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
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
The Brexit process has been going on for so long now that its recurrent phases have taken on the predictability of seasons. Currently, we’re in one of the ‘will there, won’t there be a deal?’ periods, marked as always by windy rhetoric from the UK and strained patience from the EU. Also not for the … Read more
When I was at school – it must have been about the time that Jim Callaghan was (not) saying “Crisis? What crisis?” – I once received a damning report on my term’s work. “He seems to have lost his way”, it read, before adding witheringly “and what is worse he does not appear to care”. … Read more
As has been expected for some months, the autumn crisis over the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) began in earnest this week. Its outcome is difficult to predict, but has the potential be pivotal for UK-EU post-Brexit relations. There is some time to run before we get to that point, though. Indeed it is perfectly possible … Read more
In the years before the Referendum – long before this blog started, so I haven’t kept links – I quite often came across pro-leave people explaining, usually in rather lofty tones, that leaving the EU would be very simple because everything was all set out in Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Prior to that, … 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
As predicted in recent posts, including last week’s, there is no sign that the government’s confrontational approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) is going to change. Neither the Biden intervention nor the EU’s agreement to extend the chilled meats grace period, plus other recent flexibilities, is going to make any difference. What may just … Read more
In my previous post, I argued that I did not think that Joe Biden’s intervention, for all that it was reported to be diplomatically forceful, would make much difference to Boris Johnson’s conduct. In brief, my suggestion was that, by talking in terms of a pragmatic negotiated solution between the UK and the EU to … Read more
As pre-figured in my previous post, UK-EU relations are now entering a crunch period which started with Wednesday’s meeting of both the Partnership Council and the Joint Committee (the former overseeing the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the latter the Withdrawal Agreement). It took place at a time when, in the apt title of Tony Connelly … Read more