Dawning realities

Having initially spoken of there being some bumps in the road, Michael Gove last weekend told businesses to prepare for “significant disruption” as a result of Brexit. He was right to do so, because on top of the extensive difficulties traders were already experiencing, outlined in my previous post, this week there have been reports … 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

Blockades, mythical and metaphorical

The Internal Market Bill (IMB) and its repercussions have been the predominant theme of this week’s developments. Almost as soon as I wrote my previous post, Brexiter MPs started justifying that Bill in terms of the supposed EU threat to ‘blockade’ food supplies travelling from Great Britain (GB) to Northern Ireland (NI). In particular, it … Read more

The descent into political insanity

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

The Brexit screw tightens

Almost since the day of the Referendum, the Brexit process has gone round in circles with the same issues resurfacing, and the same contradictions and paradoxes recurring. That continues to be the case, but the repetitions can be misleading in two ways. One is that with each re-run some new evidence emerges to re-enforce the … Read more