UK delays post-Brexit border checks
LONDON, Sept 7, (AP): Britain said Monday it is postponing the start of postBrexit border checks on goods going to Northern Ireland, as it seeks breathing space in its tense standoff with the European Union over trade rules.
Brexit Minister David Frost said the government would continue to trade “on the current basis,” maintaining grace periods that the UK gave itself after splitting from the EU’s economic embrace at the end of 2020. He did not set a new end date for the grace periods, some of which had been due to finish on Sept 30.
Frost said the standstill would “provide space for potential further discussions” with the EU over the two sides’ deep differences on the Brexit divorce agreement.
U.K.-EU relations have soured over trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK that has a land border with the 27-nation bloc. The divorce deal the two sides struck before Britain’s departure means customs and border checks must be conducted on some goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
The regulations are intended to prevent goods from Britain entering the EU’s tariff-free single market while keeping an open border between
Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland - a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process. But the checks have angered Northern Ireland’s British unionists, who say they amount to a border in the Irish Sea and weaken Northern Ireland’s ties with the rest of the UK.
Measures
One of the deferred measures, which had been due to take effect Oct. 1, would ban chilled meats such as sausages from England, Scotland and Wales from going to Northern Ireland. The “sausage war” has been the highest-profile element of the UK-EU dispute, raising fears that Northern Ireland supermarkets may not be able to sell British sausages, a breakfast staple.
The trade tensions have destabilized Northern Ireland’s delicate political balance and raised tensions with the EU, which is calling for Britain to implement the deal it agreed to, and with the UK government, which says the rules need fundamental reform.
Britain’s Conservative government is seeking to remove most checks, replacing them with a “light touch” system in which only goods at risk of entering the EU would be inspected.
Frost warned last week that the UK and the EU risked entering a long period of “cold mistrust” unless issues around the agreement were resolved.
The UK’s previous unilateral extension of the grace period angered the EU, which responded by launching legal action. The bloc has since put that action on hold, and the two sides have taken tentative steps to cool the situation. Monday’s announcement by Britain was made with the advance knowledge of the bloc.
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LONDON: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans Tuesday to fulfill a election promise to grapple with the rocketing cost of the long-term care needed by Britain’s growing older population.
To do it, he appears set to break another election vow: not to raise taxes.
Johnson is scheduled to tell Parliament how his Conservative government will raise billions to fund the care millions of Britons need in the final years of their lives.
That burden currently falls largely on individuals, who often have to deplete their savings or sell their homes to pay for care. One in seven people ends up paying more than 100,000 pounds ($138,000), according to the government, which calls the cost of care “catastrophic and often unpredictable.”