In the run-up to the 2016 referendum, Conservative campaigners sold [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) as the answer to all of the country’s problems. Leaving the EU would transform the UK’s economic prospects, making us all richer. It would free up money to spend on the country’s public services, most notably the NHS. It would restore control over the country’s immigration system, helping to reduce migration levels. Four years after Britain left the EU, and this Brexit manna is still yet to transpire. Little surprise: the campaign for Brexit remains perhaps the most dishonest political movement this country has ever seen. It is true that the referendum result itself did not push the UK into recession as then-chancellor [George Osborne predicted](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/eu-referendum-claims). But none of the false promises has materialised. Brexit has left the UK poorer in the long term, and the deal negotiated by Boris Johnson pushed Northern Ireland into a damaging political stasis. Of course that has not stopped the government claiming it has been an unrivalled success. Last week, the Department of Trade and Industry published what can only be described as [political propaganda](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65ba6d52f51b1000136a7e3d/brexit-4th-anniversary-accessible-version.pdf), consisting of cherry-picked statistics to create the illusion that four years on, Brexit has delivered nothing but benefits. This document reflects the depressing reality that today’s Conservative party is very much the political successor of the official campaign to Vote Leave, which lied to voters that Brexit would not involve painful trade-offs, engaged in a “clear misuse of official statistics” for deploying the false claim that leaving the EU would free up [£350m a week](https://fullfact.org/europe/350-million-week-boris-johnson-statistics-authority-misuse/) for the NHS and which implausibly suggested that staying in the EU would mean [sharing a border](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-vote-leave-accused-of-fanning-the-flames-of-division-after-publishing-controversial-map-a7067701.html) with Syria and Iraq. We are to believe that the UK’s economy has been re-engineered for the better because of a collection of free trade deals, the vast majority of which simply replace those the UK had [access to via the EU anyway:](https://bylinetimes.com/2024/02/01/four-years-on-kemi-badenochs-sketchy-brexit-benefits/) the UK’s accession to the trans-pacific partnership, estimated by the government to be worth only 0.06% of GDP [by 2040](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-uks-indo-pacific-tilt-and-the-cptpps-prospects/); and a handful of “global trade wins” that include greater access to the Mexico market for pork producers, and improved access to the Chinese beauty market, which has nothing to do with Brexit according to the British Beauty Council, and is far outweighed [by the £850m](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/27/brexit-led-to-850m-drop-in-value-of-uk-beauty-industry-exports-to-eu#:~:text=Brexit%20has%20led%20to%20an,putting%20a%20dampener%20on%20sales.) it says the beauty industry has lost as a result of leaving the EU. > Brexit populism was never going to win the Tories long-term success at the ballot box as the promises were built on sand In presenting such an incomplete picture, this official government document is highly misleading. It is the most basic of economics that you cannot evaluate the impact of a policy like Brexit on a country’s economy without looking at both its costs and its benefits; to list only one side of the balance sheet is worse than useless. The overall impact of Brexit on the economy has been to make us much poorer. Analysis from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimates that at the end of last year, GDP was between 2% and 3% lower than it would have been had the UK not left the EU; the equivalent of an £850 per person loss in national income, rising to [£2,300 per capita](https://www.niesr.ac.uk/publications/revisiting-effect-brexit?type=global-economic-outlook-topical-feature) by 2035. Erecting trade barriers with our biggest and closest trading partner to chase free trade deals with smaller economies on the other side of the world could [never pay off](https://www.institute.global/insights/geopolitics-and-security/three-years-brexit-casts-long-shadow-over-uk-economy). Moreover, levels of business investment [are down 30%](https://www.institute.global/insights/geopolitics-and-security/three-years-brexit-casts-long-shadow-over-uk-economy) compared with its pre-referendum trend. This is an impoverishment the UK can ill afford. While government ministers go on the airwaves to trumpet partial statistics celebrating British economic success, the reality of people’s wages and household incomes tell a different story. Analysis from the Resolution Foundation shows that real wages will be no higher in 2024 than they were in 2006, a terrible tale of stagnation. External factors like the war in Ukraine have contributed to rising energy bills and food prices, but Brexit has not only made household incomes less resilient to these shocks, but through its impact on the levels of the pound, has itself acted to [drive up inflation](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/25/its-brexit-that-cranks-up-inflation-dont-just-blame-the-bank). This is quite apart from the impact Brexit has had on governance in Northern Ireland. Brexit is not the only destabilising influence but has unquestionably contributed to the tensions that led to the collapse of the Northern Ireland executive between [2017 and 2020](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/11/northern-ireland-assembly-reopens-three-years-after-collapse), and again from 2020 until just this last week. The latest reimagining of the border checks in the Irish Sea necessitated by Brexit has led to the [restoration of power sharing](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainer/government-deal-dup-restore-power-sharing-northern-ireland) which was sealed yesterday. But with some issues still unresolved, there is no guarantee that this deal will sustain it for the long term. Meanwhile, net migration has continued to increase since Brexit as a matter of economic necessity, not least to fill urgent staff shortages in the NHS and care system. The Tories’ Brexit populism was never going to win them long-term success at the ballot box because their promises were built on sand. [A poll last week](https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/7-10-britons-think-brexit-has-had-negative-impact-uk-economy) found 57% of people think Brexit has been more of a failure; just 13% think it has been more of a success. But whether or not the public blames Brexit for the state of the economy, the polls suggest voters are prepared to hold the government accountable for the cost of living crisis and the state of the NHS. Ministers are unlikely to escape their complicity in misleading the public and inflicting economic pain on the country; but not before they have wreaked untold damage to the UK’s long-term interests.

On the fourth anniversary of Brexit last Wednesday, the business and trade secretary, [Kemi Badenoch](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/kemi-badenoch), trumpeted its successes. “The British people’s conviction that the UK would excel as masters of our own fate has paid dividends,” she said, launching a report detailing the benefits. Among the top achievements listed were booming sales of honey to Saudi Arabia, surging pet food exports to India, a rush of UK pork, worth £18m over five years, heading into Mexico’s restaurants and homes, and UK beauty products sales leaping in China, thanks to barriers being smashed. “My department is leveraging our post-Brexit freedoms to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business,” added Badenoch, seen by many Tory MPs as one of several flexing their muscles for a tilt at the leadership quite soon. But her triumphalist tone, and many of the assertions in the Department for Business and Trade’s (DBT) [Brexit 4th Anniversary](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65ba6d48c75d300012ca1003/brexit-4th-anniversary-print-version.pdf) document, did not quite ring true with the industries cited. “I don’t know any of our members who export any great amounts \[to Saudi Arabia\],” said Paul Barton of the Bee Farmers Association, which represents professional beekeepers in the UK. “Speaking from the industry, we’ve not had any assistance from the government in exploiting \[the Saudi Arabian\] market, getting access into that market. So I don’t know where their increases come from.” He added: “I do remember years ago a chap, I think he was Kuwaiti or Saudi, just knocked on the door and bought a couple of buckets full of honey. I imagine he put it in his hand luggage.” People in the UK honey business seem focused on other issues. Of all the honey that is consumed in the UK, it is a worry that less than 10% is produced here, Barton said, with cheap Chinese imports making up the stiffest competition. As far as Brexit is concerned, a big issue is not so much exporting the end product to Saudi or anywhere else but importing queen bees, and on that, Brexit is proving more of a problem than a help. Queens are reared in southern European countries and brought to the UK so that farmers can begin their hives earlier in the season. But Brexit red tape means the bees are now subject to expensive and disruptive veterinary checks. As for the government’s claim that “a barrier resolution worth £550m to UK businesses over five years” has helped British beauty companies export to China, the barrier in question had nothing to do with Brexit, according to industry experts. In 2021, China relaxed rules on animal testing, which had been a big red line for UK manufacturers, making it easier to sell into their market. [ Brexit ‘shaved £850m off beauty industry’s exports to EU’ ](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/27/brexit-led-to-850m-drop-in-value-of-uk-beauty-industry-exports-to-eu) Millie Kendall, chair of the British Beauty Council, said the loss of trade with the EU outweighed the gains by a long way. “What we really want is to sell to Europe and the US. Economically, we’ve lost £853m in exports to the EU. Sixty-five per cent of our exports go to Europe – £550m sounds nice but it’s not even what we’ve lost.” One of Kendall’s members sent some products to Spain in August and they have still not arrived. Another, larger company has had to build a £1m warehouse in the EU simply to be able to distribute products. Most smaller companies have just given up, she said. For larger sectors, Badenoch’s triumphs seemed trivial, experts said. The business secretary’s announcement said officials had unlocked £25m of exports for medicines and £17m of new business in Colombia. “Together, these amounts represent less than 1% of the total value of the UK pharmaceutical exports of goods in 2022,” said Dr Jennifer Castañeda-Navarrete, a senior policy analyst at Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy, based at Cambridge University’s Institute for Manufacturing. In 2022, 46% of pharmaceutical exports went to the EU. She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010. A business department spokesperson said: “Many, including the _Observer_, forecast dire predictions for the UK economy after Brexit. As this document shows, those forecasts have been proven completely false. Of course there have been issues, nobody ever said it will all be perfect. “However, the report uses official statistics and many of the things people claim are down to Brexit are really down to Covid and supply chain issues. This report is intended as a useful corrective to the consistent doom and gloom about Brexit.” But the business department’s press release makes no mention of the problems suffered by small UK companies, which have seen their export markets hit and in many cases wiped out. In 2022, researchers at Aston University estimated that 42% of British products previously exported to the EU [had disappeared from shops there](https://www.export.org.uk/insights/trade-news/over-40-of-british-products-have-disappeared-from-eu-shelves-since-brexit/). While large companies have been able to spend money on warehouses, vets, distributors, customs clearance, extra shipping costs and all the other red tape that arrived with Brexit, smaller ones have not. Thomas Sampson, professor of economics at the London School of Economics, said the top 15% of companies had not seen a drop in exports to the EU, but for smaller businesses, there had been a 20% fall. “It’s great that the DBT are working on removing market access barriers. But it’s all a little bit marginal relative to the seismic shock of leaving the single market and customs union,” Sampson said. “The big gains in the next five years will come by focusing on what’s happening with the EU and trying to simplify our relationship.” David Henig, director of the UK Trade Policy Project, said that the government’s fourth anniversary of Brexit document was “the usual set of claims that are in various ways slightly distorted”.

So we pass the fourth anniversary of [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum). The trade barriers mount, with the UK “reclaiming sovereignty from Brussels” in order to become poorer, and Chancellor Hunt prefers tax cuts to relief of the squeeze on public spending; this latter when local authorities all over the country are threatened with bankruptcy, having already pared vital services to the bone. Even the International Monetary Fund [points to the need for a letup on austerity](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/30/imf-says-global-economy-heading-for-soft-landing-after-coping-with-inflation) – a far cry from the 1976 crisis, when James Callaghan’s Labour government was besieged by IMF requests for spending cuts. There is something characteristically pernicious about this [shameless government blaming local authorities](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/04/nottingham-city-council-hits-back-rishi-sunak-letting-down-residents-claims) for supposed profligacy. The true blame lies with the 40%-plus reduction in the central government grant to councils imposed by George Osborne under the 2010 coalition government, and which has continued. In their desperation, councils resort to [all manner of ways of making money,](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/15/thurrock-council-hid-losses-gambled-millions-risky-investments) which only serve to make them unpopular. Now, I am familiar with the observation that people have a natural preference for tax cuts they can feel rather than public spending increases whose benefits to them are somewhat amorphous. Nevertheless, recent surveys suggest that public anger over the dilapidated state of the public services is so intense that the majority would [prefer Hunt to desist from trying to appease the lunatic right](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/06/public-dont-want-tax-cuts-truss-and-sunak-are-promising-poll-reveals), and take decisions that actually alleviate the pressures on the public weal. However, the chancellor has toned down his promises on the tax cut front. In addition to the limitations on his freedom of manoeuvre likely to be placed by the Office for Budget Responsibility, he must have taken fright at a [wild front page story](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/20/jeremy-hunt-claims-nigel-lawsons-mantle-as-he-teases-tax-cuts) in the _Mail on Sunday_ recently. This was promising a “Lawson boom” tax-cutting bonanza, but Jeremy Hunt is old enough to remember how the Lawson boom of 1988 ended in one of the worst recessions since the second world war, and the pound’s ignominious ejection from the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM) on Black Wednesday, 16 September 1992. > I find a disconcerting number of natural Labour sympathisers are not so sympathetic about the leadership’s ultra-defensive tactics The combination of the government’s cynical approach to the public spending crisis and its insouciant attitude towards the manifest economic and social harm wreaked by Brexit makes me long for the British public to voice the kind of “savage indignation” expressed about other matters by the Roman poet Juvenal. As the bureaucracy associated with the latest stage of Brexit negotiations takes effect, [making life harder for exporters and importers](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/27/its-impossible-to-plan-uk-importers-braced-for-storm-at-ports-amid-new-brexit-checks) – and guaranteeing delays and higher prices – some Brexiters are beginning to run for cover. I was surprised when my friend the Keynesian economist Roger Bootle opted for Brexit. His latest [column in the](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/28/brexit-not-terrible-mistake-economic-opportunities/) _[Daily Telegraph](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/28/brexit-not-terrible-mistake-economic-opportunities/)_ was headlined “No, Brexit was not a terrible mistake”. But the article sounded defensive – _almost_ apologetic. He concluded: “Admittedly, if the UK makes a mess of its independence while the EU gets its act together, then we will have paid a not inconsiderable price for our exit.” He says that “on the balance of the evidence that is unlikely. But only time will tell.” Well, I think it is pretty obvious that time has already told. Our act of self-harm has not yet reached the stage which, according to Plutarch, led Caesar to abandon his conquest of Britain because “the islanders were so miserably poor that they had nothing worth left to plunder”. But a succession of recent governments has been working on it. As for Labour, I find that a disconcerting number of natural Labour sympathisers are not so sympathetic to the leadership’s ultra-defensive tactics. This applies to everything from the open goal of Brexit to the [thorny subject of bankers’ bonuses](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/31/labour-party-cap-bankers-bonuses-financial-services). Labour’s concentration on relatively peripheral issues calls to mind Proust’s passage in _Swann’s Way_ about Charles Swann’s approach to life: “Thus he had grown into the habit of taking refuge in trivial considerations, which enabled him to disregard matters of fundamental importance.” I am told it will all be very different when – or if – they win the election. Let us hope so! Meanwhile, they are even backtracking on such important initiatives as their £28bn green investment plan and taking fright at Neil Kinnock’s well-thought-out wealth tax proposal, calculated not to frighten the horses or even wealthy horse owners. This is a different kettle of fish from the question of changes to inheritance tax, the possibility of which seems to be worrying the Tories. However, I have said it before and I shall say it again: the revenues lost to the hit from Brexit will severely constrain a [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) chancellor. We need the single market!

