Saturday, 31 March 2018

JAPAN TIMES Brexit Headlines: 1 Mar - 31 Mar 2018

The Japan Times
Brexit Headlines
Airbus urges EU to let Britain stay in Galileo space project despite Brexit as U.K. firms face shutout

BUSINESSMAR 29, 2018

The chief executive of aerospace firm Airbus said Britain should not be frozen out of the European Union's Galileo space program after Brexit, calling on both sides to find a long-term solution in the interest of security. Tom Enders, Airbus CEO, said at stake was ...

U.K. Parliament must have power to stop 'No Deal' Brexit: Labour

BUSINESSMAR 26, 2018

Britain's opposition Labour Party was to on Monday demand that parliament has the final say on the government's Brexit deal, including an option to send ministers back to the negotiating table rather than leave without an exit agreement. After reaching a deal last week on ...

Setting out Brexit vision, May asks EU to show flexibilityWORLD / POLITICSMAR 3, 2018

Prime Minister Theresa May urged the European Union on Friday to show more flexibility in talks on its future relationship with the U.K. after Brexit, saying Britain realizes it cannot get all it wants but believes an ambitious trade deal is still possible. In a ...


WORLD   MAR 1, 2018

A constitutional crisis in Britain inched closer this week as lawmakers in Scotland and 
Wales moved to introduce their own legislation to prevent a perceived "power grab" by 
London after Brexit. The Scottish and Welsh governments have published "continuity 
bills" to ensure European Union law ...

BUSINESS   MAR 1, 2018

The European Union and Japan are rushing to ensure their planned free trade 
agreement can take force early in 2019, ideally before the British exit from the EU, 
the lead negotiators of both sides said on Wednesday. Japan's ambassador for 
international economic affairs, Yoichi Suzuki, ...



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Thursday, 29 March 2018

A year from now we will leave the EU for a bright & successful future, says LEO McKINSTRY

THE hour of destiny beckons. The moment of freedom has almost arrived. In exactly one year from now Britain will formally leave the European Union and begin the process of restoring our independence from foreign rule. The return of our sovereignty, after almost five decades of deepening entanglement with Brussels will be a remarkable milestone in our island story.

By LEO MCKINSTRY


A bright sunlit upland is our future out of the EU
It is an event that will rank alongside other historic episodes that showed our indefatigable national spirit, such as the defeat of Nazi tyranny in the 1940s or the first embrace of Parliamentary democracy in the 1830s.
The triumph of Brexit in the EU referendum was testimony to the innate courage, patriotism and wisdom of the British people, who refused to be cowed by a barrage of establishment scaremongering and smears.
As liberty approaches, the nation will reap its reward for that heroic defiance.
Already the move towards our withdrawal has contracted all the alarmism peddled by the pro-EU brigade. The economy has not collapsed. Unemployment is at a record low, manufacturing at a record high. The public finances are heading towards a surplus for the first time since the crash of 2008.
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Theresa May is leading us out of the EU
Just as the Brexiters promised during the referendum campaign, more money is becoming available for the NHS.
Similarly, the talks between our Government and the EU have made much more progress than the Remainers predicted. Only last week Theresa May signed a comprehensive deal on the transition period lasting up to the end of 2020, under which Britain will be allowed to negotiate its own global deals.
In this mood of co-operation, discussions will now focus on our trading relationship, with the European Council pledging its wish for “a balanced, ambitious and wide-ranging free trade agreement”.
As each passing day brings Brexit closer, the dynamic of success will accelerate. The deadline of withdrawal by March 2019 creates its own momentum, building ever more widespread acceptance of our departure and turning British self-governance into a reality.
Diehard Remainers understand the impetus for Brexit imposed by the timetable. The losers know they will not be able to operate their roadshow for much longer. That is why they have become more desperate in recent weeks. Their lurid conspiracy theories about sinister data manipulation and their unsubstantiated claims about the Leave campaign’s illegal expenditure are part of a last-ditch effort to undermine the referendum result.
That same sense of panic applies to doom-mongering from pro-EU grandees such as Tony Blair, Sir John Major and Lord Patten.
But such squawking is increasingly irrelevant. The British people just want the Government to get on with the implementation of Brexit, not hold a rerun of the vote. Most citizens recognise that we have nothing to fear from self-rule.
After all, that was the status of Britain for centuries before we entered the European Economic Community - the forerunner of the EU - in 1973. Indeed, independence is the natural status for most countries.
Out of 195 sovereign nations in the world, 167 enjoy autonomy, the exceptions being the 28 members of the EU.

