The life of Barry.

The British Businesses That Will Answer to Brussels Without Ever Trading There Andy Burnham's Brexit reset contains a remarkable bargain. In exchange for easier trade with the European Union, Britain is preparing to accept rules written in Brussels, including those governing businesses that have never exported a single product to Europe. Consider the family butcher in Yorkshire, the dairy farmer in Wales or the small food producer supplying local shops. Their customers are British. Their businesses operate under British law. Yet the Government's proposed agrifood agreement would bring them within a regulatory system whose future rules will be decided by institutions in which Britain has no vote. The Government's own guidance confirms it. The agreement will apply domestically whether businesses trade with the EU or not. As Brussels changes its rules, British regulations will change accordingly. This principle, known as dynamic alignment, reaches far beyond removing paperwork at Dover. The scope is considerable. Food safety, pesticides, animal health, nutrition labelling, organic production and marketing standards are included. Dozens of EU regulations and directives would fall within the arrangement. Future changes could affect what farmers grow, which products manufacturers use and how food is sold. Burnham argues that closer alignment will reduce costs and improve trade. Removing unnecessary border checks makes sense. Exporters have faced genuine difficulties since Brexit, and businesses would welcome relief from costly certificates and inspections. But a government surrendering future regulatory freedom should explain precisely what Britain receives in return. The promised economic prize is £5.1 billion a year by 2040. That is a forecast, dependent on assumptions about future growth. Meanwhile, Britain's financial contribution to Brussels remains unclear. Ministers are asking the public to applaud the benefits before disclosing the full bill. More troubling is democratic control. Britain would be consulted during the development of relevant EU legislation. Consultation, however, guarantees no influence. We would have no vote in the Council of the European Union, and the European Court of Justice would remain the ultimate authority on questions of EU law covered by the agreement. Parliament would retain its legal powers. But exercising them against an international agreement could carry consequences, including disputes and retaliatory measures. Future governments might therefore face a choice between laws they oppose and economic penalties for refusing to follow them. That is an extraordinary position for a country whose voters chose to leave the European Union. Britain also imports food from countries far beyond Europe. Aligning our standards and import controls with Brussels could restrict our freedom to negotiate different arrangements with those suppliers. The Fresh Produce Consortium has warned of substantial additional costs for importers sourcing produce outside the EU. Such warnings deserve examination before commitments become binding. Brexit never meant Britain should stop trading with Europe or reject sensible cooperation. Restoring national control meant allowing elected British governments to decide which rules best served this country, while remaining answerable to the people who elected them. Burnham now proposes an arrangement under which future EU decisions could reach into British farms, factories and shops without those affected having a meaningful vote over the lawmakers responsible. The question Parliament should put to him is simple. Why must a business that never trades with Brussels surrender its regulatory independence for the benefit of one that does? Until Burnham answers that, his Brexit reset looks less like practical government and more like a transfer of democratic power whose full price remains unknown.

