Labour also turns down European Commission’s proposal, which would have allowed young Britons to live, study and work in EU

Rishi Sunak has rejected an EU offer to strike a post-Brexit deal to allow young Britons to live, study or work in the bloc for up to four years.

The prime minister declined the European Commission’s surprise proposal of a youth mobility scheme for people aged between 18 and 30 on Friday, after Labour knocked back the suggestion on Thursday night, while noting that it would “seek to improve the UK’s working relationship with the EU within our red lines”.

Trade bodies say ongoing confusion about when checks will come in is ‘incredibly challenging’

• UK to delay start of health and safety checks on EU imports

Businesses have described Britain’s Brexit border plans as being in “complete disarray” after it emerged the introduction of some checks on EU imports will be delayed.

Post-Brexit border rules, due to come into force on 30 April, will require many meat, dairy and plant products from the EU to be physically checked at government border control posts (BCPs).

New post-Brexit border checks ‘set to zero’ to avoid what Defra calls risk of serious disruption

The UK government has reportedly told port health authorities it will not “turn on” health and safety checks for EU imports as new post-Brexit border controls begin this month.

A presentation prepared by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) highlighted the risk of “significant disruption” if the new measures were implemented, according to the Financial Times. It made clear that the systems would not be fully ready on time.

Commission to seek approval from leaders to start talks with UK on visa-free exchanges for 18- to 30-year-olds

The European Commission has proposed opening negotiations with the UK to allow mobility enjoyed before Brexit to millions of 18- to 30-year-olds in a major concession.

It said it would now seek approval from individual EU leaders to start the talks, which could partly eliminate one of the most controversial elements of Brexit, a block on the right to live in one another’s countries, albeit for a limited period and with conditions.

Some shortages are so serious they are imperilling the health and even lives of patients with serious illnesses, pharmacy bosses say

Drug shortages are a “new normal” in the UK and are being exacerbated by Brexit, a report by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank has warned. A dramatic recent spike in the number of drugs that are unavailable has created serious problems for doctors, pharmacists, the NHS and patients, it found.

The number of warnings drug companies have issued about impending supply problems for certain products has more than doubled from 648 in 2020 to 1,634 last year.

The opposition is right to recognise that a dangerous international climate demands closer security partnership with the EU

For most of the period since the decision was taken to leave the EU, British politicians have overestimated how much thought the continent gives to Brexit. Once shock at the referendum result receded, relations with the UK came to be seen as a technical problem to be solved by hard-headed negotiation.

At critical moments, when deadlines neared, Brexit leapt up the agenda. After the treaties were signed, they dropped right down, overtaken by the other issues facing a large bloc with many borders and problems. That represents a perverse kind of victory for Boris Johnson and his chief negotiator, David Frost. The deal they signed was so skewed against British interests that Brussels has little incentive to reopen the settlement.

Party hopes to attend meetings of EU foreign affairs council should it win UK election

• David Lammy: Labour’s foreign policy will be realistic about us as a nation, not nostalgic about what we used to be

Labour wants to draw closer to Europe on key foreign and security issues by frequently attending meetings of the monthly EU foreign affairs council.

The move, which is likely to trigger Conservative claims that Labour is prepared to abandon an independent foreign policy, builds on a pledge by Keir Starmer’s party to try to negotiate a new security pact with the EU after the 2024 UK election.

British growers and sellers fear government measures starting on 30 April could result in delays and plants being damaged

Garden centres and nurseries are stockpiling plants before Brexit checks are introduced later this month, amid concerns over whether new border posts will be ready to deal with the volume of deliveries.

The Horticultural Trade Association (HTA), which represents garden retailers and growers, said many of its members had been increasing orders of plants in recent weeks, to increase stocks before the checks start on 30 April.

When I met the Dutch politician Geert Wilders years ago, he was set on ‘Nexit’. Now he too would rather stay in the EU

Exports are performing badly, pace the fantasy world of the Daily Express; supply lines for imports once regarded as routine are disrupted or discontinued altogether; staff shortages owing to new restrictions on travel and employment of our fellow Europeans are hurting the hospitality trade in what we used to boast about as our “service economy”. The UK’s economy is “5% worse off than it would be in the EU” according to a recent well-researched report by Goldman Sachs. Welcome to Brexit Britain!

In the early days of the Brexit disaster, I met Michel Barnier, the EU’s impressive negotiator, at a high-powered conference on Lake Como organised by the Ambrosetti Institute. We agreed what a disaster was in store if the UK did not come to its senses.

