Tag Archives: Brexit

Britain calls for 800 foreign butchers to avoid pig cull

By Guy Faulconbridge

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain will offer six-month emergency visas to 800 foreign butchers to avoid a mass pig cull, it said on Thursday, after farmers complained that an exodus of workers from abattoirs and meat processors had left the pork sector fighting for survival.

A combination of Brexit and COVID-19 has sparked an exodus of east European workers, leaving some 120,000 pigs in barns and fields across the country waiting to be slaughtered, according to the National Pig Association.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said the temporary visas would address the problem which farmers said was putting livelihoods at risk and causing animal welfare issues.

“What we’re going to do is allow butchers in abattoirs and meat processors dealing with pigs, to be able to come in on a temporary basis under the Seasonal Worker scheme for up to six months,” Eustice told reporters.

“That will help us to deal with the backlog of pigs that we currently have on farms to give those meat processors the ability to slaughter more pigs.”

Eustice said around 800 butchers would be needed to clear the backlog and announced private storage aid to help abattoirs store meat.

But he said the government had decided not to ease the English language requirement for skilled visas to allow more butchers to come via that route – a key demand from farmers, who have been calling for weeks for ministers to take action.

“The industry had asked us to look at the language requirement on the skills route,” he said. “We have looked at that but we don’t think that provides an answer to their particular challenge. And that’s why we decided instead to have temporary visas.”

The lack of butchers is just one of a number of areas where Britain is facing acute labor shortages.

Last month, it announced plans to issue temporary visas for 5,000 foreign truck drivers and 5,500 poultry workers, but the government wants businesses to invest in a British workforce rather than rely on cheap foreign labor.

Ministers have also been keen to downplay suggestions that Britain’s exit from the European Union was the main issue hitting labor in the supply chains.

Many workers in the pig industry had gone home during the pandemic and simply not returned, Eustice said.

“It’s a complex picture: there have been lots of market disruptions, problems with access to the Chinese market, maybe some overproduction – here production is up by about 7% – and yes, labor has been an aggravating factor but it’s not been the only factor,” Eustice said.

“The pig industry, and in common with many parts of the food industry, has seen a loss of staff as many of the EU citizens that they relied on left during the pandemic – nothing to do with Brexit.”

As part of the measures to address the problem with the lack of lorry drivers, he said cabotage rules for EU drivers would be relaxed so that they could do as many trips as they liked over a two-week period.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Michael Holden and Nick Macfie)

Desperate British pig farmers tell Johnson: Ease immigration rules

By Kate Holton

DRIFFIELD, England (Reuters) – Two sisters running a pig farm in northeast England have a message for Prime Minister Boris Johnson: lift strict immigration rules for butchers or risk seeing the pork sector collapse under the weight of overly fattened animals.

Farmers across Britain say a combination of Brexit and COVID-19 have sparked an exodus of east European workers from abattoirs and meat processors, leaving pigs to back up in barns and fields across the country.

As the pigs gain weight from the extra time spent on the farm, eating food that has also jumped in price, they risk passing the size threshold at which abattoirs impose financial penalties because they have become harder to handle.

While some have started culling pigs, others like Kate Morgan and Vicky Scott are desperately trying to keep theirs until they can go for slaughter, but they warned that tensions were running high and many farmers were quitting the job.

“The pressure is like pressure we’ve never had before, emotionally it’s absolutely draining, financially it’s crippling,” Scott told Reuters over the squeals and grunts of a couple of hundred pigs. “We’re in a fairly bad place right now.”

Industries across Britain have warned in recent months that they are struggling to maintain operations after European workers returned home in the summer, with gaps being felt on farms, in factories and throughout the freight sector.

The problem has hit pig farming hard. Making little profit at the best of times, it is now losing money on every pig sold and the National Farmers Union warned two weeks ago that up to 150,000 pigs could be culled.

TECHNOLOGY AND WAGE HIKES

Morgan and Scott say a 25% capacity cut by their abattoir has left some 5,000 pigs in the towering barns that stand out on the open, flat fields of east Yorkshire. While talking to Reuters they received news of another abattoir cancellation.

Morgan said they were doing everything they could to avoid a cull but that the pressure was building. “We are juggling everything, trying to put pigs where maybe they shouldn’t be just so that we don’t get to that situation,” she said.

