Divisions deepen over Irish border

UK may need 3-yr transition post-Brexit: Treasury chief

LONDON, July 29, (Agencies): Britain’s progress towards life outside the European Union became more entangled on Friday, with divisions deepening over Northern Ireland’s border and even the type of divorce Britain actually wants.

The uncertainty coincided with the EU’s top negotiator warning that formal talks are set to be delayed, eating up more of the two-year divorce timetable.

Negotiations on the future relationship between Britain and the EU are now less likely to start in October because of a lack of progress at the initial stage of talks about the breakup, Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has told EU ambassadors.

Britain responded that it was confident that enough progress could be made to start the second stage of talks but as Prime Minister Theresa May holidayed in Italy, her ministers engaged in a public debate about how Brexit should look.

Finance minister Philip Hammond, who opposed leaving the EU in last year’s referendum and has one eye on the business community, said there should be no immediate change to immigration or trading rules when Britain leaves.

A shift to new arrangements could last until mid-2022, he said, adding he wanted to avoid a cliff-edge. He stressed that British hospitals and care homes relied as much on EU migrant workers as many businesses.

“We’ve been clear that it will be some time before we are able to introduce full migration controls between the UK and the European Union,” he told BBC radio.

The study comes a month after a huge fire at a social housing block in one of Europe’s richest boroughs revealed the city’s gaping rich-poor divide.

May’s loss of her majority in the British parliament with a botched gamble on a snap election has prompted an apparent softening of rhetoric on Brexit. But some EU member state diplomats say it now hard to discern what Britain wants.

Britain has less than two years to negotiate the terms of the divorce and the outlines of the future relationship before it is due to leave in late March 2019. Both sides need an agreement to keep trade flowing between the world’s biggest trading bloc and the fifth largest global economy.

“In the immediate aftermath of leaving the European Union goods will continue to flow across the border between the UK and EU in much the same way as they do now,” Hammond said.

Predicted

Britain’s economy weathered the immediate shock of last year’s vote to leave the EU much better than the government and most analysts had predicted.

But growth in the first half of this year has been the weakest since 2012, and earlier on Friday a closely watched consumer survey showed sentiment was its weakest in a year. Households viewed the economy as the worst in four years.

Meanwhile, Britain will abide by some European Union rules for up to three years after it officially leaves the bloc in March 2019, the country’s Treasury chief said Friday.

Hammond said a transition period is needed “to get from the status quo today to the new normal.” He said the transition should end before Britain’s next election,

In the elegant west London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where the blaze killed at least 80 people and destroyed 127 apartments, only 76 social homes which is scheduled for 2022.

Many British businesses accuse the government of sending mixed signals about Brexit. Officials say Britain will leave the bloc’s single market and customs union, and end free movement from EU countries.

But officials also say the changes, which have huge economic implications, won’t happen overnight.

Hammond told Sky News that a transition period will let businesses “go on operating normally” while Britain works out its post-Brexit relationship with the EU.

His comments come amid conflicts within the government between those, including Hammond, who want a compromise “soft Brexit” to ease the economic shock of leaving the EU, and those who want a clean, sharp break.

In related news, Irish Minister Leo Varadkar said Ireland would not accept an economic border with Northern Ireland after Brexit and urged Britain to come up with alternatives in an unusually blunt statement.

“As far as this government is concerned there shouldn’t be an economic border. We don’t want one,” said Varadkar, who came to power last month.

He warned Ireland would not “design a border for the Brexiteers” and said that the onus was on Britain to come up with proposals since it had created the problem by voting to leave the European Union.

“It’s Britain that has decided to leave and if they want to put forward smart solutions, technological solutions for borders of the future and all of that that’s up to them,” he told Irish media.

were built in the last year, according to the council.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council has been criticised by locals and politicians for its slow and ineffective response to the fire, while many accuse the authority of turning its back on social housing.

The borough did not respond to questions about the lack of new housing stock.

Out of 23,250 homes built London-wide between 2016 and 2017, 5,360 were for the below-market “social” housing sector, according to the study.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said earlier this month that his growing city needs to build 50,000 homes each year, and aims to deliver 35 percent “affordable” housing — a measure that includes social homes and other reduced-cost schemes.

A spokesperson for the mayor, who was elected last year, said his predecessor had left “outrageously low levels of affordable housing,” and Khan’s attempts to boost the number built for social rents will be a marathon, not a sprint.

“He has begun by taking important steps to boost the number of new and affordable homes by funding 50,000 new affordable homes to buy and rent, including a third around social rent levels,” the spokesman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. (RTRS)