Sixty Years Of The Long March. Now Look At What It Has Produced. In 1967, German Marxist Rudi Dutschke proposed a long march through the institutions. Radicals would enter universities, schools and public life, changing society from within. Nearly sixty years later, Europe is witnessing young activists demanding revolutionary change, while the institutions that educated them increasingly speak the language of identity, oppression and structural injustice. The radicals of the 1960s did not remain students forever. They became academics, teachers, journalists, civil servants and politicians. Their ideas shaped debates on race, class, identity and authority. Later generations developed those ideas through critical theory, identity politics and diversity programmes. What began as a challenge to established thinking became part of institutional orthodoxy. Look at the modern workplace. HR departments administer policies concerning unconscious bias, privilege and representation. Universities teach theories examining society through competing identities and structures of power. Public bodies employ equality and diversity officers. News organisations and politicians increasingly frame national debates around discrimination and historical injustice. Andy Burnham's willingness to consider apologising for Britain's role in the slave trade, nearly two centuries after its abolition, illustrates how historical responsibility has become a contemporary political issue. Now consider the generation emerging from that environment. Across France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium, legitimate student grievances became entangled with radical-left activism and violent unrest. Demonstrations descended into riots, looting, arson and attacks on police. German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt blamed violent left-wing groups and troublemakers from migrant communities. The original organisers condemned the violence, but their grievances were increasingly overshadowed by disorder. The revolutionary organisations involved in the wider movement are candid about their ambitions. On October 17 and 18, representatives of 27 organisations from eleven countries met in Paris to coordinate international action. Britain's Socialist Students attended alongside European counterparts. Their programme includes opposition to capitalism, Western rearmament and military alliances. On November 20, British schoolchildren and university students are being encouraged to join that mobilisation. Their campaign links educational grievances and living costs with opposition to capitalism and military spending. While Russia threatens European security and uncontrolled mass immigration raises serious concerns about border security and national cohesion across Britain and Europe, sections of this movement are campaigning against NATO, the alliance protecting their country. There is an uncomfortable question for Britain's institutions. Have decades of teaching young people to understand society through oppression, grievance and competing identities weakened their attachment to shared citizenship, democratic compromise and national responsibility? Riots alone cannot establish that conclusion, but the revolutionary politics now attracting organised student movements deserve scrutiny. November 20 presents a practical test. There is no established evidence that British organisers intend violence. But France and Germany have demonstrated how quickly extremists can exploit peaceful demonstrations. Britain must be prepared. The long march through the institutions was intended to change how society thinks. Nearly sixty years later, its intellectual legacy is visible across European public life. Britain should examine what that legacy has produced, particularly when movements seeking revolutionary change are recruiting another generation through the institutions entrusted with educating it. From Rudi Dutschke to riots on European streets. Sixty years of Institutional influence.

Britain Owes No Apology for the Sins of Two Centuries Ago There is something profoundly troubling about a British Prime Minister contemplating an apology on behalf of his country for events that took place two centuries ago. Andy Burnham says he is open to formally apologising for Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. He also acknowledges that today's British people bear no responsibility for those historical wrongs. Then why is he considering apologising in their name? Slavery was a barbaric institution. Britain participated in it, profited from it and eventually helped bring it to an end. Those facts belong together. Yet Labour seems increasingly comfortable discussing Britain's historical shame while showing far less enthusiasm for defending its achievements. A nation cannot understand its history by examining only the chapters that make it uncomfortable. Slavery existed thousands of years before Britain entered the transatlantic trade. African rulers and merchants supplied captives to European traders. Slavery flourished across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Some forms of slavery remain with us today. Yet Britain, which became one of the foremost powers in suppressing the international trade, now finds itself under renewed pressure to apologise. In 1807, Parliament abolished the British slave trade. In 1833, it legislated to abolish slavery across most of the Empire, with full emancipation following in 1838. The Royal Navy subsequently spent decades intercepting slave ships, liberating captives and confronting traders along the African coast. British sailors risked their lives enforcing a principle that much of the world had yet to accept. Abolition also came at an enormous financial cost. Parliament authorised £20 million to compensate slave owners, a vast sum at the time. The formerly enslaved received nothing, an injustice that deserves acknowledgement. Debt associated with that settlement was subsequently consolidated into government borrowing arrangements, with the relevant gilt finally redeemed in 2015. Britain's abolitionist history deserves to be remembered alongside its involvement in slavery. But Burnham's proposed apology raises another question. What exactly would it achieve? Caribbean campaigners have already declared that an apology alone would be insufficient. Their demands extend to debt relief, development funding and other forms of compensation. Burnham rejects reparations while proposing more favourable debt arrangements for poorer Commonwealth countries. He must explain where ordinary development policy ends and historical compensation begins. This is part of a wider failure of confidence in Britain's political leadership. Labour ministers appear more comfortable revisiting the country's historical failings than defending its inheritance. National pride is too often treated as something requiring explanation, qualification or apology. Meanwhile, the country faces mounting pressures on public services, living standards, housing and national security. The British people alive today neither owned the plantations nor authorised the slave ships. They inherited a country whose history contains cruelty and courage, exploitation and reform. They have every reason to learn that history honestly, without being expected to assume personal guilt for the conduct of distant generations. Burnham says today's Britons cannot be held liable for historical wrongs. He should stand by that principle and explain why a formal apology is necessary. Britain's past requires honesty, perspective and moral seriousness. It does not require an endless procession of national apologies. A Prime Minister's duty is to represent the British people of today, not burden them with the guilt of centuries past.

