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
I’ve spent quite a lot of time both in last week’s post and the one before discussing Labour’s Brexit position. That’s because, as the earlier of those posts concluded, it’s the only question that really matters now in terms of how Brexit proceeds. That assertion is predicated on two, related, assumptions. The first is that … Read more
Brexit is in one of its periodic doldrums. That’s not to say that all the ongoing problems and miseries it has created have abated, or that the almost daily reminders of them have ceased. And of course the perennially unresolved Northern Ireland Protocol row continues. More of the same What also continues is the rather … Read more
A couple of weeks ago I wrote that, “the current political chaos and economic turmoil have served to crystallize what has actually been under way for a while. Having won the 2016 vote for Brexit, the Brexiters have comprehensively lost the battle for the post-Brexit narrative which began at the end of the transition period, … Read more
In his last ‘Week in Brexitland’ post, the journalist Nick Tyrone suggests the political conversation about Brexit is shifting from the abstract to “whether the Brexit we’ve ended up with now is good or bad in the specific”. My sense is that this shift has been occurring for two or three months, mainly as a … Read more
The evidence that Brexit is causing mounting damage has been growing since the transition period ended, and has been catalogued in almost every post on this blog since then. It is also to be found on Professor Gerhard Schnyder’s Brexit Impact Tracker, Yorkshire Bylines’ Davis Downsides Dossier, the now closed ‘Keleman Archive’ of 1000 examples, … Read more
As has been expected for some months, the autumn crisis over the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) began in earnest this week. Its outcome is difficult to predict, but has the potential be pivotal for UK-EU post-Brexit relations. There is some time to run before we get to that point, though. Indeed it is perfectly possible … Read more
This will be a slightly shorter post than usual. That’s partly because this week I’ve been working on the proofs of my forthcoming book, Brexit Unfolded. How no one got what they wanted (and why they were never going to). Yes, that is a shameless plug – it will be published by Biteback in June … 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
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