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Betrayal Or Win-win?: Britains EU Deal Reopens Old Wounds

Polls suggest most Britons want closer ties with the EU, but some believe the new deal violates Brexit’s mandate. London, United Kingdom — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has proudly described a new deal with the European Union spanning defence, security, and trade as a “win-win” pact that puts the nation “back on the world stage”. But nine years after Britain narrowly voted in favour of leaving the EU, the deal announced on May 19 has prompted a sigh of relief for some and stinging criticism from others, underscoring just how divisive the legacy of Brexit remains in the country. While many sections of British society have welcomed the agreement, Richard Tice, an MP for the anti-immigration party Reform UK, responded to the deal with a single-word post on social media: “Betrayal.” The deal offers concessions on European visas for British citizens, shorter queues at European airports, and possibly cheaper food in the UK. But on the flip side, the UK has agreed to allow European fishing fleets access to British waters for an extra 12 years. Phil Rusted, who runs a firm called Practical Plants in Suffolk that imports plants from Europe, is among those who are delighted. “My instinct is it is the best news we have got in nine years,” he said. “It almost gets us back to where were before Brexit. It helps me to take on more staff, to develop my business. The last few years have been very unpredictable; I will be more assured about what my costs are going to be.” The business sector, more broadly, has also largely responded positively to the agreement. “In a world where higher US tariffs are threatening to throw globalisation into reverse, trade deals, even if relatively minor, are generally good news,” said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec Bank. “The obvious gainer is the food sector, which will benefit from a reduction in checks at the EU border, which could make a material difference to exporters’ and importers’ costs.” The Federation of Small Businesses, a group that represents small- and medium-sized firms in the UK, described the EU deal as “genuine progress”, crediting it for “untangling the rules for small exporters of plant and animal products”. “For too long, small businesses have shouldered the burden of unpredictable customs rules and red tape that sap confidence and ambition,” it said. And popular opinion in the UK appears to be behind the agreement. Polling by YouGov shows that 66 percent want to have a closer relationship with the EU, compared with just 14 percent who do not. To be sure, experts say the UK has to compromise too. “The devil in a trade deal is of course always in the detail,” said Paul Dales, chief economist at Capital Economics. In addition to accepting EU access to British waters for fishing, the UK has also agreed to pay an unspecified “appropriate financial contribution” to join the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, Dales pointed out. But the deal has also faced strong pushback. The National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, in a statement on May 19, said the agreement “surrenders the best prospect that the fishing industry and coastal communities had for growth over the coming decade”. Three days later, it issued a more biting statement, saying the deal “drags UK fishing back into a past we thought had been left behind”. Shaw conceded that if the food industry had benefitted from the deal, the fishing sector stood “at the other end of the scale”. And it is not just fishers. The deal has also revived a broader debate over whether the UK, in seeking to realign itself with elements of the EU’s rules and regulations, is violating the mandate of Brexit. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, under whom Britain formally withdrew from the EU in 2020, described the deal as an “appalling sell out” in a post on X. Tony Gabana, a web developer from London who was too young to vote in 2016, holds that view. “Whether it’s a good deal or not, it does seem an attempt to reverse what a lot of people voted for,” Gabana said. “It doesn’t sit right with me. It feels like a step to further concessions, which, again, no one voted for. “Are we a democracy or not?” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Why Are The US And EU Struggling To Reach A Trade Deal?

