When the transition ends

It’s now less than a month, and less than 20 working days, until a massive change in the way that the UK trades with and relates to its own continent, and in many ways to the rest of the world as well. It is truly remarkable how little public discussion of that there has been, … Read more

Zeno’s Brexit

The Ancient Greek philosopher Zeno articulated a series of paradoxes, one of the most famous being the ‘dichotomy’ or ‘race course’ paradox. In order to reach a destination, a runner must first reach the half-way point, but to reach that point must first get a quarter of the way there, and to do that must … Read more

Crazy time

I am not sure which cliché to apply to the current Brexit situation. Nail biting? Like having teeth pulled? Like watching paint dry? Perhaps it is some grotesque combination of all three and is like watching someone having their fingernails pulled out. At all events it is still unclear what is going to happen as … Read more

Brexit, beached

With Joe Biden’s victory now assured, millions of words have now been written – in the UK, if nowhere else – as to what it means for the US-UK relationship and for Brexit in particular. Of these, I’ve found the analyses of CNN’s Luke McGee, James Kane of the Institute for Government, and Lisa O’Carroll, … Read more

While we are waiting

The absence in the last week or so of the sound and fury that has accompanied the Brexit future terms negotiations since the end of the summer holidays might betoken that they are proceeding well. Early this week there were reports of substantive progress on fisheries. Tediously if predictably this was described in the Brexiter … Read more

Beyond folly

The last ten days were supposed to be my break from Brexit hence, as trailed two weeks ago, there was no post on this blog last Friday. But escaping did not prove easy, gloomily conscious as I was of taking my first trip to the EU since Britain ceased to be a member and my … Read more

In for the long haul

A month ago Boris Johnson set a deadline of 15 October for a trade deal with the EU to be done. That date has passed, no deal has as yet been done, but Johnson has not walked away from the negotiations. Perhaps he never intended to and it was just more empty bluster, as in … Read more

An air of unreality

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

The theatricals of ‘deal or no deal’ are a distraction

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

Less than a hundred days left

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