The new owner of The Original Factory Shop (TOFS), one of Britain’s leading independent discount retailers, is preparing to unveil a package of savage rent cuts for its store landlords.

Sky News understands that Modella Capital – which recently agreed to buy WH Smith’s high street arm – is finalising plans for a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) at TOFS.

City sources said the CVA – which requires court approval – could be unveiled within days.

Property sources cited industry rumours that significant store closures and job losses could form part of TOFS’ plans, while demands for two-year rent-free periods at some shops are said to also feature.

A spokesman for Modella declined to comment.

Modella, which also owns Hobbycraft, bought TOFS from its previous owner, Duke Street Capital, just two months ago.

Almost immediately, it engaged restructuring experts at Interpath to work on the plans.

Sources have speculated that dozens of TOFS stores could close under a CVA, while a major distribution centre is also thought to feature in the proposals.

Any so-called ‘landlord-led’ CVA which triggered store closures would inevitably lead to job losses among TOFS’ workforce, which was said to number about 1,800 people at the time of the takeover.

TOFS, which sells beauty brands such as L’Oreal, the sportswear label Adidas and DIY tools made by Black & Decker, trades from about 180 stores.

The chain, which was founded in 1969, was bought by the private equity firm Duke Street in 2007.

Duke Street had tried to sell the business before, having supported it through the COVID-19 pandemic with a cash injection of more than £10m.

Unwary travellers returning from the EU risk having their sandwiches and local delicacies, such as cheese, confiscated as they enter the UK.

The luggage in which they are carrying their goodies may also be seized and destroyed – and if Border Force catch them trying to smuggle meat or dairy products without a declaration, they could face criminal charges.

The new jeopardy has come about because last weekend, the government quietly “extended” its “ban on personal meat imports to protect farmers from foot and mouth”.

This may or may not be bureaucratic over-reaction.

It’s certainly just another of the barriers EU and UK authorities are busily throwing up between each other and their citizens – at a time when political leaders keep saying the two sides should be drawing together in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks on European trade and security.

The ban on bringing back “cattle, sheep, goat, and pig meat, as well as dairy products, from EU countries into Great Britain for personal use” is meant “to protect the health of British livestock, the security of farmers, and the UK’s food security.”

There are bitter memories of previous outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in this country, in 1967 and 2001.

In 2001, there were more than 2,000 confirmed cases of infection resulting in six million sheep and cattle being destroyed. Footpaths were closed across the nation and the general election had to be delayed.

In the EU this year, there have been five cases confirmed in Slovakia and four in Hungary. There was a single outbreak in Germany in January, though Defra, the UK agriculture department, says that’s “no longer significant”.

The UK imposed bans on personal meat and dairy imports from those countries, and Austria, earlier this year.

Better safe than sorry?

None of the cases of infection are in the three most popular countries for UK visitors – Spain, France, and Italy – now joining the ban. Places from which travellers are most likely to bring back a bit of cheese, salami, or chorizo.

Could the government be putting on a show to farmers that it’s on their side at the price of the public’s inconvenience, when its own measures on inheritance tax and failure to match lost EU subsidies are really doing the farming community harm?

Many will say it’s better to be safe than sorry, but the question remains whether the ban is proportionate or even well targeted on likely sources of infection.

Read more: The products you can’t bring into Britain from the EU

A ‘Brexit benefit’? Don’t be fooled

The EU has already introduced emergency measures to contain the disease where it has been found. Several thousand cattle in Hungary and Slovenia have been vaccinated or destroyed.

The UK’s ability to impose the ban is not “a benefit of Brexit”. Member nations including the UK were perfectly able to ban the movement of animals and animal products during the “mad cow disease” outbreak in the 1990s, much to the annoyance of the British government of the day.

Since leaving the EU, England, Scotland and Wales are no longer under EU veterinary regulation.

Northern Ireland still is because of its open border with the Republic. The latest ban does not cover people coming into Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or the Isle of Man.

Rather than introducing further red tape of its own, the British government is supposed to be seeking closer “alignment” with the EU on animal and vegetable trade – SPS or “sanitary and phytosanitary” measures, in the jargon.

UK can’t shake ties to EU

The reasons for this are obvious and potentially make or break for food producers in this country.

The EU is the recipient of 67% of UK agri-food exports, even though this has declined by more than 5% since Brexit.

The introduction of full, cumbersome, SPS checks has been delayed five times but are due to come in this October. The government estimates the cost to the industry will be £330m, food producers say it will be more like £2bn.

With Brexit, the UK became a “third country” to the EU, just like the US or China or any other nation. The UK’s ties to the European bloc, however, are much greater.

Half of the UK’s imports come from the EU and 41% of its exports go there. The US is the UK’s single largest national trading partner, but still only accounts for around 17% of trade, in or out.

The difference in the statistics for travellers are even starker – 77% of trips abroad from the UK, for business, leisure or personal reasons, are to EU countries. That is 66.7 million visits a year, compared to 4.5 million or 5% to the US.

And that was in 2023, before Donald Trump and JD Vance’s hostile words and actions put foreign visitors off.

More bureaucratic botheration

Meanwhile, the UK and the EU are making travel between them more bothersome for their citizens and businesses.

This October, the EU’s much-delayed EES or Entry Exit System is due to come into force. Every foreigner will be required to provide biometric information – including fingerprints and scans – every time they enter or leave the Schengen area.