Donald Trump’s U-turn sees European leaders call for the ‘lowest possible’ tariffs after levies are postponed from June 1 to July 9. But is that enough to satisfy the US president? US President Donald Trump has backed away — for now — from imposing steep levies on the European Union, two days after he threatened the bloc with 50 percent tariffs. On Sunday, Trump agreed to extend his deadline for trade talks until July 9, from the June 1 deadline he set on Friday, after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc needed more time to “reach a good deal”. Von der Leyen reportedly told Trump during a phone call that the EU needed more time to come to an agreement and asked him to delay the trade duties until July, the deadline he had originally set when he announced his “reciprocal” tariffs on almost all countries around the world in April. Trump said that he had granted the request, and that von der Leyen told him, “We will rapidly get together to see if we can work something out.” Von der Leyen said in a social media post that the EU was ready to move quickly in trade talks. During a trip to Vietnam on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that he hoped Washington and Brussels could achieve a deal with the lowest tariffs possible. “The discussions are advancing,” he told reporters. The US president’s latest salvo comes amid Washington’s stop-and-start global trade war that kicked off in April. Trump’s moves have unnerved markets, businesses and consumers and raised fears of a global economic downturn. But while his approach has yielded a trade deal with the United Kingdom, and negotiations are believed to be progressing with a range of other nations — from India to Vietnam to Japan — key sticking points complicate the prospects of an agreement with the EU. Here’s what the tiff is about, and why the US and EU are struggling to reach a trade deal: Trump’s recent broadside against the EU was prompted by the White House’s belief that negotiations with the bloc are not progressing fast enough. “Our discussions with them are going nowhere!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States,” he wrote last Friday. By Sunday, however, Trump had changed course. He welcomed von der Leyen’s assertion that the bloc was willing to negotiate but that it needed more time. He added that it was his “privilege” to delay the increased tariffs. Trump said, “[von der Leyen] said she wants to get down to serious negotiation. We had a very nice call … she said we will rapidly get together and see if we can work something out,” he told reporters. Trump is thought to be opposed to the idea of mutually cutting tariffs to zero – an EU proposal. The US president has insisted on preserving a baseline 10 percent tax on most imports from America’s trading partners. On May 8, the UK agreed to a trade deal that kept Trump’s 10 percent reciprocal tariff rate in place. EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said the European Commission – the EU’s executive arm – remains committed to securing a deal that works for both sides. But he warned that EU-US trade “must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.” In 2024, EU exports to the US totalled about 532 billion euros ($603bn). Pharmaceuticals, cars and auto parts, chemicals and aircraft were among the largest exports, according to EU data. Last week, the US rejected a proposal sent by the European Commission. The EU had offered to remove tariffs on industrial goods, boost access for some US agricultural products and co-develop AI data centres, Bloomberg reported. It also proposed enhancing economic cooperation in areas like shipbuilding and port infrastructure, as well as by establishing an EU-US energy partnership covering gas, nuclear power and oil. In exchange, Brussels wants the Trump administration to have more flexibility on lowering the 10 percent baseline tariff — including by potentially lowering it in phases over time. While the EU has said it wants to find a negotiated solution, it has also been preparing to retaliate if necessary. Member states have approved a 50 percent tariff on a batch of US products worth 21 billion euros ($23.8bn), including maize, wheat and clothing, which will kick in on July 14 without a deal. The bloc is also preparing tariffs on other imported products totalling 95 billion euros ($107.8bn), targeting industrial goods like Boeing aircraft and cars, as well as bourbon. Trump has long accused the European Union of “ripping off” the US, and is determined that Brussels will adopt measures to lower its 198.2-billion-euro ($225bn) goods trade surplus with the US. Washington has repeatedly raised concerns over Europe’s value-added tax, as well as its regulations on IT and food exports. Trump contends that these controls act as de facto trade barriers to the EU. For his part, Sefcovic recently told the Financial Times that he wants to slash the US-EU trade deficit by buying more US gas, weapons and agricultural products. In addition, the bloc is reportedly open to reducing its dependence on Chinese exports and on erecting tariffs against subsidised Chinese exports, which Trump is keen on. Sefcovic and his US counterpart, Jamieson Greer, are scheduled to meet in Paris next month to discuss ways of de-escalating the ongoing US-EU trade dispute. In 2024, the EU exported 531.6 billion euros ($603bn) in goods to the US and imported products worth 333 billion euros ($377.8bn), resulting in a trade surplus of almost 200 billion euros ($227bn). On the flip side, the US runs a surplus of more than 109 billion euros ($124bn) in services as of 2023, with notable IT exports, led by large American tech companies, charges for intellectual property and financial services. Trump’s tariffs would, in turn, hit both economies hard. According to a 2019 study by the International Monetary Fund, a full-scale US-EU trade war could cost 0.3-to-0.