Sunak marks the anniversary of Brexit by claiming benefits will ‘continue to empower societies’ – UK Politics Live | Policy

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Sunak celebrates the anniversary of Brexit by calling for ’empowering societies’ benefits as the International Monetary Fund presents devastating growth forecasts.

good morning. At 11pm, the UK will celebrate the third anniversary of leaving the European Union. Increasingly, by a margin of 60% to 40%, Britons say this was a mistake, but in the Conservative Party, concession to any such thing would amount to an intellectual crime, as would Brexiters’ hold on the party, and rather Instead, ministers mark the anniversary by talking about the supposed benefits.

Voting on the Brexit picture: A referendum on Brexit / What the UK thinks

However, what the government says about Brexit remains far less optimistic than what Boris Johnson and his colleagues said, or promised, this time around three years ago. This is what Rishi Sunak said about the anniversary in a statement released overnight.

In the three years since we left the European Union, we have made great strides in harnessing the freedoms unleashed by Brexit to address generational challenges. Whether we’re driving Europe’s fastest vaccine rollout, striking trade deals with more than 70 countries or taking back control of our borders, we’ve forged a path as an independent nation with confidence.

And in my first 100 days as Prime Minister, that momentum hasn’t slowed – we’ve cut through corporate bureaucracy, elevated through our free ports, and designed our fairer farming system to protect the British countryside.

This is just the beginning of our plans to achieve our five priorities, including growing the economy so we can create good paying jobs, and I am determined to ensure that the benefits of Brexit continue to empower communities and businesses across the country.

But it is not a good day to continue to grow the economy, as the International Monetary Fund says it expects the UK to be the only G7 country where the economy will contract this year. My colleague Graeme Wearden covered the reactions to this in his work live blog.

Here is today’s agenda.

Morning: Rishi Sunak Cabinet Chairs.

10am: NHS Payroll Review Chair Philippa Hurd gives evidence to the House of Commons Health Committee.

11:30 am: Downing Street holds a briefing in the Lobby.

11:30 a.m.: Foreign Secretary James Cleverly takes questions in the House of Commons.

After 12:30: MPs debate Labor motions, first on policing neighbourhoods, then on requiring the government to publish any analysis it made prior to its fall manifesto on the issue of rescinding “non-local” status.

2.30pm: Antonia Romeo, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, and other officials give evidence before the House of Commons Justice Committee on the functioning of the department.

4.30pm: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is due to speak to the Tories at the 1922 Committee.

I’ll try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it’s impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, include “Andrew” somewhere and I’ll be more likely to find it. I try to answer questions, and if they’re of general interest, I’ll post the question and response above the line (ATL), though I can’t promise this to everyone.

If you want to quickly get my attention, you’d better use Twitter. I’m on AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at [email protected]

Updated at 09.43 GMT

main events

Hancock stumbles across a TV interview where he claims the lockdown embrace that led to his resignation wasn’t a violation of the law

Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, was interviewed by Good Morning Britain this morning. As reported by my colleague Jessica Elgott, he claimed he never went “in the first place” I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! for his fee of £320,000.

But the highlight of the interview came when Susanna Reid, the presenter, told him that cuddling with Gina Coladangelo (at the time his advisor, now partner) in his office that led to his resignation was not only against Covid guidelines at the time, but against the law as well. Hancock refused to accept it, but stumbled so hard, he could not refute what Reed had said. Here is the clip.

Adam Wagner, a lawyer and expert on Covid insurance law, says Reid was right.

I didn’t realize, as Matt Hancock apparently just admitted on GMB, that his photo was taken on May 6th, 2021, when we were still on step two. This means any gathering of more than one person indoors for social purposes is prohibited by law https://t.co/NbVmWzxhnk

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) January 31, 2023

Updated at 10.17 GMT

Of course, there is a consensus among economists that Brexit was bad for the UK economy. An analysis by Bloomberg Economics says it costs the economy £100 billion a year in lost output.

Brexit costs the UK economy £100 billion a year, with implications for everything from business investment to companies’ ability to hire workers https://t.co/AlquaJzcwT

— Bloomberg UK (@BloombergUK) January 31, 2023

And my colleague Polly Toynbee has a damning assessment of the decision to leave the European Union in her column in today’s Guardian newspaper. Here’s an excerpt:

Look what Brexit has done: 4% contraction in long-term productivity compared to remaining in the EU, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts, inflation and energy prices are higher than in the EU, trade is down by almost a fifth, while The government itself says the touted Australian deal would raise GDP by less than 0.1% a year by 2035. Brexit has pushed up food prices by 6%, says the London Economics Commission, while draining the workforce . Eurostar also deliberately left a third of seats empty due to crippling delays at the EU-UK border.

The Brexit press cannot hide these uncomfortable facts. Telegraph associate editor Jeremy Warner challenges Jeremy Hunt’s bizarre assessment of the economy, writing that “trade with our European neighbors is faltering badly”, due to Brexit, with the “somewhat disconcerting fact that the UK is the only G7 economy not to recover”. After to its size, which it had before the spread of the epidemic. “The grim reality is that the country appears to be collapsing on almost every front” and “car production has fallen to its lowest levels since the 1950s.”