For the umpteenth time, my son, with an Ikea stuffed ball he has had since infancy, is playing football in the living room. He is joined by one of his best friends, an equally football-obsessed 10-year-old who, before slide-tackling in what can only be described as a deliberate attempt to knock my son’s legs off, shouts: “Brexit means Brexit!” Confused, I pass it off as an example of tweenage precocity: which 10-year-old is happy to quote Theresa May while playing football? Over the next year, however, I will hear the term used again and again when my son plays football at the local park. He turns 11 and is off to secondary school. There, too, the phrase seems to have become a “thing”. One evening, as he recounts the details of how he got a painful-looking graze on his shin, he quotes the attacking player’s prelude to clattering into him: “Brexit means Brexit!” I ask, finally, why people are saying this. Nonchalantly, as he practises “skills” with the same softball, he explains that the Brexit tackle “is a tackle that doesn’t get the ball, only takes out the player”. [Urban Dictionary concurs](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Brexit%20means%20brexit), stating it is, among other things, “when somebody hits a massive slide tackle and usually sends them flying and it hurts them servely \[sic\]”. At first, I assumed this was a north London phenomenon until a quick Google proved otherwise. TikTok, now “the [most favourable single source](https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/tiktok-teenagers-favourite-news-source-b2378563.html) of news” for teenagers, was where my research flourished. In one TikTok post, football content creator [Kalan Lisbie](https://www.tiktok.com/@kalan_lisbie/video/7311772522297543968), with tongue firmly in cheek, walks viewers through “how to do the Brexit tackle”. He informs us that “the first thing you need to do is pretend like you’re going to boot the ball away and not tackle. Second thing is that you want to rotate those hips and as soon as you rotate, you want to take absolutely everything … and then just clean him”. A commenter on another video notes that school football is now more like WWE. [](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/14/brexit-tackle-politics-children-football#img-2) Leeds United v Rotherham United on 10 Feb: Leeds defender Connor Roberts makes a tackle Photograph: Simon Davies/ProSports/REX/Shutterstock So where did the “Brexit tackle” come from? The phrase “Brexit means Brexit” became a joke right from its inception because it was so obviously meaningless – as even a Tory minister [admitted at the time](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-means-brexit-theresa-may-catchphrase-meaningless-tory-minister-uk-eu-a7381526.html). In the face of great complexity, we were given what Fintan O’Toole called “[ludicrous tautology](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/britain-must-accept-ambiguity-to-survive-brexit/)”. That young people now repeat the political slogan during aggressive play should tell us that the phrase has become symbolic of a kind of empty-headed belligerence. If we keep in mind that the tackler is willing to hurt themselves – either by getting sent off the pitch or injuring themselves physically – then it can also be read as a pugnacious attempt to make things worse for yourself, just to make a point. There’s a healthy dose of irreverence in there too – you have to admit, there’s something very funny about one child barking “Brexit means Brexit!” to another in a muddy park. You get the sense they’re having fun at older generations’ expense. Ask any parent of a tweenager or older: no one is better able to comprehensively make fun of, or call attention to, adult flaws and hypocrisy. By adopting “Brexit means Brexit” and transforming it into a symbol of almost dangerously rough play, you get the sense that children are holding up a mirror to the adult world. They’re using it as a joke, to be sure, but it’s a timely reminder that politicians’ words and political stances extend far beyond the immediate context, seeping into the fabric of our children’s lives. Their playful satire draws on the overt aggression of our Punch and Judy politics, which started at Westminster and has now made it on to the school football pitch. Wouldn’t it be nice to have politicians whose shallowness and hypocrisy aren’t so easily mocked by 10-year-olds? * Lola Okolosie is an English teacher and writer

A week before the Brexit vote on 23 June 2016, a reporter from an Irish radio station caught up with Nigel Farage on the campaign trail. He asked the Ukip leader if Britain’s departure from the EU would have any implications for the island of [Ireland](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ireland). “Don’t worry, we’ll still buy your Guinness,” replied Farage, which chimed with the leave side’s broader dismissal of the consequences for the Good Friday agreement arising from the vote. As it turned out, Brexit had a profound impact on Ireland – not least that it put the constitutional question firmly on the table. Before the Brexit referendum, very few people expected a border poll on Irish unity to take place within the following 25 to 50 years. Northern Ireland was settling into peaceful coexistence. Once implacable foes, the DUP and Sinn Féin ruled together in a power-sharing administration. But everything changed the day after the result was called: Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Féin deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, [called for a border poll](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-northern-ireland-eu-referendum-result-latest-live-border-poll-united-martin-mcguinness-a7099276.html). For the first time in living memory, the main political parties in Dublin began addressing the issue of Irish unity. The genius of the Good Friday agreement is that it smoothed over grievances that had plunged Northern Ireland into decades of bloody conflict. People could choose to be British, Irish, Northern Irish, European, or all of these. What’s more, the border between the six counties of Northern Ireland with the 26-county southern state – a source of deep antagonism for many in the nationalist community – had been [made invisible](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/08/brexit-irish-border-technology) through the UK and Ireland’s common membership of the EU. Brexit sundered the legislative underpinning of the historic 1998 peace accord. People were once again forced to choose between being British or Irish as the UK’s exit from the bloc undermined Northern Ireland’s “shared space” that enabled people to have fluid identities. More importantly, however, [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) tested Northern Ireland’s position within the union, perhaps more than any other event over the past century. Hardline Brexiters wanted a complete exit from the EU, including leaving the customs union and single market. The EU insisted that the UK honour its obligation to maintain a seamless border between the north and south of Ireland as part of the peace accord. The two positions were irreconcilable. To break the impasse, the Irish government proposed putting the border down the Irish Sea, which prompted a furious backlash from unionists. They said that they would never accept any border that put Northern Ireland on a different constitutional footing from the rest of the UK. They were given reassurance in 2019 when, during his campaign to become prime minister, Boris Johnson gave a solemn pledge to unionists that he would never accept a border down the Irish Sea. In [October 2019](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/15/boris-johnson-close-to-brexit-deal-after-border-concessions), he signed a deal that put a customs border down the Irish Sea. Even though Johnson had no intention of honouring this legally binding agreement, it was a profound jolt to unionism. [Opinion polls show](https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2022/12/03/poll-shows-northern-ireland-rejects-unity-by-large-margin/) that the majority of people in the Republic of Ireland want a border poll within five years and will vote for a united Ireland, with caveats. People in Northern Ireland want a border poll over a 10-year timeframe but the majority want to stay in the union. In reality, it is impossible to gauge the appetite for unification among people on both sides of the border until they know what a “new” Ireland would look like. Is it a reversal of the current arrangement whereby the devolved Stormont administration could continue in a federal Ireland, with unionists free to maintain their British citizenship? Would a united Ireland have a new flag? A new constitution? A new national anthem? These are extremely complex issues, not least for people in the republic who cherish these symbols and are reluctant to give them up. If there is to be a referendum, there needs to be extensive dialogue between nationalist and unionist communities in Northern Ireland and the south. The Dublin government is wary about planning for unification in case it further destabilises an already fragile political backdrop in Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, the main unionist political parties refuse to engage in any talks about a united Ireland, although they privately acknowledge that a border poll is coming. Just as republicans never accepted British rule in Northern Ireland, hardline unionists and loyalists will never accept a united Ireland. Ultimately, a border poll will be decided by the growing middle ground in Northern Ireland – moderate unionists and nationalists and those who identify as neither. They will want reassurance over identity and rights in any new dispensation, but by far the biggest factor that will sway their votes is economics. This is the biggest challenge facing advocates for a united Ireland. People in the republic will not vote for unification if it means paying more taxes. People in Northern Ireland will not vote to make themselves poorer. The UK government transfers about £10bn every year to plug Northern Ireland’s fiscal deficit. Not only would Dublin have to guarantee this annual subvention, it would have to show that Northern Ireland could prosper after unification. Again, Brexit could play a role. Ireland’s economy is booming thanks in part to investment that would have [otherwise gone to the UK](https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/features/ireland-benefited-brexit-dublin-financial-services/?cf-view) before its departure from the EU. The UK economy has been [suffering since the 2016 vote](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/25/what-have-we-done-six-years-on-uk-counts-the-cost-of-brexit#:~:text=Figures%20from%20the%20Centre%20for,had%20stayed%20in%20the%20EU.). Ironically, Brexiters such as Farage have done more for Irish unity than the countless Irish republicans who have made blood sacrifices in the name of freedom over the past few centuries. * John Walsh is a Dublin-based journalist, and writer and co-producer of the feature-length documentary The Irish Question, which premiered at Dublin international film festival

Emanuela Reccia has lived in London for almost a decade. She was a teenager when she left her home city of Naples to become a waitress in the UK, bringing her expertise and love of Italian cuisine to the capital. But the 27-year-old, like thousands of other Italians working in the UK hospitality industry, now feels she has no option but to leave and return to [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) after the latest round of post-Brexit rules. The [new Brexit-driven regulations](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/11/new-brexit-checks-to-cost-uk-business-2bn-and-fuel-inflation-report-finds), which came into effect last week, raised the minimum salary threshold for a skilled work visa from £26,000 to £38,700, far more than many restaurant employees earn. The average wage for waiting staff in London in 2024 is £28,000, according to recruitment site Glassdoor. Last week, the Italian press lamented the end of a rite of passage for young Italians, who would no longer be able to get visas to work as waiters in London. In the daily newspaper _Corriere della Sera_, Antonio Polito wrote: “A young Italian with initiative, the will to work and curiosity could once say ‘I’ll go to London’.” Reccia, who works at Ciao Bella, a restaurant in Bloomsbury that has been open since 1983, said: “In this country we are very stressed now and under pressure. Before [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) … we were free. “If I leave, I’m going to miss it a lot. When I’m away from Italy I miss my family, but London became my second home and I bought a house here. For me, it’s very hard to leave.” [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/apr/14/its-catastrophic-italian-restaurants-in-london-struggle-to-find-staff-post-brexit#EmailSignup-skip-link-6) Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news, culture and stories brought to you by the best Observer writers **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion [](https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/apr/14/its-catastrophic-italian-restaurants-in-london-struggle-to-find-staff-post-brexit#img-2) Authentic Italian places ‘need cooks and waiters that understand the food and the wine’ says the owner of Ciao Bella. Photograph: Caiaimage/Chris Ryan/Getty Images/iStockphoto Reccia’s husband has already moved to Spain to pursue job opportunities because the couple are finding UK living costs too high. Plaxy Locatelli, who runs Locanda Locatelli in Marylebone, central London, with her husband, Michelin-starred chef Giorgio Locatelli, said that before Brexit they had never had any problems finding Italian chefs and waiting staff. In recent years, however, she has noticed a downturn in the availability of Italian staff. “It has been an absolute disaster,” she said. “We’ve been open for 22 years and held on to many of the same staff for a long time. They’re now feeling it’s not worth it in the UK and are deciding to leave after all this time.” Reccia’s boss, Ciao Bella’s owner, Patrizia Pollano, took over the restaurant with her late husband in 1999. She said she had never faced such a shortage of Italian staff in 25 years: “I have staff who have been with me for eight years but now they want to leave.” She added that even if they earn good wages, they are finding the [cost of living](https://www.theguardian.com/business/cost-of-living-crisis) in the UK too high. “I completely understand that. If they go, I don’t know how long I can carry on \[with the business\].” Pollano has offered her staff higher wages in the hope of encouraging them to stay. And although she does hire non-Italian staff, she expects them to know about Italian food and culture. “When running an Italian restaurant, you need to have cooks and waiters who understand the food and the wine,” she said. “This is an authentic Italian place: the customers expect it to have an Italian atmosphere and vibe.” Locatelli agrees: “Food is important in the Italian lifestyle. Young Italian people come to the UK to work in cafes and restaurants, and see it as a real art. It’s more than a job – it’s a career. People come to the restaurant for the Italian food and have commented that it’s strange to not have as many Italian staff as would be expected any more. This is catastrophic for the industry.”

Exports are performing badly, [_pace_ the fantasy world of the _Daily Express_](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/15/the-guardian-view-on-the-uk-recession-no-growth-and-no-ideas-either); supply lines for imports once regarded as routine are disrupted or discontinued altogether; staff shortages owing to new restrictions on travel and employment of our fellow Europeans are hurting the hospitality trade in what we used to boast about as our “service economy”. The UK’s economy is “[5% worse off than it would be in the EU](https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/feb/12/the-body-shop-uk-set-to-appoint-administrators-biden-shrinkflation-economy-europe-business-live?page=with:block-65ca11c08f086f2438b7c8a1#block-65ca11c08f086f2438b7c8a1)” according to a recent well-researched report by Goldman Sachs. Welcome to Brexit Britain! In the early days of the [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) disaster, I met Michel Barnier, the EU’s impressive negotiator, at a high-powered conference on Lake Como organised by the Ambrosetti Institute. We agreed what a disaster was in store if the UK did not come to its senses. I also met the rightwing Dutch “firebrand” [Geert Wilders](https://www.theguardian.com/world/geert-wilders), who at the time, and for some time after, was a campaigner for “Nexit” – the Netherlands leaving the EU. Wilders was very interested in British politics, and I did my best to inform him, not least on the horrors of Brexit. I know I didn’t change his mind about Nexit – this was in 2017 – but the evidence of the damage wreaked by Brexit is now manifest to all. Wilders has apparently dropped his campaign to leave the union and prefers to alter it “from within”. If there is one positive thing Brexit has achieved, it has been to have a salutary effect on rightwing continental politicians’ opposition to the EU. Neil Kinnock, the former [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) leader, has memorably described the subject of Brexit as “the mammoth in the broom cupboard”. The present Labour leadership knows it is a disaster, but, in advance of the election, is terrified of offending “red wall” voters who were conned by the propaganda of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and co. And the Tories also know what a disaster it is, but they prefer to confess this among consenting adults in private. One exception is Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has a great sense of humour and claims with a straight face: “There is no doubt that leaving the EU was the best decision we could have made for our economy.” Which brings me to the fact that another former Labour leader, Harold Wilson, is back in the news. Wilson won four elections and was a consummate politician. It is [revelations about his love life](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/11/harold-wilson-confessed-to-secret-love-match-while-pm-former-aide-reveals) that have brought him back in the news, but for me what really matters is the revival of memories about how he held the warring factions of the Labour party together, and contrived to ensure that it backed the “remain” case when there was a referendum in 1975 about whether we should stay in what was then the European Economic Community. (We had entered in 1973 under the Conservative premiership of Edward Heath.) > Apart from the commercial opportunities of a resumption of membership of the EU, strategic considerations may come to the fore Our membership of what was also known as the common market galvanised the British economy and undoubtedly boosted output and growth – adding some 8% to gross domestic product, according to the economic historian Nicholas Crafts. Now, last week there was a report in the _Financial Times_ about a paper from a political consultancy claiming that if Labour won the next election handsomely it would immediately seek to move closer to the EU via “a de facto customs union by another name”. This was so sensitive that it [prompted an immediate denial](https://www.ft.com/content/7455cd2f-aa54-458f-9900-7f7bd781b546), with Labour’s shadow cabinet office minister and spokesperson on Europe, Nick Thomas-Symonds, claiming the party was committed “to making Brexit work” and that there would be “no return to the single market, the customs union or return to freedom of movement”. In my opinion, such protestations must be a holding operation until, one hopes, this miserable gang of Tories are thrown out and sensible relations with the rest of [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) can be resumed. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/14/even-europes-far-right-firebrands-seem-to-sense-brexit-is-a-disaster#EmailSignup-skip-link-11) Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news, culture and stories brought to you by the best Observer writers **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion There are those who worry that we may well be on the verge of a third world war. As Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JP Morgan Chase, has recently said: “Recent events may very well be creating risks that could eclipse anything since world war two. We should not take them lightly.” Who knows? But the geopolitical situation is looking bleak. Defence spending may have to rise dramatically. Quite apart from the commercial and investment opportunities of a resumption of membership of the EU, strategic considerations may well come to the fore. It was Heath’s predecessor but one, Harold Macmillan, who is ­supposed to have declared that what he feared most was “events, dear boy, events”. I fear I have an uneasy ­feeling that the Labour government the polls are telling us to expect is going to be confronted with “events” in spades.

