Brexit

[Suranis]

Meh, its everyone being loud and posturing because Biden is coming to mark the Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

[keith]

Meh, its everyone being loud and posturing because Biden is coming to mark the Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

Anniversaries do seem to be the time to make yourself heard when you have an audience that is paying attention.

[RTH10260]

German punk band ‘humiliated’ after being refused UK entry due to post-Brexit rules
Trigger Cut from Stuttgart were due to play seven venues in Britain but were turned away at Calais

Helen Pidd
Mon 10 Apr 2023 15.41 BST

A punk band from Germany say they were “humiliated” and “degraded” and after being refused entry to the UK for their British tour due to “opaque and confusing” post-Brexit rule changes.

Trigger Cut, a three-piece from Stuttgart, were due to play seven venues in the UK this week but say they were turned away by the UK Border Force at Calais on Thursday 6 April.

Tim Burgess, the frontman of The Charlatans, said the German band’s “nightmare” experience showed the damage Brexit was doing to touring musicians: “What happened to Trigger Cut is scary, as bands from the EU are facing confusing and complex rules that mean UK tour dates might just not be worth their while.”

Ian Smith, a longtime music agent who co-founded Carry On Touring and ukeartswork.info, which campaigns to help artists work in the EU and UK, said each month he heard of artists from the EU being refused entry because of post-Brexit requirements. “They are so bloody opaque and confusing,” he said.

Trigger Cut say their passports were confiscated and they were kept in a room for verification at Calais, before a Border Force officer asked them for a “certificate of sponsorship” (COS) from each venue they were due to play.

Ralph Schaarschmidt, Trigger Cut’s guitarist, wrote on Facebook: “Months of planning, 1,750km of driving to Calais and back to Stuttgart, van hire costs, paid for expensive customs declarations, ferry ticket – all for nothing. We are sitting in a deep dark hole emotionally right now, this is a nightmare … I think I’ve never felt so degrad[ed], sad and bad as I do today.”

Smith, who has been in touch with the band, said they did not have the COS certificates. Instead, they planned to enter the UK under the “permitted paid engagement” (PPE) exemption, which is free.

This allows musicians to spend up to one month touring the UK if they are invited and paid by a UK-based organisation or client. Artists must be able to show a formal invitation to attend a pre-arranged event and prove they can support themselves during the trip and can pay for their return journey.

A COS is an alternative route into the UK, regarded as “a safer bet” but with more onerous paperwork, said Smith. It involves a promoter sponsoring the band and checking their eligibility and vouching for them during their stay in the UK, from a few days to up to 90 days.

Smith said many artists were getting stuck at the border because the government guidance was unclear and printed only in English, rather than any EU languages. The other problem, he said, was that “individual border officers can use their discretion to refuse anyone they like at the border and there is no right of appeal”.





https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... exit-rules

[Luke]

One more-

913. Golf: Donald Trump’s Scottish golf resort Turnberry has claimed that Brexit is hitting its ability to find workers. SLC Turnberry, whose directors are two of Trump’s sons, said the staffing pool had shrunk, “with lack of access to European staff for businesses in general resulting in greater demand for the individuals previously available to the resort”. It said Brexit had also affected its supply chains, meaning there were fewer drivers available, “reducing deliveries and the availability of certain product lines”. SLC Turnberry lost over £4mn in its latest accounts.

This one must make the Brexit supporters delighted --

19. Asylum claims: According to the BBC’s Lewis Goodall, successful asylum decisions are at their highest rate for many years attributed partly to Brexit. The UK is no longer part of The Dublin Agreement meaning we can no longer refuse a refugee’s application on basis they’ve already crossed into an EU country. Dr Peter Walsh, Senior Researcher at the Migration Observatory at Oxford: “The government has recognised three quarters of asylum applications as valid over the last year. This is a significant shift compared to a few years ago, when the majority of asylum applications were initially refused (even if many of these were later overturned on appeal). We now see majorities of positive decisions across a range of groups, from young men to older women…”

[pipistrelle]

One more-

913. Golf: Donald Trump’s Scottish golf resort Turnberry has claimed that Brexit is hitting its ability to find workers. SLC Turnberry, whose directors are two of Trump’s sons, said the staffing pool had shrunk, “with lack of access to European staff for businesses in general resulting in greater demand for the individuals previously available to the resort”. It said Brexit had also affected its supply chains, meaning there were fewer drivers available, “reducing deliveries and the availability of certain product lines”. SLC Turnberry lost over £4mn in its latest accounts.