UK hospitality industry hit by crisis as thousands of young Italians are forced out by latest round of rules and cost-of-living crisis

Emanuela Reccia has lived in London for almost a decade. She was a teenager when she left her home city of Naples to become a waitress in the UK, bringing her expertise and love of Italian cuisine to the capital.

But the 27-year-old, like thousands of other Italians working in the UK hospitality industry, now feels she has no option but to leave and return to Europe after the latest round of post-Brexit rules.

Rules due to come in this month will impose new handling fees – and experts say small suppliers are already being driven away

Ministers’ decision to impose Brexit import checks on 30 April will lead to shortages of some foods, flowers and herbs, industry leaders have warned.

In the week after the government was accused of blindsiding the British food industry by giving 27 days’ notice that every consignment of items such as camembert, steak, tulips and chives would be subject to fees of up to £145, small retailers such as delis and farm shops have been scrambling to make sure they still have products to sell.

Belated progress is being made towards a formal trade and border deal for the British overseas territory, in which 96% voted remain

These are difficult, despairing days on the Conservative backbenches. Almost certainly a dreadful set of local election results looms in May. Nationally, fears of a Labour landslide on the scale of 1997 grow. But last month, briefly, it was quite like old times as Brexit veterans Sir Bill Cash and Mark Francois indulged in an opportunity to play some favourite old tunes.

Rumours of an imminent deal with the European Union over the post-Brexit status of Gibraltar have permitted some satisfyingly retro talk of red lines crossed and sovereignty compromised. Following the successful negotiation of the Windsor framework for Northern Ireland, opportunities for this kind of stuff are now few and far between. In a House of Commons debate in March, Brexit chainmail clanking, Sir Bill took his chance, warning that aligning with EU rules, and allowing Schengen border checks on Gibraltar, would amount to caving in to a “foreign power”. A dangerous precedent would be set for other British overseas territories. “Here we go again,” lamented Mr Francois sympathetically.

Gibraltar’s chief minister says progress made in talks about free movement across border with Spain

The UK and the EU are within “kissing distance” of a post-Brexit deal to guarantee free movement over the border between Gibraltar and Spain, Gibraltar’s chief minister has said.

After a meeting between the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, and the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič, agreement was reached on issues that have dogged negotiations for the past five years.

Additional measures from 30 April for imported animal and plant products could hike costs by 10% in first year, says Allianz Trade

New post-Brexit UK border controls coming into force later this month will cost British businesses £2bn and fuel higher inflation, according to a report warning that UK-EU trade will be damaged as a result.

With less than a month before the introduction of new checks on animal and plant products from 30 April, the insurer Allianz Trade said the controls agreed under Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal could add 10% to import costs over the first year.

Brexiters’ Asia hopes have foundered amid economic woes and hardline nationalism; it’s time to look at markets in our own backyard

The world has changed since, post-Brexit, “Global Britain” set itself to “pivot” from sclerotic Europe towards booming Asia. Always a fanciful idea that disregarded Asian realities, it has now become farcical. Neither China nor India are proving the easy pickings on which “buccaneering” Britain could ride to economic success, denied through being tied to the “corpse” of an EU economy allegedly shackled by regulation and tax. Brexiter ambitions are turning to ashes.

Instead, there is China, run by an ever more openly dictatorial and militarily ambitious communist government. Its economy is plagued by politically inspired production targets: everything from building flats to EV batteries outstripping any likely demand. There is growing youth unemployment and a once fevered, now overblown, property market retrenching to such an extent it threatens the viability of the vastly over-extended banking system.

It must learn to use its global reach and power wisely as other, sometimes predatory, nations grow in influence

The headlines this past week have been about further terrible events in Gaza and the desperate need for a sustained ceasefire, alongside a paradigm shift in the way the war is conducted, but foreign policy is rarely at the centre of general election campaigns and 2024 is unlikely to be an exception. However, the UK does not have the luxury of thinking that the rest of the world doesn’t matter.

This was one of the delusions of Brexit: that there is a future where our destiny depends only on our own decisions rather than on our ability to engage, incentivise, bargain with and deter others.

The shadow chancellor is often criticised for her centrist positions, but Labour’s plan for a long-term rescue is a vital difference between the parties

When preparing to become Labour’s chancellor in 1964, James Callaghan used to go up to Oxford for economics lessons at Nuffield College. The present shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is already steeped in economic knowledge, including that of the UK’s economic history, as her recent Mais lecture at Bayes business school made clear.