Only those born before 1998 could vote on Brexit, so there is no conceivable way of knowing which way today’s 18- to 30-year-olds would have felt about it. Oh, except there is: 70% of 18- to 24-year-olds [think leaving the EU](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1393682/brexit-opinion-poll-by-age/) was a bad idea. Of the 25- to 49-year-olds, 66% also think we were wrong to leave. If you can bear to drag your mind back to the immediate aftermath of Brexit, you’ll recall that words like “overwhelming” and “vast” were completely debased by their use in conjunction with majorities that were actually wafer-thin. So let’s just say most young people are remainers. For a long time, politics has dealt with the young remainer as it does with the rest of us; ignore us for long enough, and we’ll go away. If the Brexit argument had had any foundation – if it had brought [trading or other benefits](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/04/brexit-trade-perks-firms-business-department-leaving-eu-companies), if it had caused only negligible difficulties and those of the teething variety – then that would probably have worked. Most referendum outcomes get more popular over time. Being in a state of constant vexation over a reality you can’t control is uncomfortable. You don’t go looking for trouble like that but, particularly if you’re young, trouble keeps on looking for you. That generation had four years of watching Westminster discuss nothing but [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum), in ever less rational terms, at the expense of any action on the issues – mainly the climate crisis – it cares about. It then had to live through a pandemic, suffering the harshest possible ratio of personal sacrifice to personal risk on behalf of others, while its school and university life was cratered and it found itself responsible for every imaginable social ill, on account of its wokery. I have become so used to young people being ignored, noticed only when they can be pilloried for going on a protest march or having a mental illness, that I forgot what a normal political contract looks like: young people should be offered every known opportunity, since the realisation of their potential is any society’s highest goal. The European Commission did not forget, and I guess we have its bureaucrats and pen pushers to thank for that. Ursula von der Leyen [suggested a reciprocal scheme](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/18/brussels-proposes-return-to-pre-brexit-free-movement-for-uk-and-eu-young-people) in which 18- to 30-year olds from all member states plus the UK could live, work or study across the EU for four years. It was swiftly rejected by Rishi Sunak, a [government spokesperson](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/19/sunak-rejects-offer-of-mobility-scheme-for-young-people-between-eu-and-uk) giving as the reason “free movement within the EU was ended and there are no plans to introduce it”. It was a depressingly familiar reprisal of the post-referendum discourse, when engagement and justification were jettisoned in favour of a simple “no, because we said so”. Perhaps even more dispiriting is that Labour responded with a weaker version of the same stance, citing its “red lines – no return to the single market, customs union or free movement”. No, because they said so. But the context has changed: [57% of Britons](https://www.whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/in-highsight-do-you-think-britain-was-right-or-wrong-to-vote-to-leave-the-eu/?pollster%5B%5D=yougov) of all ages now think leaving the EU was wrong. This is partly demographic change, partly that there are [more leavers with regrets](https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/UKICE-The-State-of-Public-Opinion-2023-2-.pdf) (16%) than remainers (6%), and partly that the economic and practical consequences have become impossible to ignore. Hardline Brexiters were originally spared the embarrassment of a reckoning by the sheer number of factors that could be contributing to our low-productivity, low-growth, low-wage, low-participation economy. It could be Brexit or it could be Covid; it could be the mismanagement of Liz Truss, but hey, don’t forget Boris Johnson. While all these factors, as well as the war in Ukraine, still get name-checked in polls about our national malaise, specific attributable disasters are building up: businesses describe the border plans being in “[complete disarray](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/19/brexit-plans-eu-import-checks-businesses-trade-checks?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other)”; farmers were promised that EU subsidies would be directly replaced, but have found instead an unwieldy system that privileges the largest landowners and is too complex for smaller farms to access; independent trade deals have failed to materialise; [Northern Ireland’s economy](https://www.politico.eu/article/northern-ireland-economy-outpace-post-brexit-britain/) started to outpace the rest of the UK’s 18 months ago, which analysts have explicitly credited to its barrier-free trade. The project has been unravelling in broad daylight, ever since Johnson triumphantly got it done in 2020. The lines and the language, the arguments and the tropes of Brexiters all had a tendency to infantilise opponents, silence us with bare assertion and un-won authority, dispensing ad hominem blah about metropolitan elitism and “jam tomorrow” fantasies about the future. Rhetorical manoeuvres that were effective in the half-light of hypotheses simply cannot survive the interruption of so much reality. Certainly, there are already large sections of the Conservative party who think boosting the salience of migration, via the Rwanda policy and small-boat hysteria, will galvanise support for a new isolationist narrative, in which EU nostalgia will never have a place. But the rest of Westminster needs to wake up to the fact that what looked necessary post-2019 – respecting the referendum, making Brexit work – now looks like wilful denial. * Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

The [Great Taste awards](https://gff.co.uk/for-producers/great-taste/) are a British success story – the world’s largest food awards, celebrating the best products on the planet. But new post-Brexit import controls have forced the organisers to hold a judging panel outside the UK for the first time in the awards’ 30-year history. On Sunday, judges from the Guild of Fine Foods panel will travel to County Tipperary in Ireland to spend three days tasting products that have become much harder to bring to the UK. Since January, anyone sending meat, dairy or fish products to the UK has to [find a vet to fill out a seven-page form](https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/jan/27/new-brexit-rules-and-eu-vet-shortage-put-meat-imports-at-risk#:~:text=This%20stage%20of%20the%20%E2%80%9Cborder,disease%20and%20has%20certain%20vaccinations.) showing that the product is disease-free. And since April, exporters have also had to pay a fee of £29 for each product, whether it’s a container full of Irish beef or a single packet of Tayto cheese and onion crisps, unless they are for personal use. This includes the 13,672 samples sent to the Great Taste judges from 115 countries. John Farrand, the managing director of the Guild of Fine Food, said: “The friction at the borders has tripped us up this year. We’re a bellwether for the wider problems in the market. It’s irritating for us because it’s going to cost us a lot more money to go and judge in Ireland. We’re going to judge \[in Clonmel, Co Tipperary\] to help the smaller food and drink producers who can’t cope with the paperwork and the cost.” Some judging will still take place in the UK. Sally Ferns Barnes, a Scot who founded the Woodcock Smokery in West Cork in 1981 and won supreme champion at the 2006 Great Taste awards for her cold-smoked wild Atlantic salmon, is not entering this year. “We used to send entries every year,” she said. “It was a wonderful yardstick for us because you’re up against \[about\] 10,000 other products. When you win, you think, ‘I must be doing something right here’. “I didn’t enter because I thought, ‘what’s the point – I can’t offer it to customers in the UK any more.’ ” Barnes is the last Irish producer working exclusively with wild salmon – she refuses to use [farmed salmon](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/16/sea-lice-jellyfish-farmed-scottish-salmon-supermarkets), and this creates a problem with the paperwork to export to the UK. Fish get a “catch certificate” when they are landed to prove their origin, and Barnes needs this certificate to be able to apply for a vet’s health certificate to export to the UK. “An issue with wild salmon is that you don’t get catch certificates because it’s a freshwater fishery,” she said. “It’s not sea fisheries. So I’ve been trying to pester the \[Irish\] inland fisheries for information. They don’t know. They’ve never dealt with this. So they don’t know what to do.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/26/worlds-largest-food-awards-move-judging-panel-from-uk-to-ireland-to-avoid-brexit-red-tape#img-2) Irish producer Sally Ferns Barnes previously sold her award-winning salmon to Neal’s Yard Dairy but Brexit complications have made that unfeasible. Photograph: Simon Dack/Alamy Neal’s Yard Dairy has previously sold Barnes’s salmon and had offered to include her in a regular shipment it is running for seven Irish cheesemakers, but she has not felt able to accept. “If I don’t get it \[the paperwork\] 100% right and there’s one tiny thing wrong, the entire consignment would be delayed,” she said. “And you can’t do that with cheeses. I would be so deeply unpopular with all my cheesemaker friends. “I’ve spoken to other producers who would have been exporting, and most of them are not interested any more. We’ll look to [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) instead.” The possibility that a paperwork error will mean that entire consignments are delayed or even destroyed is a major risk for small food exporters like Barnes. Border controls for the new Brexit red tape will [cost at least £4.7bn](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/20/britain-brexit-border-checks-eu-cost-uk-firms-470m-a-year-says-watchdog), the National Audit Office said last week, and importers have complained that perishable shipments of food and flowers have faced delays, some up to 20 hours long, because [computer systems have failed](https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/may/15/brexit-border-it-outages-delay-import-of-perishable-items-to-uk-by-up-to-20-hours). [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/26/worlds-largest-food-awards-move-judging-panel-from-uk-to-ireland-to-avoid-brexit-red-tape#EmailSignup-skip-link-14) Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Overall, the cost of importing alone is likely to add £1bn to the UK’s food bill, according to the Cold Chain Federation, although the government estimates the cost will be £330m a year. Fruit and vegetables are not yet subject to the new rules but are expected to be included from October. The import controls also affect suppliers to larger retailers, including supermarkets, who may need to send samples out to dozens of product buyers at different organisations on several occasions before they are accepted on to the supermarket shelves. So while someone sending a pot of French jam to a supermarket buyer in the UK would have spent a few euros per sample before [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum), now they would spend closer to €100. “There is a huge irony here that the government is telling us to do more trade with Europe and the rest of the world in light of Brexit,” Farrand said. “And we’re busy trying to get business with retailers, but the movement of samples is being affected by border controls. “We are removing the colour, diversity and interest in our food and drink. We’re going to end up with fewer suppliers. That’s bad for our economy and for our nutrition.” A government spokesperson said: “These border checks are fundamental to protecting the UK’s food supply chain, farmers and natural environment against costly diseases reaching our shores. “Our robust analysis has shown they will have minimal impact on food prices and consumers, with just a 0.2% point increase on food prices over the next three years. “The cost of checks is negligible compared to the impact of a major disease outbreak, such as [foot and mouth disease in 2001](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/dec/29/footandmouth.Whitehall), which cost our economy more than £12.8bn in 2022 prices.”

Nigel Farage, the pro-Brexit campaigner and serial disrupter of British politics, announced plans on Monday to run as a candidate in Britain’s general election [next month](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/world/europe/uk-election-sunak-politics.html), dealing a new setback to the prospects of the country’s embattled prime minister, Rishi Sunak. The surprise announcement from Mr. Farage, who represents an insurgent hard-right movement that campaigns to curb immigration, threatens to upend the campaign by taking votes from Britain’s governing Conservative Party. In doing so, he could make it even harder for Mr. Sunak and his party to narrow a double-digit gap in the polls with the opposition Labour Party. Divisive, charismatic and famed for his communication skills, Mr. Farage was one of the architects of Brexit, which a slim majority of Britons supported in a 2016 referendum. An earlier decision by Mr. Farage not to run this year was thought by some analysts to have sapped momentum from his party, Reform U.K., the successor to the Brexit Party he once led. Mr. Farage said last month that [he would not seek](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/23/world/europe/nigel-farage-donald-trump-uk-election.html) a parliamentary seat because he wanted to prioritize supporting Donald J. Trump’s electoral campaign in the United States. Mr. Farage is a longtime ally of the former president and campaigned for him in 2016 and 2020. But on Monday Mr. Farage reversed his decision, saying he would take over as leader of Reform U.K. for the next five years and run for a seat in Parliament. “I’ve changed my mind — it’s allowed, you know,” he said. “I am going to stand in this election.” He added that he would run in Clacton, a seaside area where support for Brexit has been strong. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F03%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fnigel-farage-uk-parliament.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F03%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fnigel-farage-uk-parliament.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F03%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fnigel-farage-uk-parliament.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F06%2F03%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fnigel-farage-uk-parliament.html).

“Get [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) done” was the promise, repeated to the point of tedium, that took Boris Johnson’s Conservatives to a landslide victory in Britain’s 2019 election. But four and a half years later, the subject – for so long the defining issue in UK politics – has barely featured in this summer’s campaign. Keir Starmer, whose Labour party is 20 percentage points ahead on [the average of opinion polls](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/jun/03/uk-general-election-opinion-polls-tracker-latest-labour-tories-2024), hardly mentions Britain’s relationship with the EU, to the point where he had to deny [in a recent interview](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/09/i-want-to-win-everywhere-keir-starmer-sets-out-scale-of-labour-ambitions) that he was scared of talking about the issue. Labour aspires to no significant change in the UK’s status outside the EU, though Starmer said that he was determined to build a “closer, better” relationship with the 27-country bloc, while accusing Johnson of striking “a botched deal” in his haste to exit. Anand Menon, the director of the thinktank UK in a Changing [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news), said: “If you are so far ahead, whatever you’re doing is working, so why change it? “There is an underlying nervousness because Starmer is felt to be vulnerable to attack as a former remainer, anti-Brexit, and Labour needs to hold on to pro-Brexit leave voters.” Although the Brexit referendum took place in June 2016, resulting in a narrow 52% vote in favour of leaving the EU, there was no clear plan for its implementation. That unleashed a period of political turmoil which only ended when Johnson took control of the Conservatives and won the 2019 election. In the run-up to that vote, Starmer, then the party’s Brexit spokesperson, pressed for Labour to support a second referendum, saying “we would campaign for remain”. But so emphatic was Johnson’s election victory, and so important Labour’s need to win back Conservative votes among Brexit supporters, the topic has been suppressed. The silence – “Brexit omertà”, as Menon describes it – goes further. The prime minister, [Rishi Sunak](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/rishi-sunak), is also reluctant to talk about Brexit. This is partly a response to the fact that a diminishing number of Britons believe leaving the EU was a good idea, amid repeated stories emphasising implementation problems. This week, an [Italian trucker said he was kept waiting 55 hours by border officials in Kent](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/10/brexit-italian-driver-lorry-uk-border-post-sevington) while 10 of the plants in his lorry full of vegetation were inspected amid fears they carried harmful pests. Full post-Brexit controls on plant and animal imports were only implemented at the end of April, one of dozens of changes that have affected cross-border businesses. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have little to point to in terms of Brexit successes. Joe Tywman, founder of polling firm Deltapoll, said: “Last year, when we asked respondents to name any specific benefit of Brexit, only about one in 10 was able to name any specific benefit to the country and only about one in 20 was able to name any specific benefit to them and their family.” Though Sunak supported Brexit in 2016, he has never been notably enthusiastic, producing a tame video during his campaign to become the leader of the Conservatives in 2022. It featured a man shredding a single sheet of paper marked “EU legislation” and [promising weakly to “keep Brexit safe”](https://x.com/RishiSunak/status/1556590394170818560). “Sunak did not go into politics to talk about Brexit or immigration and never bought properly into both,” said James Starkie, a member of the main pro-Brexit Leave organisation, and adviser to three Conservative cabinet ministers. “Lots of Conservative policies on both issues have not really come off, and with Labour reluctant to stress either issue, it feels like both parties have made a pact not to talk about either topic.” Complicating the picture for the Conservatives is Nigel Farage, a rightwing populist actively chasing the party’s votes, who is one of the politicians that does want to talk about Brexit, but only to criticise the government’s record. Farage said at a campaign launch last week that Sunak’s party had presided over “a massive betrayal of the 17.4 million people who voted Brexit”, because it had failed to lead to a sharp fall in immigration. British voters, however, are focused on the economy, rebranded in the UK as the “cost of living crisis”. The last four and half years of Conservative rule have been dominated by soaring inflation, peaking at 11% in 2022 – levels not seen since the early 1980s – while mortgage costs shot up during the catastrophic 49-day premiership of Liz Truss, Johnson’s successor, after she announced a series of unfunded tax cuts. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/12/why-is-nobody-talking-about-brexit-in-the-uk-election#EmailSignup-skip-link-14) Sign up to Election Edition Make sense of the UK election campaign with Archie Bland's daily briefing, direct to your inbox at 5pm (BST). Jokes where available **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Economists estimate that leaving the EU has hit the UK’s gross domestic product, the overall size of its economy, by perhaps [between 2% and 3%](https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/impact-brexit-uk-economy-reviewing-evidence), but it is not a connection leading politicians are willing to make given that re-entry would almost certainly require another divisive referendum. Even the UK’s third party, and traditionally its most ardently pro-European, the Liberal Democrats, is barely mentioning Brexit. This week, the party [launched its policy manifesto](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/10/lib-dems-launch-election-manifesto-with-pledge-to-save-the-nhs) emphasising a promise to invest more in Britain’s health service – a marked contrast to 2019 when it committed to reverse the result of the Brexit vote. The Lib Dems ultimately performed poorly, winning just 11 parliamentary seats out of 650. Some would like Labour, given it is so far ahead, to be bolder in committing to move closer to the EU. Tom Baldwin, a former director of communications for the party and anti-Brexit campaigner, pointed to a quieter Labour commitment, made by the party’s spokesperson for foreign affairs, David Lammy. He wants to [negotiate a “security pact” with the EU](https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2024/05/06/la-doctrine-lammy-une-conversation-avec-le-prochain-ministre-britannique-des-affaires-etrangeres/), which could be extended to cover “economic security, climate security”, although it is unclear what it would mean in practice. But perhaps the most significant issue underpinning the Brexit silence is voter fatigue. Johnson’s victory in 2019 was based partly on sheer exhaustion with an issue that had dominated media coverage for the preceding three years, not least because an election held after the Brexit vote, in 2017, had produced a parliament without a majority for a single party. “If you do focus groups and mention Brexit, the biggest reaction you get from voters is a yawn and an eye-roll,” said Menon.

