“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
David Frost presumably speaks for the whole government in his claim that Britain is “now looking forward”. It can only be presumed, since virtually no other government minister, including the Prime Minister, actually says anything in public about Brexit any more. That in itself is remarkable, as if Brexit was either a triviality or, perhaps … Read more
It has been a pretty standard week for directly Brexit-related news – I put it that way because in many ways almost everything the government does, from demanding that the BBC project ‘British values’, to badging the new rail system as ‘Great British Railways’, to giving British people the borders they ‘deserve’ can be seen … Read more
We’re now a couple of months into actual Brexit, in the sense of the end of the transition period, although still only in the first phase of complete implementation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA). That is because there are some grace periods for aspects of the arrangements for the Irish Sea border and … Read more
It was always going to be the case that post-Brexit the UK and the EU would be in ongoing negotiations, for which the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) would be the basis and from which the relationship would evolve. That was assured if only by the Brexiters’ truism that ‘we are leaving the EU, but … Read more
It is now increasingly clear that there is a complex web of interconnections between Brexit and responses to the coronavirus crisis. I have been writing about that on this blog since the beginning of March (and especially here and here) which I mention not as a boast for any perspicacity on my part but just … Read more
Once again, there’s not a great deal to say. But, once again, for as long as there is no change to the Brexit timetable it is worth looking at what has been happening because, as things stand, we’re less than nine months away from the transition period ending with, potentially, no future terms deal in … Read more
There’s always been something delusional in how Brexiters talk about negotiations with the EU. It started with Vote Leave’s lie that these would be completed before starting the legal process to leave. Since then – from David Davis’s ‘the first call will be to Berlin not Brussels’, through to Boris Johnson’s ‘breakthrough’ acceptance of the … Read more