I was amused by some of the pre-lecture media speculation that Reeves might express her admiration for Margaret Thatcher. On the contrary, she let it be known, in an aside not in the printed text, that distaste for Thatcherism was one of her motives for going into politics.

Despite being called continuity Hunt, the shadow chancellor has set out a proposal for meaningful change

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt likes to tell business leaders not to worry about political instability and more policy upset. He claims to be carefully building policy that will survive – win or lose the next election. If the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, succeeds him, accepting nearly all his proposals, be reassured, he says, there will be continuity rather than change. In the run-up to her important Mais lecture last week, the pre-briefings seemed to warrant his judgment.

She would reaffirm her iron attachment to fiscal rules and budgetary discipline, we were told. After all, she had beaten a wholesale retreat from Labour’s cornerstone £28bn green spending commitment. In successive fiscal “events”, she has accepted all the proposed tax cuts, not even reinstating the cap on bank bonuses. There was chatter describing her as “continuity Hunt”. Even Margaret Thatcher, we read, would be invoked as a change agent she admired. Unite sharpened its claws, writing off the lecture even as Reeves spoke as “for the birds”. Only a “sustained rise in public investment in infrastructure”, declared general secretary Sharon Graham, “can turn the tide on decline”. Two days later, columnist Owen Jones resigned from the Labour party, citing the refusal to challenge catastrophic Tory policies in “a race to the bottom”.

Tax revenues from Silicon Valley giants have made the republic wealthy on paper, but housing and healthcare crises persist

In 1956, a chap named TK “Ken” Whitaker, an Irish civil servant who had trained as an economist, was appointed permanent secretary of the finance department in Dublin at the relatively young age of 39. From his vantage point at the top of his country’s treasury, the view was bleak. The Irish republic was, economically and socially, in deep trouble. It had no natural resources, very little industry and was mired in a deep depression. Inflation and unemployment were high. Ireland’s main export was its young people, who were fleeing in thousands every year, seeking work and better lives elsewhere. The proud dream of Irish independence had produced a poor, priest-ridden statelet on the brink of failure.

Whitaker immediately put together a team of younger officials who did a critical analysis of the country’s economic failings and came up with a set of policies for rescuing it. The resulting report, entitled First Programme for Economic Expansion, was published in November 1958, and after Seán Lemass was elected taoiseach (prime minister) in 1959, it became Ireland’s strategy for survival.

Perhaps our government imagines bulldog spirit will protect us from the dangerous substances that Europe rules unsafe

It’s a benefit of Brexit – but only if you’re a manufacturer or distributor of toxic chemicals. For the rest of us, it’s another load we have to carry on behalf of the shysters and corner-cutters who lobbied for the UK to leave the EU.

The government insisted on a separate regulatory system for chemicals. At first sight, it’s senseless: chemical regulation is extremely complicated and expensive. Why replicate an EU system that costs many millions of euros and employs a small army of scientists and administrators? Why not simply adopt as UK standards the decisions it makes? After all, common regulatory standards make trading with the rest of Europe easier. Well, now we know. A separate system allows the UK to become a dumping ground for the chemicals that Europe rules unsafe.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Join George Monbiot for a Guardian Live online event on Wednesday 8 May 2024 at 8pm BST. He will be talking about his new book, The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism. Book tickets here

As the chancellor prepares next week’s budget, Labour says it is staring at a dire inheritance. The voters look likely to agree

• The Conservatives’ economic record since 2010 in 10 charts

The past 14 years have been a white-knuckle ride for the British economy. Record low interest rates, money creation from the Bank of England on an industrial scale, Brexit, millions of workers furloughed during the pandemic, the biggest fall in output in at least a century – all that, and a record number of people inactive through long-term ill health. Boring it hasn’t been.

At the end of it all, there is a sense of deja vu as Jeremy Hunt puts the finishing touches to next week’s budget. When Liam Byrne departed the Treasury in 2010 he left a note – meant as a joke – for his successor as chief secretary, which said: “I’m afraid there is no money.” After almost a decade and a half of economic underperformance, Byrne’s words have come back to haunt the Tories.

Economists say George Osborne blundered when he imposed severe austerity measures on a still-fragile economy

Trade rules aim to alleviate DUP opposition to the Irish Sea border and restore power sharing

The government has established new rules to smooth post-Brexit trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is to assuage Democratic Unionist party concerns that the Irish Sea border has undermined the region’s position in the UK. In return for these concessions the DUP has agreed to restore power sharing after a two-year boycott that has paralysed the Stormont assembly and executive.