 LONDON — Britain's two major political parties have continued to focus their campaigning on taxation policy and the economy ahead of elections early next month, but for many British voters, immigration remains a [major concern](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/the-most-important-issues-facing-the-country) — with record high numbers of migrants arriving legally and irregularly. This will be the United Kingdom’s first general election since leaving the European Union more than four years ago. At a time when immigration has been central to electoral politics elsewhere in Europe, Brexit's implications for immigration policy remain a topic British policymakers seem loath to acknowledge. During last weekend's [European parliamentary elections](https://www.npr.org/2024/06/10/nx-s1-4998253/european-union-eu-parliament-elections-takeaways), anti-immigrant sentiment was one of several factors that helped far-right parties in several countries — including France, Germany and Italy — win more seats in the European legislature. Over several years starting around 2015, supporters of Brexit hailed its promise as a process that would provide Britain with greater control over its immigration policy. But in recent years, politicians have learned that leaving one of the world's largest economic blocs has not only damaged the U.K. economy, it has proved far from a panacea for the country's immigration challenges either. For more than two years, powerful pictures and often tragic stories of [thousands of people](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53699511) making dangerous boat crossings from France, with several [drowning incidents](https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/europe?region_incident=All&route=3896&year%5B%5D=2503&year%5B%5D=2502&year%5B%5D=2501&year%5B%5D=2500&year%5B%5D=10121&year%5B%5D=11681&incident_date%5Bmin%5D=&incident_date%5Bmax%5D=), have affected the British public. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s solution to stop those boat crossings is a plan to [deport irregular migrants to Rwanda](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/22/1246368505/uk-rwanda-sunak-deportation-bill-migrants), in East Africa, for their asylum claims to be processed there. But after two years of trying and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, multiple [court decisions](https://www.npr.org/2023/11/15/1213147180/uk-supreme-court-rwanda-asylum-policy-sunak) blocked the policy as unlawful, no flights to Rwanda have taken off yet, and Sunak has [acknowledged no flights](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-69052507) will do so before election day on July 4, and only then if he wins the election.  His opponents in the Labour Party, which is leading in [opinion polls](https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/), have already made clear they will scrap the plan if they win power. One prominent Brexit cheerleader, Nigel Farage, also supports stringent policies for potential asylum-seekers. He recently announced he's [running for Parliament](https://www.npr.org/2024/06/06/nx-s1-4991762/anti-establishment-candidate-nigel-farage-could-split-the-u-k-s-conservative-vote) with the relatively new right-wing Reform U.K. party — which is now close to the governing Conservatives [in the polls](https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/). "We should deport people who come to Britain illegally, and we used to," he said during a recent [interview with the BBC](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0j22lyt), in which he pointed to a significant [fall in the number of annual deportations](https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/deportation-and-voluntary-departure-from-the-uk/), which he considers to be a failing deterrent for would-be migrants. "Once people know that if they come to Britain illegally, they absolutely will not be allowed to stay, they will stop coming.” Political opponents say Farage refuses to acknowledge publicly the problem is — at least in part — rooted in Brexit. But he’s not alone. In April, an editor at British television’s [ITV News](https://www.itv.com/news/2024-04-24/cameron-defends-innovative-rwanda-bill-but-does-he-truly-love-this-policy) asked Foreign Secretary David Cameron, a Conservative who was prime minister from 2010-2016, whether he would have pushed through the Rwanda plan if he had himself still been the premier. “We had a totally different situation," he responded, "where you could return people directly to France. Now, I'd love that situation to be the case again, that's the most sensible thing." But that option is “not available at the moment,” he continued. "It's simply not possible." The editor asked whether it was because of Brexit. He demurred, responding it was "because of the situation we're in." The clip went viral, as an implied admission that Brexit had somewhat failed to allow Britain to “[take back control](https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/perspective/eu-ref-haughton)," as its boosters promised it would. Prior to [Brexit in 2020](https://www.npr.org/2020/01/31/801289239/brexit-day-what-to-know-when-the-u-k-leaves-the-eu), Britain's membership of the EU allowed the country to return asylum-seekers to other EU member states they had traveled from, including France, under a pact known as the Dublin agreement. "Its principal aim is to prevent asylum shopping — so asylum-seekers picking and choosing the destination country," explains Peter Walsh from the Migration Observatory, a research center at Oxford University. "That provided a mechanism for us to return asylum-seekers to the European continent, but when we left the EU, we also left that system." Walsh says recreating a similar set of multilateral agreements has proved difficult since Brexit, with Europeans disinclined to help. That includes France, where the U.K. government has spent tens of millions of dollars helping to fund French police patrols of beaches to disrupt the people trafficking that helps people travel on rubber dinghies the several dozen miles of water to southern England.  Britain's status as an island also makes patrolling its borders — paradoxically — more complicated, Walsh says, since pushing migrant arrivals back at sea is considered too dangerous. Brexit threw up other immigration-related challenges too: making it much harder for European citizens to move to Britain for work, and vice versa. That meant many more non-Europeans have arrived in the U.K. with work permits to fill job vacancies, forcing legal [migration numbers](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023#main-points) to record highs." People who think migration is a really important issue — it has increased in the last year," says Mariña Fernández-Reino, an academic who researches British public attitudes to immigration. She says public [anger over immigration](https://www.npr.org/2016/07/05/484832444/brexit-vote-leads-to-increased-anti-immigrant-sentiment-in-the-uk) has subsided substantially and attitudes have softened since the 2016 Brexit referendum, when what she calls "restrictionist views" were very common. But her research also indicates that while politicians rarely succeed in swaying people's minds over the subject of immigration — since many hold entrenched beliefs on the subject — it is possible for political leaders to mobilize people who hold opinions, one way or another, as was the case with Brexit. And during periods such as elections, that potential to mobilize can prove very powerful.

 For a German audience currently staring with disbelief at an [upsurge of far-right populism](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/18/far-right-violence-significant-threat-german-democracy-minister-warns) on its own doorstep, the British elections are mostly a reminder of where the destructive cluelessness of populist politicians can lead a country. Nothing you want to look at too closely, when you are potentially just at the beginning of such a turn of events yourself. But then there is something else. It’s not that Labour’s Keir Starmer is boring, as is often complained about here in London. (No, boring is good in Germany. It’s the ultimate German virtue.) The current mix of slight lack of interest and amazement in Germany stems from something different. It is the rather bizarre fact that nobody seems either able or willing to talk about what has happened since the 2016 referendum to leave the EU. Brex-omertà is a fascinating phenomenon, but one that is rather hard to explain in Hamburg or Berlin. It is a cliche, but we tend to acknowledge our problems, then try to develop strategies to fix them. This, however, is not what Britain generally, nor the Labour party specifically, has decided to do. And most of the UK media weirdly plays along. This leaves the country with a big, problem that can’t be named, which increases the risk that past mistakes will be repeated. Seeing Nigel Farage re-emerge as the anti-establishment figure is surreal, to say the least. With some honourable exceptions, most interviewers are not willing to challenge Farage or break the Brexit taboo. Instead, they accept his deceitful narrative that he is (still) an outsider. They do not hold him to account for having used false claims and promises to lead Britain out of the EU. Instead they give him space to rant, again. It feels like a very British Groundhog Day. The eerie silence around the issue seems even more absurd given that a large majority of British voters now regret Brexit. Those who would like it to be rectified have to hold their noses at the ballot box and hope Starmer is lying, or at least omitting parts of his plans for Britain’s future. If Labour does prove more radical in power than it currently appears – and to solve Britain’s economic problems it will have to be – others who vote Labour may feel they have been deceived. Yet this is not a way to restore trust in politics so badly damaged by the populism of recent years. The total absence of a proper political debate on what has happened post-Brexit will also make it much harder for Labour when in office. Starmer might prove us all wrong and I genuinely hope he does, but seen from a continent that is just about to confront its own populist wave, his overly defensive tactics are hardly inspiring. * Annette Dittert is the senior UK correspondent for ARD German TV [María Ramírez](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/mar-a-ramirez): The tone is more civil than in Spain but is filling potholes really a promise in a G7 country? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  A few weeks ago, I [interviewed James Hall](https://www.eldiario.es/cultura/musica-britanica-sufre-efectos-brexit-giras-audiciones-conciertos-cancelados_1_11409970.html), a British countertenor I once saw on Broadway [playing Farinelli](https://playbill.com/article/farinelli-and-the-king-starring-mark-rylance-recoups-broadway-investment-as-limited-engagement-ends) alongside Mark Rylance. He was on his final days of permitted work in the EU due to Brexit rules, and spoke about missing opportunities to sing around Europe, “maddening” bureaucracy and the sadness of British musicians who are no longer part of a “continental community”. Labour is promising to ease rules for touring musicians and Hall hoped things would change with Keir Starmer. But, talking to him, something seemed broken beyond immediate repair. The limited opportunities at home mean Hall is now singing less and seeking alternative employment as a teacher. Sadness and cautious hope are common emotions I have found in my reporting from a UK on the cusp of a change that seems long overdue, considering how unusual it is to find voters declaring their support for the Conservatives. The energy of “cool Britannia” which I covered over two decades ago is nowhere to be found. Promises are as underwhelming as the state of the public finances. I find it puzzling that [filling potholes](https://news.sky.com/story/labour-pledges-to-fix-one-million-potholes-a-year-if-elected-13151648) is an actual electoral promise of a national party in a G7 economy. The tone of this election campaign is more civil, less polarised and more policy-based than what we see in Spain. At the same time, debate and interviews occur within a constrained framework of accepted truths: “net migration” is bad and everyone is tired of Brexit. Pollsters and political experts keep telling me Brexit is no longer a main public concern as an explanation for why candidates and the journalists interviewing them talk so little about it. Citizens may be tired of it, but my experience is that Brexit comes up in almost every conversation, especially when discussing broken Britain. No matter the topic, whether it is polluted water, a climate protest chorus, shady university donations, tomato shortages, high-speed trains or [conspiracy theories on traffic filters](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2023/jan/10/why-do-traffic-reduction-schemes-attract-so-many-conspiracy-theories): Brexit just comes up. When people learn that I am from Spain, they sometimes apologise to me as if the Brexit vote was an offence against European neighbours, even clarifying that they didn’t support leave. I take no offence, but I feel sorry for them. * María Ramírez is deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain [Antonello Guerrera](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/antonello-guerrera): Farage can smell blood. And Starmer should let his hair down ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  I have covered several election campaigns here in the UK and abroad, but I have never seen anything duller than this one. The Tories are destined to collapse after 14 tempestuous, sometimes scandalous years. Rishi Sunak, a pragmatic prime minister who toned down the hostile rhetoric and improved relations with the EU, has promised [several tax cuts](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/11/do-the-sums-add-up-in-tory-tax-cut-manifesto) and more benefits for pensioners. Nevertheless, talking with voters along the campaign trail, a substantial chunk of the conservative base say they wouldn’t vote for the Tories this time, not even if they got their national insurance slashed by 70%. The Labour party knows this well and has been playing it safe for two years. Labour invokes “change”, but there is no bold or inspirational promise. Just a pledge that they will be the good chaps, protecting Britain’s finances and restoring solidity and the country’s reputation. At least [Nigel Farage’s comeback](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/17/farage-unveils-reform-uks-140bn-pledges-that-economists-say-do-not-add-up) to lead the Reform party has stirred things up, which tells us an awful lot about the state of the UK. Farage can smell blood. To British friends and voters who advocate proportional representation, I always say: no system is perfect, but so far, first-past-the-post has saved your country from extremism or populist entities like the Five Star Movement in Italy. I have travelled a lot along this campaign trail and find the British people have an overwhelming sense of disillusionment and fatalism. In Worcester, I met a young man, Muhammad Waleed, and he told me he was not sure if he would vote for Labour because he could not see real change coming. Jane, a GP and Conservative party member in Wiltshire, sounded hopeless: “The NHS gets less and less money.” Compared to other campaigns I have covered, this one has no room for dreams and big hopes, not least because the leaders sound either robotic or artificial. Yet I travelled with [Sunak to the G7](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/13/rishi-sunak-denies-he-is-being-snubbed-after-awkward-start-to-g7-summit), and I can assure you that he is way more entertaining and funny during informal chats than he appears in public. Recently, Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, said the same thing about her boss, Keir Starmer. It’s true, we live in a social media age where every little mistake goes viral and this petrifies both Sunak and Starmer. But if both let their hair down, showing more wit and a common touch, it would help them and British voters. Being natural and unpredictable has made the fortune of several controversial leaders, such as Boris Johnson, Silvio Berlusconi and Farage, despite the many flaws in their political records. * Antonello Guerrera is the UK correspondent for the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica [Tessa Szyszkowitz](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tessa-szyszkowitz): The Austrian right is watching closely: will the Tories turn into a Trumpist party? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  After Boris Johnson “got Brexit done”, feverish Austrian interest in Britain died down. When Brexit turned out to be what in Vienna we call a _Rohrkrepierer_ (a dud), a tiny bit of shameful but quite delicious schadenfreude kept my readers going for a bit. But a medium-sized country with neither partners nor plans is only mildly newsworthy. Now the general election has put the UK back in our news. For one, because Nigel Farage is back. Austrians, of course, like to know that their own far-right party is not the only one whose candidates entertain the public with eccentric views on Adolf Hitler. A [Reform UK candidate](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/10/reform-uk-defends-candidate-over-hitler-neutrality-comments) who thinks the UK should have accepted Hitler’s offer of “neutrality”? Almost Austrian in spirit. Farage is arguably a lesser threat to democracy than Austria’s far-right Freedom party. But he deserves our attention for a different reason: he could be hugely dangerous to the Tories. If the Conservative party needs a new leader after a painful defeat, the radicalised, populist right wing around Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg could try to crown the Reform UK leader. Will Brexit, the poisoned gift that keeps on giving, turn the Tories into a Trumpist party like the Republicans in the US?. Austrian conservatives are watching closely since they are still reeling from the legacy of their own baby Trump, [Sebastian Kurz](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/02/austria-former-chancellor-sebastian-kurz-quits-politics), whose forced exit in 2021 left them directionless. I went to Stevenage to take the temperature in a bellwether constituency that first voted for Tony Blair’s Labour in 1997 and has been Conservative since 2010. In 2016, 60% voted for Brexit. Today, I found no one who still supported it. On the contrary, the town needs foreign workers. Especially big companies located there, such as Airbus. Voters feel betrayed by the government. After 14 years voters are turning quite naturally away from those in power. That might have happened, with or without Brexit. And now the UK, having delivered the rightwing populist project Brexit, may now get a social democratic government just as most of its EU neighbours are battling the rise of far-right parties. These parties might not be campaigning to quit the EU, but they certainly plan to undermine EU institutions and replace genuine European cooperation with nationalism. Only in the UK is the tide going in a different direction. As a result, with Labour in power, the UK might become more pro-European than some of the actual member states. The irony is not lost on me. * Tessa Szyszkowitz is the UK correspondent for the Austrian weekly Falter and the author of Echte Engländer: Britannien und der Brexit (Real Englanders: Britain and Brexit) [Jakub Krupa](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jakub-krupa): With Trump and Marine Le Pen focusing minds, Poles still care about who runs Britain ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Perhaps the most striking aspect of Polish coverage of the UK elections is that there is so little of it. Despite still being one of the largest economies in the world, a Nato ally, and home to as many Poles as some of the largest Polish cities, Britain has quite astonishingly disappeared from the news horizon. Donald Trump versus Joe Biden? Sure. Emmanuel Macron’s gamble in France? Up to a point. But the UK general election, not so much. Some of that is due to Poland’s extremely polarised domestic politics. There is little bandwidth for international news other than the war in Ukraine and the Moscow-induced migration crisis on Poland’s eastern border with Belarus. The all-but-certain change of government in London is seen primarily through that lens. Will Labour-led Britain still support a free and independent Ukraine and Nato’s defence of the eastern flank? For all the criticism of Conservatives domestically, both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak made the UK seem an important and reliable ally. Some in Poland vaguely recall Labour’s ambiguous defence policy during Jeremy Corbyn’s years and want clarity on what, if anything, would change under Keir Starmer. Nothing? Great – there’s not much else to see here, then. After the astonishment at the descent of the UK, once seen as a paragon of political stability and common sense, into utter chaos during the Johnson and Truss years, Poles have become so inured to unusual things happening in the UK that, paradoxically, the unusual no longer seems that unusual. Brexit seems largely consigned to history, primarily seen as a cautionary tale for anyone thinking they could follow the same path. There is some surprise that despite growing signs of Bregret, there is little movement to reverse the decision. Similarly, the unexpected re-emergence of Nigel Farage as a political player and the almost existential challenge to the Conservative party are both noted, but mostly as political anecdotes or trivia. Britain is no longer considered a tempting place to live. In fact, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, recently even made a specific political point at Britain’s expense. On the 20th anniversary of Poland’s accession to the EU, he promised Polish GDP per capita would surpass Britain’s by 2029. “[It’s better to be in the EU,](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/donald-tusk-eu-brexit-rishi-sunak-b2537897.html)” he declared. There are still enough reasons for Poles to care about who runs Britain, particularly as the spectre of Trump and Marine Le Pen focuses minds on international affairs. However, the contrast with previous campaigns could not be starker. * Jakub Krupa is a Polish correspondent in the UK

