This will be the shortest post on this blog for some time, since little of note has happened in the last week. The Brexit negotiations continue, albeit in an unofficial and little-reported way and that is not because we have entered the much-vaunted ‘tunnel’ of leak-proof final talks. That may be imminent, as David Frost … Read more
As this supposedly final week of Brexit trade talks ends, the ‘will they, won’t they?’ show continues to play out like an amateur production of an absurdist play or, perhaps more appositely, a Whitehall farce. At all events, a theatrical metaphor is called for because what we are seeing is a manufactured drama. It is … Read more
By recent standards it has been a relatively quiet Brexit week, although also a revealing one in which several chickens have come home to roost as the end of the Transition Period looms ever closer. The official negotiations resume next week, whilst the ongoing unofficial talks are reported to be progressing “a bit better than … Read more
Almost since the day of the Referendum, the Brexit process has gone round in circles with the same issues resurfacing, and the same contradictions and paradoxes recurring. That continues to be the case, but the repetitions can be misleading in two ways. One is that with each re-run some new evidence emerges to re-enforce the … Read more
With the last week of talks prior to the end of June cut-off for agreeing an extension finishing today, there is no sign (£) of progress towards a deal and no sign of UK willingness to extend the Transition Period. At the end of the first week of talks, just as coronavirus was beginning to … Read more
Once again, there’s not a great deal to say. But, once again, for as long as there is no change to the Brexit timetable it is worth looking at what has been happening because, as things stand, we’re less than nine months away from the transition period ending with, potentially, no future terms deal in … Read more
As foreshadowed in my post two weeks ago and amplified in last week’s post (most of which remains relevant, although last week feels almost a lifetime ago) the key, pressing and now really sole Brexit issue is whether the coronavirus pandemic is going to lead to an extension of the transition period. If so, that … Read more