In last week’s post I wrote about the strategic incoherence of post-Brexit politics, despite the more pragmatic approach embodied in the Windsor Framework. The fate of that agreement, specifically, remains somewhat unclear. The DUP continue to make noises that could mean rejecting it, but might not, whilst Brexiter MPs are restless (£) that they will … Read more
So the brief interruption to his seemingly permanent holidays from the MP’s job he is paid for was all for nothing in the end, as Boris Johnson’s bid to return to the leadership failed. It was yet another testimony to his egotism and entitlement and even in making it added to the long list of … Read more
The events of the last week are an almost textbook illustration of the point I made a couple of posts ago that “governments are constrained in ways that thinktanks aren’t, and even the most ardently ideological libertarian SpAD quickly finds that political reality is very different to the world of position papers and whiteboards”. If … Read more
Against the backdrop of a serious, growing, and multi-faceted economic crisis, the Tory leadership contest grinds on. The two contenders have little to say that matches the scale of this crisis and even less about Brexit, which is not only one of its components but the one most obviously unique to the UK. Nor do … Read more
The dramatic collapse of Boris Johnson’s premiership is inseparable from Brexit. His rise to power was built on Brexit, whilst the spectacular immorality and mendacity that caused his eventual downfall were at the heart of the tawdry campaign he fronted that yielded Brexit. There’s much more to say about that, and I will do so … Read more
From time to time I lose motivation to write this blog or even to continue following Brexit developments. It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of other things to write about and to care about. But invariably such moods are ended by reading something which immediately re-ignites my anger, irritation or astonishment about the sheer … Read more
It is now just over six years since the start of the official campaign for the 2016 referendum, years which have transformed and polarized British politics, economics and culture. What wasted years these have been. For whilst Brexit is mainly discussed, including by Brexiters, in terms of whether or not it has been as damaging … Read more
Since its use on the very day after the referendum, it has become a cliché to say that Brexiters are like ‘the dog that caught the car’, achieving something they had never expected and then did not know what to do with. That was obvious from the very first hours after the 2016 vote, when … 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
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive” Sir Walter Scott In an article this week the Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik neatly skewered the present political situation in the UK. Referring to Brexit amongst other things, she wrote that “an entire government has been built on fantasy and false promises” and … Read more