not resume operations at either of its Kent stations – Ashford and Ebbsfleet – until at least 2025, to concentrate “vital border police” at St Pancras, Damas said.
The chief executive, who is due to hand over the reins next week to Gwendoline Cazenave, said Eurostar was also hampered by high UK track charges on the route to the Channel, three times more expensive per mile than it pays in France.
Its finances were further battered by the refusal of the government to offer it state-backed loans – as airlines received – during the Covid pandemic, Damas said, and he warned fares would remain high for the foreseeable future. Eurostar is now paying high rates of interest on some €500m (£450m) in commercial debt incurred to ensure its survivals as passenger revenue disappeared during the travel bans.
There could be more trouble in store for the operator when the EU brings in EES, the entry-exit system, next year.
Damas said the system “hangs over us”, and is expected to mean that travellers from non-EU countries, now including the UK, will have to have their fingerprints scanned and a photograph taken to register them on to a database, as well as eventually pay a fee to visit the EU.
He added that on the UK side in particular, there was “considerable uncertainty about the ability of customers to pay in the context of the current and forecast pressures on the cost of living. At the same time the business itself faces nearly £100m in increased inflationary pressures.”
He warned that he had a duty to “secure my company’s future [and] not to overcommit.”
The UK government controversially sold its stake in Eurostar, the “green link” to Europe, to private pension funds in 2015.
Something remarkable happened yesterday. At which history won’t know whether to laugh or cry. Perhaps it’ll do both. Britain, continuing on its course of self-destruction, finally reverted to back to a developing country. And therein lies a profound lesson for the world — one beset by the temptations of nationalism, fascism, fanaticism. Want to go backwards? Be careful. You might get what you wish for.
Let me tell you the story. Now, it’s going to involve a little economics — but everyone needs to understand how economics really works, so I’m going to teach you a little bit of it. Don’t worry, it won’t be anything you can’t handle.
Shortly after the Queen’s sad passing, a new government in Britain took power. Leading it was a coalition of the most fanatically right-wing figures a modern country has ever seen — to the right of most American Republicans, when it comes to issues of economics and society.
The new Chanceller of the Exchequer — think of him as the Treasury Secretary — announced a new budget. And reacting in shock, laughing with disbelief, the markets proceeded to sell off pounds, at an astonishing rate. By the end of the day, the pound had been shredded. It was trading at its lowest levels since 1985. Those were the days, by the way, of Thatcher. I know — so far, so boring, but bear with me.
What really happened here? Something unprecedented in the modern history of rich nations. The guy running the economy had triggered a currency crisis. This is the kind of thing that we see in “emerging markets,” aka developing countries, poor ones. Some crackpot takes control of the economy, the markets get spooked, and bang — there’s a run on that currency. Everyone wants to flee from it, because the crackpot now running the economy is going to torch it.
Why was there a run on the pound? For a reason that’s almost too absurd to be believed. The guy running the economy — the new Chancellor — announced a new budget. And that budget was made of mega-borrowing — to the tune of hundreds of billions of pounds. For what? Borrowing in itself isn’t bad — it can and should be used for productive stuff, like fixing a society’s broken systems (of which Britain has plenty, and we’ll come back to that).
This budget, though, was made of mega-borrowing to fund…tax cuts. For whom? Tax cuts, too, aren’t intrinsically bad — but in this case — get ready to laugh — the tax cuts were so unevenly distributed that someone making a million pounds a year would save $50K, while someone on the average income would save maybe $200.
In other words, Britain’s new Chancellor had announced a budget…made of mega-borrowing…to fund tax cuts…for the ultra-rich.
You might think, so what? Here’s the point. That was so far right that it was a giant step too far even for “the markets.” It’s not often that “the markets” — investment banks and hedge funds, or as I call them, sociopaths — think something’s too far right.
And all of this is exactly what happens in developing countries. You know how every now and then, if you’re a rich Westerner, you read sad stories of currencies plummeting in some poor country — somewhere in Latin America, or Africa, or Asia? Well, this is how and why it happens. A crackpot takes control of the economy, and announces a budget so regressive, so unfair, so foolishly wrong-headed, that even the markets shake their heads, and sell off the currency. And it usually follows exactly this template: a government borrows too much money, is too indebted, and isn’t using that money for anything productive, but just enriching its cronies.
Yesterday was the day Britain finally became a developing country. And all of this sets off a vicious cycle that Brits don’t understand — but the rest of us should. Brits today are something like too many Americans: apathetic, disengaged, they don’t seem to care about anything. Hence, their government can do whatever it likes. Each successive one has been worse — until the point of fanaticism so severe it’s on the level of actual banana republics, which is an insulting way to refer to developing countries. And yet.
On twitter, the hashtag #KamiKwasi began to trend — the new Chancellor’s name being Kwasi Kwarteng. Bless the Brits for not losing their sense of humor — and yet the description is lethally accurate. Kwarteng had aimed gone full Kamikaze, a man on a suicide mission — his crackpot budget effectively saying “we don’t care, we’ll take the whole country down to get the dystopia we want.”
The carnage was real yesterday. And now the vicious circle of true economic ruin is going to begin. Why?