She urged Johnson to ease post-Brexit immigration rules and allow European butchers to enter Britain without needing to first pass a comprehensive English language test, a requirement that the industry says is putting off workers.

The pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears. Johnson has said businesses need to wean themselves off the “drug” of cheap migrant labor and invest in technology and higher salaries to recruit enough British workers.

He has provoked the ire of farmers in recent weeks by quipping, variously, that bacon sandwiches come from dead pigs and that animals are bred on farms to be slaughtered.

“Have you ever had a bacon sandwich?” Johnson asked a Times Radio journalist when questioned about a possible pig cull. “Those pigs, when you ate them, were not alive.”

Scott says their farm has ploughed money into technology and retained staff by frequently hiking wages. The problem lies in abattoirs and meat processors where butchers are often more efficient than machines. The sisters note that higher wages in the sector would also lead to higher food prices.

Short term, Scott says a relaxation of visa rules is the only solution to get the industry straight. “Hopefully the government are listening to us now,” she said. “It’s critical, it’s very time critical and we need them to do something, now.”

(Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

“The deal is done”: EU and UK clinch narrow Brexit accord

By Guy Faulconbridge, Elizabeth Piper and John Chalmers

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Britain clinched a narrow Brexit trade deal with the European Union on Thursday, just seven days before it exits one of the world’s biggest trading blocs in its most significant global shift since the loss of empire.

The deal means it has swerved away from a chaotic finale to a tortuous divorce that has shaken the 70-year project to forge European unity from the ruins of World War Two.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters: “It was a long and winding road. But we have got a good deal to show for it. It is fair, it is a balanced deal, and it is the right and responsible thing to do for both sides.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted a picture of himself inside Downing Street, raising both arms in a thumbs-up gesture of triumph, with the words “The deal is done”.

“We have taken back control of our money, borders, laws, trade and our fishing waters,” a Downing Street source said.

“We have delivered this great deal for the entire United Kingdom in record time, and under extremely challenging conditions … all of our key red lines about returning sovereignty have been achieved.”

While the last-minute deal prevents the most acrimonious ending to the saga on Jan. 1, the United Kingdom is set for a much more distant relationship with its biggest trade partner than almost anyone expected at the time of the 2016 referendum.

A deal had seemed imminent for almost a day, until haggling over just how much fish EU boats should be able to catch in British waters delayed the announcement of one of the most important trade deals in recent European history.

The UK formally left the EU on Jan. 31 but has since been in a transition period under which rules on trade, travel and business remained unchanged until the end of this year.

The details of the accord have yet to be made public, but if the sides have struck a zero-tariff and zero-quota deal, it will help to smooth trade in goods that makes up half their $900 billion in annual commerce.

Even with an accord, some disruption is certain from Jan. 1 when Britain ends its often fraught 48-year relationship with a Franco-German-led project that sought to bind the ruined nations of post-World War Two Europe together into a global power.

Tony Danker, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, gave the deal a grudging welcome:

“Coming so late in the day, it is vital that both sides take instant steps to keep trade moving and services flowing.”

After months of talks that were at times undermined by both COVID-19 and rhetoric from London and Paris, leaders across the EU’s 27 member states have cast an agreement as a way to avoid the nightmare of a “no-deal” exit.

But Europe’s second-largest economy will still be quitting both the EU’s single market of 450 million consumers, which late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher helped to create, and its customs union.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, Guy Faulconbridge, Elizabeth Piper, Conor Humphries, Kate Holton, John Chalmers, William Schomberg, Paul Sandle and Michael Holden; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and John Chalmers; Editing by Alison Williams)

Post-Brexit UK announces largest military spending since Cold War

By Andrew MacAskill and William James

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain announced its biggest military spending increase since the Cold War on Thursday, pledging to end the “era of retreat” as it seeks a post-Brexit role in a world Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned was more perilous than for decades.

Johnson said the extra spending reflected the need to upgrade military capabilities even as the COVID-19 pandemic pummels the economy and strains public finances. He outlined plans for a new space command, an artificial intelligence agency and said the navy would be restored as Europe’s most powerful.

Outlining the first conclusions from a big review of foreign policy and defense, he announced an extra 16.5 billion pounds ($22 billion) for the military over the next four years. The defense budget is now just under 42 billion pounds a year.

“The era of cutting our defense budget must end, and it ends now,” Johnson told parliament by video link from his Downing Street office, where he is isolating after contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

“I have done this in the teeth of the pandemic, amid every other demand on our resources, because the defense of the realm and the safety of the British people must come first.”

