The Huguenots
The Huguenots were French Protestants who fled to England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries to escape religious persecution in France.
They settled in places such as Spitalfields and Soho on London and became strongly represented in the crafts and professions.
Huguenot buildings – elegant and distinctive in their style – survive in London’s East End and enrich its history. The Brick Lane Mosque , at the corner of Fournier Street and Brick Lane, was originally founded by the Huguenot community of Spitalfields in 1743 as the New Church ( L’Eglise Neuve) and served both as a school and a chapel for that community .The church subsequently became a synagogue ( the Spitalfields Great Synagogue) serving the local Jewish community before becoming a mosque in 1975 to serve the local Moslem ( mainly Bangladeshi) community. Such is the kaleidoscope of London’s history and life!
The French contribution to London and British life is exemplified by what the Huguenots achieved and is one of the many historic ties that bind the UK to its continental neighbours.
Brexit and Turkey
Turkey is a country of immense strategic importance, given its pivotal location at the meeting points of continents and of peoples and of faiths.
The UK has long identified a wish to strengthen trade and investment ties with Turkey and indeed on 18th July 2023, the previous Conservative Government ( through the then Business and Trade Secretary, KemI Badenoch MP and her Turkish counterpart, Omer Balat) issued a Joint Statement with the Turkish Government confirming their mutual intention to begin talks towards a revised and comprehensive Free Trade Agreement.
According to the UK Government press release issued on the same day, the new deal would replace the existing trade and investment agreement signed between the two countries in December 2020 which was effectively rolled over from EU-Turkey trade and investment deal which applied to the UK – Turkey relationship when the UK was still a member of the EU.
The existing December 2020 deal between the two countries was said in the Joint Statement predominantly to cover industrial goods and to provide continuity to businesses and the safeguarding of supply chains following the UK’s departure from the EU. From the UK perspective as indicated in the press release an object of the new deal would be include other key areas of the UK’s economy like services, digital and data where the UK is said to be particularly strong.
It seems that the UK’s new Labour Government has not so far sought to change the UK’s stance on its negotiations with Turkey and, therefore, it is presumed that the UK will continue to negotiate with Turkey towards a new trade and investment deal. There is no reason to think otherwise.
It may be useful to delve more deeply into the current state of UK-Turkey trade and investment relations and in this regard the UK-Department for Business & Trade (DBT) trade and investment factsheet published on 20th December 2024 showed that total trade in goods and services ( exports plus imports) between the UK and Turkey was just over £26 billion in the four quarters to the end of Quarter 2 (Q2) 2024, an increase of 1.4% or £362 million in current prices from the four quarters to the end of Q2 2023. Of this just over £26.0 billion :
- Total UK exports to Turkey amounted to £9.5 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q2 2024 ( a decrease of 5.3% or £533 million in current prices, compared to the four quarters to the end of Q2 2023); and
- Total UK imports from Turkey amounted to £16.6 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q2 2024 (an increase of 5.7% or £895 million in current prices, compared to the four quarters to the end of Q2 2023).
The DBT factsheet also showed that Turkey was the UK’s 17th largest trading partner in the four quarters to the end of Q2 2024, accounting for 1.5% of total UK trade.
As far as investment was concerned, the factsheet showed that in 2022, the outward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) from the UK in Turkey was £7.9 billion accounting for 0.4% of the total UK outward FDI stock and that, in the same year, the inward stock of FDI in the UK from Turkey was £1.1 billion accounting for 0.1% of the total UK inward FDI stock.
The UK and Turkey are both members of NATO and are now both outside the EU but both with borders which are adjacent to the EU. The two countries have much in common , although politically they are apart in important respects.
The UK- Turkey relationship is certainly one to be watched, not least given Turkey’s growing influence in the World.
Brexit and the “Stormont Brake”
On 21st January 2025, The Times reported that Hilary Benn MP, UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, had rejected a formal demand from the Northern Ireland Assembly to trigger the so- called “Stormont Brake” for the first time. This was in the context of EU legislation that would make changes to the labelling of household chemicals on sale in Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party ( through its leader, Gavin Robinson} had reportedly claimed that the new rules would represent “a further fracture in the UK internal market”. However, according to the article, Mr Benn rejected this argument saying that British and Northern Ireland chemical labelling rules were already different from each other and that most of the companies impacted also supplied the EU. However, it is understood that Mr Benn had added that if it could be shown that the new rules did affect the UK’s internal market, the UK Government would change UK law to match the EU.
An interesting example of the workings of the “Windsor Framework”!
Brexit and the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention (“PEM”)
On 28th January 2025, The Times reported that EU proposals for the UK to join PEM would not compromise Brexit “freedoms”, according to Lord Frost , who led the UK negotiating team leading to the UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement in 2020.
PEM reportedly was launched in 2012 and harmonises rules of origin across the EU and a number of countries in North Africa and the Mediterranean including Turkey, Morocco and Algeria. According to The Times report, PEM’s objective is to allow goods containing components made in different countries to be treated as a single entity and be exported, usually without tariffs, among members.
The Times report includes a “comment” article by Lord Daniel Hannan, co-founder of the “Vote Leave “ campaign in the 2016 referendum, advocating that the UK should at least look seriously at the EU’s suggestion that the UK might join PEM because , taking PEM at face value, it “is a limited arrangement dating from 2012 that eases rules of origin requirements – it lets states import more component parts without triggering tariffs”.
Meanwhile, on the same date The Times contained a separate “comment” article by Melanie Phillips, entitled “UK’s Brexit freedoms have been squandered” with the strapline “Five years on, it’s not leaving the EU that’s the problem but failure of leaders to take back control”.
One can perhaps sense in all this an acceptance even by committed Brexiteers of the advantages to the UK of resetting its relationship with the EU.
Let us see what happens!
