Some shortages are so serious they are imperilling the health and even lives of patients with serious illnesses, pharmacy bosses say

Drug shortages are a “new normal” in the UK and are being exacerbated by Brexit, a report by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank has warned. A dramatic recent spike in the number of drugs that are unavailable has created serious problems for doctors, pharmacists, the NHS and patients, it found.

The number of warnings drug companies have issued about impending supply problems for certain products has more than doubled from 648 in 2020 to 1,634 last year.

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The opposition is right to recognise that a dangerous international climate demands closer security partnership with the EU

For most of the period since the decision was taken to leave the EU, British politicians have overestimated how much thought the continent gives to Brexit. Once shock at the referendum result receded, relations with the UK came to be seen as a technical problem to be solved by hard-headed negotiation.

At critical moments, when deadlines neared, Brexit leapt up the agenda. After the treaties were signed, they dropped right down, overtaken by the other issues facing a large bloc with many borders and problems. That represents a perverse kind of victory for Boris Johnson and his chief negotiator, David Frost. The deal they signed was so skewed against British interests that Brussels has little incentive to reopen the settlement.

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Party hopes to attend meetings of EU foreign affairs council should it win UK election

Labour wants to draw closer to Europe on key foreign and security issues by frequently attending meetings of the monthly EU foreign affairs council.

The move, which is likely to trigger Conservative claims that Labour is prepared to abandon an independent foreign policy, builds on a pledge by Keir Starmer’s party to try to negotiate a new security pact with the EU after the 2024 UK election.

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Readers agree with Martin Kettle that Britain needs realism, not an outdated notion of its own superiority

Martin Kettle is right to highlight the need for “great” Britain to establish a more nuanced and inclusive place in the world. ( Let’s stop talking about ‘great’ Britain – and rebrand ourselves a different sort of country, 11 April ). The rebrand must include a rejection of our ridiculous and continuing national claims of exclusiveness and superiority, a recognition that money isn’t quite so important as health and happiness, and that kindness, tolerance and togetherness are ingrained in the collective British blood.

I would further insist that no politician is allowed to mention or exemplar the second world war ever again on penalty of long-term exclusion from the House. Britain needs to look out and up, and stride towards its future, not wallow in its past.
Jasper Dorgan
Edington, Wiltshire

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The Green party politician offers ways in which we might express an English identity that would lead to a more inclusive and progressive land

After a 14-year stretch as a one-woman parliamentary party, Green MP Caroline Lucas will stand down from the House of Commons at the next general election. This book, as parting shot, may be a surprise to some: it’s an appeal to her fellow progressives to speak up for England. An England, she worries, that too many of them fear and see in terms of a rising English consciousness, belonging to the right, something they don’t feel part of – “as if the flag of St George is little better than the hammer and sickle or the swastika” – and so seek to keep it tamed and suppressed within a broader Britishness.

Lucas feels that this is wrong: a view that was the result of a journey that began with losing the Brexit referendum and leaving her liberal, cosmopolitan Brighton constituency to talk to those on the other side. Not so much was said, explicitly, about England in that 2016 referendum. Eurosceptic campaigns invariably preferred the union flag and told stories about British history, identity and sovereignty. But Lucas comes to see these as primarily reflecting an expression of English identity, noting that the arguments for taking back control from London’s elites resonated most strongly with those who prioritised their Englishness over their British identity (while recognising that Brexiters secured a narrow majority in Wales, too).

Lucas finds that progressive instincts on how to talk about identity – such as “myth-busting” narratives on the right – too often become exercises in preaching to the already converted. She notes that it is unlikely that Sir Francis Drake continued to play bowls while the Spanish armada arrived in 1588, but also that legends often retain their potency even after being debunked. She suggests that an emotionally intelligent, progressive politics might focus a little less on factchecking and a bit more on how to compete to shape the myths, memories and stories that shape who we think we are to progressive ends. How the legend of Robin Hood was reshaped over the centuries, for example. Since identity is about the stories we tell ourselves, Lucas looks for her new England primarily in her first love, literature, diving deep into how the literary canon, from Chaucer and John Donne to Virgina Woolf and Zadie Smith, tells a contested, plural story of England with many tributaries flowing into it.

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UK hospitality industry hit by crisis as thousands of young Italians are forced out by latest round of rules and cost-of-living crisis

Emanuela Reccia has lived in London for almost a decade. She was a teenager when she left her home city of Naples to become a waitress in the UK, bringing her expertise and love of Italian cuisine to the capital.

But the 27-year-old, like thousands of other Italians working in the UK hospitality industry, now feels she has no option but to leave and return to Europe after the latest round of post-Brexit rules.

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Rules due to come in this month will impose new handling fees – and experts say small suppliers are already being driven away

Ministers’ decision to impose Brexit import checks on 30 April will lead to shortages of some foods, flowers and herbs, industry leaders have warned.

In the week after the government was accused of blindsiding the British food industry by giving 27 days’ notice that every consignment of items such as camembert, steak, tulips and chives would be subject to fees of up to £145, small retailers such as delis and farm shops have been scrambling to make sure they still have products to sell.

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Belated progress is being made towards a formal trade and border deal for the British overseas territory, in which 96% voted remain

These are difficult, despairing days on the Conservative backbenches. Almost certainly a dreadful set of local election results looms in May. Nationally, fears of a Labour landslide on the scale of 1997 grow. But last month, briefly, it was quite like old times as Brexit veterans Sir Bill Cash and Mark Francois indulged in an opportunity to play some favourite old tunes.

Rumours of an imminent deal with the European Union over the post-Brexit status of Gibraltar have permitted some satisfyingly retro talk of red lines crossed and sovereignty compromised. Following the successful negotiation of the Windsor framework for Northern Ireland, opportunities for this kind of stuff are now few and far between. In a House of Commons debate in March, Brexit chainmail clanking, Sir Bill took his chance, warning that aligning with EU rules, and allowing Schengen border checks on Gibraltar, would amount to caving in to a “foreign power”. A dangerous precedent would be set for other British overseas territories. “Here we go again,” lamented Mr Francois sympathetically.

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Gibraltar’s chief minister says progress made in talks about free movement across border with Spain

The UK and the EU are within “kissing distance” of a post-Brexit deal to guarantee free movement over the border between Gibraltar and Spain, Gibraltar’s chief minister has said.

After a meeting between the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, and the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič, agreement was reached on issues that have dogged negotiations for the past five years.

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