Free Republic

Gas stations in parts of Britain are running out of fuel as drivers line up to fill their tanks in what the government and gas companies call an artificial run on gasoline. It is "panic buying, pure and simple," .. The government has also sent letters to nearly a million licensed HGV drivers who are no longer in the trucking industry, urging them to return to work, and ministers are weighing whether to deploy the armed forces to deliver fuel to gas stations. Britain lost 72,000 truckers and about 128,000 other European Union citizens when it closed its borders due...

LONDON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Up to 90% of British fuel stations ran dry across major English cities on Monday after panic buying deepened a supply chain crisis triggered by a shortage of truckers that retailers are warning could batter the world's fifth-largest economy. A dire post-Brexit shortage of lorry drivers emerging after the COVID-19 pandemic has sown chaos through British supply chains in everything from food to fuel, raising the spectre of disruptions and price rises in the run up to Christmas. Just days after Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government spent millions of pounds to avert a food shortage...

Down at the local pub, die-hard Brexiters will be raising a pint to news that the United Kingdom is eyeing the end of a European Union-inspired ban on selling products in only pounds and ounces. But many others view the move away from the world-standard metric system as pure rubbish. Since becoming prime minister, Boris Johnson has pledged to usher in an era of "tolerance towards traditional measurements." On Thursday, Brexit minister David Frost clarified what that means — giving shops and supermarkets the option to sell items labeled only in imperial units. Under the plan, market stalls and shops...

BBC boss sparks anger with Brexit comments – Beeb ‘lives in metropolitan elite bubble’BBC boss Tim Davie admitted he does not know if anyone in the corporation's senior management supported Brexit - sparking an angry backlash. The director-general insisted that staff leave their political views "at the door" during a grilling by MPs on bias at the broadcaster. Mr Davie also insisted the BBC was right to start charging the over-75s for the licence fee. Ministers are currently in the final stages of negotiations with the broadcaster over how much public funding it will receive next year. At a Commons...

Nancy Pelosi, America's third most powerful politician, warned today that a breakdown in the talks over the Northern Ireland Protocol would be 'problematic' for a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal. The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, who is currently visiting Britain, has been critical of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's approach to Northern Ireland following the UK's exit from the European Union. The pair discussed the issue in Downing Street yesterday and Mrs Pelosi today expanded on her views about the talks underway between the UK and Brussels to resolve issues ... ....Mrs Pelosi, 81, said she felt it would...

Support for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative party has slipped behind the opposition Labour party to its lowest level since the 2019 national election, a poll showed, after announcing a tax rise to fund health and social care. The poll, conducted by YouGov for the Times newspaper, showed support for the Conservatives slump five points to 33%, with Labour up one point to 35%, ahead of Johnson's party for the first time since January. Johnson set out plans on Tuesday to raise taxes on workers, employers and some investors to try to fix a health and social care funding...

Lord Trimble has urged Joe Biden to drop his support for the Northern Ireland Protocol, warning the post-Brexit border rules “risk a return to sectarian strife”. The architect of the Good Friday Agreement accused the White House of “contributing to the damage being caused” to the peace treaty by siding with the European Union on the issue. He said in a letter to the US President that the “political promises of the Belfast Agreement have been flippantly dismissed” because of the protocol. The protocol, agreed as part of the Brexit deal, requires checks on goods traveling from GB to Northern...

Imagine you’re a normal person. The year is 2016. Rightly or wrongly, you believe most of what you see in the media. You believe polls are broadly reflective of public opinion. You believe doctors and scientists are trustworthy and independent. You’re a decent, reasonable person who follows the rules and trusts the authorities. Imagine your shock, then, when Brexit, which you were assured couldn’t happen because it was a fringe movement led by racists for racists, happens. The polls, which widely predicted it wouldn’t happen, were wrong. The experts and pundits who told you day after day that it wouldn’t...

Last week, we actually had the British Parliament hold Joe Biden in contempt over the Afghanistan blunder. I can’t stress how huge of a deal that actually is. This is the first time that a sitting president has been held in contempt by the UK if I’m not mistaken. But then, to make matters worse, former British politician and Brexit leader Nigel Farage joined Carl Higbie on The Kelly Report on Monday to discuss Joe Biden’s historic failures in Afghanistan. During their discussion on the US exit from Kabul Nigel Farage warned that the UK will refuse any military interventions...

ROGER FEDERER hailed the UK's referendum on EU membership as a "beautiful thing" as he made a rare political intervention.We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info Roger Federer is preparing for a Wimbledon quarter final against Poland's Hubert Hurkacz as the Swiss star aims for his ninth title at the Championships. At 39 years old, he has impressed with continued quality, even if some doubted he could...