From October next year, visitors from countries including the UK will have to be authorised in advance by ETIAS, the European Travel and Authorisation System. Applications will cost seven euros and will be valid for three years.

Since the beginning of this month, European visitors to the UK have been subject to similar reciprocal measures. They must apply for an ETA, an Electronic Travel Authorisation. This lasts for two years or until a passport expires and costs £16.

The days of freedom of movement for people, goods, and services between the UK and its neighbours are long gone.

The British economy has lost out and British citizens and businesses suffer from greater bureaucratic botheration.

Nor has immigration into the UK gone down since leaving the EU. The numbers have actually gone up, with people from Commonwealth countries, including India, Pakistan and Nigeria, more than compensating for EU citizens who used to come and go.

Will European reset pay off?

The government is talking loudly about the possible benefits of a trade “deal” with Trump’s America.

Meanwhile, minister Nick Thomas Symonds and the civil servant Mike Ellam are engaged in low-profile negotiations with Europe – which could be of far greater economic and social significance.

The public will have to wait to see what progress is being made at least until the first-ever EU-UK summit, due to take place on 19 May this year.

Hard-pressed British food producers and travellers – not to mention young people shut out of educational opportunities in Europe – can only hope that Sir Keir Starmer considers their interests as positively as he does sucking up to the Trump administration.

A media industry veteran who has helped negotiate a string of broadcast rights deals across English football has emerged as the frontrunner to head Sir Keir Starmer’s new football watchdog.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that David Kogan, whose boardroom roles have included a directorship at state-owned Channel 4, is now the leading contender to chair the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) following a drawn-out recruitment process.

A Whitehall source said Mr Kogan had been interviewed for the post by a government-appointed selection panel in the last few days.

He was expected to be recommended to the prime minister for the role, although they cautioned that the appointment was not yet guaranteed.

Mr Kogan has had extensive experience at the top of English football, having advised clients including the Premier League, English Football League, Scottish Premier League and UEFA on television rights contracts.

Last year, he acted as the lead negotiator for the Women’s Super League and Championship on their latest five-year broadcasting deals with Sky – the immediate parent company of Sky News – and the BBC.

Outside football, he also worked with Premier Rugby, the Six Nations, the NFL on its UK broadcasting deals and the International Olympic Committee in his capacity as chief executive of, and majority shareholder in, Reel Enterprises.

Mr Kogan sold that business in 2011 to Wasserman Media Group.

His other current roles include advising the chief executives of CNN, the American broadcast news network, and The New York Times Company on talks with digital platforms about the growing influence of artificial intelligence on their industries.

Mr Kogan has links to Labour, having in the past donated money to a number of individual parliamentary candidates, chairing LabourList, the independent news site, and writing two books about the party.

One source close to the process to appoint the IFR chair described him as “an obvious choice” for the position.

In recent months, Sky News has disclosed the identities of the shortlisted candidates for the role, with former Aston Villa FC and Liverpool FC chief executive Christian Purslow one of three candidates who made it to a supposedly final group of contenders.

The others were Sanjay Bhandari, who chairs the anti-racism football charity Kick It Out, and Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, who chaired the new parliamentary watchdog established after the MPs expenses scandal.

Sky News revealed last weekend, however, that government officials had resumed contact with applicants who did not make it onto that shortlist for the £130,000-a-year post.

The apparent hiatus in the appointment of the IFR’s inaugural chair threatened to reignite speculation that Sir Keir was seeking to diminish its powers amid a broader clampdown on Britain’s economic watchdogs.

Both 10 Downing Street and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have sought to dismiss those suggestions, with insiders insisting that the IFR will be established largely as originally envisaged.

The creation of the IFR, which will be based in Manchester, is among the principal elements of legislation now progressing through parliament, with Royal Assent expected before the summer recess.

The Football Governance Bill has completed its journey through the House of Lords and will be introduced in the Commons shortly, according to the DCMS.

The regulator was conceived by the previous Conservative government in the wake of the furore over the failed European Super League project, but has triggered deep unrest in parts of English football.

Steve Parish, the chairman of Premier League side Crystal Palace, told a recent sports industry conference that the watchdog “wants to interfere in all of the things we don’t need them to interfere in and help with none of the things we actually need help with”.

“We have a problem that we’re constantly being told that we’re not a business and [that] we’re part of the fabric of communities,” he is reported to have said.

“At the same time, we’re…being treated to the nth degree like a business.”

Initial interviews for the chair of the new watchdog took place last November, with an earlier recruitment process curtailed by the calling of last year’s general election.

Mr Kogan is said by officials to have originally been sounded out about the IFR chairmanship under the Tory administration.

Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, will also need to approve the appointment of a preferred candidate, with the chosen individual expected to face a pre-appointment hearing in front of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee as early as next month.

It forms part of a process that represents the most fundamental shake-up in the oversight of English football in the game’s history.

The establishment of the body comes with the top tier of the professional game gripped by civil war, with Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City at the centre of a number of legal cases with the Premier League over its financial dealings.

The Premier League is also keen to agree a long-delayed financial redistribution deal with the EFL before the regulator is formally launched, although there has been little progress towards that in the last year.

The government has dropped a previous stipulation that the IFR should have regard to British foreign and trade policy when determining the appropriateness of a new club owner.

“We do not comment on speculation,” a DCMS spokesperson said when asked about Mr Kogan’s candidacy to chair the football watchdog.

“No appointment has been made and the recruitment process for [IFR] chair is ongoing.”

This weekend, Mr Kogan declined to comment.