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Prime Minister Modi is expected to visit the UK before the end of July in order to sign the UK-India free trade deal agreed in May. The deal is only possible because of Brexit and has been years in the making. Negotiations for a deal between India and the EU are ongoing, having started in 2007.
Brexit boon for Starmer
The number of people in paid employment in the UK has fallen for the fifth consecutive month. The situation is only likely to get worse once the government passes its Employment Rights Bill, currently in the House of Lords, into law. The new bill will greatly increase the costs and risks associated with hiring staff. It is yet another sign that the government will always choose ideology over prosperity.
The EU Commission has claimed that X/Twitter is in breach of its new Digital Services Act, saying that ‘verified’ labels on accounts are misleading, advertising lacks transparency, and researchers are not given sufficient access to information. Elon Musk has promised to contest the claims in court, and has alleged that the EU offered X an illegal deal whereby they would avoid fines in return for censoring certain views.
Musk takes on the EU Commission
Iceland’s Foreign Minister has said that she believes there is enough public support to reopen negotiations for accession to the EU. The governing coalition has promised a referendum on the matter before 2027. This comes at a time of increased strategic interest in the North Atlantic and tension between the US and the EU.
Media
Daniel Hannan on ongoing attempts to punish Britain for Brexit
Damian Pudner on Britain’s fiscal fantasy
Blog
What was Macron’s State Visit for? by Robert Tombs and John Keiger
An earlier version of the following article was published in the Sunday Times before President Macron’s recent State visit. We look again with hindsight to see whether its predictions hold up. We think they do.
But as long as Macron and Starmer are in charge, Britain is almost certain to lose more than it gains.The emphasis on coordinating the two countries’ nuclear deterrents may just be words, repeating what already exists. But it is worrying, given their weakness in other negotiations, that Starmer will give future French governments an excessive degree of control over our present and future nuclear deterrent. The problem is that the French usually know exactly what they want: but the British don’t. Moreover, we have no idea who Macron’s successor will be. It could be a pro-Russian government of the extreme Right or the extreme Left.
Key Points
Angela Rayner this week introduced the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill to Parliament. Much of it is unexciting, covering issues like enforcement of traffic conventions and the governance structure of local authorities. But buried deep in Schedule 27 is a provision which appears to give local authorities unprecedented powers to set land prices and force sales to privileged buyers. The government appears to be trying quietly to open the door to land socialism.
Schedule 27 is an expansion of a provision in the Localism Act 2011 which required local authorities to keep a record of ‘land of community value’, which was defined as being any land whose use ‘furthered social wellbeing’ of the community. It was intended to cover land used for recreation — eg. sports grounds — and imposed some limitations on the right to sell the land, essentially giving the local authority the option to purchase the land.
Under the new Act, the definition of ‘land of community value’ would be expanded to include any land which at any point in the previous five years or the subsequent five years could be used to further the ‘economic interests’ of the local community. It would also give local authorities powers to control the price of the land and only allow ‘preferred community buyers’ to purchase it when the owner wants to sell.
This is a serious interference with property rights. The expanded definition is shockingly vague—is there any land which could not conceivably further the ‘economic interest’ of the community at some point in the next five years? Giving local authorities the power to control the price of land and assign preferred buyers is an unprecedented expansion of state power into the property market and creates a glaring risk of corruption.
It is even more worrying that this provision is being buried amongst an otherwise inconspicuous piece of legislation covering the administration of local government. We can only hope that the Bill is given the critical scrutiny it clearly deserves in Parliament.