NEW GLOBAL ROLE

Britain was the main battlefield ally of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan and, alongside France, the principal military power in the European Union. But its 2016 vote to leave the EU has made its global role uncertain at a time when China is rising and President Donald Trump has cast doubt on U.S. support for traditional allies.

The military spending announcement comes just a week after Johnson promised U.S. President-elect Joe Biden that Britain was determined to remain a valuable military ally.

Christopher Miller, acting U.S. defense secretary in Trump’s outgoing administration, welcomed the extra spending.

“The UK is our most stalwart and capable ally, and this increase in spending is indicative of their commitment to NATO and our shared security,” he said. “With this increase, the UK military will continue to be one of the finest fighting forces in the world.”

The government said the increase will cement Britain’s position as the largest defense spender in Europe and second-largest in NATO.

A national cyber force will be established alongside the new space command, which will be capable of launching its first rocket by 2022. These and other new projects will create up to 10,000 jobs, the government said.

Britain’s main opposition Labor Party said the increase was long overdue after the ruling Conservative government cut the size of the armed forces by a quarter in the last decade.

The extra funding will raise further concerns about how the government manages its defense and security budget after repeated accusations it allowed costs to spiral for overly-ambitious projects.

A report by lawmakers said on Thursday that Britain’s GCHQ spying agency ignored evidence and broke its budget in choosing an expensive central London headquarters for a newly-created cyber-security center.

After media reports that billions of pounds could be cut from Britain’s foreign aid budget, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky News that higher defense spending would not come at the expense of aid.

“It doesn’t mean to say we are abandoning the battlefield of international aid, we’re still one of the most generous givers of international aid,” Wallace said.

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper in London; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Pound slips below $1.25 on disappointing growth data

By Maiya Keidan

LONDON (Reuters) – Sterling fell below $1.25 on Tuesday for the first time in a week and reached a 14-day low against the euro after data showed Britain’s economy was recovering more slowly than forecast.

Gross domestic product rose by 1.8% in May after falling by a record 20.8% in April, the Office for National Statistics said, well below forecasts in a Reuters poll.

“You saw sterling moving lower almost immediately after the announcement and it was a big disappointment and I think that it’s also the realization that maybe the V-shaped recovery doesn’t apply to the UK to the same extent,” said Morten Lund, an analyst at Nordea.

Adding to fears was a warning from authorities that another, more deadly COVID-19 wave could kill up to 120,000 Britons over the winter.

The pound touched a low of $1.2485, down 0.5% on the day. It slipped 0.7% to the euro at 91.03 pence.

Broad dollar weakness has allowed sterling to gain around 0.7% versus the greenback this month but against the euro it has lost 0.5% since the start of July.

Consumer data also indicated a tentative recovery. The British Retail Consortium said retail sales values rose by 3.4% in annual terms in June, and Barclaycard said overall consumer spending fell 14.5% in annual terms in June, the smallest decline since lockdown began.

Money markets price in the Bank of England’s cutting rates below 0% only next March. But government two-year bond yields plumbed a record low around minus 0.16% and 10-year yields slipped 2.5 basis points to 0.14%.

FTSE mid-cap shares, which tend to be mostly domestically oriented, fell 1.6% versus a 0.6% decline for the exporter-laden FTSE100.

Investors are also waiting for more news on Britain’s negotiations with the European Union on concluding a trade deal for the post-Brexit period. Britain left the bloc on Jan. 31, with a one-year transition period to iron out a future relationship.

“My feeling is the market is not fully pricing in the likelihood of a hard Brexit,” said Colin Asher at Mizuho.

“There has been very little progress on negotiations and even if there is a deal, there’s not much time to put a lot in it.”

(Reporting by Maiya Keidan, editing by Larry King and Ed Osmond)

Europe to Britain: So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu

ATHENS/MADRID (Reuters) – With sorrow, some support for Brexit and even hope of a return, Europeans from across the EU’s 27 remaining members bade farewell to the United Kingdom on the eve of its historic departure.

The United Kingdom leaves the European Union an hour before midnight on Friday, casting off into an uncertain future that also challenges Europe’s post-World War Two project of forging unity from the ruins of conflict.

“Farewell, bye bye my love!” said Rudolf Stockey, speaking to Reuters in German.

