Customs Union

April 23, 2018

When reality bites

Is Prime Minister Theresa May resigned to Customs Union membership for the UK after Brexit? Murray Ritchie suspects the answer is ‘yes’. First it was the judges who were “enemies of the…

March 2, 2018

Is the UK heading for a general election?

To the dismay of Brexiteers a hard-left Labour leader now appears more in tune with the business establishment than the splintered Tories, writes Murray Ritchie. Slowly but inexorably the divisions over Brexit…

US President Donald Trump’s first acts
President Trump moved swiftly to close down a government program created by the Biden administration that had allowed migrants to use an app to make an appointment for admission into the United States. Migrants were shocked as the message flashed on their phones: “Existing appointments have been cancelled”. Trump has promised to deport millions of people who are living in the country without permission. His team said he would sign 10 executive orders cracking down on immigration and immigrants. Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change. He said that he planned to impose a 25 per cent tariff on products from Canada and Mexico on February 1 and might impose levies on most American imports. Trump pardoned nearly all of the 1,600 rioters of the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. New York Times, January 21

Trump signs order to withdraw US from World Health Organization
Donald Trump said the United States will exit the World Health Organization, saying the global health agency had mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic and other international health crises. The move means the US will leave the United Nations health agency in 12 months’ time and stop all financial contributions to its work. The United States is by far the WHO’s biggest financial backer, contributing around 18 per cent of its overall funding. The WHO’s most recent two-year budget, for 2024-2025, was $6.8bn. Trump also signed an executive order pausing foreign development assistance for 90 days pending a review. Trump said the WHO had failed to act independently from the “inappropriate political influence of WHO member states” and required “unfairly onerous payments” from the US that are disproportionate to the sums provided by other, larger countries, such as China. “World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore,” Trump said at the signing. The Guardian, January 21

Afghan Taliban government announces prisoner swap with US
The Taliban government said on Tuesday they had released American citizens from prison in return for an Afghan fighter held in the United States, in a deal brokered by Qatar. Discussions about the prisoner exchange were confirmed last year, but the swap was announced after outgoing US president Joe Biden handed over to Donald Trump, who was inaugurated on Monday. "An Afghan fighter Khan Mohammad imprisoned in America has been released in exchange for American citizens and returned to the country," the Afghan foreign ministry said in a statement. The ministry said Mohammad had been serving a life sentence in the state of California after being arrested "almost two decades ago" in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. Asked by AFP, the foreign ministry declined to provide further details or the number of American prisoners. France 24, January 21

Spain’s PM to stop Britons buying second homes
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Socialist prime minister, plans to ban non-resident Britons from buying houses in his country. The announcement to prevent people outside the EU from buying housing in Spain unless they reside in the country follows his proposal last week to slap a tax of up to 100 per cent on such property deals. The plans come as Sánchez’s attempts to assuage popular anger in Spain over soaring property prices and a lack of housing. In Madrid, for example, rents rose about 60 per cent in the last decade. “We are going to propose to ban non-EU foreigners from buying houses in our country, in cases where neither they nor their families reside here and they are just speculating with those homes,” Sánchez told a gathering of his Socialist party in the western Extremadura region. The Times, January 21

UK ministers poised to approve expansion of Gatwick airport
Ministers are preparing to give the go-ahead to a major expansion of Gatwick, the UK’s second-largest airport, as part of a broader push to nurture economic growth. The government is also keen to approve an expansion of Luton airport if concerns about noise pollution from passenger jets flying over rural areas can be addressed. And chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to reaffirm her support for Heathrow, the UK’s largest airport, to build a contentious third runway in a speech about economic growth later this month, according to officials. But such a project could be a long way off being realised. Ministers are planning to unveil more proposals to aid growth. The UK economy expanded by 0.1 per cent in November, following 0.1 per cent contractions in both October and September, according to official data. Financial Times, January 21

UK pay after inflation rises at fastest rate since 2021
UK pay after inflation has risen at its fastest rate for more than three years, driven by strong wage growth in the private sector. Pay packets increased on average by 3.4 per cent between September and November compared with the same period a year ago after taking into account the impact of price rises, according to the Office for National Statistics. Growth in private sector earnings were stronger than for public sector jobs. Despite a risk of higher wages pushing up inflation, the Bank of England is still expected to cut interest rates next month. Rates are currently at 4.75 per cent, but traders have bet on a cut to 4.5 per cent in February, after inflation, which measures the rate prices rise over time, unexpectedly fell last month. The Bank of England watches the pay and jobs data closely when making decisions on interest rates. The latest ONS figures estimated that average weekly earnings in the UK hit £660 in November, when inflation was 2.6 per cent - the latest figure is 2.5 per cent. BBC news, January 21