It is one of the oddities of this weirdest of election campaigns that the issue that helped give the Conservatives an [80-seat majority](https://fullfact.org/news/lord-cruddas-boris-johnson/) in 2019 has barely been mentioned. As far as the main parties are concerned, [Brexit is a done deal](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/13/bombastic-boris-johnson-wins-huge-majority-on-promise-to-get-brexit-done). The decision has been made. Time to move on. To be sure, much has happened since 2019, most notably a global pandemic, a cost of living crisis and the brief – yet drama-packed – premiership of Liz Truss. Making ends meet features more prominently in [voters’ lists of concerns](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49594-general-election-2024-what-are-the-most-important-issues-for-voters) than whether the UK should rejoin the single market. Even so, the fact that the UK [left the EU](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/feb/01/brexit-day-how-the-night-unfolded-as-the-uk-left-the-eu-video) since the last election matters. It matters because Brussels can no longer be blamed for the UK’s problems or the failure of UK politicians to deal with them. The EU can’t, for example, be fingered for [record net migration numbers in 2022](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06077/). Those are entirely due to decisions taken at Westminster. The likely scale of the Conservative defeat on 4 July will be the result of voters holding the government fully to account for rising prices, falling living standards and a failure to deliver on levelling up. There is no hiding place, and that’s good. Many of those who voted leave in 2016 because they felt ignored and marginalised still feel ignored and marginalised. They gave the Tories a chance and they blew it. From next week, they will almost certainly be able to see whether Labour can make a better fist of things. Keir Starmer has been on quite a journey since he was the shadow Brexit secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, [pressing for a second referendum](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/19/brexit-labour-must-keep-open-option-of-second-referendum). He has not just [ruled out](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/22/brexit-keir-starmer-eu) rejoining the EU but has also said there will be no return to the single market or the customs union. Instead, Labour wants to smooth out the wrinkles by negotiating a better trade deal with the EU than the one Boris Johnson secured. It remains to be seen whether Starmer’s fellow MPs and [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) party supporters have come on that journey with him, because for the most part they are solidly anti-Brexit and pro-EU. That has not always been the case, and there was a time in the 1970s and early 1980s when, under Tony Benn’s influence, Labour was the more Eurosceptic of the two main parties. But after Labour’s drubbing at the 1983 election there was then a shift towards a more pro-EU stance amid hopes that Brussels-style socialism offered a way to circumvent the policies of Margaret Thatcher. To say the least, the party is not entirely comfortable with Starmer’s decision to rule out rejoining the EU. Labour’s Brexit strategy was summed up by Starmer on one of the few occasions the issue has surfaced during the campaign – [a BBC Panorama interview](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg6609pw75xo) with Nick Robinson. “If you look at the problems for growth over the last 14 years, they were there, or many of them were there, before Brexit, so the idea that the sort of single silver bullet is simply the relationship with the EU is not something I accept.” Starmer is right about this. The parts of the country that voted most strongly for leave were those that saw the sharpest rises in [unemployment in the 1980s](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2017/04/28/brexit-blame-it-on-the-loss-of-industrial-jobs-not-on-globalisation/) and the biggest increases in incapacity benefits as attempts were made to massage the jobless figures down. They had the heaviest reliance on the tax credits to top up poverty pay, and they bore the brunt of the welfare cuts introduced by George Osborne after 2010. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has noted, progress towards the 2030 levelling up goals set in a 2022 white paper [has been “glacial”](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/19/glacial-progress-on-levelling-up-in-uk-means-more-resources-needed-says-thinktank) and in some areas the UK has gone backwards. Political developments on the other side of the Channel are helpful to Starmer, because he can point out to his critics that the EU is not exactly a haven of contentment and prosperity, and hasn’t been for some time. There is some irony in the fact that the left’s love affair with Europe began in the 1980s at a time when the EU’s economic performance took a marked turn for the worse. Then in the 90s, the single currency was supposed to deliver faster growth and greater shared prosperity. Instead, as the growing support for [populist parties](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/30/far-right-on-the-march-europe-growing-taste-for-control-and-order) shows all too clearly, monetary union has been accompanied by economic stagnation and rising inequality. Voters in the UK’s industrial heartlands are not the only ones who feel marginalised and ignored: the same sentiments are widespread in struggling parts of Germany and France, [particularly among young voters](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/25/europe/europe-election-youth-far-right-intl-cmd/index.html). Starmer may find that improving trade links with the UK is not top of the EU’s list of priorities. Instead, the pressure is on him to use all the tools at his disposal – tax, procurement, state aid, nationalisation, subsidies, skills, control of migration – as part of an activist industrial strategy designed to boost growth and narrow regional divides. This was what those on the left who supported [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) called for in 2016 and there is now even more of a need for such a strategy. Doubtless, some will say a Brexit growth strategy is an oxymoron. Others will say – with some justification – that Labour’s growth strategy is too small to make a difference. Some may even be quietly hoping for Labour to come a cropper because it will ease the way to rejoining the EU. But there is no real difference between Labour’s growth strategy and its Brexit strategy. If one fails then so does the other. * Larry Elliott is the Guardian’s economics editor * _**Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our [letters](https://www.theguardian.com/tone/letters) section, please [click here](mailto:[email protected]?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city/town/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.).**_

Vegetable growers in the UK have said crops could be adversely hit this year after post-Brexit border changes resulted in delays to seed imports. Trade bodies representing UK tomato and pepper growers said new rules for seed imports from the EU were causing delays of up to six weeks for deliveries, disrupting their growing schedules and finances. The British Tomato Growers’ Association (BTGA) said the delays were threatening yields and reducing the profitability of growers, while the Cucumber and Pepper Growers’ Association (CPGA) said the significant holdups were causing “costly crop delays” for some members. The problems were a result of post-Brexit rules that came into force on the 30 April and require import checks on a number of plant and animal products. These take place at border control posts (BCPs) at ports. The rules mean that for some high-risk seeds, including tomato, pepper and oilseed rape, testing in Britain is now required, in addition to checks in the country of origin. Dr Phil Morley, the BTGA technical officer, said UK testing could take up to 15 working days, while he had also heard of cases where seeds were being held at BCPs for long periods before being sent for testing. He said: “Some growers report a six-week delay in seeds arriving at British propagators from when they are being ordered. This has a knock-on effect for propagators who have programmed their propagation for other crops as well, so they have to rejig their programmes.” Morley added that this threatened food security, as delays in British production meant more imports. Tomato and pepper growers rely on imports of seeds or young plants from EU countries such as the Netherlands. In January, the National Farmers’ Union said [the new Brexit border checks could pose an “existential threat”](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/22/brexit-checks-existential-threat-uk-fruit-flower-growers#:~:text=6%20months%20old-,New%20Brexit%20checks%20%27pose%20existential%20threat%27%20to,UK%20fruit%20and%20flower%20growers&text=The%20UK%27s%20fruit%20and%20flower,biggest%20farming%20body%20has%20said.) to growers because the checks would lead to long delays and young plants being damaged or destroyed. The Guardian has spoken to several importers of plant goods that have seen [consignments damaged during physical inspections](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/13/dutch-lorry-drivers-uk-post-brexit-delays-dutch-hauliers). Commenting on the seed delays, Martin Emmett, who chairs the NFU horticulture and potatoes board, said: “We have been warning of issues for grower businesses after changes to BCPs for several years. “The results of these concerns are now having real-life impacts on businesses ability to operate and plan ahead for next season.” The British Society of Plant Breeders (BSPB) said the hold-ups were also preventing crucial UK trials of new oilseed rape varieties that could help produce better performing crops. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/13/brexit-delays-to-seed-imports-could-hit-crop-production-say-growers#EmailSignup-skip-link-13) Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion The BSPB said on Friday that seeds earmarked for the trial should have been sowed by 10 August, but had been held at border control posts. Anthony Hopkins, the head of policy at the BSPB, said: “Oilseed rape is a crop under many pressures, and it’s UK growers and supply chains which stand to lose out if they face delays in being able to grow the latest and best varieties compared with farmers in other countries.” The BTGA and the BSPB are now calling for the government to strike a deal with the EU that ensures mutual recognition of testing standards, so duplication can be minimised. A government spokesperson said: “Protecting UK biosecurity remains one of our key priorities and we are working with BCPs to ensure they operate effectively and with traders to ensure checks are completed efficiently, swiftly, and without significant delays. “We continue to work with industry on the importation of seeds, taking a pragmatic approach to supporting businesses and food security, while looking to improve the UK’s trade and investment relationship with the EU.”