From across Europe, EU citizens wished the United Kingdom the best after 47 years of membership. Some expressed hopes that the British might one day return to the European fold.

“Come back. I have no idea. We are not so different,” said Madrid resident Marcos Leon.

Some expressed concern that one of Europe’s biggest powers was leaving the club.

“I am very sorry that the United Kingdom is exiting. I think it is a very, very bad thing for Europe, for the United Kingdom, for everything,” said Sara Invitto, from Milan. “Goodbye!”

“I think it’s a great waste,” said Belgian Francois Heimans, who expressed worry over populism.

But some in Greece and Poland said the British were doing the right thing.

“Have a good Brexit guys,” said Petros Papakyriakos from Greece. “They are doing what is right for their economy, and I think a lot of countries will follow their lead.”

Gdansk resident Henryk Kulesza said: “It’s good that Great Britain is leaving the European Union. It’s about time. I think that Poland should do the same thing.”

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Reporting across Europe by Antonio Denti, Emily Roe, Christian Levaux, Ciara Luxton, Deborah Kyvrikosaios, Vassilis Triandafyllou, Lewis Macdonald, Dominik Starosz, Polly Rider, Ben Dadswel; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Wanted: Weirdos and misfits – aide to UK’s Johnson is hiring

LONDON (Reuters) – The senior adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who plotted Brexit and steered his boss to last month’s election triumph, is on the lookout for “weirdos and misfits with odd skills” to help bring new ideas to Britain’s government.

“We want to improve performance and make me much less important — and within a year largely redundant,” Dominic Cummings said in a post on his blog on Thursday.

“We do not have the sort of expertise supporting the PM and ministers that is needed. This must change fast so we can properly serve the public.”

Cummings, who has made no secret of his disdain for much of the way Britain’s civil service operates, said he had been lucky to have worked with some fantastic officials in recent months.

“But there are also some profound problems at the core of how the British state makes decisions,” he said.

Cummings was one of the senior campaigners behind the Vote Leave victory in the 2016 Brexit referendum and was described by former Prime Minister John Major as “political anarchist.”

In his blog, Cummings said rapid progress could now be made on long-term problems thanks to the combination of policy upheaval after Brexit, an appetite for risk among some officials in the new government and Johnson’s big majority in parliament.

The government was looking to hire data scientists and software developers, economists, policy experts, project managers, communication experts and junior researchers as well as “weirdos and misfits with odd skills,” he said.

“We need some true wild cards, artists, people who never went to university and fought their way out of an appalling hell hole,” Cummings said.

(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Take Five: What’s the deal?

LONDON (Reuters) –

1/AFTER PHASE ONE COMES PHASE TWO

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese officials have agreed to a “phase one” trade deal that includes cutting U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

Washington has agreed to suspend tariffs on $160 billion in Chinese goods due to go into effect on Dec. 15, Trump said, and cut existing tariffs to 7.5%.

The agreement covers intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services, currency, and foreign exchange, according to Washington’s Trade Representative.

Neither side offered specific details on the amount of U.S. agricultural goods Beijing had agreed to buy – a key sticking point of the lengthy deal negotiations. News of the trade deal saw U.S. stocks romp to fresh record levels. But few doubt that the rollercoaster is over yet.

While Trump announced that “phase two” trade talks would start immediately, Beijing made it clear that moving to the next stage of the trade negotiations would depend on implementing phase one first. While markets cheered the December rally, few expect the trade deal rollercoaster ride to be quite over yet.

 

2/MORE NICE SURPRISES, PLEASE!

First clues as to whether euro zone powerhouse Germany can avoid a fourth quarter recession emerge on Monday when advance PMI readings for November are released globally.

The economic activity surveys, a key barometer of economic health, come after Citi’s economic surprise index showed euro zone economic data beating consensus expectations at the fastest pace since February 2018. The latest surprise was a 1.2% rise in German exports in October, defying forecasts of a contraction.

Hopes are high that exports and private consumption, which helped Germany skirt recession, will hold up. Last month’s PMI data showed manufacturing remained in deep contraction across the bloc.

A Reuters poll showed expectations of a modestly higher 46.0 manufacturing reading in the euro zone but that’s still far below the 50-mark which separates growth from contraction. Services, which have held up better so far, are expected to grow modestly from November, at 52.0.