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In the entire history of mankind the democratic nation state has proved by far the best constitutional vehicle for the advancement of freedom and prosperity, whereas the EU has turned out to be a profoundly flawed experiment in the removal of basic civic rights and national identities.
It is precisely because the EU lacks any real democratic legitimacy that the Remainers are unable to defend it. So instead they resort to forecasts of disasters once we have left the EU. Yet every one of their assertions is proving to be hollow.
They shriek about labour shortages when EU free movement ends but only yesterday the Government's own Migration Advisory Committee reported that fears about an inability to attract UK workers were "not credible".
In the same vein, Remainers gloat how Brexit means that the United Kingdom is hopelessly isolated on the international stage yet that charge has been demolished by the Government's superb co-ordination of global action against Russia after the Salisbury nerve agent poisoning.
Just as fallacious is the Remainer hysteria about the Irish border. In reality this is a minor issue that can be resolved by goodwill, especially because no side actually wants a hard border. Switzerland lies in the heart of Europe but is not in the EU, and yet through technology manages its lengthy frontier without any difficulties.
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We are leaving the EU a year from today
There is every cause for optimism in our post-Brexit future. Once we are in control of our own governance, a world of exciting new opportunities is open to us. There is nothing insular or xenophobic about our withdrawal from the EU. The opposite is true. Freed from the shackles of Brussels' bureaucratic rule we will be able to build our own trading and diplomatic relationships, deepening our North Atlantic partnership and reconnecting with the Commonwealth.
We will also be in control of our own borders as we construct an immigration system suited to our own national interests rather than the ideology of the EU. The ruthless insistence by Brussels on untrammelled free movement has imposed enormous damage on Britain. Public services have been overstretched, welfare bills increased and living standards driven down. In the past year alone, according to the Office for National Statistics, no fewer than 497,000 European migrants registered for national insurance here, 154,000 from Romania. That sort of influx is unsustainable.
With the EU no longer in charge we will be able to set our own tax and benefits policies. We could abolish VAT and replace it with a more commercially competitive purchase tax. We could introduce regional variations in air passenger duty, refashion agricultural subsidies, adopt our own waste management policies or protect certain vital economic industries. The point is that we, not the unelected commissioners of Brussels, will be deciding our own national course.
Far from imposing "self harm", as the Remainers argue, Brexit will play to our strengths.
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We will soon be able to police our own borders
Britain has always been an adaptable nation, full of ingenuity and determination, as shown by our record as the pioneer of the Industrial Revolution and as the victor in two world wars.
The real disaster for Britain would have occurred if the electorate had voted in 2016 to stay in the EU.
Eurocrats would have been exultant. The European project of political integration would have received a massive boost. Ex-Cabinet minister Lord Patten accused Brexiteers yesterday of wanting "dogma pie" but it is his pro-EU lot that are the true dogmatists, demanding that Britain submit to the federalist juggernaut.
The whole aim of the EU is to achieve "ever closer union" towards a federal superstate, complete with open borders, a single currency, a European army, a harmonised tax system and a new concept of EU citizenship.
National democracy counts for nothing in the EU's doctrinaire culture, as was recently shown in the dubious appointment of the sinister German Eurocrat Martin Selmayr – known as Jean-Claude Juncker's "Monster" – as the new secretary-general of the commission. His promotion was described by one French MEP as "a mystification worthy of the Chinese Communist Party".
Remainers pretend that Britain is leaving an effective organisation. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The EU is grossly mismanaged, racked by divisions and weighed down by debts.
Its contempt for national democracy has spread misery and hostility across the continent, highlighted by populist revolts everywhere from Spain to Austria.
We are better off out, as Brexit will prove.
https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/leo-mckinstry/938667/brexit-uk-success-eu-one-year-to-go-LEO-McKINSTRY
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ARTICLE 50: THE DAWN OF A NEW DEMOCRATIC ERA

