Around 48,000 internet domain names belonging to U.K. citizens and organizations — including pro-Brexit site Leave.eu — have been indefinitely taken offline from Monday, following the revocation of their .eu domain names by the agency in charge of registrations.
The move marks the final step in an ongoing process since the U.K. withdrew from the EU on January 31, 2020.
U.K.-based owners of .eu domains were told that they needed to prove eligibility for an EU domain; otherwise, they would risk suspension, meaning their domains would be unable to support website-hosting or email functionality.
To register a .eu domain, individuals must be either citizens or residents of the bloc, and organizations should be established within the EU.
More than 80,000 websites had been hit with a "suspended" status, following the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31, 2020. By July of last year, those that failed to prove eligibility were placed into a "withdrawn" status until Monday, when their .eu domains were revoked indefinitely.
“Over the past 12 months our staff has been working tirelessly to support the holders of these domain names and follow up on the numerous requests to reinstate a domain name into the registered status as soon as the eligibility criteria were met,” an EURid spokesman said on Monday.
Those in possession of European Union residency or citizenship will be able to immediately re-register the .eu domains revoked as of Monday.
A spokesperson from EURid, the EU’s domain registry manager, said that the 48,000 domain names would “become available for general registration on a first come, first serve[d] basis” in batches throughout Monday.
Leave.eu could be back in EU hands
One case that caught the headlines last year was the domain Leave.eu — registered to the organization of the same name, which had been spearheaded by former Brexiteer MEP Nigel Farage and bankrolled by erstwhile UKIP funder Arron Banks.
Ahead of the Brexit withdrawal date, the organization migrated its registrant address to a location in Waterford, Ireland, in an attempt to prove eligibility for a .eu domain.
However, following an investigation by EURid, the domain was issued with a "withdrawn" status, because the domain holder failed to respond to data verification requests, EURid said on Monday.
As of Monday, the Leave.eu domain name will become available for re-registration by an EU citizen or resident.
Who is winning the fish war? Will gentlemen in England still a-bed think themselves accursed they were not there?
This morning, the war looked rather, forgive me, fishy. France has suspended until Thursday its threats to disrupt the Channel Tunnel. Boris declared he would make no concessions. His bellicose promise came immediately after the UK and Channel Islands handed the French 100 more fishing permits.
Maybe it will hot up. Maybe not. French-bashing is flourishing at least. Jacob Rees-Mogg has pronounced the French to be always grumpy in October, the anniversary of Agincourt and Trafalgar. And he’s being predictably reflected in Brit-bashing from Paris, dragging out the Marquis de Ximenès’s complaint about perfidious Albion.
Is this it? In the lengthy history of Anglo-French naval engagements, this one has been a disappointment. Not a shot fired. Even the Russians did better than the French, sinking much of the North Sea fishing fleet in 1905 (albeit by accident).
Instead, all we have is a promise that negotiations will continue. Perhaps the negotiators need more time to craft a text allowing each side to declare victory with a straight face.
Whether Boris Johnson can get away with declaring a win, Macron having already won 45 more permits for the Breton scallop men and 50 more for their colleagues in Boulogne, I cannot say. Probably. It’s odd that anyone should really care. Fishing is very many decimal places away from being economically significant in the UK.
But from the southern side of the channel, Macron looks as if he’s done well. Tantrum diplomacy has worked well for him. Politically, it could hardly have been better timed for the president. A tough election looming, this allows him to claim credit not just for saving the Breton scallop men but to claim extra points for putting the United Kingdom in its place, which is never a vote-loser here.
A few weeks ago, Macron was looking battered and bruised. Humiliated by the Anglo-Saxons over submarines. Furious with the Swiss who had rejected his Rafale fighter jets. Angry with Britain over Northern Ireland. Rowing with Algeria over colonialism.
Now the French president appears seigneur over all he surveils. He’s about to assume the presidency of the European Council, where he will be capable of endless mischief. There’s a new bounce to his step, evident in the photos of him in Rome and Glasgow. At the G20 in Rome, Biden groveled to him, claiming he’d known nothing about the Aukus submarine deal. Scott Morrison, the prime minister of Australia, was collaterally humiliated, accused by Macron of being a liar.
By the time the circus arrived in Glasgow, Boris had apparently caved and the new fishing permits were being granted. Macron said he wouldn’t close the Channel Tunnel to search every lorry for ham sandwiches. We’re at status quo ante. The French and the rest can fish British waters much as they did before Brexit, and British boats can land their catches in France. The French will probably release the seized British trawler (the British-registered, Belgian-built Cornelis Gert Jan, owned by Canadians and captained by an Irishman). The UK will not take France to court, or impose ‘rigorous controls’ on EU (i.e. French) fishing boats, not that this was ever likely since the Royal Navy has barely a skeletal fisheries protection capability. Macron won’t turn off the electricity connectors. The EU will heave a sigh of relief.