It's also possible given a choice workers would rather work for anyone/anyplace else.

[RTH10260]

Agatha Christie sheds tears

Orient Express to axe UK section after 41 years due to Brexit
Luxury train operator cuts service ahead of biometric passport checks so passengers will have to join train in Paris

James Tapper
Sat 15 Apr 2023 14.44 BST

When the Orient Express began operating in the 19th century, passports were optional – the only paperwork required by British travellers was a copy of the Thomas Cook Continental Timetable.

But Brexit and 21st-century biometric checks are killing off the romance of crossing borders for modern passengers looking for the nostalgia of the luxury train journey that inspired Agatha Christie and Hollywood.

Belmond, the company that runs today’s Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (VSOE), has decided to drop the London-to-Folkestone leg of the route because it has become too difficult to cross the border to Calais.

Until now, passengers have been able to ride in art deco carriages of the British Pullman service from Victoria station in London to Folkestone. There they board coaches to cross the Channel to meet Belmond’s continental train at Calais, then, as night falls, they dress for dinner; a compartment in one of the vintage 1929 cars costs from £3,530 to £10,100 per person, so evening dress is required, and jeans, as Hercule Poirot would expect, are banned.



https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023 ... der-delays

[Slim Cognito]

That sounds so cool! Not the Brexit part, but the description of the carriages.

[keith]

Seems to me they could do immigration in London, then run the train through the Chunnel.

That would work just like they do at the airport.

[RTH10260]

Seems to me they could do immigration in London, then run the train through the Chunnel.

That would work just like they do at the airport.

That would require a totally fresh built train station. Today the regular open platforms are used, shared with other trains. Wagons would need to be sealed so that no unchecked passenger can board.

[keith]

They have just spent untold gazillions on dozens of new stations.

Not to mention the several art deco stations just sitting disused since WWII. They are already disconnected from the main line and would just require updating to modern standards. They would operate just like a skybridge does to prevent unchecked persons getting on.

This could be done. Yes it would cost, but not prohibitively, IMHO.

[RTH10260]

UK will sign deal paying in to EU budget within 15 years, says Ryanair boss
Michael O’Leary says Brexit is ‘unbelievably messy’ and a ‘net negative’ on the British economy

Joanna Partridge
Wed 19 Apr 2023 16.20 BST

The boss of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, has launched a fresh attack on Brexit, describing it as “unbelievably messy” and predicting the UK would end up signing a Norway-style deal with the EU in the next 10 to 15 years under which it would pay into the bloc’s budget.

The outspoken chief executive of the Irish budget airline said over the next three to five years, the UK’s departure from the EU would be “net negative on the UK economy, no question about it”.

O’Leary said the UK’s longer term relationship with its closest trading partner depended “on what the British establishment or future UK governments do”. However, he said he believed that the UK would “in the next 10 to 15 years” strike a “trade deal with Europe, similar to Norway or Switzerland”.

“I think they will pay into a European budget, I think they will have no choice,” O’Leary said during a panel discussion at Bloomberg’s New Economy Gateway event in Ireland. “The fundamental strength of the single market, is something that is too attractive for the UK economy to be excluded from.”

The Ryanair boss said a lot would depend on “how Europe responds to Brexit”, adding: “Brexit should come as a real warning to the European Union. You need to focus on the things which improve people’s lives, which is improving the single market.”

O’Leary described the British labour market as “broken”, saying that leaving the EU had forced Ryanair to hire European and non-European workers on what he called “ludicrously” expensive visas, costing £3,000 each.

“The problem we find dealing with the [UK] government is there’s an obsession in most departments to find excuses that show where Brexit benefits,” O’Leary said. “Duty free is back on flights to and from Europe, that’s about the only benefit.”

