UK news

British investment fund manager Fidelity will move 100 jobs from London to Dublin, it said Friday, but stressed the decision was made before the shock EU exit referendum result.

"We have been recruiting into the Dublin office at the moment and there are some roles that will be moving from the UK," a Fidelity spokeswoman told AFP.

"To be clear, this is all part of this long term strategy mentioned above, a strategy which has evolved over time and has nothing to do with the referendum."

The British people voted last week in a crunch referendum to leave the European Union, with 52 percent in favour and 48 percent against.

Published: 01 July 2016

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Paul Gascoigne will stand trial in September after the troubled former England international footballer pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to a racially aggravated public order offence.

The 49-year-old, affectionately known as “Gazza”, allegedly made a racist joke about a security guard during “An Evening With Gazza” show in Wolverhampton, central England, in November last year.

Published: 30 June 2016

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The ruling Conservatives fired the gun Wednesday on the race to pick Britain's next premier after a shock Brexit vote, as departing David Cameron turned his fire on beleaguered opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Ex-London mayor and anti-EU campaigner Boris Johnson is tipped as a favourite to take over from Cameron on September 9 while interior minister Theresa May, who wanted to stay in the bloc, is another frontrunner.

Despite last week's surprise vote, it was not Cameron -- who is quitting after leading the unsuccessful "Remain" campaign -- but Corbyn who faced the roughest ride at parliament's weekly Prime Minister's Questions session.

Corbyn has vowed to stay in his job despite losing a confidence vote of MPs in his Labour party, dozens of whom have quit his frontbench team in recent days.

"It might be in my party's interests for him to sit there, it's not in the national interests and I would say, for heaven's sake man, go," Cameron told the veteran socialist, to loud cheers from MPs.

Published: 29 June 2016

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The world's largest uncut diamond failed to sell at auction in London on Wednesday after the bids fell short of the reserve price.

The Lesedi La Rona, a 1,109-carat, tennis ball-sized gem found in Botswana, had been predicted to sell for over $70 million.

But the Sotheby's auctioneer failed to persuade bidders to go above $61 million for the jewel, which was discovered in 2015 by the Lucara Diamond Corp.

"Though widely admired in the months preceding this evening’s auction, and despite having seen bidding in the salesroom, the Lesedi la Rona failed to reach its reserve price and consequently did not find a buyer tonight," Sotheby's said in a later statement.

Sotheby's chairman of jewellery David Bennett had called the diamond "the find of a lifetime."

Published: 29 June 2016

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Shares in banks, airlines and property companies plunged on the London stock exchange Monday as investors singled out the three sectors as being the most vulnerable to Britain's decision to leave the EU.

EasyJet stock fell over 16 percent after the company issued a profit warning, while British Airways parent IAG's shares were down 9.4 percent at around 0900 GMT.

Royal Bank of Scotland shares plunged more than 15 percent, Lloyds by 8.9 percent and Barclays by 10.2 percent.

Published: 28 June 2016

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Britain's vote last week to leave the European Union has plunged the country into a triple crisis.

It has unleashed deep and bitter rifts within the main political parties, sent jolts of uncertainty through its economy and raised constitutional questions on the very future of United Kingdom.

Here are the main issues which the country has to grapple with:

- Lame-duck government -

David Cameron announced early Friday that he would resign, soon after the result came through. At that point he said he expected his successor as prime minister and Conservative leader to be in place by early October.

On Monday the Tories' committee in charge of the leadership election said the successor should be in place by September 2, "although an earlier conclusion may be possible," with nominations for the post formally closing on Thursday.

Frontrunners include former London mayor Boris Johnson, who spearheaded the Brexit campaign, and Home Secretary Theresa May.

After all those interested in the job have declared themselves, Conservative MPs will whittle the field down to two candidates.

The next prime minister is then decided by a postal vote of the Conservative party's membership of roughly 150,000 people.

- Warring opposition -

Published: 27 June 2016

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More than two million people have signed a petition calling for a second referendum, after a shock vote to pull Britain out of the EU, an official website showed Saturday.

The website of the parliamentary petition at one point crashed due to the surge of people adding their names to the call for another nationwide poll following Thursday's historic vote.

"We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60 percent based (on) a turnout less than 75 percent there should be another referendum," says the petition.

The "Leave" camp won the support of 51.9 percent of voters, against 48.1 percent in favour of remaining in the European Union.

Turnout for Thursday's referendum was 72.2 percent.

Signatories to the petition appeared to be mostly in Edinburgh and London, both of which voted heavily in favour of "Remain".

There is no obligation in British legislation for referendums to have a minimum share of the vote or a minimum turnout, as in some other countries.

But EU rules say nothing about a member state that has already begun negotiations to leave the bloc changing its mind and reversing that decision under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Published: 25 June 2016

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Londoners mobilised on social media Saturday to back a campaign to go from Brexit to 'Lexit', calling for their city to divorce from Britain and "move in with our friends" in the European Union.

While largely a symbolic protest, it is fuelled by real anger following Thursday's dramatic vote to quit the EU, which was acutely felt in the national capital, where a majority voted for Britain to remain in the EU, contrary to the prevailing mood in the country.

More than 130,000 people signed up to a petition to London Mayor Sadiq Khan calling on him to "Declare London independent from the UK and apply to join the EU".

"London is an international city, and we want to remain at the heart of Europe," it says.

"Let's face it -- the rest of the country disagrees.

"Let's make the divorce official and move in with our friends on the continent."

The petition was started by freelance writer James O'Malley, who expected only a few hundred signatures.

"It did start a bit like a joke -- a frustrated joke, a cry of despair," the 29-year-old told AFP.

"I'm a big fan of the EU -- the values, the utopian ideas underpinning the EU. I don't want to see London leave."

Despite the jokey origins, he said the idea was not unthinkable.

"A few years ago we would have said leaving the EU is impossible," he said.

"I'm hoping now, given this gigantic reaction, to turn it into something meaningful. For example, could we use it to campaign for greater devolution for London?"

- Like Singapore? -

The idea of London becoming a city-state like Singapore is circulating online.

Published: 25 June 2016

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Boris Johnson, who spearheaded the successful campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, said Friday there was no need to rush the process of pulling out of the bloc.

"There is now no need for haste," Johnson told a London press conference in his first public comments since the results were announced.

He said the EU had been "a noble idea for its time" but was "no longer right for this country".

The former London mayor stressed that Britain would not "turn our backs on Europe" and that "our children and grandchildren will continue to have a wonderful future as Europeans."

Published: 24 June 2016

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London bank employee Francesca Crimp broke down in tears Friday as Britain decided to leave the EU, a vote that triggered an earthquake in the financial markets.

"I'm scared, I voted for my son's future and I feel so uncertain now. I'm just absolutely devastated," Crimp, who works for a US bank, said as she welled up.

"This multi-cultural city that I live in is going to change drastically, and the world as I know it is just not the same today."

But inside the buildings surrounding her, the trading floors of the City of London financial hub were a high-octane buzz of frenetic activity, with the pound and UK stocks plunging on Britain's dramatic vote to leave the EU.

Adrenaline-fuelled traders stood hunched over their screens like war generals over the battlefield map as the most dramatic day of their working lives kicked in when the European markets opened at 8:00am (0700 GMT).

Published: 24 June 2016

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