Latest news with #Brexit-voting
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Macron thwarts UK over fish – and this is only the beginning
Brussels has landed a whopper of a 'Brexit reset deal' on fish, securing 12 years access to British waters. It's a significant victory for the European Union, a humiliating surrender from Sir Keir Starmer, and yet another example of Brexit-voting British fishermen being thrown under the bus. Britain originally pushed for a one-year deal, setting up annual negotiations on fishing rights to replace the five-year pact struck in the Brexit trade negotiations, which expires next year. That was the plan when the UK conceded to EU pressure in the final hours of those painful, high stakes talks that brought a deal signed on Dec 30 2020. But once Brussels has a concession, it never willingly surrenders it. Instead it uses it as a foothold to push for more. It demanded five years, which, after some haggling, brought Britain to make a compromise offer of three years. By Sunday, 24 hours before Monday's UK-EU summit, Britain had moved to four years. European Commission negotiators, under pressure from EU capitals, especially Paris, were turning the screws. If Britain wanted to limit fish to four years, then the Swiss-style veterinary deal to boost trade would be limited to four years as well. Tying the two deals together would make it much harder to claw back more fish for British boats in the future. It's an established Commission tactic; the first Brexit fishing deal expires at the same time as an agreement on continued UK access to the EU electricity market. The British wanted the veterinary deal to be kept permanent. Otherwise its decision to sacrifice Brexit freedoms and align with EU plant and animal health rules would look very weak. It would undermine the Government's claims it will bring economic growth and lower grocery prices if the deal was temporary. Experts believe that the deal will bring a 0.1 per cent boost to GDP, which seems a moderate return for such a concession. But the deal will make it easier to export British fish to the EU, which is the major market for the UK, which exports most of what it catches. With the summit hours away, and Sir Keir hoping for a third deal with a major partner in recent weeks, the UK was in a weak negotiating position. This was the moment the EU was waiting for as the talks entered the endgame. The clock was ticking, as Michel Barnier used to say. The EU could easily walk away with no deal, but that was not an option for a Prime Minister bleeding support to Reform UK. If Britain wanted no deadline on the veterinary deal, it would have to pay big for it in fish, three times as much as it had offered. In the wee small hours of the morning, Britain surrendered and agreed it would last 12 years. At this stage it is unclear whether this will mean fish catches on the same terms as the expiring deal, which would be an EU victory, or potentially allow even more. What is clear is that Sir Keir has surrendered one of the few points of leverage the UK had in its dealings with the EU, where fish is politically very important, until 2038. Experts believe that the veterinary deal will bring a 0.1 per cent boost to GDP, which seems a moderate return for such a major concession. The reset has also secured a defence pact with the EU and paved the way for UK involvement in EU rearmament programmes after Emmanuel Macron's France insisted it was conditional on a deal on fish. The EU's last minute ambush in the dying hours of the reset negotiations has paid off in spades. Brussels was always confident it would. There is precedent. The same thing happened during the last hours of the Brexit trade negotiations. Britain under Boris Johnson also caved on fish to get a trade deal, that prevented an economically devastating no deal and a return to World Trade Organisation terms. Mr Johnson at least had the excuse that he got a trade deal in return, rather than a reset agreement that merely tinkers around the edge of one already weighted in the EU's favour. The negotiations with the EU were always going to be an uphill battle. Brussels knows that Britain needs the deal more than it does and that size matters. Its tough negotiation stance, which has secured a promise for more talks on youth mobility, is based on the belief that the heft of its Single Market with 460 million consumers will always tell in the end. That conviction was strengthened in these new talks because the UK does not have the shelter of a trading bloc at a time when Donald Trump is threatening to trigger a global trade war. The threat of Russia has also weakened Britain's hand, although it made the defence pact easier to do and accelerated the reset. Britain has given away an awful lot for some modest gains. Brussels is ruthless about negotiating in the EU's own interest, and its own interest alone. Sir Keir, a Remainer who once pushed for a second referendum, might have hoped he'd be given an easier ride by the European Commission than the Tories. In the end it was a case of plus ça change – the more things change, the more things stay the same. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Tories have suffered the worst fate of all: irrelevance
On what otherwise looks set to be a miserable day for the Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch can take heart that she still has one fan. Sky News asked Nigel Farage for his message to the Tory leader. Flushed with Reform UK's Runcorn and Helmsby success, he was effusive: 'Kemi Badenoch, please stay. Please don't resign. We want you to stay on as leader. I'll out some money if you want to keep you there'. Not, perhaps, the endorsement Badenoch was looking for. But Farage's enthusiasm is understandable. Across the country – Northumberland, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, and elsewhere – the story is the same: Reform usurping the Tories in areas where once the party's vote was weighed, not counted. Even if Runcorn was gained from Labour's expense, the Conservative vote halved. As the days draws on, the news will only get worse. These elections were in Tory heartlands – rural, provincial, and won with stonking majorities by Boris Johnson