Independent

Brexit campaign group Leave.eu has moved its internet registration to the Republic of Ireland in order to be able to keep its .eu suffix after the UK quit the European Union.

Hospitals in #England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 scrambled for hospital beds on Thursday as the surge in #covid19 cases risked overwhelming the system 🦠🏥

A leaked briefing suggested that #London's hospitals could be beyond capacity in less than two weeks.@CecGalluccio reports pic.twitter.com/99h96zUeHb

— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) January 7, 2021

Scrap EU consumer and worker protections now Brexit is completed, leading Tory says

Change is coming. To succeed outside the EU, we need to be fitter, leaner and more globally engaged,' said the former MEP, who has just been made a Conservative peer. [...] "We have won the right to make different decisions outside the EU," Mr Hannan wrote - attacking "Stone Age instincts" that instead back stronger state intervention, because of the pandemic.

NI - UK trade problems to 'get worse' before they improve - DW

The British government is aiming to resolve trade disruptions between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said amid reports of problems caused by post-Brexit regulations coming into force at the beginning of the year.

The Road Haulage Association (RHA) sent a report to the minister warning that the "supply chain is collapsing and within a matter of a week may totally collapse," Northern Ireland's The News Letter reported on Saturday.

Several supermarket chains in Northern Ireland were forced to withdraw some produce from their shelves as the new regulations caused backlogs and delays.

An editor for The News Letter tweeted a picture of oranges at a supermarket warehouse in Belfast, saying that the fruit took too long to arrive from the mainland and eventually needed to be thrown out.

Can't they supply from that place located, you know, on the same island?

UK businesses wake up to hard truths on tariffs  - Politico.eu

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson may have promised a "tariff-free" post-Brexit trade deal at the end of last year, but British businesses are increasingly sounding the alarm over the scale of potential new duties.

Throughout nearly five years of Brexit talks, economists and trade experts repeatedly warned that, even in the best-case scenario, an EU-U.K. accord would only prevent the imposition of tariffs on goods that were predominantly produced in the U.K. Many other goods passing through Britain or distributed from there could face import duties, they warned, but the subject gained only scant attention in mainstream political debate.

In the last couple of days, however, the message has sunk in and a growing number of companies have spoken out over the disturbance that new tariffs could cause for exporters.

Who Could Have Predicted?

Netherlands protected from Engish sandwiches

Border officials have been confiscating sandwiches and other foodstuffs from drivers arriving in the Netherlands from the UK after Brexit, TV footage has revealed.

A Dutch TV clip showed a driver had his ham sandwiches taken away by border officials as he arrived - with one border guard joking: "Welcome to the Brexit, sir."

#FreeSchoolMeals On the left £30 of food. On the right what private company Chartwells have supplied having been awarded a government contract to supply for £30 free school meals.

Utterly shameful profiteering off some of the country's most disadvantaged kids! pic.twitter.com/XcmUm8qM1h

— MunchBunch (@Munchbunch87) January 11, 2021

'Sapere aude'

This graphic from the BBC shows how long it can take vaccine programmes to really have an impact on containing disease outbreaks (and these are for highly effective vaccines that do protect against transmission). It's completely dishonest to present these as a magic silver bullet pic.twitter.com/xqsHfPvk7s

— Deepti Gurdasani (@dgurdasani1) January 13, 2021

a brilliant if unexpected "infographic"

Unsold fish are rotting on docks, seafood companies are hitting the wall, but Jacob Rees-Mogg says what matters is that fish are now `happier' because they're `British' pic.twitter.com/NGjWT4mXag

— Toby Earle (@TobyonTV) January 14, 2021

Jacob Rees-Mogg - "The key is we've got our fish back. They are now British fish, & they're better & happier fish for it." 😬

Mr Speaker - Obviously there's overwhelming evidence for that. pic.twitter.com/pTrcEVdr0w

— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) January 14, 2021

The fishes were unavailable for comment.

Coronavirus sparks exodus of foreign-born people from UK - FT

Coronavirus has sparked an exodus of immigrants from the UK and what is likely to be the largest fall in Britain's population since the second world war, according to a statistical analysis of official data.

A blog, published on Thursday by the government-funded Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE), estimated that up to 1.3m people born abroad left the UK between the third quarter of 2019 and the same period in 2020.

In London alone, almost 700,000 foreign-born residents have probably moved out, the authors of the blog calculated, leading to a potential 8 per cent drop in the capital's population last year.

CST response to Scottish Government
"Dear Kate, Thank you for your letter to the Chancellor on 12 January seeking further funding assurances in 2021-22. I am replying as the minister responsible for public spending. ..."

This seems like double jeopardy. "We are making you park here, but if you park here we will fine you." Stuck in line, no food, no toilet, no income from mileage.

Hauliers waiting for their paperwork to clear during Brexit custom checks face a £50 ($68) an hour fine. Truckers have been told that from 1 February, after the first two hours of waiting at the nine sites for the green light, they will be charged £50.

In December, Kent County Council was given new powers to clamp and fine lorries in certain areas. Those entering the county need Kent Access Permits and face £300 fines for not having them.

I wonder if, after the drivers get home after their first or second experience with this, they will just direct their attention elsewhere. Or just stay home.

Home Office Crime Data Loss

Home Office engineers are working to restore data lost from the Police National Computer. Home Office Ministers are being kept updated on their progress. Read more here [_link]

— Home Office (@ukhomeoffice) January 16, 2021

UK Accidentally Deletes 150k Arrests Records

UK Home Office Data Loss Incidents Surge by 120% | 2019-2020 |

'Sapere aude'

Lord Sumption to a lady with stage 4 cancer:

'I didn't say your life was not valuable, I said it was less valuable.'

Let's really break this down and realise just how awful a statement it is and the repercussions it may have..https://t.co/fUNcK4TspF

— Dr Benjamin 'Ward Viking' Janaway 💙 (@drjanaway) January 17, 2021

archived A few first principles

Brexit is now saving lives pic.twitter.com/CPQi6bAQRv

— Effie Deans (@Effiedeans) January 17, 2021

UK refuses diplomatic status to EU representatives
The EU needs to deploy a proportionate diplomatic response. I suggest opening full EU embassies in Glasgow, Belfast, and whatever the capital of Wales is.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Johnson government keeps Trumpian fires burning with review of workers' rights [_link]

— The Independent (@Independent) January 21, 2021

'Sapere aude'

Official advice from the British government inside:

Move to EU to avoid Brexit costs, firms told  - Observer

British businesses that export to the continent are being encouraged by government trade advisers to set up separate companies inside the EU in order to get around extra charges, paperwork and taxes resulting from Brexit, the Observer can reveal.

In an extraordinary twist to the Brexit saga, UK small businesses are being told by advisers working for the Department for International Trade (DIT) that the best way to circumvent border issues and VAT problems that have been piling up since 1 January is to register new firms within the EU single market, from where they can distribute their goods far more freely.

Independent

Many items are now prohibited from travellers' baggage from Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland). These are the most significant rules.

[...]

The ban on meat and dairy extends to items such as cakes  that contain fresh cream and confectionery "made with high levels of unprocessed dairy ingredients".