Well, Britain’s a net importer of…everything. Food, energy, clothes, cheese, go down the list. What happens as your currency plunges? That’s right, imports become more expensive. A lot more expensive, in this case. Brits are now going to have to pay far, far more for the very same goods, because their currency is losing its value fast.
And this is just the beginning of the currency crisis. It’s not going to stop here — the selloff in the pound is likely to continue, because the government hasn’t said anything to reassure anyone. Instead, it’s sticking to the line that “tax cuts equal growth.” LOL — do they? If they did, Kansas and Texas would be the best places to live in the world. Instead, they’re…Kansas and Texas. Failed states within a failing state.
As imports grow more expensive — ruinously so — Brits are going to get poorer, fast. And this is on top of the disaster of Brexit, by the way — which we’ll come back to shortly. What happens when people have to pay more for the very same stuff, because their currency is worth less, because they’ve got a government of crackpots, and money is fleeing the country? That’s right, they have less left over for anything else. Like funding social systems.
The public purse empties when people get poorer because of currency crises. And that is why emerging markets don’t have the things the rich West does, the systems, for healthcare, education, food, energy, water, and so forth. All this is going to mean, very shortly, that Britain won’t be able to afford a modern social contract.
But that’s been the point all along, really. Each successive conservative government has been more and more extreme. Gone are the days of a moderate like John Major — Britain’s equivalent, perhaps, of the first George Bush. Now? British governments are to the right of American Republicans. If you think I’m kidding, consider the fact that even Republicans aren’t about to dump America’s biggest trading partners — but Britain chose Brexit. Or the fact that even most Republicans aren’t suggesting America borrow trillions to give tax cuts to the rich — they just want the tax cuts. Finding yourself way to the right of America? That so far right that you’re now in genuine banana republic territory.
What happens as people get poorer, because currencies implode? Well, something perverse does. The markets demand their pound of flesh. They want higher interest rates — because now they’re taking more risk to hold assets in that currency, whether bonds or stocks or what have you. So developing countries usually have much, much higher interest rates than the rich West — because that’s the only way they can get even minimal levels of investment.
But there’s a price for that, of course. Higher interest rates are paid by the average person. It’s their mortgages and credit cards and car payments and student loans that now cost that much more. That is another reason why developing countries stay poor. People can barely afford debt — which is taken for granted in the rich West — because it’s too expensive to afford. This, too, is Britain’s future. The markets will demand ultra-high interest rates to compensate for the risk of this unbelievably foolish budget — which in turn will impoverish the average Brit to a degree unseen anywhere else in the rich world, really, apart from maybe America’s poorest states.
Now. Why did all this happen? You see, to history, today’s Britain will be remembered something like the Weimar Republic. Britain used to be the envy of the world not so long ago — around the turn of the 21st century, it was one of the world’s great success stories. The NHS was the world’s best healthcare system, the BBC its finest broadcaster, and people were generally happy, trusting, kind, warm, and gentle, as a result of a social contract that gave them both security and prosperity. So…what happened?
What happened is that Britain decided to go backwards. After the financial crisis of ’08, Brits were seduced by the Big Lie that the “country was broke” — and they elected a string of conservative governments. These conservative governments began to play the game of this age, very, very well — they found scapegoats for the woes of the average Brit. But those woes had come from electing governments who were slashing investment in everything from healthcare to industry in the first place.
Never mind. Step by step, Britain decided to go backwards. Way, way backwards. In time — political time, economic time, sociological time. The crosshairs were put on Europeans — who were the first scapegoats. Brits were conned into believing that getting rid of them would solve all their problems. And so Brexit happened — history will understand that as a country deciding to move fifty years backwards in time.
But Brexit accomplished less than nothing, as it always going to. It only accelerated the cycle of collapse, because, of course, Europeans had nothing to do with Britain’s problems — and breaking up with Europe, for a country like Britain, a net importer, one dependent on Europe, for everything from food to the carbon dioxide in beer to energy was laughably, shockingly foolish. So Britain’s living standards — stagnant, before — began to plummet.
A new scapegoat had to be found. A desperate search began. This time, it was immigrants in general. The government created what was literally called a “hostile environment,” sending vans with big signs telling people they weren’t welcome in this new dystopian Trumpist Britain. What was that going to accomplish? Was it going to fix the broken NHS? Build new factories to give the working class jobs? LOL. It was just scapegoating — and it solved nothing.
Now Britain was heading towards an early 20th century society — one in which immigrants weren’t wanted, in which it was to be a land of the pure, Britain for the “British,” whatever that means, considering its millennial history of conquest and invasion. Never mind — pre-modernity was the social contract the government offered now. Get those dirty people — and you’ll have yours.
It didn’t work. And so society took the next fatal step backwards — let’s build a Dickensian society. That’s where Britain is now. The current government’s only real plan is something called “freeports.” They’re like putting little slices of China inside Britain — places where democracy and the rule of law literally don’t apply, and corporations effectively run everything, from housing to courts. Dystopian enough for you?