Graphic: Citi surprise index most positive since Feb 2018, https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/12/9901/9813/Citi%20index.png

3/BEWARE THE BOJ

Japan’s central bank meets on Thursday with the global economic outlook “relatively bright,” according to Governor Haruhiko Kuroda.

Growth green shoots, a possible U.S.-China trade deal and something nearing certainty on Brexit has got almost everyone expecting the BOJ will do very little: Interest rates are at -0.1% and the bank has eased off bond buying – even though the bank’s balance sheet is bursting with negative-yielding paper.

The government has flagged a gigantic $122 billion stimulus package to keep things moving after next year’s Olympics. Yet the business mood is dire with Friday’s “tankan” survey at its lowest reading since 2013. Big manufacturers – especially automakers – are gloomiest, as the trade war takes its toll.

The Bank of Japan has justified standing pat on the view that robust domestic demand will cushion the hit. It blames the weather and a sales tax for recent patchy data. But another week of dollar weakness will not have gone unnoticed in Tokyo, where a cheaper yen is much desired. A surprise on Tuesday export data forecast to show further contraction and Thursday’s inflation reading could jolt yen longs out of their slumber.

4/JOHNSON, AND MORE JOHNSON

A thumping election win for Prime Minister Boris Johnson has raised hopes that 3-1/2 years of Brexit-fuelled chaos will finally end.

Expectations that he may swing slightly nearer the centre of his Conservative Party, sidelining the fiercest eurosceptics, and ease the path towards a free-trade deal with the European Union have sent sterling and British shares surging.

Yet there are signs of caution, with sterling stalling around $1.35. Further gains will hinge on Johnson’s new cabinet, how the global growth and trade war backdrop pans out and what the Bank of England might do.

At the central bank’s Dec. 19 meeting, markets will watch for any shifts in its views on inflation, the UK economy and the interest rate outlook for 2020. While policymakers have skewed dovish of late amid a torrent of dismal data and sub-target inflation, the election result – and a hoped-for growth recovery – have seen money markets halve the probability of an end-2020 cut to 25%.

Without more clarity, investors might just be wary of chasing sterling much higher.

Graphic: UK economic indicators, https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/12/9958/9869/GB.png

5/SWEDEN RETURNS TO ZERO?

While most central banks are busy pondering whether to hold or cut interest rates, Sweden may swim against the tide and deliver a 25 basis-point rate hike on Dec. 19. That will end half a decade of negative interest rates in the country and make it the first in Europe to pull borrowing costs from sub-zero territory.

Policymakers flagged a rate hike in October and recent data showing inflation rising to 1.7% — just off the 2% target — cemented those expectations. The crown’s rallied to eight-month highs versus the euro, up almost 5% since October.

The proposed interest rate increase has its critics, who cite still-sluggish inflation and factory activity at its weakest since 2012.

Meanwhile, neighbouring Norway’s policy meeting, scheduled for the same day, may be less exciting as no change is expected. Investors remain baffled by the Norwegian crown’s weakness – despite policy makers delivering four rate hikes since Sept 2018, it’s at near record lows to the euro.

Graphic: Swedish crown , https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/12/9961/9872/crown.png

(Reporting by Alden Bentley in New York, Tom Westbrook in Singapore, Sujata Rao, Elizabeth Howcroft and Yoruk Bahceli in London, compiled by Karin Strohecker; edited by Philippa Fletcher)

Britain speeds towards Brexit as Johnson wins large majority in election

By Guy Faulconbridge and William James

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a resounding election victory on Friday that will allow him to end three years of political paralysis and take Britain out of the European Union by Jan. 31.

Brexit represents the country’s biggest political and economic gamble since World War Two, cutting the world’s fifth largest economy adrift from the vast trading bloc and threatening the integrity of the United Kingdom.

For Johnson, who campaigned on a vow to “Get Brexit Done”, victory was a vindication after anti-Brexit opponents tried one maneuver after another to thwart him during his first chaotic months in office.

“We will get Brexit done on time by the 31st of January, no ifs, no buts, no maybes,” a triumphant Johnson told supporters at a rally in London.

“Leaving the European Union as one United Kingdom, taking back control of our laws, borders, money, our trade, immigration system, delivering on the democratic mandate of the people,” he said, reprising the refrains of his successful Brexit referendum campaign of 2016.

Sterling soared, on course for one of its biggest one-day gains in the past two decades

Nearly half a century after Britain joined the EU, Johnson must now strike new international trade deals, preserving London’s position as a top global financial capital and keeping the United Kingdom together.