The airline CEO, who has frequently criticised the economic impact of Brexit, said the benefits touted before the 2016 referendum had been shown to be lies. “Everything that was promised to the UK population, the sunny uplands, the ability to do trade deals with everywhere around the world were shown to be another tissue of lies,” he said.

His airline, which publicly campaigned against Brexit in the run-up to the EU referendum, had expected Boris Johnson’s government to “put the economy first and do a sensible deal” with the EU, O’Leary said, but this had not happened.

However, he added that Johnson’s successor as prime minister, Rishi Sunak, had struck an “immeasurably better deal” with his “Windsor framework” post-Brexit agreement – designed to end the long-running dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol – which allowed a way for the UK and EU to move forward.

The airline boss contrasted his prediction of Britain’s economic fortunes with those of the bloc, saying he was “surprised at the strength of spending in the European economy at the moment” where “business is booming and getting boomier”.




https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... el-o-leary

[RTH10260]

‘I was in tears’: Briton with valid passport barred from flight over Brexit rules
Experts say it is vital to check you meet EU requirements, or you could risk losing your holiday

Miles Brignall
Sat 29 Apr 2023 07.00 BST

Travellers who have not used their passport for a while were this week being urged to dig it out and check it conforms to the post-Brexit rules for entering the EU – because if it doesn’t, you will almost certainly be denied boarding this summer.

Despite previous warnings in Guardian Money and some other publicity, UK travellers trying to enter the Schengen zone are being turned away on a daily basis by airline staff at boarding gates – in most cases because their UK passport was issued more than 10 years ago.

Rosi Simpson, a teacher from Brighton, is one of the latest to be caught up in the confusion. She says she was left “mortified and in tears” after easyJet staff refused to allow her to board a flight to Paris to see her son, who is studying there, because her UK passport had been issued 10 years and one day previously.

“I had no idea of the 10-year rule,” she says. “I’d checked the expiry date, and my passport had eight months remaining. What happened at the boarding gate was absolutely awful. I lost the cost of the flight and the accommodation I’d booked – I’d been so looking forward to seeing my son. What I don’t understand is why this [rule change] hasn’t had more publicity – an information campaign. I wasn’t the only one who this had happened to at the airport that day,” she says.

In terms of flights and ferries to mainland Europe, passengers will also be denied boarding if their passport expires less than three months after their return date. Previously, it was thought that UK travellers needed at least six months left, although the EU has since clarified the three-month requirement.

Prior to Brexit, UK passport holders could travel in and out of the EU as long as they held a valid passport, even one that expired the day after their return.

The more onerous rules, which came into effect in 2021, apply to UK passport holders travelling to any EU country (except Ireland), plus the others in the Schengen zone: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican and Switzerland.

The “over 10-year” problem came about because, for many years, those renewing their passport before the previous one expired were able to add any remaining time left. Prior to September 2018, you could have up to nine months added to the replacement’s 10-year length – meaning their passport could be valid for as long as 10 years and nine months.




https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/ ... t-rules-eu

[Foggy]

the Schengen zone: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican and Switzerland.

Also known as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Five Dots on the Map.

Any map of the Zone necessarily shows more territory that isn't in the Zone than territory that is inside it.

[Suranis]

the Schengen zone: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican and Switzerland.

Also known as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Five Dots on the Map.

Any map of the Zone necessarily shows more territory that isn't in the Zone than territory that is inside it.

Now now, I'm sure England can set up a brisk trade in silly costumes with the Vatican.

[Sam the Centipede]

the Schengen zone: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican and Switzerland.

Also known as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Five Dots on the Map.

Any map of the Zone necessarily shows more territory that isn't in the Zone than territory that is inside it.

Not sure if I get your point, but those are the non-EU countries that are also in the Schengen zone together with most EU countries. Ireland is in the EU but isn't (I think) in the Schengen zone because it's in a free travel area with the UK (which has never been in the Schengen zone). So I think everybody entering Ireland other than from the UK is required to show their passport or identity card.