Today is first stage in a series of changes likely to raise costs for businesses and consumers

Today will bring the first stage in new, wide-ranging Brexit border controls on the import of plants, animals and food to the UK from the European Union.

The changes, the most significant for importers since the UK left the single market three years ago, are poised to have huge ramifications for businesses that rely on imports from the continent.

DUP approves post-Brexit legislation, meaning devolved government could soon be functioning again

• UK politics live – latest updates

Power-sharing in Northern Ireland is on the verge of being restored after a night of drama in Belfast. It would end an almost two-year power vacuum in the region after the Democratic Unionist party collapsed the Stormont government to protest against post-Brexit trading arrangements.

After talks with Canada hit a halt alongside those with US and India, the UK has limited Pacific agreements to show for Brexit

• UK suspends trade talks with Canada

Negotiations over a trade deal between the UK and Canada have been halted after disagreements on beef and cheese tariffs.

The ability for the UK to secure its own global free trade deals was sold as one major benefit from the UK’s decision to leave the EU but progress has been mixed. Here we look at what agreements have been struck so far and with whom, and which other important economies are still at the negotiating table and why.

The scale of the law changes means environmental legislation in the UK is facing death by a thousand cuts

• Brexit divergence from EU destroying UK’s environmental protections
• Northern Ireland ‘dirty corner of Europe due to lack of governance’

Although the UK’s regression from EU environmental standards, revealed by the Guardian, seems very technical, the scale of the law changes means environmental legislation in Britain is facing death by a thousand cuts.

In practice, changes by the EU that the UK is not following and planned divergences from EU law will mean toxic chemicals banned in the EU will be allowed to be used in the UK, the UK will reduce greenhouse gas emissions more slowly, its waters will be dirtier, and consumer products will be more likely to contribute to global deforestation.

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have clashed over the Rwanda asylum deal during PMQs. The Labour leader referred to the plan as a 'gimmick' while the prime minister declared Starmer was 'once again on the side of the people smugglers'. The pair also used Margaret Thatcher and Brexit to mock one another with Starmer questioning how the Conservative party went from 'up yours to laws to take our money Kagame'. Sunak said Starmer could role play Thatcher all he wanted but when it came to Europe his answer was the same, 'yes, yes, yes'

Trade has been hit by Brexit, while the number in poverty has risen sharply in a country ill-prepared for the future

• British workers missing out on £10,700 a year as living standards fall

For years the British government from the prime minister down has lacked a coherent economic strategy, according to a thinktank’s health check of UK prospects.

“We are not on course towards setting any such strategy – indeed, we are not serious about the task,” says the report, titled “Ending Stagnation – a new economic strategy for Britain”.

Ursula von der Leyen hopes young people can drive a rapprochement but polls show they have other things on their minds

“We goofed it up, you have to fix it,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday in a message to the younger generation about Brexit.

Fixing it would be “the direction of travel” with regard to the UK rejoining the EU, she told an audience in Brussels. But as the fourth anniversary of Brexit approaches, is it likely that Britain’s millennials and generation Z will demand a rapprochement?

Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, has said that the problem raised by car manufacturers worried about exports to the EU facing tariffs from next year 'isn’t to do with Brexit'.

She made the comment during business questions in the Commons, where Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, criticised her record since she has been in post.

The 'rules of origin' requirements raised by car manufacturers were part of the TCA and related to Brexit, but all European car manufacturers were having problems because there was not enough battery supply in Europe, she said

• UK politics: latest updates

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has said it 'feels wrong' that EU citizens who have lived in the UK for years and pay taxes here do not have the right to vote. Speaking to LBC on Monday, Starmer said: 'The thinking behind it is: if someone’s been here say 10, 20, 30 years, contributing to this economy, contributing to the community, they ought to be able to vote'

• Keir Starmer says it ‘feels wrong’ EU citizens living in UK can’t vote

• UK politics – live updates

The speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsey Hoyle, lost his temper with Kemi Badenoch when the secretary of state failed to inform the house of the government's U-turn on repealing retained EU laws.

The government has decided to go ahead with plans to allow thousands of EU-inherited laws to expire by the end of the year, news that Badenoch released in a statement and to the Telegraph newpaper before making a statement in the House of Commons.

The business and trade secretary said she was sorry that the sequencing was not to the speaker's satisfaction, infuriating Hoyle further

• UK politics: latest updates

The US president said making sure the Good Friday agreement and the Windsor framework stay in place were the top priority of his trip to Northern Ireland. Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One, Joe Biden said 'making sure the Irish accords and the Windsor agreements stay in place, keep the peace, that's the main thing'.

