Top story: Brexit Britain, one year on
Good morning – it’s Warren Murray bringing you today’s Briefing.
It is a year since Britain voted to leave the European Union. On this first anniversary of the Brexit referendum, the UK is feeling only the downside and there is worse to come, writes Timothy Garton Ash. Economic growth in the eurozone outstripped Britain’s in the first quarter, and Brexit has become an “irritating sideshow” to leaders on the continent who have their own challenges and priorities. The UK is divided, he says, and with less than two years of negotiating time left, the best deal Britain is likely to end up with is “second-class membership of the common market” – tied to EU rules but unable to have a say in them. We would be better off staying in.
On the hip-pocket side of things, here’s what the Brexit vote has delivered. The pound has touched historic lows, squeezing household finances. Inflation has hit a four-year high and, for cash savers, that combined with lower interest rates means the money you bank is losing its buying power. While blue-chip companies that can depend on foreign earnings have been insulated, businesses with a UK focus have had chunks taken out of their share price, and farms using European migrant labour are already finding themselves short of much-needed seasonal workers – they are still eligible to come, but many now see Britain as xenophobic.
So what about the negotiations? Last night in Brussels Theresa May handed EU leaders the government’s offer for EU citizens already in Britain, or arriving within a grace period, to stay permanently after Brexit. They would attain full rights by building up five years of residency. It falls short of demands from Brussels to preserve the right to freedom of movement in perpetuity – which is what the EU wants to give Britons living on the continent. Angela Merkel says May’s offer is a “good start” but much remains to be settled, while campaigners have warned that doing anything other than reciprocating the EU offer would be legally “untenable”.
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Race to find dangerous cladding – Tower blocks where thousands of people live have been clad in the same flammable aluminium-plastic sandwich material that fuelled the Grenfell Tower blaze, according to Guardian inquiries. At least 25 towers – including 13 in London, nine in Salford and three in Plymouth – are fitted with composite cladding, with at least 12 of them so far thought to have the type with a combustible polyethylene core. The number is likely to change as government testing continues on samples from the estimated 600 cladded tower blocks across the UK. Some councils are bringing in around-the-clock fire safety patrols in the meantime, including Camden in London where the same building companies who renovated Grenfell Tower used the same cladding.
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‘Everyone will ultimately lose’ – Iran’s top atomic official today calls on Donald Trump to stop undermining the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. Without directly naming the president, or Saudi Arabia, Ali Akbar Salehi warns in the Guardian that the US administration is destabilising Iran’s security by supplying arms to its neighbours, propagating “alternative facts” that cast Iran as a villain, and disregarding the painstakingly built commitment that the nuclear accords represent. The intervention comes as the US sells arms to Saudis and backs the kingdom’s embargo against Qatar, while Trump threatens to scrap what he calls the “disastrous” agreement to limit Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in return for the easing of sanctions.
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Sainsbury shelves his politics – Britain’s biggest political donor, Lord Sainsbury, is to cease his contributions to political causes. Sainsbury – the former supermarket chairman and Blair government minister – gave £260,000 to the centrist Labour thinktank Progress in 2016. Its director has been a critic of Jeremy Corbyn and opposes any rise of the “hard left” within the party. Sainsbury says it is time for a “new generation of donors” to start contributing to progressive politics.
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‘Beyond their comprehension’ – Turkish schools are to stop teaching evolution, a top education minister official says, declaring it too debatable, controversial and difficult for pupils to understand. It adds to fears that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is eroding the country’s official secularism in favour of conservative Islamist views. Less study of Atatürk, the founder of modern secular Turkey, and more study of religion are also on the books, according to reports. Erdoğan won a referendum two months ago giving him expanded powers.
Lunchtime read: ‘The perfect police state’
Uighur Muslims resentful of Chinese rule have increasingly challenged the government in recent years. Now the Communist party has responded to protests and violence with a dramatic security surge in the province of Xinjiang.
Streets are flooded with troops and police checkpoints have sprung up everywhere. Militias have been formed, storekeepers drilled to fight imaginary assailants with sticks, and armoured vehicles rumble through towns as people are blasted with slogans: “Unity and stability are blessings! Separatism and unrest are a curse! Let all terrorists be smashed to pieces!” The architect is the Communist party hardliner Chen Quanguo, who is credited with quietening unrest in Tibet and has now set up an exhaustive fervour against terrorism and separatism in the heartland of China’s Uighurs. The securitisation looks familiar to the German academic Adrian Zenz, an expert on the region. “[It is] almost like in the old East Germany,” he says. “The perfect police state.”
Sport
The three-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome has stated categorically that he was not offered, nor administered, any of the 55 doses of the corticosteroid triamcinolone that were ordered by Team Sky between 2010 and 2013.
New Zealand’s selectorial judgment has been openly questioned by the British and Irish Lions head coach, Warren Gatland, before the first Test at Eden Park on Saturday. Liverpool have completed the £36.9m signing of Mohamed Salah from Roma, Roger Federer has lent his voice to the suggestion that Andy Murray’s reign at No1 in the world is under serious threat for the rest of the summer, and Lewis Hamilton has said he and his Mercedes team need to be more consistent to challenge Ferrari for the Formula One world championship. And in a boon to the England rugby league side, Australian great Johnathan Thurston has been ruled out of this year’s World Cup.
Business
One year on from the Brexit referendum, a new study has drawn up a list of the winners and losers. Top of the pile are big multinationals whose dollar earnings have soared thanks to the weak pound, according to stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdowne. Worse off are consumers who have seen prices rise at home and also when on holiday as sterling bought them less abroad.
The pound, which fell as low as $1.20 in January, has recovered a bit but is still under pressure. It has been buying $1.27 and €1.137 overnight.
The papers
Two main themes today – post-Brexit immigration and the Grenfell fire aftermath.
The Daily Mail decides to underline part of its headline today. “May: EU migrants can stay in UK”. The Mail doesn’t seem to be overly happy with that. The Telegraph says: “Three million EU migrants get the right to stay” and runs a comment piece from Fraser Nelson that says the PM has failed to learn the lessons of the leave vote last year. The splash in the Daily Express is “Migrant numbers rocket”, saying Britain’s population has increased at its sharpest rate in 70 years.
The Guardian leads on the aftermath of Grenfell again with the headline “Frantic race to test panels on suspect towers”. The Mirror echoes that headline, saying thousands more people are living in hundreds of “tower deathtraps”. The Sun’s headline is the equally unequivocal “600 tower fire traps” and says checks have left families living in fear.
The Times has a special investigation in which it claims the passwords of British cabinet ministers have been stolen by Russian hackers and traded for sale online. The FT leads on news that China’s bank regulator has asked lenders to look at the risk exposure of companies that have been involved in a big global spending spree.
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