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
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
This week David Lammy, the Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary, gave a major and important speech at Chatham House. It wasn’t by any means all about Brexit, but, even where it was not, it could be read as the outlines of a serious post-Brexit foreign policy. That is something which, along with many others, I’ve been … Read more
It seems almost a lifetime ago, but in fact is only two years, that we were heading towards Christmas still not knowing whether there would be a UK-EU trade deal of any sort, but with the end of the transition period unnecessarily set unmovably for the last day of 2020. A deal, of sorts, was … Read more
It’s becoming hard to write this blog without being repetitious and, in being repetitious, introducing a distasteful ‘I told you so’ tone. But distasteful as it may be, the deepening chaos of the fortnight since I last posted, which saw Kwasi Kwarteng sacked, the government’s economic policy abandoned, Suella Braverman resign, and culminated in the … Read more
The political ambitions of the libertarian wing of the Brexit Ultras have always been ambivalent. On the one hand, they have largely preferred to complain of betrayal from the sidelines rather than take any responsibility or, if accepting ministerial office, to quickly resign rather than engage with the pragmatic realities of Brexit. On the other … 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
We’re now six years on from the referendum, but I’m not going to do an ‘anniversary round-up post’ because I did that in April, to mark six years since the campaign got underway. That post was entitled ‘six years of failure’, and most of it still applies, although the saga of the Northern Ireland Protocol … Read more
Since the very early days of this blog in 2016, I have been writing about the self-pitying victimhood and perpetual grievance that permeates the political psychology of Brexit. A recent example was last weekend’s doltish claim from David Davis that what we have is “remainers’ Brexit”. Admittedly, almost everything Davis has ever said about Brexit … Read more
It is difficult to make sense of what Johnson’s Brexit government is doing, or trying to do, as regards the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP). I discussed the background in last week’s post, much of which remains relevant, but since then there have been daily, almost hourly, contradictory signals and reports. What has been confirmed is … Read more