Then consider this: “freeports” are an American idea. They come from an American economist who was Milton Friedman’s best student — remember him? He was the guy that thought there should be “free markets” for everything. Yet even Friedman thought government should provide schools and courts. His student — Romer — went beyond that, and had this bizarre, dystopian idea of “charter cities,” which are places that sit outside democracy, where the highest bidder effectively assumes control of the city as a political entity. So anything goes, from child labour to tax evasion to money laundering — which is precisely why studies have found that in fact, anyone’s who’s tried this idea has just created havens for things like money laundering and organized crime.
This is crackpot thinking. It’s crackpot economics. This idea is so extreme that even America’s never tried, laughed it off, because it’s over the line even for most American Republicans. But now this is Britain’s only plan — its whole plan — for its future.
Let me say it again. Britain’s only plan for its future is a crackpot idea so extreme that it failed in America. That was too extreme even for Red America. Even there, the idea of creating little slices of China — places owned by corporations — was rewinding history too far.
And yet this is now Britain’s future: the past. The Dickensian past, to be precise. You see, because of all the above, Britain has no working systems left. None. The new government announced proudly that its target was two week waiting times for doctors, because right now, you can barely ever see one. Two weeks is a good thing? Call an ambulance — it might take, I kid you not, more than ten hours to arrive. The government’s planning for blackouts this winter, and the majority of Brits are already expected to struggle to pay the bills just for fuel, and that was before the currency crisis.
See what all that means? Brits are finding themselves living in a failed state. One by one, their systems have stopped working. Healthcare. Energy. Water — of which villages ran dry this summer. Food — which is under severe pressure, more so than around the globe, first from Brexit, now from an imploding pound. Nothing works in Britain anymore. Certainly not at the standards of a rich country, and in many cases now, barely at the levels of a poor one. If I go back to the Indian Subcontinent, I don’t have to wait two weeks to see a doctor. If I go to the States, sure, life is weird and alienating, but it’s not like this.
Britain’s future is a 21st century Dickens novel now. Kids living without heat. Families unable to afford food. Plunging standards of living, people shivering in the cold, without medicine, crippled by debt. Inequality exploding, and the super rich the only beneficiaries of all this. Social contract? Nonexistent. Head to the “freeport” — and maybe you can pick up some labour at the workhouse. The idea of modern living standards is falling out of a cracked window.
This is a plunge backwards in time by centuries. Brits don’t fully grasp it — like I said, they’ve given up. Their spirits have been broken, and their minds left dazed and bewildered by decades of Big Lies, which blame scapegoats for everything, and promise that if they go backwards in time — first, small steps, then, in giant leaps — they’ll find their way to the promised land.
Instead, going backwards in time is…exactly what it sounds like. You end up living in bygone eras, replete with their living standards. And their degraded political systems, made of Big Lies, meant to seduce the average person into clamoring for their own repression and self-destruction. And their dysfunctional economies, made of inequality, poverty, and instability. And their societies, too, which hinged on spite, unable to cooperate very well to build a better future for all, each at the next person’s throat, demanding a slice of bread for a day in the workhouse — not a modern society for all.
Britain should be a lesson. To history, to futurity, to the world. Want to go backwards? Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
Let me say it again. Britain’s only plan for its future is a crackpot idea so extreme that it failed in America.
It didn’t work. And so society took the next fatal step backwards — let’s build a Dickensian society. That’s where Britain is now. The current government’s only real plan is something called “freeports.” They’re like putting little slices of China inside Britain — places where democracy and the rule of law literally don’t apply, and corporations effectively run everything, from housing to courts. Dystopian enough for you?
Then consider this: “freeports” are an American idea. They come from an American economist who was Milton Friedman’s best student — remember him? He was the guy that thought there should be “free markets” for everything. Yet even Friedman thought government should provide schools and courts. His student — Romer — went beyond that, and had this bizarre, dystopian idea of “charter cities,” which are places that sit outside democracy, where the highest bidder effectively assumes control of the city as a political entity. So anything goes, from child labour to tax evasion to money laundering — which is precisely why studies have found that in fact, anyone’s who’s tried this idea has just created havens for things like money laundering and organized crime.
Quote:Then consider this: “freeports” are an American idea.
Steve Baker – arch Brexiter and one of the Conservative party’s fiercest campaigners to get the UK out of the EU – has apologised to Ireland and Brussels for the way he and some of his colleagues behaved over the past six years.
Baker told the Tory party conference that he and others in the party had not shown respect to the “legitimate interests” of Ireland or the EU during the campaign to leave the bloc.
The Northern Ireland minister said it was time to rebuild the UK’s relations with Ireland and make sure the two countries went forward as “closest partners and friends”.
“And it’s with humility that I want to accept and acknowledge that I and others did not always behave in a way which encouraged Ireland and the European Union to trust us to accept that they have legitimate interests, legitimate interests that we’re willing to respect, because they do and we are willing to respect them.
“And I am sorry about that because relations with Ireland are not where they should be and we will need to work extremely hard to improve them and I know that we are doing so,” he said.
“I was one who perhaps acted with the most ferocious determination to get the UK out of the EU, I think we have to bring some humility to this situation,” said the former chair of the European Research Group (ERG) of Brexit hardliners.