Today is one of the greatest days in the history of British democracy. 
When Theresa May seals the Article 50 letter and sends it to Brussels, she’ll do so under the democratic order of 17.4million Britons, the largest number of people to have voted for anything in the history of this country. When we cast our votes in the EU referendum last June, it was the first time in decades that our vote felt like it truly meant something. We felt the weight of a real democratic choice as we stood in the voting booth. It’s become a cliché – but it’s true. And today is the day that that democratic clout will finally be made real.
TOM SLATER
DEPUTY EDITOR
29 MARCH 2017
Article 50: the dawn of a new democratic era
Today is a wonderful and historic day for Britain and for Europe.
It’s more striking for the fact that Brexit is being carried through against the apparently better instincts of our political class. The prime minister, the chancellor, the leadership of all parliamentary parties, the vast majority of the Commons and the Lords, backed Remain, steeled by the doom-mongering claims of academia and big business. And the horror that we, the ‘low-information’ electorate, dared to defy them sparked the unshackled demosphobia we’ve had to endure over the past nine months. That the Commons and the Lords eventually rolled over in the face of the Article 50 bill reveals that for the first time in a long time our leaders fear us; they feel our breath on their backs. In a democracy, that’s how it should be.
We can’t let the significance of today escape us. The history of EU referenda is an ignoble one. The French, the Dutch, the Irish, the Greeks… whenever European peoples rejected EU treaties or said OXI to EU-backed austerity, they were made to vote again, were stitched up by their own leaders, or were ignored entirely. The most dogged anti-democrats still hold out hope that this history will repeat itself with Brexit. But the war of attrition has failed. The polls show time and again that Brexit voters are uncowed, and that most Remain voters, good democrats that they are, insist the will of the people be done.
The road ahead will be tough. The European Union, wracked by crisis and bruised by Brexit, is in a fight for its survival. And it will no doubt fight dirty. But while we should certainly keep a watchful eye on our government as it enters these shady negotiations, we should also feel confident. Confident that Project Fear is not the reality. Confident that a deal is not impossible. And confident that even if it all collapses, we are not ‘staring over a cliff’. Brexit is an opportunity radically to shake up our economy for the good of all. And that’s an opportunity we can seize – deal or no deal.
But it is the democratic promise of today that shines through strongest. The Brexit vote was unprecedented in its content as well as its scale. We weren’t just voting for another party, another leader, but against a bureaucratic order that exists to smother sovereignty and keep the people out of politics. It was a vote for doing politics differently – in a more open, democratic way. There are more fights to come. Whitehall is as technocratic and distant as Brussels, and we still have meddling Lords and overreaching justices who want to temper our will. But now we have the chance to carve out new political institutions, and a new politics, that would make democracy real, lived and felt.
Some elite Remainers still insist we’re turning in on ourselves, and away from the continent with which we share so much. This is a libel against the Brexit spirit. The triggering of Article 50 heralds the beginning of a new era of openness and cooperation with the rest of the world, beyond the borders of Fortress Europe. But more than that it’s an affirmation of a core European ideal. Modern European history is defined by people’s striving for democracy. From rebellions against totalitarian regimes to the collapse of autocratic juntas, the demand for more control is one of the threads that binds us together. Today is a historic day for Britain, but also for Europe. Let’s celebrate it.
Tom Slater is deputy editor at spiked and coordinator of spiked’s Invoke Article 50 Now! campaign. Follow him on Twitter: @Tom_Slater_

Watch our film, Brexit and the Battle for Democracy:


http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/article-50-the-dawn-of-a-new-democratic-era-brexit-eu/


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Saturday, 24 March 2018

London’s latest retail and leisure destination unveiled

Battersea Power Station Development Co (BPSDC) has launched London's latest retail and leisure destination, promising that it will house a collection of British and international brands in one of the financial capital’s most iconic buildings.
Saturday, 24 Mar 2018
Eclectic mix: An artist impression of retail units in Turbine Hall B of the Power Station. The site will bring together contemporary brands providing an eclectic mix of younger and more diverse names.
Eclectic mix: An artist impression of retail units in Turbine Hall B of the Power Station. The site will bring together contemporary brands providing an eclectic mix of younger and more diverse names.
“Millions of people will visit the Power Station once it reopens in 2020,” the company said in a statement. It said it has opened retail space for lease.
It will be “the third largest retail destination”, with just over 100 units, in Central London. When fully completed in 2021, about 40 million people are expected to thronged the site.
Britain-based BPSDC is managing the development of the iconic piece of real estate south of the Thames within walking distance from up-market Chelsea.
Battersea Power Station is owned by a consortium of Malaysian investors comprising Sime Darby Property Bhd, SP Setia Bhd and the Employees Provident Fund (EPF).


BPSDC said Turbine Hall A, built in the 1930s, would be home to the Premium Collection brands that portray elegance, sophistication and timeless style.
“(Turbine Hall A will) evoke the lavish Art Deco glamour of its era,” a BPSDC statement said.
Turbine Hall B, completed in the 1950s, would bring together contemporary brands providing an eclectic mix of younger and more diverse names. It will have a 35,000 sq ft “Theatre of Food” offering a mix of the latest food trends as well as old favourites.
BPSDC retail leasing director Sam Cotton said the company is scouring the globe, not only for the best retailers but also looking at how they can provide a platform for the wider evolution of retail.
The retail scene there will offer something different to what is available elsewhere, as well as great start-ups from Britain and around the world.
Apple, one of the most famous brands in the world, has already pre-let 500,000 sq ft of offices within the building.
Deputy chief executive officer and chief financial officer Simon Murphy said the retail offering would form a key part of the new London destination.
“On behalf of our Malaysian shareholders, we look forward to fully opening this iconic building to the public for the first time, and to be enjoyed for generations to come,” he added.
The 42-acre mixed development has attracted considerable attention in more ways than one. In January, consortium members comprising Sime Darby Property Bhd, SP Setia Bhd and the EPF said the power station, the heart of the 42-acre project, will be sold for £1.6bil (RM8.8bil).
According to The Guardian, this represents one of Britain’s largest ever property deals. Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) and EPF entered into an agreement to purchase phase 2, the actual power station itself. PNB and the EPF hold a considerable amount of real estate in Britain, particularly office blocks in London although their portfolio includes other sites in Europe.
PNB and the EPF will “manage” the actual power station when it is completed, as this does not come under the purview of both SP Setia and Sime Darby, both being developers, a source from SP Setia said earlier this year.

Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2018/03/24/londons-latest-retail-and-leisure-destination-unveiled/
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