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
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
Having last week written some thoughts about the next six years of the Brexit process, this week has had a distinctly ‘back to 2019’ feeling about it with the passing of the second reading of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill (NIPB) in the House of Commons on Monday. On the one hand, this is the … Read more
As predicted in recent posts, including last week’s, there is no sign that the government’s confrontational approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) is going to change. Neither the Biden intervention nor the EU’s agreement to extend the chilled meats grace period, plus other recent flexibilities, is going to make any difference. What may just … Read more
It was always going to be the case that post-Brexit the UK and the EU would be in ongoing negotiations, for which the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) would be the basis and from which the relationship would evolve. That was assured if only by the Brexiters’ truism that ‘we are leaving the EU, but … Read more
The electronic ink had hardly dried on my previous post which finished with a reminder that unexpected events are always liable to arise than just such an event occurred. During a very confused few hours last Friday evening the EU first proposed and then withdrew the proposal to impose export controls on coronavirus vaccines moving … Read more