What’s happening? Boris Johnson lowers the temperature on trade wars, and Britain backtracks on butcher visas.
Striking a conciliatory tone on Brexit, Boris Johnson told Bloomberg’s Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait in an exclusive interview: “Is there a problem with the Northern Irish protocol? Yes there is. But we’ll fix that. I don’t think that’s going to be the end of the world.” The U.K. prime minister’s comments were a move to lower the temperature of a dispute that threatened to erupt into a full-blown trade war. They were his first remarks on the issue since U.K. and EU officials last week re-opened talks to amend the rules governing Northern Ireland’s status after Brexit. Here are the five biggest takeaways from the conversation.
Still, Northern Irish businesses aren’t satisfied with the EU’s plans to fix trade disruption linked to the protocol. They’re “by no means enough,” the region’s chamber of commerce said.
To ease a severe backlog of pigs awaiting slaughter, the U.K. is loosening immigration rules to allow visas for foreign butchers. It will also enable meat processors to store slaughtered pigs for up to six months so that they can be preserved and processed later on. The move is aimed at supporting an industry struggling with a glut of hogs and a shortage of workers to process them.
Brexit negotiations and supply disruptions are weighing on investor sentiment. The FTSE 100 is one of only a handful of major stock market indexes that have yet to recover fully their pandemic losses. The motto of equity market experts who are bullish on the U.K. benchmark is unchanged: Hang in there.
The latest batch of London-based traders to relocate to the EU will be 50 from the Italian lender UniCredit, who will shift to Milan by the end of the year. Governments from Paris to Rome have offered tax breaks to bankers returning to the continent. Italy is offering a 70% rebate on income tax for the first five years plus the possibility to extend that for another five years.
Finally, for its latest post-Brexit accord the U.K. sealed a trade deal with New Zealand. While the agreement has symbolic significance, the U.K. government’s own analysis last year estimates that the deal will have no long-term impact on the size of the British economy. At the same time, increased obstacles to trade with the EU, which remains the U.K.’s largest trading partner, have hit exports and led to higher costs for businesses.
We aim to keep you up to date on how the U.K. navigates the world after Brexit. Got tips or feedback? Email us at beyondbrexit@bloomberg.net or eburden6@bloomberg.net
Chart of the Week
Dwindling Amounts
The number of employed as HGV drivers has fallen by 53,000 in four years
Source: ONS
Note: Data shows theumber of heavy goods vehicle drivers in employment by nationality
Remember the trucker shortages that caused empty supermarket shelves and huge lines outside petrol stations? Government critics said Brexit restrictions complicated efforts to fill the gap with foreign drivers. But official figures indicate long-standing, home-grown reasons that led to the shortage. The U.K. has lost 1 in 6 of its truck drivers in the past four years as older workers quit and the pandemic cut the numbers able to qualify for a license. Most of those were British nationals.
Don’t Miss
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- Sunak resists spending pressure as BOE weighs rate hike
- U.K. industries from food to trucking warn about inflation
- EU ready to escalate if U.K. quits Northern Ireland protocol
- Johnson hints at future tax cut as burden on U.K. business rises
- U.K. spent almost $100 billion supporting furloughed employees
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