Before a whistlestop European tour to Berlin and Paris, [Keir Starmer](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/keir-starmer) promised to mend “the broken relationships left behind by the previous government” and drive forward UK economic growth. Changing the tone with European leaders is the easy bit. Changing the substance – especially finding new arrangements to boost growth – is a much taller order. Starmer, who reiterated in Berlin on Wednesday that growth was “the number one mission of my government”, is [not the first prime minister](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/sep/20/salzburg-eu-summit-brexit-theresa-may-polite-doing-her-job-eu-chiefs-non-committal-verdict-on-mays-brexit-appeal-at-salzburg-politics-live?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-5ba3a302e4b03fd057f0dc38#block-5ba3a302e4b03fd057f0dc38) to find economic ambitions crimped by self-imposed red lines on Europe. Labour has ruled out rejoining the EU’s single market and customs union, the steps that would have the biggest impact in improving trade with the EU. Instead, the Labour manifesto promised to tear down “unnecessary barriers to trade” by negotiating a veterinary agreement with the EU, improving access for touring artists to the continent and striking mutual recognition agreements for professionals. Such policies amount to little more than [“tinkering around the edges of the relationship”](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/18/labour-eu-policy-economic-impact-brexit) and would do little to “address the continuing economic impacts of Brexit”, concluded a recent [report](https://ukandeu.ac.uk/reports/uk-eu-relations-2024/) from the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe (UKice). Meanwhile, the Office for Budget Responsibility, backed by [independent economists](https://www.cer.eu/sites/default/files/insight_JS_brexit-trade_25.1.24.pdf), has said its forecast for a 15% reduction in trade as a result of Brexit was [“broadly on track”](https://ukandeu.ac.uk/reports/uk-eu-relations-2024/). Academics at UKice expect that the veterinary agreement could boost [UK agri-food exports by 22.5%](https://ukandeu.ac.uk/would-a-veterinary-agreement-be-a-boost-for-uk-eu-agri-food-exports/#:~:text=In%20terms%20of%20headline%20figures,the%20agricultural%20sector%27s%20value%20added.), a lifeline for some small businesses but not decisive for the overall economy. Labour hopes it can deepen the economic relationship without joining the EU’s structures. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, for instance, has suggested a [“bespoke” arrangement for the chemicals industry](https://www.ft.com/content/d0a1f720-24a7-4cbb-80ce-da9e96c592f8) to avoid £2bn of extra costs mostly associated with duplicating EU requirements. Talk of bespoke deals raises the ghosts that haunted the [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) negotiations, namely the UK taking the benefits of the single market free from the EU’s common rules, enforcement or budget payments. “People will soon rediscover there is a reason why there were red lines,” a senior EU official told the Guardian. “What we don’t want is to have the single market cut in pieces. The UK – they are very good negotiators and they always want to cherrypick.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/28/labour-economic-ties-with-europe-eu-analysis#img-2) After talks on Wednesday morning, the governments of Keir Starmer and Olaf Scholz sent out what was termed a ‘joint declaration on deepening and enhancing UK-Germany relations’. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AP That said, officials are not expecting the enormous mismatch of expectations that bedevilled the early years of Brexit negotiations under Theresa May. Starmer, a [regular visitor to Brussels](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/18/jeremy-corbyn-to-meet-top-eu-brexit-negotiator-michel-barnier-in-brussels) when he was Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow Brexit secretary, is well known in the EU capital. He and his team “are well advised”, the senior official said. “They know what is feasible, what is not feasible.” One EU diplomat from a large member state expressed concern that the UK government was not being straightforward with British voters about EU demands. “They have to be honest with their public. We are not a shelf you can pick things off,” they said. The EU has been disappointed by Labour’s [dismissive response](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/22/uk-ministers-rule-out-joining-eu-youth-free-movement-scheme) to a proposed youth mobility scheme that would allow people aged 18-30 to work, live, study or travel for up to four years. Nils Schmid, the foreign affairs spokesperson for Olaf Scholz’s SPD party in the Bundestag, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a youth mobility scheme was “a major feature of our wishlist”, but “not about immigration in a general sense”. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/28/labour-economic-ties-with-europe-eu-analysis#EmailSignup-skip-link-11) Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Yet when answering a parliamentary question about the scheme in July, Starmer framed it in general terms: “We are not returning to freedom of movement.” In Berlin, however, he struck a more nuanced approach that seemed [to leave the door open](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/28/keir-starmer-appears-leave-door-open-eu-youth-exchange-scheme) to some kind of youth mobility programme. The earlier outright rejection dismayed the EU, especially its repeated conflation of a time-limited youth mobility scheme with free movement of people, a lifelong right for EU citizens. The EU diplomat expressed disappointment over [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) “dismissing it right out of hand because it looks like free movement \[when\] it is not free movement at all”. The person added: “I am personally surprised they think it’s toxic when \[the UK has\] the same arrangement with others,” referring to a UK-Australia agreement. Starmer’s government will face other EU demands. France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and other coastal states want to ensure post-Brexit fishing rights are extended beyond June 2026 when current arrangements lapse. Meanwhile, the [European Commission](https://www.theguardian.com/world/european-commission) insists that the UK must fully implement existing agreements before negotiating new ones, amid concern over the rights of the estimated 3.5 million EU citizens living in the UK. Late last month the commission announced it was moving forward with a legal case begun in 2020 that alleges that the UK government has failed to protect EU citizens in the UK. “We have two big agreements with the UK and we want them to be implemented,” said a second EU diplomat, referring to the Brexit withdrawal agreement and subsequent trade and cooperation agreement. With Starmer expected to meet the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, soon and a UK-EU summit pencilled in for spring 2025, the government has more to do to repair the broken relationships of the past.

France's new prime minister has had a long career in politics, but Michel Barnier is best known even in his native France as the EU’s chief negotiator in the Brexit years. His task was to represent the European Union during talks with the UK government. Born in the mountainous Savoie region in south-east France in 1951, Mr Barnier - a keen skier and hiker - has been a committed, patriotic conservative in the tradition of French leader Charles de Gaulle since he was a teenager. He joined the right-wing Union for the Defence of the Republic (UDR) party when he was a teenager. To this day, he still belongs to the UDR’s successor, the Republicans (LR). Mr Barnier did not attend the elite French École Nationale d’Administration, from which many of the country’s leaders hail – but did make history when, aged 27, he became the youngest MP ever elected. He married Isabelle Altmayer, a lawyer, in 1982. The couple have three grown children and she was in the courtyard of the prime minister's residence at Hôtel Matignon when he took office. In 1992 Mr Barnier took great pride in bringing the Winter Olympics to the Savoie – a feat that he said had taught him about working on big projects involving many people, while always keeping an eye on the prize. He entered politics the following year and served as a cabinet minister in various French governments for several years. In 2010, he became the EU's internal market commissioner - one of the most coveted jobs in the European Commission. Still, Mr Barnier aimed higher. In 2014 he mounted an unsuccessful attempt to become president of the European Commission, eventually losing out to Jean-Claude Juncker. Getty Images Michel Barnier at the Olympic stadium of Albertville ahead of the 1992 Winter Olympics In July 2016, a month after the UK voted to leave the EU, Mr Juncker – who said he wanted an “experienced politician for this difficult job” – picked Mr Barnier to negotiate the Brexit deal. His nomination was a surprise for some of Mr Barnier’s fellow Frenchmen, who had never held him in particularly high esteem. Only a few years earlier, a journalist from French paper Libération had famously said that Mr Barnier - by then a veteran politician - would always just be a "nice, white-teethed skier, ever so intellectually limited". On the EU side, however, Mr Barnier was well known for being diligent and methodical. Crucially, he was also seen as cool-headed – a valuable trait during the first febrile months after the Brexit referendum. Throughout the gruelling Brexit process he had to work with an ever-changing cast of British negotiators and prime ministers, but Mr Barnier remained largely unflappable, facing what he repeatedly called a “costly and painful divorce”. Although he was most often pictured sitting around negotiating tables in Brussels or London, much of the work to disentangle the UK from the EU was done by Mr Barnier’s staff. Behind the scenes, his chief task was to travel around Europe and build consensus among the 27 member states to ensure the EU maintained a united front. In the process, he became a familiar sight on TV screens on both sides of the Channel and beyond – tall, sleek and debonaire, generally flanked by an EU flag and typically inscrutable. There was little emotion in his voice when, seamlessly switching from English to French, he announced on 24 December 2020 that the EU and the UK had reached a post-Brexit trade deal. Mr Barnier – ever fond of hiking metaphors – had once likened Brexit to climbing a mountain. Soon after that peak was conquered, he began his ascent to the next one. In the summer of 2021, he launched a bid to be conservative candidate in the 2022 French presidential election, sparing no criticism of President Emmanuel Macron, who he said had ruled France in an “arrogant” manner. Away from Brussels, Mr Barnier began to shed his image of a consummate EU technocrat. He called for staunch anti-immigration policies to be implemented in France and across the EU, and said France should be able to ignore certain rulings of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. Some observers were surprised, and interpreted this as populist move. Others felt Mr Barnier was merely heeding the lessons of Brexit and keeping an eye on the mood of voters. Getty Images Michel Barnier and Brexit Secretary David Davis during talks in Downing Street in 2018 But his bid to be the Republicans’ presidential candidate was unsuccessful, and for the past three years Mr Barnier has made little noise, as France's political landscape has become increasingly polarised. His name had come up occasionally as a potential candidate for prime minister after the July 2024 snap election that left France deadlocked. But it was not until 60 days after the vote that he was named PM by President Macron. Although Mr Barnier is still primarily known as _Monsieur Brexit_, President Macron is likely to have chosen him because they are both from the pro-European establishment and share the same right-wing leanings on the economic front. His Republican background puts him at odds with left-wing parties, but it does mean that centrist, right-wing and populist forces could help him survive the first hurdle of his premiership - a likely vote of confidence. David Davis, who worked closely with Mr Barnier for several years as the UK’s Brexit Secretary, told the BBC he was “a really solid Frenchman” who was “well-grounded in the real France”. In his first address as prime minister, Mr Barnier acknowledged the challenges of the task ahead and vowed to tell the truth “even if it is hard to hear”. “There is a need for respect, appeasement and unity,” he said, in a nod to the fraught political landscape he now presides over. “I am embarking on this new phase, this new blank page, with a great deal of humility."

A curious feature of Brexiter psychology is how the ruinous outcome they once actively sought for Britain is now blamed on tricksy European negotiators, led at the time by [Michel Barnier](https://www.theguardian.com/world/michel-barnier). And so it was wearingly predictable that his re-emergence as the likely new French prime minister would produce a tide of their usual foam-flecked outrage. “We thought we’d seen the last of ‘Monsieur Barnier’ after the [Brexit](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum) negotiations – where he was determined to get Britain the worst possible deal,” said the Tory MP John Hayes, even as the former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg declared that Barnier was “no friend of the UK”. And, given that Liz Truss once [suggested](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/26/serious-problem-if-france-and-uk-cant-tell-if-they-are-friends-or-enemies-says-macron-liz-truss) that “the jury is still out” on whether Emmanuel Macron is Britain’s “friend or foe”, the French president’s nomination of the former EU chief negotiator on Brexit to be PM was always going to provoke a particular hysteria. The Daily Telegraph gave Patrick O’Flynn (uber Brexiter, former Ukipper, ex-Farage lieutenant) a platform to unveil its “[proof that Macron loathes Britain](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/05/bringing-back-barnier-is-proof-that-macron-loathes-britain/)”. [](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/08/keir-starmer-michel-barnier-brexit-eu-uk#img-2) The then Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn (left), and Keir Starmer present Michel Barnier with an Arsenal football shirt in Brussels in July 2017 Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/AFP/Getty Images Their fragile mental state will probably not be improved by hearing of the conversations I had with Starmer while writing his biography, about the years in which the last Tory government was regarded by the rest of [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) as having suffered some form of breakdown. He described to me a feeling of embarrassment for Britain at the start of formal talks in 2017, when a fully prepped Barnier “turned up with a van load of papers in colour-coded ring binders, while David Davis \[the then Brexit secretary\] [wandered in with nothing more than his glasses case](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/17/brexit-talks-uk-underprepared-david-davis-michel-barnier-eu)”. As Davis’s opposite number, Starmer had met Barnier several times to explore detailed options for a “bespoke” form of customs union, during which their shared love of detail helped nurture some mutual respect between them. When I suggested it would be good for me to speak to Barnier, the Labour leader pulled out his phone, on which it just so happened that he still had a telephone number for him. My book quotes from the resulting interview, in which the veteran centre-right French politician explained he had thought, even back then, that Starmer would one day become a centre-left prime minister of Britain. “He was always learning,” Barnier said. “He improved, day after day, year after year. While everyone else made mistakes, he was careful. From the first time we met, I thought there was something about him.” In the years since, of course, Starmer has boxed himself in by ruling out not only rejoining the EU but also the customs union and the single market. There are plenty of critics, inside the Labour party and beyond, who think this is too cautious and careful. Looking back at the notes of my chat with Barnier, however, there are clues about how the government can mitigate at least some of the damage being done. Just as when Starmer was shadow Brexit secretary, there are two sets of red lines. The EU won’t accept any of what Barnier calls “cherry-picking”, and has apparently quashed a modest proposal from Britain to loosen post-Brexit curbs on UK touring musicians, while the government has swiftly rejected a Brussels scheme by which citizens under-30s could study and work in both the EU and UK as “free movement by the back door”. Although it should be possible to get progress on a deal to restrictions on trade in food and drink, that would inevitably prompt fresh hysteria about whether this once again makes Britain subject to rulings from European courts. [](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/08/keir-starmer-michel-barnier-brexit-eu-uk#img-3) The EU’s Michel Barnier and Britain’s then Brexit secretary, David Davis, face each other across the table in 2017. Photograph: Reuters Barnier, while acknowledging there was limited room for improvements on such matters without a much bigger renegotiation, said the real opportunity lay in the original political declaration signed by Boris Johnson, which talked of deeper cooperation on defence and security. “If you look at what could be done by a Labour government, that part of the treaty is still open to negotiation.” And this is precisely what lies behind [Starmer’s “reset” of relations with European leaders](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgxqlz8l8plo) that began shortly after the election at the Blenheim summit, where the prime minister emphasised the “blood bond of 1945” when Europe stood up to fascism. Russia’s war against Ukraine beyond the EU’s borders, as well as raging right populism within them, represent new, existential dangers to European liberal democratic values. So too, potentially, are threats ranging from terrorism and climate crisis to refugees and misinformation on digital platforms. As Barnier told me: “It would be better for the UK to tackle these problems together with the EU than to try to do so alone.” There is already some momentum behind Britain’s efforts to secure a European security pact and David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is due to attend October’s summit, usually reserved for his EU counterparts. But the difficulty is to make this more than just a series of possibly tokenistic meetings. The government is keen, for instance, to secure closer cooperation with crime-fighting bodies on sharing data in tackling the people-trafficking gangs responsible for illegal immigration in small boats. Starmer also wants help from Macron – and perhaps now Barnier – in overcoming the self-interested opposition of the French defence industry to UK participation in EU-wide efforts to give Ukraine the weapons it needs. Even such limited progress will not be easy. But Starmer has the advantage not only of having a respectful relationship with other European leaders: he also now leads a government that is a relative beacon of stability, in the context of months of political crisis that have paralysed [France](https://www.theguardian.com/world/france). Indeed, Barnier’s nomination has attracted even more fury from the left in his country than it has from the Brexiter right in this one. For now, at least, Britain doesn’t seem such a basket case after all. Barnier, for one, will have noticed. * Tom Baldwin is a journalist and author of [Keir Starmer: The Biography](https://guardianbookshop.com/keir-starmer-9780008661021/?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_medium=merch&utm_campaign=article)

Brexit red tape on British businesses has caused UK-EU goods trade to slump and the problem is getting worse, economists have warned. The findings from a report by the Birmingham-based Aston University Business School cover the three-year period after the Brexit trade deal was signed. The value of UK goods exports to the EU sank 27% and import goods 32%, according to the report, which is the most comprehensive of its kind. However, tobacco, railway, and aircraft goods exports have increased. The report also found the variety of trade export goods has dropped, with 1,645 fewer types of British products exported to every EU country. The report does not include the service sector, which has performed better than many experts had expected since Brexit. The authors said there was a "noticeable worsening of EU-UK trade in 2023". "The negative impacts of the \[trade agreement\] have intensified over time, with 2023 showing more pronounced trade declines than previous years," the authors added. Farmers, clothing makers, and wood and paper manufacturers have been among the hardest hit industries, with many sub-sectors' EU export value falling by well-over half. The biggest drop in export value was for edible fruit and nuts, which nosedived 73.5%. Trade with smaller and more distant countries in the EU has been affected the most, while trade with larger and closer countries has been affected the least. The authors said many smaller British producers had given up on exporting small amounts to some EU nations since the creation of many forms of post-Brexit trade red tape or non-tariff barriers. A government spokesperson told the BBC it will "work to improve our trade and investment relationship with the EU and tear down unnecessary trade barriers, while recognising that there will be no return to the single market, customs union or freedom of movement." The BBC understands that in recent meetings with government, business representatives were invited to contribute early ideas on “resetting” the trade relationship with the EU, with a focus on “economic security”. Progress is unlikely until next year, when the new European Commission is firmly established, and the UK has itself completed new industrial and trade strategies.

Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature **Red tape on British businesses created by the Brexit trade deal has led to a sharp fall in UK-EU goods trade, a new report shows.** Academics at Aston Business School have analysed the impact of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on UK-EU trade relations – and found that trade is down by over a quarter. They say: > The findings reveal a sharp decline in both UK exports and imports with the EU, underscoring the enduring challenges posed by Brexit on the UK’s trade competitiveness. Between 2021 and 2023, monthly data show a 27% drop in UK exports and a 32% reduction in imports to and from the EU, [the report](https://www.aston.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-09/Full%20Report.pdf) shows.  Photograph: Aston Business School It also shows there has been a significant reduction in the range of goods the UK trades with the EU, due to the “profound and ongoing stifling” effects of the TCA. This includes a “significant decline” in consumer goods exports to the EU and corresponding UK imports, which suggests the UK is dropping out of EU value chains. However, the UK remains dependent on the EU for intermediate and capital goods. And worryingly, these problems are expected to intensify. The report says: > The study highlights that the negative impacts of the TCA have intensified over time, with 2023 showing more pronounced trade declines than previous years. This suggests that the transition in UK-EU trade relations post-Brexit is not merely a short-term disruption but reflects deeper structural changes likely to persist. The key problem is that the TCA, [agreed on Christmas Eve 202 by Boris Johnson’s government](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/24/uk-eu-agree-brexit-trade-deal-agreement), has created many non-tariff measures (NTMs) – such as checks on goods - which have gummed up the flow of trade. Agriculture and food products exports have been particularly impacted, the report shows. Last night, we reported that planned post-Brexit checks on fruit and vegetables brought into Britain from the EU have been delayed for the third time, amid concerns from suppliers that they could lead to higher prices for shoppers. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e924e58f08e0b0d99ebcb7#block-66e924e58f08e0b0d99ebcb7) Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature **In other energy news, more than 1.7 million households do not plan to turn on their heating this winter, a survey has found.** That’s nearly double the 972,000 who said they did not heat their homes last year. More than half of those polled for Uswitch (55%) blamed rising living costs while 25% of over-65s said their decision followed the loss of winter fuel payments. Another one million households will not turn on the heating until December to keep costs down, according to the poll.  Government defeats winter fuel motion as 53 Labour MPs abstain and one votes with Tories – video [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e96df68f08e43e1272ae3e#block-66e96df68f08e43e1272ae3e)  Mark Sweney **The culture secretary has said that the UK TV industry needs to hire more people from working-class backgrounds, and that it is “shameful” that programme-making remains rooted in London and the South East of England.** **Lisa** **Nandy**, giving her first major speech on media and broadcasting at the Royal Television Society conference on Tuesday, said that just 8% of those working in the UK TV industry identify as from a working class background. **Nandy** said: > “For all of the efforts made by many of you in this room, it should shame us all that television is one of the most centralised and exclusive industries in the UK. > > Eight per cent - the proportion of working class people in TV. Twenty three per cent - the proportion of commissions made by companies based outside of London. None of this is inevitable.” **Nandy** said that while there have been significant moves in recent years by broadcasters to move staff and operations out of London, notably by the BBC and Channel 4, the decision-making often still remains in the capital. “If you’ve moved jobs and people and content, but the heads of departments and commissioners are still in an office in London, do something about it,” she said, adding: > “It is my belief that an industry that belongs to the nation is an industry that will not just survive but thrive. That is what I want to see. We will do everything we can to put rocket boosters under your efforts, but that effort in the first place belongs to you all.” [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e967738f08e43e1272addd#block-66e967738f08e43e1272addd) **Thomas** **Gitzel**, chief economist at **VP** **Bank**, fears the German economy faces some tricky months, saying (_[via Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-investor-morale-tumbles-more-than-expected-september-2024-09-17/)_) > “With the winter months approaching, the German economy also seems to be going into hibernation. > > “Over the next few quarters, the German economy will be caught in a triangle between stagnation, slight growth and a slight contraction in gross domestic product.” [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e9646c8f08e43e1272adbc#block-66e9646c8f08e43e1272adbc) **Global sentiment among fund managers has improved this month, for the first time sine June, Bank of America reports.** Its latest Fund Manager Survey shows rising optimism that cuts to US interest rates will lead to a ‘soft landing’ for America’s economy. BofA adds that investors are best described as “nervous bulls”… > The idea of a "soft landing" is dominant narrative in stock markets. Acc to latest BofA Fund Manager Survey, the percentage of investors expecting a soft landing has increased from 76% to 79%. Meanwhile, the chance of a "no landing" scenario dropped from 8% to 7%, and… [pic.twitter.com/lCv1RUf9qA](https://t.co/lCv1RUf9qA) > > — Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) [September 17, 2024](https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1835998942430941590?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e962f98f08e43e1272ad9c#block-66e962f98f08e43e1272ad9c) Today’s ZEW survey of German economic confidence may fuel fears that the region is slipping deeper into recession. **Samer** **Hasn**, senior market analyst at **[XS.com](https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.gqh-2BaxUzlo7XKIuSly0rC9L-2B1E-2Bp7Vs1dle6Bjxz3Ss-3DWvFv_pB8nDhcf0CbOCfG8oA3pUo18GXt-2F-2Bo-2BhB-2FK21dTqIPda5y-2BwiQGrnLPy99hKY-2Bsmv-2FtSBWheVfixegLmwZtfYDgDr4BFCz9JlBrZ4yjUk-2FTGiU8rq5C5HuRB5OMiF02CoHba4Q5R-2F5g0rmu3rBQxLpfUIKvTZDZg7t2V-2BmI-2Fl-2Fb8uaYcjPADAbkcO9YX1VLKSW9dty9EimjO9Kre-2B66eeCE-2B6DEdU4KkbyJwPho-2FNaXnQFg6YrBn7nKi0HNoi4F-2B1RkgZVVPDPBbsNlmol19iX2hKFiZD-2Bay2jATETFpwEfaGaKfwfJEwVGvtDEI-2BleCzW72qyceRQuDpteY-2FjB3GQjTjSJo2KMOihuHE1rhCZw-3D)**, says: > The ZEW economic sentiment figures were quite shocking today. The German headline reading collapsed from 19.2 to just 3.6, far from expectations of 17.1. The same was true for the eurozone, with a reading of 9.3, down from 17.9. > > This dramatic deterioration came as institutional investors’ sentiment around Germany’s economic outlook, both for the next six months and for the current situation, declined. The ZEW president also said in a comment on the survey results that optimism about the improving economic situation has faded. > ⚠️BREAKING:\*GERMANY SEPTEMBER ECONOMIC SENTIMENT INDEX FALLS TO 3.6; EST. 17.1; PREV. 19.2\*LOWEST SINCE OCTOBER 2023 > > 🇩🇪🇩🇪 [pic.twitter.com/jIET5OmfQi](https://t.co/jIET5OmfQi) — Investing.com (@Investingcom) [September 17, 2024](https://twitter.com/Investingcom/status/1835968686559014913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e960a38f08e43e1272ad6c#block-66e960a38f08e43e1272ad6c) **In the energy sector, Ed Miliband has vowed to take on the nimbys opposed to the government’s rollout of wind turbines, solar farms and pylons across the UK as a matter of “national security” and “economic justice”.** The energy secretary used his first big public address on Tuesday to argue in favour of speedy consent for new energy infrastructure to break the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels and avoid a repeat of “a crisis of the scale we have been through, with such devastating effects” in future. Miliband promised to “take on the blockers, the delayers, the obstructionists” which have opposed the new government’s plans to accelerate the UK’s progress towards a clean energy system by the end of the decade. He told [Energy](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/energy) UK’s annual conference in London on Tuesday that the government’s manifesto pledge was “the national security, energy security, economic justice fight of our time”. **Mike Childs**, head of science, policy and research at **Friends of the Earth**, says the UK must press on with clean, green energy infrastructure: > “Energy bills are already sky high and are set to rise again from next month, because the UK is hooked on gas. For too many people this has meant making the choice between heating and eating. Ramping-up the deployment of cheap, homegrown renewables can make the UK more energy independent, cut harmful emissions and lower bills for good. > > “Friends of the Earth analysis has shown we could produce 13 times more energy from onshore wind and solar farms in England even when protected landscapes such as national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty are excluded. > > “Opinion polling shows time and time again that most people support wind and solar, so whilst communities must have a voice in planning decisions and should directly benefit from clean energy projects, we can’t allow the voices of a minority to block necessary developments. > > With devastating flooding hitting Europe this week, there is an urgent need to take action to prevent the worse of climate breakdown and boost energy security, this means the UK must get building the clean, green energy infrastructure that is essential to growing the economy and creating thousands of new, long-term jobs.” [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e95f368f08e43e1272ad54#block-66e95f368f08e43e1272ad54) **Germany is the most unloved stock market in Europe, a new poll from Bank of America (BofA) shows.** BofA’s latest European Fund Manager Survey also found that the UK remains the most preferred equity market in Europe. The survey also found that investors are “increasingly bearish” (ie, less optimistic) on European equities in the near term. It says: > A net 20% of investors see downside for European equities over the coming months, a year-to-date high, with a plurality of 35% seeing weakening growth momentum as the most likely catalyst for a correction. > > A net 43% still project upside for the market over the coming twelve months, but this is down sharply from 62% last month. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e9563a8f086ad2b49296f7#block-66e9563a8f086ad2b49296f7) Some snap reaction to the weak ZEW survey of German economic sentiment: > Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Oh dear God, Germany. Economic expectations significantly lowered again. \[ZEW 3.6 vs 17.0 expected; prior 19.2\]. Germany is in such deep trouble, it's truly shocking. > > — Marc-André Fongern (@Fongern\_FX) [September 17, 2024](https://twitter.com/Fongern_FX/status/1835984452310151417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e955e08f08e43e1272acdc#block-66e955e08f08e43e1272acdc) **Hopes of a recovery in Germany’s economy are fading, according to the latest poll of investor sentiment.** In a reminder that all isn’t rosy across the channel, the **ZEW** indicator of economic sentiment for Germany has fallen to just 3.6 points, down from 19.2 points in August. That’s the lowest reading since last October. The survey found that economic optimism has “almost completely dwindled”, while investors’ assessment of the economic situation in Germany also worsened. **ZEW** president professor **Achim** **Wambach** says: > “The hope for a swift improvement in the economic situation is visibly fading. > > In the latest survey, we once again observe a noticeable decline in economic expectations for Germany. The number of optimists and pessimists is now evenly balanced.” Germany’s economy is on the brink of recession, after shrinking slightly in the second quarter of the year. High energy costs have hit its industrial base, which is also struggling to cope from competition from Chinese carmakers. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e951298f08e43e1272ac9a#block-66e951298f08e43e1272ac9a)  Mark Sweney **Netflix co-chief Ted Sarandos has defended Baby Reindeer, which is the [subject of a £133m ($170m) law suit](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jun/06/baby-reindeer-netflix-lawsuit) filed by the real-life woman portrayed as the stalker in the hit show, saying that it is “abundantly clear” that it is a dramatised story.** The black comedy-drama, which [picked up six Emmy awards on Sunday night](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/sep/15/emmys-shogun-hacks-the-bear-baby-reindeer), has become one of Netflix’s biggest hits of all time. The series is the account of creator and star **Richard** **Gadd**, who plays the lead role of comedian Donny Dunn, and his experience with a stalker known as “Martha”. Following the debut of the series, which opens with the line “This is a true story”, **Fiona** **Harvey** came forward identifying herself as the “real Martha”. **Harvey** has filed a lawsuit in California against Netflix alleging defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, gross negligence and violations of her right of publicity. “We are facilitating story tellers to tell their stories,” said **Sarandos**, speaking at the [Royal Television Society conference in London](https://rts.org.uk/event/london2024) this morning. > “This is Richard’s true story. Baby Reindeer is his story, he told his story, it is not a documentary.” In an interview with journalist and writer **Kirsty** **Wark** he was asked if the controversy about Netflix labelling Baby Reindeer as a “true story” might lead to the streamer having a “stronger editorial grip”. In the show, **Gadd’s** stalker was imprisoned. In real life, the alleged stalker says she has received no conviction. “There are elements of the story that are dramatised,” said **Sarandos**. > “It is abundantly clear that there is dramatisation involved. This debate \[about Baby Reindeer’s status as a true story\] is not happening anywhere else in thew world. Just the UK.” In his Emmy awards acceptance speech on Sunday, **Gadd** urged aspiring writers to “take risks”. “The only constant across any success in television is good storytelling,” he told the audience. > “Good storytelling speaks to our times… take risks, push boundaries, explore the uncomfortable, dare to fail in order to achieve.” On Tuesday, Sarandos said that Netflix has just completed a “first look” deal with Gadd for his next projects. Last week, a federal judge in the US set the trial date for the Baby Reindeer case for 6 May next year. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e94f068f086ad2b49296a8#block-66e94f068f086ad2b49296a8) **The UK government has downgraded the risk rating on a variety of fruit and vegetables from the EU and Switzerland, meaning they can be imported without any checks or charges even once delayed checks finally come in.** And my colleague Jack Simpson has the list, complete with translations from Latin ([for the benefit of any old Etonians reading.](https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/kemper-lecture-roberts2.html#:~:text=%27%2C%20%27Certainly%20I%20shall%20translate,%27)) * Root and tubercle vegetables (not including ware or seed potatoes): **Yams**, **beets**, **parsnips**, **turnips**, **rutabagas**, **carrots**, **yuca**, **kohlrabi**, **onions**, **garlic**, **celery** **root**. * Fruit of _Fragaria_ L: **Strawberries** * Fruits of _Malus_ Mill: **Apples** * Fruits of _Persea americana_ Mill: **Avocado** * Fruits of _Pyrus_ L: **Pear** * Fruit of _Vaccinium_ L: **cranberry**, **blueberry**, **bilberry** (**whortleberry**), **lingonberry** (cowberry), and **huckleberry**. * Fruit of _Rubus_ L: **Raspberries**, **blackberries**, and **dewberries** The change should mean there won’t be extra friction at the border when these fruit and vegetables are imported to the UK. [Jack reported last night](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/16/uk-post-brexit-fruit-and-vegetables-delayed-eu) that the planned post-Brexit checks on fruit and vegetables brought into Britain from the EU have been delayed for the third time, until next July, so ministers can judge the impact of the new rules. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e947368f084d7e1128dee6#block-66e947368f084d7e1128dee6) The UK government must seek “beneficial alignment” with the EU to overcome the hurdles hurting trade, says **Tom Brufatto,** director of policy at campaign group **Best for Britain**. Following Aston University’s warning that UK exports to the EU are 17% lower than if Brexit had not happened, while imports are 23% lower, **Brufatto** says: > “[This report](https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-66e924e58f08e0b0d99ebcb7#block-66e924e58f08e0b0d99ebcb7) reinforces the fact that the UK economy will continue to suffer as long as the unnecessary trade barriers contained in the TCA remain in place.” > > “The new Government must make every effort to introduce beneficial regulatory alignment with our largest and closest market in the EU, to remove these barriers, reduce costs and unlock much needed economic growth.” [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e949d88f08e0b0d99ebdfa#block-66e949d88f08e0b0d99ebdfa) The findings of this morning’s report into UK-EU trade should put more pressure on the government to make Brexit work better. Lead author of the report, Professor **Jun** **Du** of **Aston** **University,** says: > “The Trade and Cooperation Agreement introduced substantial barriers and there are ongoing and marked declines in the value and variety of UK exports and imports. > > Without urgent policy interventions, the UK’s economic position and place in the global market will continue to weaken.” Prime minister **Keir** **Starmer** has insisted that the UK will not rejoin either the EU, the single market or the customs union within his lifetime. But, **Starmer** has aso suggested better trading agreements than “the botched deal we got under Boris Johnson” could be achieved: [ Britain will not rejoin EU in my lifetime, says Starmer ](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/03/britain-will-not-rejoin-eu-in-my-lifetime-says-starmer) [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e944a78f08f5de71dc27b5#block-66e944a78f08f5de71dc27b5) **EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen has named Spain’s ecological transition minister Teresa Ribera as the bloc’s next antitrust commissioner.** This is a crucial position within the EU; **Ribera** will succeed **Margrethe** **Vestager**, who challenged Big Tech companies for their anti-competitive practices, culminating with court wins against [Apple](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/apple) and Google last week. [ Apple loses EU court battle over €13bn tax bill in Ireland ](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/10/apple-loses-eu-court-battle-tax-bill-ireland) [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e941e98f08e0b0d99ebd98#block-66e941e98f08e0b0d99ebd98) **The UK’s departure from the EU has introduced a series of challenges for the automobile industry, Aston Business School’s report flags.** That includes new tariffs on parts that fail to meet Europe’s rules of origin (RoO) requirements, customs delays, and higher administrative costs. Today’s report says: > These issues are particularly problematic for the automotive sector, where just-in-time manufacturing processes are highly vulnerable to increased costs and delays, which can cause disruptions throughout the entire supply chain. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e93e798f084d7e1128de6f#block-66e93e798f084d7e1128de6f) * * * #### Page 2 Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature — Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) [September 17, 2024](https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1835936618064089317?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e93d5e8f084d7e1128de65#block-66e93d5e8f084d7e1128de65) **[Today’s report into UK-EU trade](https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-66e924e58f08e0b0d99ebcb7#block-66e924e58f08e0b0d99ebcb7) shows how Britain’s pharmaceuticals industry has suffered from regulatory divergence issues since Brexit.** Prior to Brexit, UK pharmaceuticals were certified for EU sale under a unified regulatory framework. However, the UK’s withdrawal under the TCA has introduced “substantial trade and regulatory barriers that have deeply impacted the sector,” the report says. The separation of medicine authorisation into distinct systems – one for the EU, and another for Great Britain and the UK, has led to additional requirements for applications, processes, and labelling. The report explains: > For instance, while the mutual recognition of production certificates is agreed in the TCA \[the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, or Brexit deal\], the EU no longer recognises medicine batches tested in the UK as valid for sale within the single market, nor does it recognise the professionals overseeing these processes. > > UK pharmaceutical firms now require separate certifications for both the UK and EU markets, resulting in increased costs and delays. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e93b218f08e0b0d99ebd57#block-66e93b218f08e0b0d99ebd57) **The future of shipmaker Harland & Wolff remains uncertain today, after the company announced on Monday it expects to fall into administration soon.** The company’s interim executive chairman **Russell** **Downs** has said there is a strong case for keeping the company’s four shipyards under a single owner. He told the BBC’s Today programme that keeping the yards together was “sensible from an operating perspective”. He added: > “Some yards may be owned by one owner with other yards owned by another, so we’ll just have to see where the process gets to.” Downs said all the yards currently have work ongoing, and a “strong and capable business plan”, that will see them flourish again in future, once the current financial difficulties have been overcome. After [months of fraught negotiations](https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/19/harland-wolff-boss-resigns-as-company-seeks-emergency-funding) as Harland & Wolff scrambled to find funding to upgrade the shipyards, the company announced yesterday that it is insolvent and expects to appoint administrators from Teneo soon. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e936548f084d7e1128de39#block-66e936548f084d7e1128de39) **Shares in Intel are up 8% in after-hours trading after it secured a deal to make custom artificial intelligence chips for Amazon.** CEO **Pat** **Gelsinger** announced the deal – under which Intel will produce an “artificial intelligence fabric chip” for Amazon Web Services – in [a memo to staff last night](https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1710/a-message-from-intel-ceo-pat-gelsinger-to-employees). Gelsinger also said Intel was more than halfway to hitting its target of 15,000 job cuts by the end of this year, warning: > We still have difficult decisions to make and will notify impacted employees in the middle of October. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e930ec8f08e0b0d99ebd0b#block-66e930ec8f08e0b0d99ebd0b) **Stocks have opened higher across Europe, as investors anticipate a long-awaited cut to US interest rates tomorrow.** In London, the **FTSE** **100** share index has jumped by 61 points, or 0.75%, to 8338 points. Financials, energy and healthcare are the best-performing sectors. France’s **CAC** **40** index rose 0.5% at the open, with Germany’s **DAX** up 0.3%. **Enrique Diaz-Alvarez,** chief economist at global financial services firm **Ebury**, says: > “The upcoming decision by the Federal Reserve stands on a knife’s edge, with the market almost evenly split on whether the cutting cycle will start on a 25bp cut or a 50bp one. > > Market expectations for a jumbo cut have risen relentlessly over the past few days on little news other than statements from former Fed officials like William Dudley and are now at above 60%. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e92ad68f08e0b0d99ebce1#block-66e92ad68f08e0b0d99ebce1) **Demand for big-ticket items remains weak, retailer Kingfisher has warned this morning – something which will not please the technology sector.** **Kingfisher**, which owns various DIY chains including **B&Q** and **Castorama**, has reported a 2.4% drop in like-for-like sales at its stores in the six months to the end of July. **Kingfisher** says it has seen a: > Recovery in seasonal sales since early July and weak ‘big-ticket’ sales as expected. Comparable sales dipped slightly in the UK and Ireland, but tumbled by over 7% in France – which **Kingfisher** says is “broadly in line with the market”. It also reported a 2.3% rise in pre-tax profits, and lifted its estimate for adjusted pre-tax profits this year to £510m to £550m, from £490m-£550m before. Shares in **Kingfisher** have jumped 6.5% at the start of trading. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e928598f08f5de71dc26d7#block-66e928598f08f5de71dc26d7) **Red tape on British businesses created by the Brexit trade deal has led to a sharp fall in UK-EU goods trade, a new report shows.** Academics at Aston Business School have analysed the impact of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on UK-EU trade relations – and found that trade is down by over a quarter. They say: > The findings reveal a sharp decline in both UK exports and imports with the EU, underscoring the enduring challenges posed by Brexit on the UK’s trade competitiveness. Between 2021 and 2023, monthly data show a 27% drop in UK exports and a 32% reduction in imports to and from the EU, [the report](https://www.aston.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2024-09/Full%20Report.pdf) shows. [](https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?page=with:block-66e93d5e8f084d7e1128de65&filterKeyEvents=false#img-2) Photograph: Aston Business School It also shows there has been a significant reduction in the range of goods the UK trades with the EU, due to the “profound and ongoing stifling” effects of the TCA. This includes a “significant decline” in consumer goods exports to the EU and corresponding UK imports, which suggests the UK is dropping out of EU value chains. However, the UK remains dependent on the EU for intermediate and capital goods. And worryingly, these problems are expected to intensify. The report says: > The study highlights that the negative impacts of the TCA have intensified over time, with 2023 showing more pronounced trade declines than previous years. This suggests that the transition in UK-EU trade relations post-Brexit is not merely a short-term disruption but reflects deeper structural changes likely to persist. The key problem is that the TCA, [agreed on Christmas Eve 202 by Boris Johnson’s government](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/24/uk-eu-agree-brexit-trade-deal-agreement), has created many non-tariff measures (NTMs) – such as checks on goods - which have gummed up the flow of trade. Agriculture and food products exports have been particularly impacted, the report shows. Last night, we reported that planned post-Brexit checks on fruit and vegetables brought into Britain from the EU have been delayed for the third time, amid concerns from suppliers that they could lead to higher prices for shoppers. [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e924e58f08e0b0d99ebcb7#block-66e924e58f08e0b0d99ebcb7) **Microsoft’s** $60bn share buyback programme is the third-largest announced by any US company this year, [Marketwatch reports](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-microsofts-dividend-hike-and-new-60-billion-buyback-program-stack-up-49b93a92?mod=mw_latestnews). The only companies to announce bigger share-repurchase authorizations so far this year are **Apple** ($100bn) and **Alphabet** ($70bn). Chipmaker **Nvidia** and Facebook-owner **Meta** have both announced $50bn buybacks this year. On the other side of the coin, though, **Microsoft** will still be one of the lowest-yielding stocks on the Dow Jones industrial average, even after raising its dividend by 10%. Tech firms have traditionally paid lower dividends than average, focusing on using their cash to fuel growth and pay for acquisitions (although such large share buybacks shows they are strugging to pull this off). [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e9236a8f08e0b0d99ebcb0#block-66e9236a8f08e0b0d99ebcb0) **Elsewhere in the tech sector, Amazon has announced it would require employees to return to the office five days a week, from the start of next year.** **Andy Jassy**, Amazon’s CEO, said in a note to employees. > “We’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID. When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant.” The e-commerce giant’s previous office attendance requirement for its workers was three days a week. Amazon workers can claim “extenuating circumstances” or request exceptions from senior leadership, according to Jassy’s memo. > “If anything, the last 15 months we’ve been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits.” He cited improved collaboration and connection between teams as reasons for the new requirement as well as the ability to “strengthen our culture”. [ Amazon mandates five days a week in office starting next year ](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/16/amazon-in-person-office-policy) [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e91ffc8f084d7e1128dda7#block-66e91ffc8f084d7e1128dda7) **Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.** It’s a tale of two tech companies this morning, as **Microsoft** announces a monster cash return to shareholders… and **Apple** is hit by fears of weak demand for [its new iPhone 16](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/09/apple-ai-iphone-16). **Microsoft** surprised Wall Street last night by [unveiling a new $60bn (£45bn) stock-buyback program](https://news.microsoft.com/2024/09/16/microsoft-announces-quarterly-dividend-increase-and-new-share-repurchase-program-3/) – a way of returning excess cash to investors – and raising its quarterly dividend by 10%. The plan matches **Microsoft’s** largest ever share buyback plan, according to Bloomberg. The scale of the move was unexpected, as **Microsoft** has been ramping up its investment to support artificial intelligence. The company had also disappointed shareholders at the end of July when it reported a slight slowdown in growth at its **Azure** cloud computing arm. Its net income in the last year rose 22%, to $88bn, leaving it with over $75bn of cash on its books. **Microsoft** is currently the world’s second largest company, worth around $3.2tn, behind **Apple** (at $3.3tn). That gap narrowed yesterday, as Apple’s shares fell by 2.8% following analyst report that demand for the iPhone 16 was weaker than hoped. Early pre-order data from **BofA Global Research** revealed shorter global shipping times for the iPhone 16 Pro models compared with last year’s 15 Pro models, in the first three days of pre-order sales. [ Why you won’t be lining up for the new iPhone 16 ](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/sep/10/techscape-iphone-16-cost-features) TF International Securities’ analyst **Ming-Chi Kuo** calculated that pre-order sales for the iPhone 16 are around 12.7% lower than for last year’s iPhone 15. Having analysed data on pre-order sales, delivery times and shipments, **Kuo** explained in [a post on Medium](https://medium.com/@mingchikuo/iphone-16-first-weekend-pre-order-analysis-estimated-total-sales-of-about-37-million-units-pro-0a04869b147c): > The key factor is the lower-than-expected demand for the iPhone 16 Pro series. However, not every analyst was concerned by the lack of meaningful growth in iPhone pre-orders. **D.A. Davidson** analyst **Gil** **Luria** points out that [the phone’s AI features](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/24/apple-intelligence-iphone-ios-18-siri-chat-gpt-launch) are being rolled out gradually. > ... which means the upgrade cycle will likely materialize over the next 12-18 months.” The agenda ---------- * 10am BST: ZEW index of German economic confidence * 1.30pm BST: US retail sales for August * 2.15pm BST: US industrial production for August * 3pm BST: NAHB index of US housing market [Share](mailto:?subject=Brexit%20deal%20‘stifling’%20UK-EU%20trade;%20German%20investor%20morale%20tumbles%20–%20business%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/sep/17/microsoft-share-buyback-apple-iphone-16-demand-consumer-spending-brexit-trade-business-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-66e910588f08f5de71dc2633#block-66e910588f08f5de71dc2633)