Biden also addressed a question on the arrest of Evan Gershkovich by Russian authorities, calling his detention 'totally illegal'.

• Biden says keeping Good Friday and Windsor agreements in place are main priority as he flies to Belfast – UK politics live

Suella Braverman has denied Brexit is responsible for delays at the port of Dover after some passengers said they had been queueing for up to 14 hours to have their passports checked. Extra sailings were being put in place overnight with hopes of clearing the backlog by lunchtime on Sunday, after a critical incident was declared at the port on Friday. Speaking on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, the home secretary said operations at the French border had been 'very good' since Brexit

• Braverman denies Brexit to blame for Dover queues

UK foreign secretary James Cleverly met with Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission vice-president, to agree to work 'intensively and faithfully' to implement the Windsor framework after formally adopting it. On behalf of the UK and EU, both counterparts agreed to accept the revised version of the Northern Ireland protocol. Prime minister Rishi Sunak's deal with the 27-nation bloc has rewritten the post-Brexit rules on Northern Ireland trade. Cleverly said that, after long negotiations, the two had finally found a way 'to move forward'

• Brexit: UK and EU formally agree Windsor framework for Northern Ireland – live

Rishi Sunak has won parliamentary backing for his revised post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland despite hardline Conservative Brexiters voting against it. Among those who did not support the prime minister’s proposals were his two immediate predecessors, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, members of the European Research Group as well as Democratic Unionist party MPs

• More Partygate evidence published as Boris Johnson prepares to face inquiry – UK politics live 
• Boris Johnson and Liz Truss to vote against Northern Ireland Brexit plan
• Northern Ireland voters back Windsor framework – poll

Conservative MP Mark Francois, who chairs the European Research Group, makes a statement to the press detailing its study of Rishi Sunak's Northern Ireland Brexit plan. Summarising the ERG's stance, Francois said  it had concluded the Stormont 'brake' was not effective and that the check-free 'green lane' for the bulk of goods moved between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would not work as billed

• Hardline Tory MPs reject Sunak’s Northern Ireland Brexit plan

Speaking at the Global Soft Power summit in London, the ex-prime minister Boris Johnson said the Northern Ireland Brexit deal agreed by Sunak was 'not about the UK taking back control'. Johnson admitted he was at fault that the checks on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland had become too 'onerous' but reiterated his call for the UK to be allowed to diverge with EU regulations and laws. He said: 'This is nothing if it is not a Brexit government, and Brexit is nothing if we in this country don’t do things differently' 

• UK politics live - latest updates

When the history of Brexit is written, the Lib Dems’ decision to let Johnson hold this election will be seen as a key strategic error.

The post Why we lost – and where we go from here appeared first on InFacts.

We can kick Johnson out. So brave the elements and vote for the candidates with the best chance of beating the Tories.

The post 7 reasons to vote Johnson out appeared first on InFacts.

Relying on the WTO for our trade was always a terrible idea. Now that the US president has ripped a hole in it, it’s economic suicide.

The post Trump sabotages Brexiters’ last-ditch safety net appeared first on InFacts.

Good news from YouGov poll is Tory lead is shrinking. Bad news is they are still ahead because too many pro-European votes are being wasted.

The post With a final tactical voting push, we can beat Johnson appeared first on InFacts.

A Tory victory means more chaos. The only way to end the arguments over Brexit and fix our real problems is to vote them out.

The post Johnson won’t stop the chaos – that’s just propaganda appeared first on InFacts.

Johnson yesterday hinted he would axe the licence fee. This had two purposes: cover up his NHS blunder and pummel the BBC into submission.

The post Tories bully BBC because it’s easily cowed appeared first on InFacts.

PM rips off Love Actually in his video but misses out the punch line: “Just because it’s Christmas and at Christmas you tell the truth.”

The post At Christmas you tell the truth, but not if you’re Johnson appeared first on InFacts.

Right-wing press has branded Corbyn unelectable. They are right - he is. Not for the reasons they suggest, but because of simple maths.

The post Don’t worry about voting tactically for Corbyn. He won’t win appeared first on InFacts.

To cover up Johnson’s NHS disaster, Tories fabricate story about Labour activist punching Hancock aide.

The post Tory “punch” propaganda backfires appeared first on InFacts.

Not only is Johnson lying about surrendering to the EU demand for an internal UK border, he isn’t ready to deliver a deal by December 2020.

The post Johnson’s dishonesty and disorganisation on Irish Sea border appeared first on InFacts.