So Theresa May is going to make her highly awaited speech in Florence tomorrow. There has been plenty of analysis and speculation about what she is and is not going to include. Here – in a blog post I will
Continue reading
Category: Brexit
May gearing up to change the government machinery to deliver Brexit – how far will she go?
This morning Oliver Robbins was moved from Permanent Secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU) to become EU Adviser to Theresa May, based in the Cabinet Office. This afternoon it was announced that DExEU’s Director of Trade and
Continue reading
May’s Florence Speech: an impossible balancing act
Theresa May is due to give a big Brexit speech this coming Friday 22nd September in Florence. With Boris Johnson having jumped the gun and penned his own Brexit vision a couple of days ago (fisked by me here), and
Continue reading
Fisking Boris Johnson’s Brexit essay
Boris Johnson has penned a 4000 word piece about Brexit for The Telegraph (Update: now posted to Facebook as well). It’s a premium piece on their site for some reason and you have to hence register to read it –
Continue reading
The Brexit negotiations are in danger of going backwards before things have even really started
29th March: Theresa May notifed the EU of the UK’s intention to leave the EU through the Article 50 procedure. Then 29th April the European Council agreed its negotiation guidelines for Michel Barnier, the chief Brexit negotiatior on the EU
Continue reading
More meetings with business than with NGOs doesn’t point to Commission business bias on Brexit
A tweet caught my eye this morning: https://x.com/GlobalJusticeUK/status/902463233591795716 This is an extract from a report by Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Justice Now that examines how many meetings lobbyists have held with DExEU in the UK and with Barnier’s Brexit
Continue reading
Brexit. Getting it all wrong.
Regular readers of this blog know my own views about Brexit – seen from the UK side I have found the whole thing foolish from the start. But over the past few weeks I have been asking myself a different
Continue reading
The lack of a Brexit plan: perfect to win a referendum, a nightmare now – the Euratom issue
So Tory backbenchers are rebelling about Euratom (the European Atomic Energy Community). They want to stay in it, despite Brexit, according to The Evening Standard. And enough want to stay in it so as to deny Theresa May a majority,
Continue reading
One man holds the future of Brexit in his hands: Philip Hammond
In these febrile political times since the UK’s General Election it feels like something could break any moment in Britain’s arduous EU departure process. Rather than the inexorable track towards a Hard Brexit (with the threat of “no deal”) that
Continue reading
The Brexit Bullshit Asymmetry Principle
It has been a pretty normal week in matters Brexit. On Sunday on the BBC’s Marr show, Michael Gove announced he was withdrawing the UK from the London Fishing Convention that dates from 1964. What’s that got to do with
Continue reading
Labour tying itself in a terrible knot on Brexit and the Single Market
“Corbyn sacks three frontbenchers after Single Market vote” was the top story on The Guardian’s website early this morning. The three in question – Slaughter, West and Cadbury – were sacked, while a fourth, Daniel Zeichner, resigned. Like anything to
Continue readingVote Leave Bus Meme Generator #TakeControl
Years ago when I ran the Atheist Bus Campaign, a guy I’d never met made a Bus Slogan Generator, so you could see what your slogan would look like on the side of a bus. But what about that other,
Continue reading