Month: February 2020

Post-Brexit transition border checks could cause fresh food supply problems, an industry body has warned. Shoppers will notice the supply issues next January unless there is a "massive upgrade" in border facilities, the British Retail Consortium said. The warning came after cabinet minister Michael Gove said that border checks are "inevitable" after the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December. Officials said firms have enough time to prepare for the […]

Claim: UK fishermen were "throwing back a million tonnes of fish dead" every year because of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), according to Conservative MP Owen Paterson. Reality Check verdict: No one has ever come up with a credible figure of one million tonnes for UK fishermen alone. It's true that UK fishermen were required by EU rules in the past to throw back unwanted or undersized fish - although exactly […]

Northern Ireland could find itself in a different time zone to the rest of the UK under Boris Johnson's Brexit deal. Currently, EU countries and the UK switch to summer time hours on the last Sunday of March and back to Greenwich Mean Time on the last Sunday of October. But if Europe moves to a "double summer time" arrangement, the prime minister's Withdrawal Deal could mean Northern Ireland has […]

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said the EU is "all set" for trade talks with the UK and seeks a unique and unprecedented deal. "We will enter these negotiations with the highest ambition because good old friends like the UK and us shouldn't settle for less," she told MEPs. But she said UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson would have to accept a "level playing field" on rules […]

Fianna Fáil has won the most seats in the Irish general election just one ahead of Sinn Féin, who recorded a historic result. Sinn Féin's haul of 37 seats is an increase of 14 on the 2016 election. Fine Gael, whose party leader Leo Varadkar led the outgoing government as taoiseach (Irish prime minister), finished with 35 seats, down 15 from four years ago. The tight numbers could lead to […]

Brussels is clamping down on 82 free ports or free zones after identifying that their special tariff and duty status has aided the financing of terrorism, money laundering and organised crime. A set of new rules was introduced by the European commission just weeks before the launch on Monday of a UK government consultation on the creation of up to 10 free ports in post-Brexit Britain. Authorities across the EU […]

NICOLA Sturgeon is facing fresh questions over her judgment after it emerged an SNP Brexit Day stunt she promoted would ordinarily have been reported to the Belgian Police. The First Minister suggested the European Commission had “left a light on” for Scotland on January 31 after she tweeted a picture of a “Europe loves Scotland” projection on the Berlaymont building in Brussels. She wrote: “The EU Commission building in Brussels tonight (and if you […]