You can read the full column here.

Why No. 10 says Brexit contributes to the growth agenda

In its Brexit anniversary statement released overnight, Downing Street said Brexit is “a great opportunity to communicate the prime minister’s priorities to the British public”. It identifies five areas in which it claims Brexit contributes to the growth agenda. she says:

Freeports: From Plymouth to Teesside, eight Freeports across England are now open for business, stimulating emerging sectors from manufacturing to renewable energy and providing jobs and prosperity to areas that need it most. Crucial to the ambitious settlement agenda will be two new green free ports in Scotland – expected to bring in £10.8 billion of public and private investment and create more than 75,000 high-skilled jobs – while we will announce plans for at least one free port in Wales. in the coming months.

Edinburgh reforms: In addition to the Financial Services and Markets Bill and the second solvency reform, the government is building on the UK’s position outside the EU and is going further with the Edinburgh Reforms to ensure the UK’s financial services sector is dynamic, sustainable and globally competitive – supporting businesses and promoting growth all over the country.

star [retained EU law]Regulatory reform is a key area where the UK can develop a competitive advantage in order to grow the economy. That’s why the Prime Minister recently reaffirmed the government’s commitment to review, reform, repeal or replace all held EU laws – as part of the Cabinet’s collective campaign – to boost innovation, accelerate our economic recovery and deliver tangible benefits to businesses, while preserving world-leadership and protecting workers’ rights. the environment.

Research and Development: As the UK continues to push for Horizon Europe to join, we are working hard to develop a home-grown alternative to advance key UK science and technology strategic priorities and to strengthen collaboration with scientific superpowers around the world, such as Japan and Switzerland.

UK Subsidy Scheme: A new scheme for regulating business subsidies came into force at the beginning of the month. This marks the most significant change to management support in more than 40 years and gets rid of unnecessary EU bureaucracy.

Billionaire Torey says Brexit is a ‘total disaster’ and ‘total lies’

Guy Hands, a prominent financier and former Tory donor, gave a very different view on Brexit to Rishi Sunak in an interview with Today this morning. He said:

It was a complete disaster. The truth is that it was a lose-lose situation for us and for Europe. Europe lost more [in financial services] But we lost too. And the fact that Britain is leaving the European Union was just a complete and total lie.

The only way Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan would work was if there was a complete deregulation in the UK and we moved to a kind of Les Truss utopia in the country of Singapore, which will never happen.

My colleague Julia Kolioy has the full story here.

Sunak celebrates the anniversary of Brexit by calling for ’empowering societies’ benefits as the International Monetary Fund presents devastating growth forecasts.

good morning. At 11pm, the UK will celebrate the third anniversary of leaving the European Union. Increasingly, by a margin of 60% to 40%, Britons say this was a mistake, but in the Conservative Party, concession to any such thing would amount to an intellectual crime, as would Brexiters’ hold on the party, and rather Instead, ministers mark the anniversary by talking about the supposed benefits.

Voting on the Brexit picture: A referendum on Brexit / What the UK thinks

However, what the government says about Brexit remains far less optimistic than what Boris Johnson and his colleagues said, or promised, this time around three years ago. This is what Rishi Sunak said about the anniversary in a statement released overnight.

In the three years since we left the European Union, we have made great strides in harnessing the freedoms unleashed by Brexit to address generational challenges. Whether we’re driving Europe’s fastest vaccine rollout, striking trade deals with more than 70 countries or taking back control of our borders, we’ve forged a path as an independent nation with confidence.

And in my first 100 days as Prime Minister, that momentum hasn’t slowed – we’ve cut through corporate bureaucracy, elevated through our free ports, and designed our fairer farming system to protect the British countryside.

This is just the beginning of our plans to achieve our five priorities, including growing the economy so we can create good paying jobs, and I am determined to ensure that the benefits of Brexit continue to empower communities and businesses across the country.

But it is not a good day to continue to grow the economy, as the International Monetary Fund says it expects the UK to be the only G7 country where the economy will contract this year. My colleague Graeme Wearden covered the reactions to this in his work live blog.

Here is today’s agenda.

Morning: Rishi Sunak Cabinet Chairs.

10am: NHS Payroll Review Chair Philippa Hurd gives evidence to the House of Commons Health Committee.

11:30 am: Downing Street holds a briefing in the Lobby.

11:30 a.m.: Foreign Secretary James Cleverly takes questions in the House of Commons.

After 12:30: MPs debate Labor motions, first on policing neighbourhoods, then on requiring the government to publish any analysis it made prior to its fall manifesto on the issue of rescinding “non-local” status.

2.30pm: Antonia Romeo, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, and other officials give evidence before the House of Commons Justice Committee on the functioning of the department.

4.30pm: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is due to speak to the Tories at the 1922 Committee.

I’ll try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it’s impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, include “Andrew” somewhere and I’ll be more likely to find it. I try to answer questions, and if they’re of general interest, I’ll post the question and response above the line (ATL), though I can’t promise this to everyone.

If you want to quickly get my attention, you’d better use Twitter. I’m on AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at [email protected]

Updated at 09.43 GMT

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