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer will attend a meeting of European Union leaders early next year LONDON -- LONDON (AP) — [Keir Starmer](https://apnews.com/article/uk-election-keir-starmer-profile-labour-e98d16e0810273f6041b61747e084aae) will attend a meeting of [European Union](https://apnews.com/hub/european-union) leaders early next year, becoming the first U.K. prime minister to do so since the country’s [departure from the bloc](https://apnews.com/article/brexit-relationships-europe-global-trade-coronavirus-pandemic-a5cc4350206b5c0273b41aef4d7b7381) in 2020. Starmer was invited to the “informal” Feb. 3 meeting in Brussels by European Council President António Costa on Thursday, when the two officials met for talks at Starmer’s office at 10 Downing St. Starmer’s office said that the prime minister was “pleased to accept the invitation and looked forward to discussing [enhanced strategic cooperation](https://apnews.com/article/eu-britain-uk-brexit-starmer-leyen-brussels-0936054bb4cf4991534a1ce437643a58) with the EU, notably on defense.” The U.K. and the EU have also agreed to have regular leader-level summits, starting in early 2025. At Thursday’s meeting, Starmer and Costa discussed support for Ukraine in its almost three-year war against [Russia's full-scale invasion](https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine), and the [fast-moving situation in Syria](https://apnews.com/article/syria-israel-airstrike-assad-war-b90edb8dbe8268dacf90e59ca601e2e3). A joint U.K.-EU statement said that they “agreed on the importance of ensuring a peaceful transition towards long-term political stability following the fall of (President Bashar) Assad’s brutal regime.” Starmer, whose center-left Labour Party was elected in July, says he wants to [“reset” U.K. relations with the 27-nation EU](https://apnews.com/article/keir-starmer-labour-challenges-ukraine-nato-gaza-0da1da8a74c6196518059d7d9fbcf77d) after years of acrimony, deepening cooperation on security and restoring some of the trade ties frayed by Brexit. Although he advocated remaining in the bloc during the 2016 Brexit referendum, Starmer has ruled out reversing the decision, or rejoining the EU’s borderless single market and customs union, which would require the U.K. to accept many of the bloc’s rules. He also has resisted pressure to agree to a youth mobility deal that would let young people from Britain and the EU live and work in the other’s territory for a time. A Starmer spokesman said there were “no plans” for such an agreement.