The Scottish drama Shakespeare couldn t make up japantimes.co.jp - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from japantimes.co.jp Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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The European Union and the UK concluded a post-Brexit trade deal last year, but things haven’t gotten off to a smooth start. There have been trade frictions, vaccine nationalism and a simmering dispute over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
At least Britain’s cabinet ministers are all singing from the same hymn sheet. That wasn’t the case in 2016, when Theresa May became prime minister and appointed David Davis as the country’s Brexit Secretary to head up a new government department charged with negotiating the UK’s departure. Davis resigned as Brexit Secretary in July 2018, saying the UK had given away too much in the negotiations. The Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU), which Davis led, was dissolved by Boris Johnson.
Boris Johnson Has No One Else to Blame Now Bloomberg 12/31/2020 Therese Raphael
(Bloomberg Opinion) In 2019, Boris Johnson took power in Britain. In 2020, he took back control, leading his country out of the European Union. In the year to come, those voters who made it all possible will be expecting to see some of the benefits he promised. They will ultimately provide the thumbs up or down on Johnson’s big Brexit project and legacy.
Constituencies in England’s northern and Midlands regions dubbed the Red Wall because of their former loyalty to the opposition Labour Party did for Johnson in the December 2019 election what voters in places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan did for Donald Trump in 2016. One year on, those English voters are hurting. The north has suffered more Covid-19 deaths than the rest of the U.K., and endured the pandemic’s devastating impact on education, mental health and employment.
While one of the biggest euroskeptic grievances against Brussels was its red tape, Britain had better get used to quite a lot of extra rules and regulations.
Now We Know How Boris Johnson s Movie Ends
Bloomberg 24/12/2020 Therese Raphael
(Bloomberg Opinion) Now we know how this movie ends. “Brexit means Brexit,” Theresa May declared in those electric but mystifying opening scenes after the referendum back in 2016. It wasn’t clear then or for a long while after what Brexit meant. Nearly five years and two prime ministerial resignations later, Boris Johnson has finally defined it.
Set against the perils of breaking up with no trade deal, having an agreement at all merits celebration. Apart from the economic costs and reputational damage, a no-deal exit would have put terrible strain on the already fraught union with Scotland and poisoned relations with the European Union still Britain’s largest trading partner and the world’s largest single market.