That last goal looks more challenging, with Scotland voting for a nationalist party that wants an independence referendum, and Irish nationalists performing strongly in Northern Ireland.

“Boris Johnson may have a mandate to take England out of the European Union. He emphatically does not have a mandate to take Scotland out of the European Union,” said Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.

Her Scottish National Party (SNP) won 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats in the national parliament.

RED WALL CRUMBLES

In England, the Conservatives won large numbers of seats in the opposition Labour Party’s so-called Red Wall, declining industrial heartlands once hostile to Johnson’s party.

Brexit, which has shattered old party loyalties and divided Britain along new fault lines, was the cause of the shift. In the Red Wall, a majority of voters favored leaving the European Union and rejected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s ambiguous stance on the issue.

In a symbolic win, the Conservatives took Sedgefield, once held by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Labour’s most successful leader.

Educated at Eton, the country’s most elite private school, and known for his bombastic rhetoric, Johnson seemed to critics to be an unlikely candidate to win over working class communities, but Brexit helped him redraw the electoral map.

In his victory speech, he struck a rare note of humility as he addressed voters who had deserted Labour in his favor.

“Your hand may have quivered over the ballot paper before you put your cross in the Conservative box, and you may hope to return to Labour next time round, and if that is the case, I am humbled that you have put your trust in me,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump was quick to congratulate Johnson.

“Britain and the United States will now be free to strike a massive new Trade Deal after BREXIT. This deal has the potential to be far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that could be made with the E.U.,” Trump wrote on Twitter “Celebrate Boris!”

European politicians were less enthusiastic.

German lawmaker Norbert Roettgen of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party said “the British people have decided and we have to accept their choice. With Johnson’s victory Brexit has become inevitable”.

NO MORE DELAYS

Johnson, 55, will now be able to lead Britain out of the EU by Jan. 31, 10 months after the original deadline of March 29, which was repeatedly pushed back as a gridlocked parliament failed to take any clear decisions on Brexit.

However, with the complex task of negotiating his country’s future relationship with the bloc still ahead of him, he may struggle to reunite a divided nation.

Many voters regard him as a populist charlatan who played fast and loose with the facts and made unrealistic promises.

But his landslide win marks the ultimate failure of the anti-Brexit camp, who tried to thwart the 2016 referendum vote through complex legislative maneuvers and could not convert huge anti-Brexit street protests into a coherent political strategy.

With Labour split and unclear on Brexit, the strongly anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats had hoped to do well but they won only 11 seats, a crushing result. Party leader Jo Swinson lost her seat in Scotland to the SNP and resigned.

With results in from all but one of the 650 parliamentary seats, the Conservatives had won 364, their biggest election win since Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 triumph.

Labour, led since 2015 by the veteran socialist Corbyn, had won just 203 seats, the party’s worst result since 1935.

Corbyn’s offer of nationalizations and big state spending failed to win over voters, while his equivocal position on Brexit left many angry and confused, especially in Red Wall areas where large majorities had voted for Brexit in 2016.

Corbyn said he would quit as Labour leader after a “process of reflection”.

The party now faces a brutal battle between Corbyn’s socialist followers and his centrist critics.

A SOFTER BREXIT?

After Jan. 31, Britain will enter a transition period during which it will negotiate a new relationship with the EU.

This can run until the end of 2022, but the Conservatives have pledged not to extend the transition beyond 2020.

A big majority may allow Johnson to extend trade talks beyond 2020 because he could overrule the Brexit hardline European Research Group (ERG) faction in the party.

“The bigger the Tory majority of course the less influence over this the ERG and Eurosceptics will have,” said hardline Brexiteer Nigel Farage, whose anti-EU campaigning played a major part in persuading former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to call the 2016 referendum.

“It will be called Brexit but it won’t really be,” Farage said.

Johnson was helped by Farage’s Brexit Party, which stood down hundreds of candidates to prevent the pro-Brexit vote from being split. The insurgent party poached a significant number of voters from Labour.

In his victory speech, Johnson gave no details of how he would handle Brexit after Jan. 31. Instead, he made a typically light-hearted offer to his supporters.

“Let’s get Brexit done but first, my friends, let’s get breakfast done.”

