As the Brexit-related national crisis discussed in my previous post continues, including ongoing petrol shortages at garages, Brexiters are undecided as to what to make of it. Their boilerplate argument is that the crisis is nothing to do with Brexit, but something affecting countries around the globe including EU members, although this flies in the … Read more
It’s impossible to escape the fact that Britain is now caught in an escalating crisis. It has multiple moving parts which interact in complex ways, but each of them is to a greater or lesser extent linked to Brexit. Daily, the dishonest promises made for Brexit and the reckless irresponsibility with which it was implemented … Read more
It’s now exactly five years since I started this blog and, as it enters its sixth year, with a pleasing symmetry, it will today have its six millionth visit. I must admit that I didn’t really anticipate when I started that I’d still be writing it now, over 300 posts and about a million words … Read more
In recent posts I’ve been using the analogy of a slow puncture for the damage caused by Brexit with the political consequences being muffled as a result. An excellent piece by Rafael Behr this week makes an essentially similar argument: “Brexit is an unspectacular failure” and this precludes “a realistic conversation about the relationship that … Read more
In my previous post I wrote about the effects of Brexit as being a slow puncture gradually degrading the economy and well-being more generally. I mentioned that one aspect of that is the structural, demography-related, problem of labour shortages across all sectors, but hadn’t at that point read an excellent Bloomberg report published a couple … Read more
At the corner of my road is a display board for local notices and, recently, the council have put one up about a project to support local businesses and community organizations to re-open as Covid restrictions ease. Prominently and, to my mind, poignantly displayed on the sign is an EU logo, for this project is … Read more
For over a year now the Johnson government’s response to Covid and its handling of Brexit have not just occurred in parallel but have exhibited numerous parallels. This week’s ‘freedom day’ fiasco is the latest example, with its blind insistence on meeting an arbitrary pre-set date having echoes of, amongst other things, the mulish obstinacy … Read more
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
As trailed in the previous post, this blog is now retitled ‘Brexit & Beyond’ to reflect that we are now in a significantly new stage of the Brexit process, with the UK having left the EU, finished the transition period, and agreed a new arrangement for future trade and cooperation. As it has since 2016, … Read more
Despite news coverage being inevitably swamped by the coronavirus pandemic Brexit is still ongoing and indeed there are several points of comparison or connection between the two. For Britain, unlike any other country, is now embroiled in these two simultaneous upheavals – one of which is entirely of its own making. One comparison comes with … Read more