Now, one would assume that South Asian population cities such as Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester would heavily disagree with the nation’s decision. But the fascinating thing that I had uncovered while doing research, was that a majority of South Asians actually voted for leaving the EU. According to blogger Asad Abbasi, who wrote an article for the London School of Economics why South Asians voted for Brexit, the numbers outside London are astounding. “Outside London, nearly every constituency with a double-digit South Asian population voted Leave. Luton has a 25 percent Asian population; Leave won there with a 19 percent...

Germany and France will today attempt to introduce a mandatory two-week quarantine for all British tourists travelling to the EU. Chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron have relaunched a bid to enforce a Europe-wide rule for UK residents travelling to any country in the bloc. Under the proposed plans, even fully vaccinated holidaymakers would be forced to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival. Ms Merkel is pushing to designate the UK as a ‘country of concern’ amid rising cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant, which has spread across the entire country. However, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and...

Ahead of his meeting with Britain’s prime minister Thursday, President Biden’s aides were scrambling to deny a report that he ordered the scolding of Boris Johnson’s government over Northern Ireland policy. “He didn’t come here to give a lecture,” Biden aides told reporters on a press call ahead of the Biden-Johnson meeting, according to a report. “It will not be controversial or adversarial,” the official said, the Daily Mail reported. The Post was not invited to join the call. Biden will tell Johnson “what he has said publicly for a long time now,” the aide said.

President Biden on Thursday received a warm welcome in England from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson — but dodged a handshake from Johnson to instead greet his new 33-year-old bride after telling the British leader he “married up” — amid a reported dust up over Northern Ireland policy. “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Biden said, waving off Johnson as he emerged from his motorcade. Biden, 78, walked past Johnson with a beaming smile on his face. “Good to see you! Best wishes!” Biden said, bumping wrists with Carrie Johnson, the Prime Minister’s 33- year-old bride. Turning to Johnson, Biden...

Joe Biden has issued a formal reprimand to Boris Johnson for not rolling over to the European Union on whether or not it should continue to dictate what happens in the British province of Northern Ireland despite Brexit. Now it is reported that Biden has instructed the Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires of the United States to the United Kingdom, Yael Lempert, to issue a so-called démarche of the sort normally reserved for geopolitical foes such as Belarus or North Korea to the Lord Frost, Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator, expressing “great concern” over British policy “slowly and gravely”....

JOE Biden has accused Boris Johnson of "inflaming" tensions in Ireland ahead of their first meeting in Britain today. The President is expected to address post-Brexit peace with the Prime Minister to ensure that the Good Friday Agreement is protected - as Britain and the EU try to resolve the issue of checks in the Irish Sea... ...Yael Lempert, America’s most senior diplomat in Britain, told Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, that the government was “inflaming” tensions in Ireland and Europe with its opposition to checks at ports. Lempert said she had been told to take the step of issuing...

Joe Biden's White House tried to put out the flames of a major transatlantic bust-up with Britain today after the president was accused of rebuking Boris Johnson for 'inflaming tensions' in Northern Ireland. Brexiteer Tories branded the 78-year-old Democrat 'senile' after he failed to side with the UK in its 'sausage war' bust-up with the EU. The US President instead used his diplomats to express 'great concern' over the conflict centred on post-Brexit trade rules agreed last year by both sides, which the UK is now seeking to change, the Times reported today. The US is said to have issued...

Five years ago next month, British voters, in the largest turnout ever, voted to leave the European Union by a 52% to 48% margin. It was an unexpected result, and a harbinger of Donald Trump's even more unexpected election as president five months later. In both countries, key votes were cast by white non-college graduates. In the U.S., blue-collar Democrats in Pennsylvania and the Midwest switched to Trump. In the U.K., working-class voters long loyal to Labour joined leading Conservatives in supporting Brexit. Supposedly ascendant coalitions of metropolitan professionals and racial and ethnic minorities were, to their self-righteous rage, defeated....

Britons will have to show photo ID to vote in future general elections, ministers are poised to confirm this week, as a means of tackling fraud which critics claim could deter poorer and ethnic minority voters from taking part in democracy. The proposal is to be included in Tuesday’s Queen’s speech, which will set out the government’s post-pandemic priorities and the laws it intends to pass in the forthcoming parliamentary session. A requirement that all voters carry photo ID could impede people who wish to turn up at polling stations without planning ahead, given about a quarter of voters –...

Scotland’s leader told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Sunday that a second Scottish independence referendum is “a matter of when, not if,” after her party won its fourth straight parliamentary election. Johnson has invited the leaders of the U.K.’s devolved nations for crisis talks on the union after the regional election results rolled in, saying the U.K. was “best served when we work together” and that the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should cooperate on plans to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. But Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, told Johnson...