 

(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Elizabeth Piper, David Milliken, Kate Holton, Kylie MacLellan, Andy Bruce, Paul Sandle, William James, Michael Urquhart, Tommy Reggiori Wilkes, Costas Pitas and Andy MacAskill in London and Michel Rose in Brussels; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge, Michael Holden and Estelle Shirbon; Editing by William Maclean and Giles Elgood)

 

 

UK PM Johnson makes final Brexit offer to cool EU reception

By Elizabeth Piper, William James and Kylie MacLellan

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a final Brexit offer to the European Union on Wednesday and said that unless the bloc compromised, Britain would leave without a deal at the end of this month.

In what supporters cast as a moment of truth after more than three years of crisis, Johnson stuck to his hard line on Brexit, giving some of the first, albeit vague, details of what he described as “constructive and reasonable proposals”.

With the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline moving closer, Johnson’s aides cast the proposals to be delivered to Brussels as London’s final gambit to try to break the deadlock – principally over arrangements for the Irish border – and find a path to a smooth departure from the EU.

“We are coming out of the EU on October 31, come what may,” Johnson told party members, after expressing “love” for Europe in a speech that focused mostly on domestic issues such as health, the economy and crime.

“We are tabling what I believe are constructive and reasonable proposals which provide a compromise for both sides,” Johnson said. “Let us be in no doubt that the alternative is no deal.”

Many diplomats fear the United Kingdom is heading towards a no-deal or another delay as they say the British proposals are not enough to get an agreement by Oct. 31. Johnson said further delay was “pointless and expensive”.

The initial reaction from other European capitals was cool. Berlin and Paris said they were awaiting details.

EU diplomats and officials in Brussels were less polite with one calling the reported proposals “fundamentally flawed”.

“If it’s take it or leave it, we better close the book and start talking about the modalities of an extension,” a senior EU official told Reuters.

“Essentially it is a non-runner,” said another EU diplomat.

NO DEAL?

Quitting the EU is Britain’s most significant geopolitical move since World War Two. It is, though, still uncertain if it will leave with a deal or without one – or even not leave at all.

Deutsche Bank said it saw a 50 percent chance of a no-deal Brexit by the end of the year. This would spook financial markets, send shockwaves through the global economy and divide the West. It could also bring chaos to British ports and disrupt supply lines in goods from food products to car parts.

Despite Johnson’s repeated promises to deliver Brexit on Oct. 31, parliament has passed a law stating that Britain must request a delay if it does not have a deal by Oct. 19. Johnson has repeatedly refused to say how he will get around the law.

A senior British official said: “The government is either going to be negotiating a new deal or working on no deal – nobody will work on delay.”

Ireland, whose 500 km (300 mile) land border with the United Kingdom, will become the frontier of the EU’s single market and customs union, is crucial to any Brexit solution.

The problem is how to prevent Northern Ireland becoming a back door into the EU market without erecting border controls that could undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland in which more than 3,600 people were killed.

The Withdrawal Agreement that former Prime Minister Theresa May struck last November with the EU says the United Kingdom will remain in a customs union “unless and until” alternative arrangements are found to avoid a hard border.

Johnson said Britain had compromised in putting forward a proposal to try to change that so-called backstop, an insurance policy to ensure there is no return to a hard border.

Giving little detail on his proposals, Johnson said there would be no checks at or near the Irish border. He said London would respect the 1998 peace agreement. He did not explain how.

IRELAND

Britain would “protect the existing regulatory arrangements for farmers and other businesses on both sides of the border” while Northern Ireland would leave the bloc alongside the rest of the United Kingdom, he said.

“By a process of renewable democratic consent by the executive and assembly of Northern Ireland,” Johnson said. “We will go further and protect the existing regulatory arrangements for farmers and other businesses on both sides of the border.”

He said the United Kingdom “whole and entire” would withdraw from the EU, with London keeping control of its own trade policy from the start. Technology could offer a solution, he said, without giving details.

“I hope very much that our friends understand that and compromise in their turn,” said Johnson, who took office in July after May stood down.

With the EU already pouring cold water on some of the reports of his proposal, the likelihood of a no deal appears to be rising – something Johnson’s opponents say they believe is the prime minister’s overriding goal.

John McDonnell, finance policy chief for the opposition Labour Party, described Johnson’s proposals as “a cynical attempt to force through a no-deal Brexit”.

Johnson has repeatedly said he wants a deal.

(Additional reporting by John Chalmers and Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels; Writing by Elizabeth Piper and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Angus MacSwan)