Luxury goods conglomerate LVMH is under fire after the Olympic medals it produced for the latest games have started to severely tarnish and flake. Bronze medals are the worst affected and over 100 athletes have asked for replacements. The French mint, which executed LVMH’s medal designs for the games, is blaming the varnish. The formula for which had to be altered post-new EU regulations…
The EU has long been extending restrictions on the use of the chemical chromium trioxide, which forms a compound to prevent corrosion and rust. Seeing as the mint was unable to use it in the varnish, its formula had to be edited this time round. Who else could tarnish gold…
Brussels kept tight-lipped for over a week while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was laid up in hospital with pneumonia. Only now after she’s been discharged and is back at home has her spokesperson admitted the truth about the severity of her illness…
Von der Leyen’s pneumonia forced delays to a major piece of her economic agenda and pushed back a key meeting of the college of Commissioners in Poland. Throughout her hospital stay officials dodged questions insisting there was “no update” on her condition. The hush-hush handling over the health of the EU’s most powerful leader raising more eyebrows over Brussels’ lack of transparency…
UK ministers are pressing ahead with post-Brexit gene editing laws – which involves making changes to a plant’s existing DNA – despite whinges from Brussels that it could derail border checks agreements. Environment Secretary Steve Reed confirmed the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 will be fully in force by March, unlocking a £1 billion boost for UK agriculture. As least there’s one Labour minister proving they’re pro-growth…
Reed said ploughing ahead with gene editing plans is “the right thing to do…I don’t think we should stall going forward on things like this where we see huge advantages to the sector and domestic food production.” Meanwhile former Tory science minister George Freeman said the move would help to attract investors to the UK. Brexit bearing fruit again…
Badenoch seized the final PMQs of the year to launch a stinging attack on Starmer’s Brexit betrayals. Reports have been swirling that Labour is mulling a major climbdown on Brexit: reopening free movement and potentially aligning with EU laws on agriculture and food – both of which Downing Street has pointedly refused to rule out. Meanwhile, as Guido first revealed, Labour have assembled a major EU ‘Surrender Unit’ within the Cabinet Office tasked with unpicking Brexit…
Badenoch blasted:
“We learn he’s about to give away our hard-won Brexit freedoms. The truth is they are punching the British people in the face.”
A squirming Starmer dodged the accusation, instead retreating to his well-worn lines about Tory “black holes” and NHS waiting lists. Someone must be reading Guido in CCHQ…
An interesting video appeared on Kemi’s X yesterday, accusing Starmer of being weak in international dealmaking: “every time Labour negotiates, the UK loses”. Well there’s no doubt about that, just look at Chagos…
The Tory leader went on: “Keir Starmer is reopening the Brexit wars after we ended them. The deal he wants will give power to the European Court to overrule the British Parliament. Every time Labour negotiates, the UK loses”. As Guido has extensively chronicled, Keir Starmer is indeed preparing to renegotiate many of the major planks of Brexit over the next year. Guido was the first to reveal that the PM has assembled a large group of Cabinet Office civil servants to undo Brexit, dubbed the ‘Surrender Unit’…
As former Brexit negotiator and leavers’ hero Lord Frost said at the weekend:
“This huge unit is getting ready for a major renegotiation – it will have more people than I had for the original deal with the EU in 2020. Everyone in this Government really wants to rejoin the EU one day. Only public opinion is stopping them. So they are trying to act in secrecy and conceal their plans to align with EU rules, to bring back EU law and to give away our fishing grounds, by calling all this just a “reset”. Unless we can stop them, the reset will end with this country once again in the EU’s orbit, gradually losing our ability to set our own rules and make our own laws. It’s time for those who support our national independence and democracy to wake up.”
Chilling…
Starmer is slated to meet with all EU leaders in February at a ‘UK-EU Summit’ – the first such meeting since Brexit. Leaked documents suggest that Starmer is considering a significant surrender of Brexit terms, such as reopening free movement. If the Tories clearly state they will pull down any new deal reached by Starmer, the EU (who follow UK polling and politics obsessively) will be much more reluctant to invest time and energy in negotiating with what looks increasingly like a one term PM. The Conservatives are given an open goal…
Multiple Tory leave bigwigs are privately urging Kemi Badenoch to fully commit to rejecting any renegotiation by the Labour government. Given that the Tories are still the official opposition, publicly committing to rip up any Starmer deal is an important signal to send to the EU. Time to get that line out there in no uncertain terms…
The latest update on Starmer’s Brexit betrayal comes as Downing Street refuses to rule out a humiliating return to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) — the price of Labour’s desperate “reset” with Brussels. This will come as welcome news to EU ministers, who are expected to demand Britain bend the knee to both new and existing European laws on food and agricultural standards as part of an “updated” trade deal. What was a Tory red line is evidently a welcome mat for Starmer…
Starmer is planning for new negotiations, due to start in the spring, designed to make a “tangible difference” to the ability of businesses in the UK to trade with the EU. Despite his pandering to the Bloc, Brussels has launched two infringement cases against the UK at the ECJ predating the 2020 agreement, and is using Starmer’s “reset” narrative to whip up its members into blocking UK access to energy markets. Starmer’s EU surrender unit already kicking into action then…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”