[Foggy]

And who, pray tell, is the EU's Minister of Silly Names for Imaginary Zones? Is it, as I suspect, a sinister minister bureau cat named, oh, for example, Somebody Schengen? I mean, this is Fogbow, and it would be irresponsible not to speculate.

[Sam the Centipede]

EU treaties take their names from the town or city where they were signed. Schengen is in Luxembourg. Maastricht is in the Netherlands. You probably know where Rome, Amsterdam, Lisbon and Nice are.

Unimaginative but it works.

[Foggy]

I could have looked that up, if I wasn't trying to be silly.

[RTH10260]

‘Brexit idiocy’ blamed for tech giant ARM choosing New York over London

By Rachael BurfordPolitical Correspondent@RachaelBurford
3 hours ago

The “idiocy” of Brexit is partially to blame for one of the UK's largest tech firms choosing to list on the New York Stock Exchange over London, the company's co-founder has warned.

Hermann Hauser said the City's reputation had "suffered a lot" since Britain left the European Union.

His Cambridge-based software company ARM is hoping to raise $10billion with its initial public offering (IPO), an amount he believes would not be possible in Britain.

The firm on Saturday filed with regulators confidentially for a US market listing, setting the stage for this year's largest stock offering.

When asked why the company was being listed in New York over London, Mr Hauser told BBC Radio 4: "The fact is that New York is a much deeper market than London, partially because of the the Brexit idiocy the image of the London Stock Exchange has suffered a lot in the international community."




https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politic ... 78116.html

[RTH10260]

Suella Braverman to rebuff cabinet calls for easing of visa rules
Home secretary will tell National Conservatism conference that Britons should train as HGV drivers, butchers and fruit pickers

Rajeev Syal and Aletha Adu
Sun 14 May 2023 21.56 BST

Thousands of Britons should be trained to drive trucks, work in the meat industry and gather crops rather than filling vacancies with foreign workers, Suella Braverman will tell Conservative activists on Monday.

In an intervention that will be seen as a rebuff to cabinet colleagues calling for an easing of visa rules to boost economic growth, the home secretary will say there is no good reason to bring in overseas workers to compensate for shortages in the haulage, butchering or farming industries.

Her speech comes amid a growing row within the cabinet and the Conservative party over net migration, as Rishi Sunak braces for a record increase in net migration figures this month. Reports have claimed that the figure could reach close to 1 million, from a record-breaking level of 504,000 last year.

While the prime minister and Braverman have reiterated calls for net migration to be reduced in the long term to the tens of thousands, ministers including the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, have been keen to stress the economic benefits of issuing visas for workers in key sectors and students.

Braverman will tell the National Conservatism conference on Monday that she campaigned for Brexit so that the government could control migration.

“We need to get overall immigration numbers down. And we mustn’t forget how to do things for ourselves,” she will say.

“There is no good reason why we can’t train up enough HGV drivers, butchers or fruit pickers. Brexit enables us to build a high-skilled, high-wage economy that is less dependent on low-skilled foreign labour.”

The National Conservatism conference, a three-day event in Westminster beginning on Monday, has been organised by a US-based thinktank to bring together right-leaning public figures, journalists and scholars. It is the eighth conference launched by the Edmund Burke Foundation. Speakers will also include Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg and David Frost.

Foreign butchers are eligible to come to the UK as a skilled trade, under current rules. Poultry workers were eligible as seasonal workers in the run-up to Christmas, and fruit pickers are eligible for seasonal worker visas. HGV drivers were eligible for special visas during the petrol crisis, but have been dropped from the list.





https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... visa-rules

[Reality Check]

EU treaties take their names from the town or city where they were signed. Schengen is in Luxembourg. Maastricht is in the Netherlands. You probably know where Rome, Amsterdam, Lisbon and Nice are.

Unimaginative but it works.

When I was young I was puzzled that the treaty ending the American Revolution against Great Britain was called the Treaty of Paris. Of course that's where Ben Franklin and others negotiated and signed it.