Jean-Francis Pécresse, a quintessentially establishment French journalist, writing this week in Les Échos, the French business daily, says the dispute has been entirely the fault of Albion, ‘with all the perfidy of which she is capable.’ The UK is no longer a member of the EU yet continues to be a troublemaker, he complains. ‘This cannot go on any longer, when the Union already has enough to do with its eastern flank.’
Meanwhile from London the Sun declared Macron’s, ‘Le surrender,’ Laura Kuenssberg tweeted that the French have ‘stepped back,’ the Mail reported ministers ‘hailing victory’ and the Express declared, ‘Win for Boris! Macron BACKS DOWN in fishing row – changes deadline after Truss masterstroke.’
Perhaps a clearer picture of who won and who lost the Fish war might emerge in days to come. Perhaps the current truce will hold. Perhaps not. It seems from here Macron’s got what he wanted. Winner? Losers? It’s not necessarily in the interest of anyone to clarify the point. The jingoistic media are entirely predictable and it is simply more convenient to let everyone claim victory and tuck in to a nourishing plate of Coquilles Saint-Jacques, prepared with a dash of olive oil, garlic, a splash of Grenache and a pinch of spices.
Written by Jonathan Miller
OpenStreetMap, the Wikipedia-for-maps organisation that seeks to create a free and open-source map of the globe, is considering relocating to the EU, almost 20 years after it was founded in the UK by the British entrepreneur Steve Coast.
OpenStreetMap Foundation, which was formally registered in 2006, two years after the project began, is a limited company registered in England and Wales. Following Brexit, the organisation says the lack of agreement between the UK and EU could render its continued operation in Britain untenable.
“There is not one reason for moving, but a multitude of paper cuts, most of which have been triggered or amplified by Brexit,” Guillaume Rischard, the organisation’s treasurer, told members of the foundation in an email sent earlier this month.
One “important reason”, Rischard said, was the failure of the UK and EU to agree on mutual recognition of database rights. While both have an agreement to recognise copyright protections, that only covers work which is creative in nature.
Maps, as a simple factual representation of the world, are not covered by copyright in the same way, but until Brexit were covered by an EU-wide agreement that protected databases where there had been “a substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting the data”. But since Brexit, any database made on or after 1 January 2021 in the UK will not be protected in the EU, and vice versa.
Other concerns Rischard listed include the increasing complexity and cost of “banking, finance and using PayPal in the UK”, the inability for the organisation to secure charitable status, and the loss of .eu domains.
The increased importance of the EU in matters of tech regulation also played a role: “We could more effectively lobby the EU [and] EU governments and have more of an impact, especially in countries where there is no local chapter,” Rischard wrote.
The move may still not happen if the foundation can’t find a suitable country to relocate to. Ireland is out, because of a requirement for directors to be residents; France too, because of the difficulty in guaranteeing English-language services. “The negative side is that it would mean a lot of work, and cost time and money,” Rischard added.
In just a few years, OpenStreetMap has succeeded in producing highly detailed maps that rival those created by national bodies and big tech companies such as Google and Nokia. A large network of volunteers combines remote work, such as tracing satellite imagery to update natural features, with on-the-ground expertise, touring city centres to ensure that shops, restaurants and offices are correctly recorded.
The organisation’s maps are used by companies including Apple, Microsoft and Uber, and the increasing reliance of some of the world’s largest companies on the open-source map has sparked controversy within the community: by 2020, for instance, Apple alone had contributed more than 13m edits to the atlas, leading some to worry that a shift in focus could prevent it from achieving its original goal of providing maps to underserved communities.
In a statement, the OpenStreetMap Foundation said: “We are actively researching options to protect the OSM community’s interests, and one option under investigation is relocation to an EU member state. We have made no decisions so far.”
If victory eludes us in the row over fishing rights around Jersey, the prospect of Macron at No 10 has much to recommend it
Ed Cumming - Sun 9 May 2021 09.30
If this week has demonstrated anything, it’s that war with France is one of few policies to still enjoy true cross-party support. Brexiters are happy because they crave armed conflict with the uppity frogs above all else. Remainers are happy because they always said Brexiters craved armed conflict with the uppity frogs, and they crave being proved right in a losing cause.
