The entire Brexit process has been depressingly repetitious in all kinds of ways, none more so than the endless complaints over the last five years that the EU is ‘bullying’ or ‘punishing’ the UK for having left. So there’s some small pleasure in identifying what might be called a new variant of the Brexiters’ self-pity … Read more
With apologies to those who have a fastidious objection to cliché, the sound of Brexit chickens coming home to roost and Brexit pennies dropping is now all but deafening. Thus the Daily Telegraph has belatedly worked out (£) that ending the right of freedom of movement of people does not just make it much harder … Read more
The loud disputes between the UK and the EU of just a few weeks ago over the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) have quietened and there has still been no public response from the EU to the UK’s new roadmap for its implementation (though there are rumours of “disappointment”[£]). Nor, so far as I know, has … Read more
This post will be slightly different to the normal round up and discussion of the week’s Brexit events. Instead, it will provide a detailed analysis of an article written by David (now Lord) Frost in this week’s Sunday Telegraph. This is worthwhile because the UK’s Brexit policy for the foreseeable future has effectively been sub-contracted … Read more
Over the last five years there have been innumerable types of Brexit identified – including soft, hard, clean, true, no-deal, smooth, dirty, kamikaze; innumerable different models – including Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Jersey, Turkey, Australia, Ukraine; and innumerable versions of how to resolve the Irish border issue – managed divergence, ambitious managed divergence, maximum facilitation or … Read more
As trailed in the previous post, this blog is now retitled ‘Brexit & Beyond’ to reflect that we are now in a significantly new stage of the Brexit process, with the UK having left the EU, finished the transition period, and agreed a new arrangement for future trade and cooperation. As it has since 2016, … Read more
So yet another supposedly final deadline has come and gone, and the ludicrous ‘will they, won’t they’ theatre of the last few months continues. Ludicrous, but debilitating, too, in a host of ways. Debilitating, certainly, for those desperately anxious to know just how much their lives and livelihoods are going to be damaged, with literally … Read more
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
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
The relatively quiet summer has ended with a bang, and Brexit has now pushed Britain into a dark and dangerous place. The developments this week have been extremely complex, so this will be an unusually long post. We have seen numerous political and cultural conventions slashed aside by the Brexit Jacobins – the full-frontal media … Read more