News
Good morning and welcome to your Unbound Daily Briefing for Saturday 30th May - topics we are covering today include:
- Government Release "Prepare Your Business" Information on SPS Agreement
- A Week of Leadership Essays
- Milburn Report on Prospects for Young People
Government Release "Prepare Your Business" Information on SPS Agreement
The UK Government, in preparation for the EU Summit now pencilled in for mid-July, have released guidance on how UK businesses should prepare in their respective sectors for the changes expected to be included in the deal. The fact that this content has been released in advance of the agreement, heavily suggests that the terms of this particular agreement are already fully agreed and understood - but as the EU have recently stated, they see the three proposed deals as being delivered as a package in an "all or nothing" arrangement. So with recent reports of deadlock in the other parts of this package, there is still doubt that the summit will even take place let alone what it will include - especially with the doubts in who will be in charge of the UK Government by July.
- Read the UK Government guidance on SPS alignment
- Read the Britain Unbound explainer on the contents of the EU Reset negotiations
A Week of Leadership Essays
This week has seen a series of essays being written by Labour leaders, former current and contenders - with former Prime Minister Tony Blair firing the opening salvo stating amongst other things that rejoining the EU would be "impossible" if the EU remained on its anti-innovation trajectory. This intervention saw responses follow quite rapidly from the current Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and the so-called "King of the North" Andy Burnham. On the topic of the EU, Burnham repeated his statement that "our relentless focus now should be on domestic issues, and fixing our own underlying problems, rather than on re-running divisive arguments about rejoining the European Union." But then as he is running in a heavily leave-voting seat, he would say that wouldn't he?
- Read the article from Tony Blair
- Read the response article from Keir Starmer
- Read the response article from Andy Burnham
Milburn Report on Prospects for Young People
The interim report on young people and work has been released, and it includes some worrying statistics on the status of those between 16-24 in the UK. Though this interim report does not include recommendations on how to resolve the issues identified (such recommendations are expected in the final report later this year), it seems to be an obvious suggestion that agreeing a Youth Mobility agreement with the EU will only exacerbate the issue.
- Read our article from contributor Bob Lyddon, on the dangers of the Youth Mobility agreement
- Read our news item on the terms of the Youth Mobility agreement causing deadlock in negotiations