back in 2021. But now the Conservatives are besieged on all sides – by Labour in the Brexit-voting North and Midlands, by the Lib Dems in the leafy South and South-West, and by Reform everywhere. Farage's grin will get wider and wider. If there is any great Tory success in these results, it will be one of expectation management. With various suggestions circulating in the last few days that the Tories might lost all the 19 councils they had, to even hold one will be treated as a triumph. suggest Paul Bristow has won the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralty: expect him to become CCHQ's poster boy. Yet even as unfortunate Shadow Cabinet members do the Comical Ali routine on the morning media round – always going to be difficult, party under new leadership, nothing to see here – reality cannot be fooled. Andrea Jenkyns may not have been the greatest loss to the Tory ranks. But the ex-MP's victory for Reform in Greater Lincolnshire is a totem of the ongoing loss of previously safe Tory areas. Repeating Boris Johnson's stonking 2021 success in these elections was an impossible task. Since then, we've had Partygate, Trussonomics, and Toryism's worst defeat since James II's exile. But Badenoch has now been leader for six months. Under her, the Conservatives have only gone further backwards. Her approval ratings are dire and getting worse. The more voters see of her, the more they dislike her. Farage cuts through because he articulates a vision that speaks to the frustrations voters have with our broken political system. By contrast, Badenoch has nothing to say. The public aren't interested in her Potemkin policy commissions. They want solutions, but this Tory Party has no interest in providing them. They are an irrelevance: yesterday's party, loathed, ignored, and moribund. Even with a government as shocking as this – releasing criminals early, cutting winter fuel payments, hiking taxes, and surrendering the Chagos Islands – the Conservatives aren't landing any blows. The stark reality is that politics is the Farage vs Keir Starmer show, with no room for Badenoch. She has little appeal to voters lost to Reform, Labour, or the Lib Dems. Tories are becoming disillusioned. However bad today is, expect MPs to give Badenoch the benefit of the doubt. Too many, having kept their seats at the last election, suffer from survivorship bias, and want to deny how bad the situation is. But they can't fool themselves forever. The party is dying on its feet. The buck stops with Badenoch. It's now not a case of if she goes, but when. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The Tories have suffered the worst fate of all: irrelevance
On what otherwise looks set to be a miserable day for the Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch can take heart that she still has one fan. Sky News asked Nigel Farage for his message to the Tory leader. Flushed with Reform UK's Runcorn and Helmsby success, he was effusive: 'Kemi Badenoch, please stay. Please don't resign. We want you to stay on as leader. I'll out some money if you want to keep you there'. Not, perhaps, the endorsement Badenoch was looking for. But Farage's enthusiasm is understandable. Across the country – Northumberland, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, and elsewhere – the story is the same: Reform usurping the Tories in areas where once the party's vote was weighed, not counted. Even if Runcorn was gained from Labour's expense, the Conservative vote halved. As the days draws on, the news will only get worse. These elections were in Tory heartlands – rural, provincial, and won with stonking majorities by Boris Johnson back in 2021. But now the Conservatives are besieged on all sides – by Labour in the Brexit-voting North and Midlands, by the Lib Dems in the leafy South and South-West, and by Reform everywhere. Farage's grin will get wider and wider. If there is any great Tory success in these results, it will be one of expectation management. With various suggestions circulating in the last few days that the Tories might lost all the 19 councils they had, to even hold one will be treated as a triumph. suggest Paul Bristow has won the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralty: expect him to become CCHQ's poster boy. Yet even as unfortunate Shadow Cabinet members do the Comical Ali routine on the morning media round – always going to be difficult, party under new leadership, nothing to see here – reality cannot be fooled. Andrea Jenkyns may not have been the greatest loss to the Tory ranks. But the ex-MP's victory for Reform in Greater Lincolnshire is a totem of the ongoing loss of previously safe Tory areas. Repeating Boris Johnson's stonking 2021 success in these elections was an impossible task. Since then, we've had Partygate, Trussonomics, and Toryism's worst defeat since James II's exile. But Badenoch has now been leader for six months. Under her, the Conservatives have only gone further backwards. Her approval ratings are dire and getting worse. The more voters see of her, the more they dislike her. Farage cuts through because he articulates a vision that speaks to the frustrations voters have with our broken political system. By contrast, Badenoch has nothing to say. The public aren't interested in her Potemkin policy commissions. They want solutions, but this Tory Party has no interest in providing them. They are an irrelevance: yesterday's party, loathed, ignored, and moribund. Even with a government as shocking as this – releasing criminals early, cutting winter fuel payments, hiking taxes, and surrendering the Chagos Islands – the Conservatives aren't landing any blows. The stark reality is that politics is the Farage vs Keir Starmer show, with no room for Badenoch. She has little appeal to voters lost to Reform, Labour, or the Lib Dems. Tories are becoming disillusioned. However bad today is, expect MPs to give Badenoch the benefit of the doubt. Too many, having kept their seats at the last election, suffer from survivorship bias, and want to deny how bad the situation is. But they can't fool themselves forever. The party is dying on its feet. The buck stops with Badenoch. It's now not a case of if she goes, but when.
