EU launches new legal proceedings against UK over its failure to implement Northern Ireland protocol The European Union has launched fresh legal action against the UK for failing to comply with the Northern Ireland protocol. In a statement, the European Commission says it is launching four new infringement procedures because the UK is ignoring obligations it has to the EU under the protocol, which imposes customs rules for goods going between Britain and Northern Ireland to avoid the need for checks at the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. The commission says: In a spirit of constructive cooperation, the commission refrained from launching certain infringement procedures for over a year to create the space to look for joint solutions with the UK. However, the UK’s unwillingness to engage in meaningful discussion since last February and the continued passage of the Northern Ireland protocol bill through the UK parliament go directly against this spirit. The aim of these infringement procedures is to secure compliance with the protocol in a number of key areas. This compliance is essential for Northern Ireland to continue to benefit from its privileged access to the European single market, and is necessary to protect the health, security and safety of EU citizens as well as the integrity of the single market. Formal infringement procedures start with the commission writing to the UK and demanding remedial action. If the UK does not comply within two months, the commission could take the issues to the European court of justice, which could fine the UK. The commission has also not ruled out imposing trade sanctions on the UK as retaliation. The four complaints are that the UK failed to comply with: 1) customs requirements, supervision requirements and risk controls on the movement of goods from Northern Ireland to Great Britain; 2) the transposition of EU legislation laying down general EU rules on excise duties; 3) the transposition of EU rules on excise duties on alcohol and alcoholic beverages; and 4) EU rules on Value Added Tax (VAT) for e-commerce, namely the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS). Last month the commission launched infringement proceedings in relation to a different aspect of the protocol, where it also said the UK was ignoring its obligations. Afternoon summary Patrick Minford, the economist cited by Liz Truss as providing the rationale for her plan to use huge tax cuts to stimulate the economy and supposedly cut inflation, has said that interest rates would have to go up to around 7% for his proposal to work. In an interview with the Times, Minford said he agreed that big tax cuts would require interest rates to rise. He said: Yes, interest rates have to go up and it’s a good thing. A normal level is more like 5-7% and I don’t think it will be any bad thing if we got back to that level.” If you’ve got incredibly low interest rates you kill off savings and create febrile markets with a lot of zombie companies surviving because it costs them nothing to borrow. It’s right that a healthy economy should have a decent interest rate. That’s certainly one thing I want to see. The EU has expressed its anger over the backing given by MPs for legislation overriding post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland by launching a further four legal cases against the UK government. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary and favourite in the contest to be the next Tory leader and prime minister, has welcomed the signing of a deal between Ukraine and Russia to allow the export of millions of tonnes of grain from blockaded Black Sea ports. She said the UK had been at the forefront of pushing for the agreement. In a statement she said: Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine has meant some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world are at risk of having nothing to eat. It is vital that Ukrainian grain reaches international food markets, and we applaud Turkey and the UN secretary general for their efforts to broker this agreement. The UK and our allies have been pushing hard to reach this point. Now this agreement must be implemented, and we will be watching to ensure Russia’s actions match its words. To enable a lasting return to global security and economic stability, Putin must end the war and withdraw from Ukraine. The Guido Fawkes website has got hold of a video of Rishi Sunak campaigning for leave in 2016. It says it took a while for the Sunak team to release the video, and it says it is surprised the campaign did not make it available sooner. Perhaps that is because Sunak’s predictions have not stood the test of time. In the video he says British farmers will have a “bright future” outside the EU. But many farmers believe that Brexit has turned out to be harmful for the industry, and the National Farmers’ Union says its members says its members interests have been neglected in post-Brexit trade deals. Sunak vows to press ahead with Channel 4 privatisation Rishi Sunak has pledged to push ahead with the privatisation of Channel 4 if he becomes prime minister, clearing the way for the sale of the broadcaster next year, my colleague Jim Waterson reports. Sturgeon accuses Sunak and Truss of being "hypocrites" because they now oppose second Scottish independence