As the dust begins to settle on Boris Johnson’s downfall, it’s worth emphasizing that it was inextricably bound up with Brexit even though Brexit wasn’t its direct cause. Unusually and fittingly, it was his character and conduct rather than any particular policy which ended his premiership. Not, I think, because the Tory Party had some … Read more
There’s something like an emerging consensus that the Afghanistan crisis has also created a crisis for Britain’s post-Brexit geo-political strategy and, in particular, shows both the emptiness of the ‘Global Britain’ slogan and the urgent need to increase co-operation with the EU. It’s a message that can be found in recent articles by former National … Read more
In the years before the Referendum – long before this blog started, so I haven’t kept links – I quite often came across pro-leave people explaining, usually in rather lofty tones, that leaving the EU would be very simple because everything was all set out in Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Prior to that, … Read more
One way of telling the story of Brexit is that it was sold to the British public as, and perhaps believed by its advocates to be, a project to regain sovereignty but without any economic costs and, even, with economic benefits. Since that was impossible, when it came to be delivered, sovereignty was prioritised despite … Read more
We’re probably long past the closing date for nominations for the prize for the most absurd and mendacious comment about Brexit, including the category reserved for those made by Boris Johnson. If not, a strong new entry would be his comment this week that he will get rid of the “ludicrous” checks on the Irish … Read more
This week’s headlines about migrants seeking to cross the channel served as a reminder – not that it should ever be forgotten, still less forgiven – of the way that the more general migrant ‘crisis’ (in scare quotes for a reason) of 2015 was weaponised in the 2016 Referendum campaign. Of course, as with their … Read more
The ‘Let’s Get Going’ government information campaign, which was just starting when I wrote last week’s post, is now all but unavoidable. This is the ‘shock and awe’ approach which the government rather tastelessly promised. Presumably they meant that the public would be bombarded by a stunning campaign, though the main shock is how vapid … Read more
There are numerous obvious connections between Brexit and the Dominic Cummings lockdown affair that has dominated the last few days. For one thing, the very existence of the present government is down to Brexit, its composition is based on the central test of Brexit loyalty, and its advisers, from Cummings downwards, came from the old … Read more
With Britain having left the EU, this week saw the beginning of the negotiations about the future terms of UK-EU trade and other relationships. That anodyne sentence ought to anger leave voters as it is not what they were assured by the Vote Leave campaign which stated that “we will negotiate the terms of a … Read more