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Britain and the European Union agreed on a transitional period after Brexit on 29 March 2019 until the end of 2020 in which Britain can make trade deals and EU citizens will be able to claim UK residency. The Irish border question was unresolved. British fisherfolk were sold down the river, despite an undertaking a week earlier by Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, and Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson. In a joint statement, the two politicians had promised: ‘Britain will leave the CFP [Common Fisheries Policy] as of March 2019.’ In fact, Britain will merely be ‘consulted’ on fishing quotas during the transitional period.
A statement by the leaders of the United States, Germany, France and Britain castigated Russia over the murder attempt against Sergei Skripal, a Russian defector, and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury on 4 March: ‘The United Kingdom thoroughly briefed its allies that it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for the attack,’ it said. ‘We share the UK assessment.’ Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary said: ‘Frankly, Russia should go away and should shut up,’; in reply the Russian defence ministry called him ‘a vulgar old harpy’ or ‘bazaar khabalka’. Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said: ‘We actually have evidence within the last 10 years that Russia has not only been investigating the delivery of nerve agents for the purpose of assassination, but has also been creating and stockpiling Novichok.’ The Russians expelled 23 diplomats in response to Britain’s expulsion of 23 of theirs, will close the British consulate in St Petersburg and will bar the British Council. Police investigated the death of Nikolai Glushkov, a friend of Putin critic Boris Berezovsky; he was found dead from compression of the neck at New Malden, Surrey, on 12 March.
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