Russell, Meg and James, Lisa (2023). The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-284971-7 (Hardback). 416 pages. £25 De Rynck, Stefaan (2023). Inside the Deal. How the EU Got Brexit Done. Newcastle: Agenda Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78821-568-8 (Hardback). 288 pages. £25 As time passes since the Brexit referendum and the process of leaving … Read more
In last week’s post I wrote about the strategic incoherence of post-Brexit politics, despite the more pragmatic approach embodied in the Windsor Framework. The fate of that agreement, specifically, remains somewhat unclear. The DUP continue to make noises that could mean rejecting it, but might not, whilst Brexiter MPs are restless (£) that they will … Read more
There was never any possibility that last week’s announcement of the Windsor Framework would be immediately transformative. Even so, it’s surprising that there’s been so little attempt by Rishi Sunak’s government to build on the momentum it seemed to offer to create the kind of new post-Brexit strategy discussed in my previous post. Instead, we … Read more
Where to start, after one of the biggest weeks for Brexit news for a long time? Perhaps with my post of a fortnight ago when I discussed two scenarios for Britain’s immediate post-Brexit future. In the first, there would be a gradual move to rapprochement with the EU, taking pragmatic steps to improve the tone … Read more
Two weeks ago I posted about the ongoing schism between ‘Brexitists’ and ‘Traditionalists’ within British Conservatism. Then, last week, I wrote about the battle for the post-Brexit polity in terms of whether a scenario of ‘rapprochement’ with the EU will emerge, or one of a constant ‘repetition’ of antagonism towards the EU. Clearly these two … Read more
In the book I wrote about Brexit I anticipated (pp. 275-278) two broad scenarios for how the immediate future would develop once the realities of Brexit began to be felt (the book itself ended with the end of the transition period). These scenarios weren’t about ‘staying out’ versus ‘re-joining’, though they might eventually have implications … Read more
It’s almost impossible to over-state the extent to which Brexit is bound up with the peculiarities, schisms, crises and in some parts almost madness of modern British Conservativism. In the 1970s and early 1980s opposition to British membership of what became the EU was the province of Bennites on the left and Powellite nationalists on … Read more
This week saw the third anniversary of the UK’s departure from the EU, and with it a flurry of assessments and opinion polls. These broadly reflect what I have been recording for some time. The mounting evidence of, especially, economic damage coinciding as it does with the centrality of ‘the economy’ as a political issue … Read more
This week David Lammy, the Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary, gave a major and important speech at Chatham House. It wasn’t by any means all about Brexit, but, even where it was not, it could be read as the outlines of a serious post-Brexit foreign policy. That is something which, along with many others, I’ve been … Read more
Despite the two-week gap since my last post, Brexit developments have been relatively sparse. There is, as always, the endless drip of bad news stories and of new data on the damage of Brexit. In the former category is the final grisly demise of Britishvolt, once lauded as the shiny example of post-Brexit industrial strategy. … Read more