Are BBC Licence Fee Payers Funding the Government's Immigration Policy? On Thursday 29 October, the Government opened applications for a refugee sponsorship scheme, allowing approved organisations to help bring refugees to Britain. The following evening, the BBC broadcast the final of The Celebrity Traitors. Two contestants emerged victorious, each winning £41,500 for their chosen charities. Sebastian Croft selected Choose Love. Romesh Ranganathan chose the Refugee Council. Both support refugees. One already has a formal role in a government-backed resettlement programme. The timing raises questions. The first concerns the money. Who provided the £83,000 awarded to these charities? Was it drawn from the BBC's programme budget, funded by production company Studio Lambert, or supplied through another arrangement? If licence fee revenue contributed, viewers are entitled to know. The BBC has obligations to account for how its money is spent. Charitable donations may be worthwhile, but the source of the funds and the arrangements governing their distribution should be transparent. The second question concerns the charities. The Refugee Council serves as a principal sponsor under the Government's Communities for Afghans programme, working with Action Foundation on resettlement. Choose Love provides humanitarian assistance to displaced people internationally. Neither has yet been confirmed as an accredited sponsor under the new scheme. Will either apply? Has either discussed participation with the Home Office? And were the BBC's producers aware of the Refugee Council's existing government role when the contestants' choices were approved? Then there is the timing. The programme was filmed months before the Government opened applications, and the charity choices preceded the broadcast. Those facts matter. They make suggestions that the outcome was arranged to coincide with Thursday's announcement difficult to sustain. Nevertheless, the proximity warrants a question. Was there any communication between the BBC, Studio Lambert, the Home Office or the charities about the announcement or broadcast date? If there was none, all parties should have little difficulty saying so. These questions arise amid wider concerns about the BBC's relationship with Whitehall. Recent disclosures revealed that serving civil servants, paid by government departments, had been seconded into BBC newsrooms, helping prepare coverage of migration, crime, elections and other contentious subjects. The BBC insists its journalists retained editorial control. Yet some officials' contributions appeared without their civil service positions being sufficiently clear. Public confidence depends on knowing where government involvement begins and ends. The BBC also faces questions about compulsory funding. Ministers are considering extending the licence fee obligation to households using streaming services, including those who never watch BBC programmes. The corporation should therefore demonstrate that its editorial decisions and charitable arrangements remain independent of government policy. Viewers should be able to distinguish a contestant's personal charity choice from any institutional endorsement by the broadcaster. There may be straightforward explanations for the prize funding, charity selections and timing. The evidence does not establish coordination or improper use of licence fee money. But transparency should be expected of a publicly funded broadcaster. Who paid the prize money? When were the charities chosen? What contact, if any, took place with government officials? And can the BBC show that licence fee payers are funding independent entertainment rather than, directly or indirectly, the promotion of government policy? Those are questions the BBC should answer. "The first concerns the money. Who provided the £83,000. [...]. If licence fee revenue contributed, viewers are entitled to know."

"If Powell's private charity received government funding while maintaining deep relationships with Chinese officials of the kind Guido has documented, the conflict of interest exceeds anything yet established in the Mandelson affair." teapawt.net/i/status/2048815750480…