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on both sides. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Mapping Israels Military Campaign In The Occupied West Bank

Research group Forensic Architecture finds that Israel is using tactics in the West Bank similar to those used in Gaza. Israel is applying many of the tactics used in its war on Gaza to seize and control territory across the occupied West Bank during its Operation Iron Wall campaign, a new report [pdf] says. Israel launched the operation in January. Defending what the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) termed “by far the longest and most destructive operation in the occupied West Bank since the second intifada in the 2000s”, the Israeli military claimed its intention was to preserve its “freedom of action” within the Palestinian territory as it continued to rip up roads and destroy buildings, infrastructure, and water and electricity lines. The report by the British research group Forensic Architecture suggested Israel has imposed what researchers call a system of “spatial control”, essentially a series of mechanisms that allow it to deploy military units across Palestinian territory at will. The report focused on Israeli action in the refugee camps of Jenin and Far’a in the northern West Bank and Nur Shams and Tulkarem in the northwestern West Bank. Researchers interviewed and analysed witness statements, satellite imagery and hundreds of videos to demonstrate a systematic plan of coordinated Israeli action intended to impose a network of military control in refugee camps across the West Bank similar to that imposed upon Gaza. In the process, existing roads have been widened while homes, private gardens and adjacent properties have been demolished to allow for the rapid deployment of Israeli military vehicles. “This network of military routes is clearly visible in the Jenin refugee camp and evidence indicates that the same tactic is, at the time of publication, being repeated in the Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps,” the report’s authors noted. Israeli ministers have previously stated that they planned to use the same methods in the West Bank that have destroyed the Gaza Strip, leading to more than 54,000 Palestinians killed and the majority of buildings damaged or destroyed. In January, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would apply the “lesson” of “repeated raids in Gaza” to the Jenin refugee camp. The following month, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has control over much of the administration of the West Bank, boasted that “Tulkarem and Jenin will look like Jabalia and Shujayea. Nablus and Ramallah will resemble Rafah and Khan Younis,” comparing refugee camps in the West Bank to areas in Gaza that have been devastated by Israeli bombing and ground offensives. “They will also be turned into uninhabitable ruins, and their residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries,” Smotrich said. Hamze Attar, a Luxembourg-based defence analyst, told Al Jazeera these tactics are not new in Palestinian territory, having first been deployed by the British during their mandate over historic Palestine, which preceded Israel’s foundation in 1948. “It’s part of the “counterinsurgency” strategy,” he said. “Bigger roads [mean] easy access to forces – bigger roads, less congested battle management; bigger roads, less ability for fighters to escape from house to house.” About 75,000 Palestinians live in the Jenin, Nur Shams, Far’a and Tulkarem refugee camps. They were either displaced themselves or descended from those displaced during the Nakba (which means “catastrophe”) when roughly 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes by Zionist forces from 1947 to 1949 as part of the creation of Israel. Now, at least 40,000 of those living in the West Bank refugee camps have been displaced as a result of Operation Iron Wall, according to the United Nations. As in Gaza, many of these people were forced from their homes on orders from the Israeli military, which researchers said have been “weaponised” against the local population. Once an area had been cleared of its buildings and roads, it becomes a kill zone and the Israeli military is free to reshape and build whatever it likes without interference from residents, the report said. “Such engineered mass displacement has allowed the Israeli military to reshape these built environments unobstructed,” the report noted, adding that when Palestinian residents did try to return to their homes after Israeli military