90 Palestinians released by Israel as Gaza ceasefire enters second day
Ninety Palestinian prisoners were released early on Monday as part of the ceasefire deal. Those freed from Israeli prisons included 69 women and 21 teenage boys from the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to Hamas. The prisoners, most of whom were freed from Ofer prison in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, were welcomed by thousands of people celebrating. It followed the release of three Israeli women held hostage by Hamas in tunnels beneath Gaza after being abducted by Hamas on 7 October 2023. As the fighting ceased, hundreds of aid trucks queued to enter Gaza to deliver supplies to its 2.3 million residents, 90 per cent of whom have been displaced by the conflict, many multiple times. The Guardian, January 20

Trump vows to start destroying Biden’s legacy within hours
Donald Trump is expected to sign as many as 200 executive orders on his first day as the 47th US president. Speaking to a crowd of about 25,000 that had queued for hours in temperatures below freezing, Trump, 78, said his new America would be radically different to the one he is about to inherit. “What a good feeling - we like winning, don’t we?” he asked the supporters who had packed into Washington’s Capital One arena less than 24 hours before he is sworn in as president for a second time. “Tomorrow at noon the curtain closes on four long years of American decline and we begin a brand new day of American strength and prosperity, dignity and pride.” Illegal immigration is likely to figure prominently in Trump’s first batch of new orders on Monday. Drug cartels are expected to be classified as “foreign terrorist organisations”, while a state of emergency is expected to be declared at the US-Mexico border. The Times, January 20

Elon Musk complains about China ban on X as Donald Trump prepares TikTok reprieve
Elon Musk has objected to a lack of reciprocity in the US-China tech relationship, a rare criticism from the billionaire on issues sensitive to Beijing after US president-elect Donald Trump prepared to offer a reprieve to TikTok on a ban in the US. Musk, who has long sought to maintain close ties with Communist party officials in China, a core market and production centre for his electric car company Tesla, has for years been careful in his statements about Beijing. But he said on Sunday that “something needs to change” after Trump said he would “most likely” extend a deadline for Chinese tech group ByteDance to divest from TikTok, which faced a ban under a US law that briefly forced it offline. Musk said that while he opposed banning the short-form video app on free-speech grounds, “the current situation where TikTok is allowed to operate in America, but X is not allowed to operate in China is unbalanced”. “Something needs to change,” he said in a post on X. Asked about Musk’s comments, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday that Beijing welcomed any company that abided by its laws and Chinese groups abroad were obliged to follow local rules. Financial Times, January 20

Oxfam: billionaires' wealth soared in 2024 as global elite prepare for Davos
Billionaires' wealth grew three times faster in 2024 than the year before, a top anti-poverty group reported on Monday as some of the world's political and financial elite prepared for an annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland. Oxfam International, in its latest assessment of global inequality timed to the opening of the World Economic Forum meeting, also predicts at least five trillionaires will crop up over the next decade. A year ago, the group forecast that only one trillionaire would appear during that time. OxFam's research adds weight to a warning by outgoing President Joe Biden last week of a “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of very few ultra-wealthy people”. The group's sharp-edged report, titled “Takers Not Makers,” also says the number of people in poverty has barely budged since 1990. The World Economic Forum expects to host some 3,000 attendees, including business executives, academics, government officials, and civic group leaders at its annual meeting in the Alpine village of Davos. France 24, January 20

Brexit fishing row heads for trade court showdown
The humble sandeel is set to take centre stage in the first courtroom trade battle between the UK and EU since Brexit. The UK has banned European vessels from catching the silvery fish species in its North Sea waters to protect marine wildlife that depend on it for food. But the EU is challenging the move, arguing it discriminates against Danish vessels that fish sandeel commercially, breaching the post-Brexit trade deal. The dispute is now heading for a three-day trade tribunal hearing, after formal talks to resolve the wrangle failed. Without a last-minute compromise, it will mark the first time the two sides have gone to arbitration under the 2021 trade agreement agreed by Boris Johnson. The case is due to be heard from Tuesday next week at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a dispute resolution body based in the Hague, by a panel of three mutually-agreed international trade judges. They could uphold the UK's position - or order the UK to change or drop its ban, in which case Brussels could ultimately retaliate with tariffs on British exports if ministers refused to comply. Under the trade deal, a final ruling must be delivered by the end of April, although it could be issued earlier. There is no right to appeal. BBC news, January 20

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Customs Union

When reality bites

Is the UK heading for a general election?