Other than being paid by the government not to work, it’s hard to think of another idea in recent years that everyone has rallied around with such enthusiasm. In fraught times, we ought to be grateful for these fleeting bursts of unity.
I’m as excited for the conflict as the next man, unless he lives on the Isle of Wight, but I’m afraid those in command may not have thought through the implications. Because there will only be one winner: France. For all the surrender-monkey talk, the history couldn’t be clearer. When we have beaten France, in the Napoleonic or seven years wars, we have done so with German help. Every time we try to go it alone, we have to scurry home, stubby little bulldog tails between our legs: hundred years war, war of 1778, the Norman Conquest. I’m not sure Mrs Merkel is itching for a scrap.
There will be some early grounds for hope. Led by Dominic Raab in full kit and shin pads, the SAS will parachute in and seize our ancestral booze warehouses across the Channel. The burghers of Calais will be force-fed les burgers Anglais they were so rude about in the 90s.
It won’t last. In time, the Foreign Legion will be marching down Oxford Street, while their generals loot Mr Bean DVDs and Oasis albums from the smoking wreckage of HMV. Rowan Atkinson will eventually be flushed out of his bunker, Saddam-style, and forced to perform Bean skits for 20 hours a day. The Queen will be exiled to Balmoral in the newly independent vassal state of Scotland, replaced by the puppet transition leader, Arsène Wenger. Stepping into his new quarters on Downing Street, Mr Macron will shake his head sadly at the depraved extravagance that led to such wallpaper, the last gasps of a venal and corrupt administration.
Coming from a family of 1066 blow-ins, I’m conflicted. Am I pleased we’ll lose the war with France? It’s hard to say. As is their custom, our new leaders will strip every open space of all grass and replace it with that weird pink gravel they’re so obsessed with. Eton will keep its name but fulfil a new role as the Ecole Technocratique Nationale.
No longer able to define themselves in patriotic opposition to their French counterparts, our holiday towns will be deserted, with disastrous effects on house prices. Marmite and baked bean factories will be blown up. Rather than a Byzantine dance of conspiracy and interviews, the next series of Line of Duty will be six hours of horny students being beaten up by cops. Now Daft Punk have disbanded, there will be nobody to headline Glastonbury. Coffee will become undrinkable and, strangely, so will tea.
It won’t all be bad. France is sometimes described as a paradise populated by people who think they’re living in hell, which is to say the opposite of Surrey. There will be advantages: cooked breakfast will be banned, replaced by room-temperature breakfast, and lunch will be compulsory. Pret a Manger will be seized by the state, briefly renamed Ready to Eat and then razed to the ground to encourage the others. Tinned confit duck will no longer have to be smuggled back in the boots of family cars but instead will be made available in every newsagent.
There will be wine everywhere, except McDonald’s, where there will be beer. The price of Greggs sausage rolls will be capped by the state. It will cost money to drive on motorways but they will all be incredible.
Rather than chiding our politicians for extramarital shenanigans, we will be forced to admire them, and instead berate any who make the error of marrying their lovers. It will be impossible to get a job but also impossible to be sacked. Everyone will work less but, inexplicably, be more productive. Everyone will retire at 62, except train drivers who will retire at 52. All parents will have access to cheap childcare. We’ll have a national anthem with a discernible tune.
When we lose the war with France, England will be the winner.
Le "chaos" à l'issue d'un Brexit sans accord avec Bruxelles, voici ce que craignent de plus en plus de Britanniques. Un kit de survie vient de faire son apparition sur le marché.
"Just in case". De la nourriture lyophilisée, un filtre à eau et de quoi allumer un feu au cas où. Face à la possibilité d'un Brexit sans accord, certains Britanniques envisagent déjà le pire : pénuries alimentaires, inflation galopante, augmentation de la criminalité, chômage de masse, effondrement des prix de l'immobilier, pénurie de médicaments, etc...
Le "chaos" dès la sortie de l'Union européenne, c'est bien ce que redoute Lynda Mayall. Comme des centaines de ses compatriotes, cette sexagénaire a fait l'acquisition, pour un peu moins de 350 euros, d'un kit de survie au Brexit.
"Je suis pas inquiète pour le Brexit, je suis inquiète pour le contrecoup (...) Je crains qu'il y aura un peu de chaos lors des six premiers mois jusqu'à ce que les contrôles aux frontières soient réglés" confie-t-elle à la BBC. Du coup, Lynda empile ses provisions chez elle.
"Survivre" le temps que les conséquences brutales du Brexit s'amenuisent, c'est justement l'idée de la "Brexit Box", née dans l'esprit de James Blake, fondateur d'Emergency Food Storage UK, pour face au lendemain du divorce européen.