referendum Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has accused Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss of both being “hypocrites” because they both oppose a second independence referendum which previous comments suggested they might support. In 2017 Sunak told the Daily Express that it would be “hard” to block a second referendum, but that he thought it should be delayed until after Brexit was complete, when the choice would be “clearer” for voters. And in the 1990s, when Truss was a Liberal Democrat, she told the Lib Dem conference that she supported the use of referendums to settle major constitutional issues. She made the comment in this speech, which is well worth watching in full. Now Truss says she would oppose a second independence referendum in any circumstances, and Sunak has ruled out supporting one too. Sturgeon told PA Media: There’s been comments in the media from both of them in previous years in the last few days. Liz Truss talking about the importance of referenda in settling constitutional issues, Rishi Sunak a few years ago saying that there should be a referendum after Brexit - well we are after Brexit. They’re hypocrites - changing their position just to suit their narrow, party-political, democracy-denying agendas. It’s not about the interests of Scotland, it’s about their own interests. Jim O’Neill, the economist who served as a Treasury minister in David Cameron’s government, has dismissed Liz Truss’s claim that her plan to reverse the proposed rise in corporation tax would promote growth. He told Times Radio: She seems to miss the fact that the government that’s been predominating over power has cut corporate taxes dramatically over the past 12 years, and it hasn’t done what she claims it would do. And so there’s not really a proper framework for what she’s saying. It’s obviously playing to the gallery of whatever small number of people that determine the future of the Tory party leadership. He also said it was disappointing that none of the candidates in the contest have discussed what could be done to increase productivity. He said: The only way of really growing anything close to the last 15 years, never mind the previous 15, is to have much bigger productivity. So the only relevance about the tax debate should be - particularly at the time of a large deficit and the inflation issues and the social issues - what taxes, if any, will clearly stimulate productivity. And that’s not the question that from what I can see a single leader that’s campaigned in this debate has asked themselves. Truss"s tax allowance plan for stay-at-home carers would drive women out of workforce, campaign group claims Liz Truss’s plan to give stay-at-home parents a tax break will cause “a mass exodus of women from the workforce”, a leading campaigner has said. Commenting on the plan announced by Truss yesterday, Joeli Brearley, the founder and CEO of maternal rights campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed, said the proposals would remove choice from women unless childcare was also made cheaper. She told PA Media: Initially the policy sounds great, because of course stay-at-home parents do deserve to be remunerated for the really valuable work that they do and we have been arguing for that for a long time. However, if you give couples tax breaks for one person staying at home, we know it’s women that will leave the workforce, not men. Brearley said the high cost of childcare in the UK meant it would be the woman who would stay at home. She said: Couples compare that cost of childcare to the salary of the woman, not the man. It actually removes choices from women rather than increasing choices for women, so inevitably we will see a mass exodus of women from the workforce. It just doesn’t add up for family finances. Brearley also said it was “deeply frustrating” that Truss “doesn’t see the impact of a policy like this” despite having served as minister for women and equalities since September 2019. Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak would both be “terrible for Scotland” as prime minister, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said today. She said she did not have a preference because they were both unacceptable to the Scots. Raoul Ruparel, who was Theresa May’s Europe adviser when she was PM, thinks the European Commission’s decision to launch new legal action against the UK will prove counterproductive, because it will make it harder for the next Tory leader to compromise. Mujtaba Rahman, a Brexit analyst at the Eurasia Group consultancy, says there was not much chance of the next Tory leader compromising anyway. These are from Anton Spisak, the Brexit expert at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change thinktank, on the significance of the EU’s decision to launch new legal proceedings against the UK over the Northern Ireland protocol. (See 11.56am.) David Frost, the former Brexit minister, says the European Commission’s threat to take the UK to the European court of justice highlights the flaws with the Northern Ireland protocol. Lord Frost, of course, played a large part in agreeing the protocol as Boris Johnson’s then Brexit negotiator. Now he says that it is flawed, but he argues that it was the best option available to the UK in 2019 and that it had to be agreed to get Brexit done.