Brexit

On leaving the European Union, Britain agreed to a protocol that lets Northern Ireland remain in the EU common market.

Spain's foreign minister said on Tuesday that Madrid and London were closing in on a deal to find a definitive solution settling the post-Brexit status of Gibraltar.

Britain's trade surplus in financial and related professional services edged up in 2021 as the United States cemented its position as the top customer, while the European Union eased in importance following Brexit.

Britain proposed over 30 reforms on Friday to bolster the City of London's role as a global financial centre, now outside the European Union and facing competition from Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt, as well as New York and Singapore.

The government has already said it plans to lift a cap on bankers' bonuses, and to require UK regulators to prioritise growth and competitiveness, alongside market stability.

The Bank of England and the government's independent spending watchdog have both said Brexit has hurt the UK economy and plunged it to the brink of recession.

The UK has forecast its economy to shrink 1.4 percent next year, hit additionally by fallout from Brexit which has resulted in foreign workers returning home.

The Pitcairn Islands, a volcanic outcrop halfway between South America and New Zealand, is the UK's only overseas territory in the Pacific Ocean and home to only 46 people.

The UK's exit from the European Union is having a disproportionate effect on trade, argued Bank of England monetary policy committee member Swati Dhingra.

Britain's unemployment rate unexpectedly rose and vacancies fell for a fifth report in a row as employers worried about the outlook for the economy, official data showed on Tuesday, ahead of a tough government budget plan later this week.

India and its former colonial ruler have been negotiating for around 18 months on a trade deal.

Britain's political and economic turmoil has been greeted with thinly veiled satisfaction among pro-European and leftist politicians abroad, with some commentators drawing parallels to chaotic Italy.

UK workers are striking in vast numbers as runaway inflation erodes wages at a record pace and is set to plunge the economy into recession.

Britain recorded its biggest rise in foreign workers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the year to June, driven overwhelmingly by workers from outside the European Union, official figures showed on Tuesday.

Britain's government proposed a far-reaching financial services law last month to exploit "freedoms" to write its own capital market rules since leaving the European Union.

Portugal's border agency SEF has faced criticism for delays in issuing post-Brexit ID cards to thousands of British nationals in the country, putting the spotlight on a structural problem that has affected various other migrant communities for years.

In central England, birthplace of the industrial revolution, factories are buzzing anew, hammering out parts for cars, planes and medical machines that used to be made in Asia.

Outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government last month unveiled legislation to unilaterally change trading terms for the politically-fraught British province.

British financial regulators will have to promote the global competitiveness of the country's financial sector, though a plan for more government oversight of their work has been put on hold for now, finance minister Nadhim Zahawi said on Tuesday.

Britain is set to have the lowest economic growth of any Group of Seven country, projections show.

The European Union on Tuesday signed up to a new international treaty for recognising and enforcing civil and commercial court rulings among its signatories to reduce costly cross-border litigation.

While the European Commission publicly dodged commenting about the political upheaval in the UK, others in Brussels' orbit let loose.

The accord was the first free trade deal to be signed since Britain's formal departure from the European Union at the start of 2021.

British manufacturing firm Corbetts the Galvanizers used to rely on a stream of workers from Poland and Romania to fill its shop floor, where steel is dipped into a long vat of molten zinc at temperatures of around 450?C (842?F).

The European Commission is willing to negotiate trading arrangements for Northern Ireland with Britain, but only if talks are constructive and do not resume with an outcome already set by London, a top EU official said on Wednesday.

Irwin Armstrong, a former chair of Boris Johnson's Conservative Party in Northern Ireland, has a simple message for the British Prime Minister when it comes to the province's unique post-Brexit trade rules: Don't ruin a good thing.

After clashing last year over sausages and submarines, France's Emmanuel Macron and Britain's Boris Johnson were all smiles at a G7 summit on Sunday, with disputes over Brexit not even coming up at bilateral talks focused mainly on Ukraine.

Unionist parties and the UK government argue the protocol is threatening the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of violence over British rule in Northern Ireland.

Dashed hopes, so far at least, that Brexit would tilt Britain's economy towards growth driven by trade and investment are threatening another of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's flagship policies: "levelling up" the regions outside of London.

Britain is becoming a more closed economy due to Brexit, with damaging long-term implications for productivity and wages which will leave the average worker 470 pounds ($577) a year poorer by the end of the decade, a study forecast on Wednesday.