action, they were often obstructed by the continued presence of troops. Forensic Architecture researchers said Israeli attacks on medical facilities in Gaza have also spilled over into the West Bank. “Israeli attacks on medical infrastructure in the West Bank have included placing hospitals under siege, obstructing ambulance access to areas with injured civilians, targeting medical personnel, and using at least one medical facility as a detention and interrogation centre,” the report said. During Israel’s initial attacks on the Jenin refugee camp on January 21, multiple hospitals were surrounded by the Israeli military, including Jenin Government Hospital, al-Amal Hospital and al-Razi Hospital, researchers noted. The following day, civilians and hospital staff reported that the main road leading to Jenin Government Hospital was destroyed by Israeli military bulldozers and access to the hospital was blocked by newly constructed berms, or land barriers, On February 4, reports from Jenin said the Israeli military was obstructing ambulances carrying injured people from reaching the hospital. Also carrying unmistakable echoes of Gaza was an UNRWA report in early February saying the Israeli military had forcibly co-opted one of the health centres at the UNRWA-run Arroub camp near Jerusalem as an interrogation and detention site. The attacks on healthcare facilities were part of a wider campaign to damage civilian infrastructure in the West Bank, the Forensic Architecture report said, using armoured bulldozers, controlled demolitions and air attacks. Researchers said they verified more than 200 examples of Israeli soldiers deliberately destroying buildings and street networks in all four of the refugee camps with armoured bulldozers reducing civilian roads to barely passable piles of exposed earth and rubble. Civilian property, including parked vehicles, food carts and agricultural buildings, such as greenhouses, were also destroyed during Israeli military operations, they said. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Pakistans Hasan Ali Claims 5-30 As Bangladesh Beaten By 37 Runs

Pakistan win the opening match of the three-game T20 series against Bangladesh by 37 runs in Lahore. Pakistan stormed to a 37-run win against Bangladesh in the opening T20 international of the three-match series at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. Hasan Ali, returning to the side for the first time in a year, claimed 5-30 to bowl the tourists out for 164 in the final over. Having won the toss, the hosts amassed 201-7 with captain Salman Agha top scoring with 56, but the innings was not without its bumps. Right-arm seamer Hasan stole the hearts at least on his return to the international fold, following injury troubles, having recently impressed in his country’s domestic Two competition, the Pakistan Super League. “I have seen him work hard and put in extra hours, and it has all paid off,” his skipper said afterwards. On his top score in the match, Salman added, “What mattered is that everyone contributed, and that’s how we want to play – everyone has to bat, bowl and field well.” Pakistan, like Bangladesh, are looking to recover from the group-stage exits at February’s ICC Champions Trophy, a competition they hosted. It couldn’t have been a worse start for the hosts, who also lost seven of eight matches in the recent white-ball series against New Zealand, as they were reduced to 5-2 after eight balls of their innings. Mohammad Haris began the recovery with his captain Salman as the pair shared a stand of 51 for the third wicket. Hasan Nawaz took that foundation on with the highest strike rate of the innings as he hit 44 off 22 balls in a stand of 65 – the highest of the innings. Salman was the only batter in the match to reach a half century and posted 56 off 24 with eight fours and one six. The fourth-wicket pair fell within 11 deliveries of each other, and the finish looked to be stuttering until Shadab Khan smashed 48 off 25 to pile the pressure back onto Bangladesh. The allrounder’s end came off the penultimate ball of the innings as Shoriful Islam claimed his second wicket – the only Bangladesh player to claim more than one scalp. A top-heavy reply from the tourists looked to offer hope of a series-opening win as the highest partnership of the match of 63 was shared between their captain Litton Das and Tawhid Hridoy for the third wicket. The breaking of that partnership, with the score on 100-2 before Litton departed, was the beginning of the end for the chase. Shadab Khan claimed 2-26 along with his ferocious tally with the bat to be named Player of the Match. “My comeback to Pakistan colours wasn’t great despite my hard work, but my recent performances in PSL helped regain some confidence,” the Pakistan vice captain said, having lost his place in the side recently. All the matches in the series are being played in Lahore, with the second game taking place on Friday before the series finale on Sunday. “We didn’t bowl, bat and field well,” Bangladesh captain Litton said in his post-match comments, believing his team needs more consistency in “all areas of the game”. “We have two more games, so we must come back strongly as a unit,” he added. Follow Al Jazeera English:...