[RTH10260]

That's where they first found Freedom Fries

[RTH10260]

‘No longer relevant to the UK’: list of 600 EU laws to be scrapped is published
Rules on fisheries, sensitive habitats and access to EU-wide criminal database among legislation to be discarded

Lisa O'Carroll, Jamie Grierson and Michael Goodier
Mon 15 May 2023 23.18 BST

Ministers have published the list of 600 EU laws the government plans to scrap by the end of the year in a much-reduced Brussels “bonfire” that has enraged hardline Brexiters in the Conservative party.

In a significant retreat on its retained EU law bill, the government has slashed the number of environmental laws that would have automatically expired on 31 December from 1,700 to 341.

The list includes rules governing habitat regulations dating from 1996, covering saltmarshes and river fringes and orders relating to environmentally sensitive areas including places in the Broads, Pennine Dales, Somerset Levels and Moors, South Downs and West Penwith.

In explanatory notes the government says these rules are no longer operational or “no longer relevant to the UK”. The former diplomat Lord Kerr, who was behind the article 50 rule that allowed Brexit, said he believed most of nearly 600 laws to be revoked by the government in its published list are “defunct”, but said he agreed with peers across the House that parliamentary scrutiny was important. It is currently at report stage in the House of Lords.

A significant chunk of the repealed laws relates to fisheries, including sustainable fisheries partnership agreements with a wide range of countries from the Gambia to Seychelles. Other legislation relates to fish populations in the Black Sea and Mediterranean.

There is also a wide range of laws being repealed that relate to “biocidal products” such as disinfectants, wood preservatives and insect repellants. Among the chemicals listed are acrolein, indoxacarb and creosote.

Legislation that gave access to a valuable EU-wide criminal database, known as Ecris, has also formally been torn up. Ecris holds conviction information on third-country nationals and stateless people. However, by leaving the EU, the UK automatically lost access to Ecris, and the repeal will be seen as a formality.

On Monday night, in a further government defeat, peers backed by 142 votes to 132 a provision to ensure ministerial powers to revoke, replace or update retained EU law do not undermine current environmental protections or food safety standards.

The government has narrowly seen off a move to add procedural protections of workers’ rights by a majority of one.



https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -published

[RTH10260]

Air pollution transparency rules among EU laws to be scrapped by UK
Government has rowed back on plans to ditch 4,000 laws but key pollution legislation still slated to go

Sandra Laville
Tue 16 May 2023 13.12 BST

Laws to ensure the government is transparent about how they plan to reduce harmful air pollution are among those to be scrapped in the EU retained law bill.

A climbdown by ministers over the bill has reduced the number of EU regulations to be automatically removed from the statute books from 4,000 to 600, but key rules on air pollution are among those still expected to be removed.

The regulations being taken out of UK law impose a duty on the government to publish a pathway to meeting tight emissions targets by 2030 for five noxious pollutants.

The rules also enforce the need to publicly consult on the plans to cut emissions. But these two regulations, in the National Emission Ceilings Regulations 2018, are to be removed from UK law by the end of the year if the bill, which is going through the House of Lords, is approved.

Katie Nield, a clean air lawyer for ClientEarth, said: “They are proposing to snip out some quite critical elements that are there to make sure the targets are actually met. They want to remove the legal duty on government to have a plan to reduce the emissions, to frequently revise that plan and to publish it, and they want to remove the need to put that out to public consultation.

“The duty to produce a pathway to meet the targets is a critical tool to make sure the government explains what it is doing and to hold them to account. It raises major alarm bells. It is hard to see how this move could be anything other than a strategy to skirt accountability.”

The government’s pathway to reduce emissions had to be revised under the regulations this year because it was in breach of emission reduction targets for fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, which is classified as a cause of cancer. The pathway is also not on track to meet emissions reduction targets by 2030 for four out of the five air pollutants from transport, agriculture and industry – nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, PM2.5, ammonia and non-methane volatile organic compounds.



https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... pped-by-uk

[RTH10260]

Looks to me as if the EU will be declaring protective tariffs to counter cheaper production due to lesser environment protections. As price cuts are difficult to measure the UK will find itself with tariffs that will be very protective for the EU side.