Meanwhile I find this in my email.
""The last few days have seen the biggest changes to everyday British life ever seen in peacetime. It is a week which has shown what a storm in a teacup the interminable debate about Brexit really was. The Remainer Twitterati have spent every year since 2016 declaring that the country was in crisis and that Brexit Britain was a scary new world. How parochial those complaints look now. This year, life really has changed unimaginably, and we do not know how long these new arrangements will last.
But despite both Michel Barnier and David Frost having contracted the virus, Brexit talks continue apace, with Michael Gove chairing discussions via videolink. Happily, both chief negotiators seem to be on the mend.
Draft legal texts were exchanged on March 18. The UK proposes a free trade agreement and a number of “mini-deals” in areas such as aviation safety and the nuclear power industry. These form the basis of the British negotiating position. Importantly, Britain appears to have sailed over the first hurdle erected by the EU. The UK government has refused to concede fishing rights as a precondition to further talks. The EU appear to have abandoned their insistence on this point.
Meanwhile, there has been handwringing about the UK government’s apparent refusal to participate in an EU scheme to procure extra ventilators for Corona-struck hospitals. The government has not helped itself by offering conflicting reasons for not joining the scheme initially (though it has now been clarified that the UK will take part in the EU’s future efforts). It makes sense, of course, to try and get ventilators where we can, and to participate in various schemes based on international cooperation. Some of these schemes will involve working with the EU and some will not. So far, the UK’s own drive to encourage companies to transfer from normal production to medical supplies seems to have been a notable success. Sir James Dyson has announced his intention to donate 5000 machines to international efforts to combat Covid-19, with 1000 pledged to the UK.
Brexit and Coronavirus are in truth very separate questions. Of course, a minority of hardcore ‘Rejoiners’ have latched on to Covid-19 as their latest excuse for trying to reverse Brexit. But for most of the population, these unsettled times are a reminder of the need to pull together and put the partisanship of the last few years behind us. Outdated anti-Brexit rhetoric helps no one. In the battle against our common viral foe, we must look forwards not back, seizing the benefits which Brexit has to offer.""
In my email the words "donate 5,000 machines" took me to this link.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/airbus-dyson-firms-waiting-uk-green-light-produce-ventilators-coronavirus?mc_cid=ca761e7f18&mc_eid=8b1ba6f9c7