A scheme to allow British under-30s to live and work in the EU has been flatly rejected. Why punish them for older voters’ mistakes? 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 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 ..read more

Our shabby domestic reality is a far cry from the imperial grandeur of the Foreign Office. Politicians must recognise this Deciding on what the UK’s place in the world should be has been like watching politicians spin a wheel. Then spinning it again when the option they landed on doesn’t work out. First, it was the imperial power projections of Brexit, the reassertion of Britain’s place in the world unshackled by the limitations of equal partnership with Europe. You don’t hear so much about this any more (funny that). Instead, we now find ourselves in an era chastened by the embarrassing bomba ..read more

Ideas of exceptionalism and ‘laissez-faire’ policies are still driving economic myths that should be stone dead There were fateful choices in the autumn of 1931 and the months that followed whose consequences affect us today. The beliefs still current in British exceptionalism – attachment to laissez-faire economics and pursuit of the chimera of global Britain – have their roots in the choices made then, which became embedded in our culture, especially on the right. Challenging what should be stone-dead myths and reinventing a conception of what Britain can and should be demands understanding ..read more

The foreign secretary’s actions are always ‘the right thing to do’. How marvellous! Trotters up, or down? Even if you once admired Danny Dyer’s immortal summary of post-Brexit David Cameron – “He’s in Europe, in Nice, with his trotters up” – there’s a strong case for wishing he’d stayed that way. When Cameron’s trotters were up, we were at least spared the surely more distressing spectacle of his trotters blithely ascending the moral high ground. When he was in Nice he wasn’t travelling the world and, with all the authority of a man who used to press the services of Lex Greensill on his former ..read more

Labour also turns down European Commission’s proposal, which would have allowed young Britons to live, study and work in EU Rishi Sunak has rejected an EU offer to strike a post-Brexit deal to allow young Britons to live, study or work in the bloc for up to four years. The prime minister declined the European Commission’s surprise proposal of a youth mobility scheme for people aged between 18 and 30 on Friday, after Labour knocked back the suggestion on Thursday night, while noting that it would “seek to improve the UK’s working relationship with the EU within our red lines ..read more

Trade bodies say ongoing confusion about when checks will come in is ‘incredibly challenging’ UK to delay start of health and safety checks on EU imports Businesses have described Britain’s Brexit border plans as being in “complete disarray” after it emerged the introduction of some checks on EU imports will be delayed. Post-Brexit border rules, due to come into force on 30 April, will require many meat, dairy and plant products from the EU to be physically checked at government border control posts (BCPs ..read more

New post-Brexit border checks ‘set to zero’ to avoid what Defra calls risk of serious disruption The UK government has reportedly told port health authorities it will not “turn on” health and safety checks for EU imports as new post-Brexit border controls begin this month. A presentation prepared by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) highlighted the risk of “significant disruption” if the new measures were implemented, according to the Financial Times. It made clear that the systems would not be fully ready on time ..read more

The opposition is right to recognise that a dangerous international climate demands closer security partnership with the EU For most of the period since the decision was taken to leave the EU, British politicians have overestimated how much thought the continent gives to Brexit. Once shock at the referendum result receded, relations with the UK came to be seen as a technical problem to be solved by hard-headed negotiation. At critical moments, when deadlines neared, Brexit leapt up the agenda. After the treaties were signed, they dropped right down, overtaken by the other issues facing a large ..read more

British growers and sellers fear government measures starting on 30 April could result in delays and plants being damaged Garden centres and nurseries are stockpiling plants before Brexit checks are introduced later this month, amid concerns over whether new border posts will be ready to deal with the volume of deliveries. The Horticultural Trade Association (HTA), which represents garden retailers and growers, said many of its members had been increasing orders of plants in recent weeks, to increase stocks before the checks start on 30 April ..read more

When I met the Dutch politician Geert Wilders years ago, he was set on ‘Nexit’. Now he too would rather stay in the EU Exports are performing badly, pace the fantasy world of the Daily Express; 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” according to a recent well-researched report by Goldman Sachs. Welcome ..read more