There is scarcely a twist or turn in the Brexit story over the past 18 months I have not charted in my Brexit diagrams. The rationale is the same now as it was when I started: to work out what is really important for the next steps of Brexit, and […]
Tag: Brexit
Starmer’s steady stability – I’m not sure this is enough
Back in April when he was first elected, I wondered how Keir Starmer – an essentially normal politician – would manage as leader of the UK Labour Party in extraordinary political times. Now we are starting to find out, and the picture is a mixed one. At one level all […]
If Labour were to have a position on Brexit in the UK right now, what should it be?
Even the original timetable for Brexit was ridiculously tight – out by the end of March 2019, and then the future relationship to be concluded 21 months later, by the end of December 2020. Remember that trade negotiations with third countries generally take more than 5 years, sometimes as much […]
Blog spring cleaning, and learning some lessons after 15 years of blogging
Some people have used the Coronavirus lockdowns to clean their homes and flats. I instead have spent a good part of the past fortnight cleaning my online presence instead – essentially getting this blog back into some order after a good while just posting day to day. The aim: to […]
A message to the European Council: please give the UK a Withdrawal Agreement next week, so UK politics can confront its paralysis
A week from now leaders of the European Union’s 27+1 Member States will have sore heads after a long night. Friday 19th October will be the second day of the European Council at which the fate of the Brexit negotiations is to be decided. However hard it is, decide something […]
Stop your eye rolling over there. This Jeremy Corbyn Brexit interview is important.
Channel 4 interviewed Jeremy Corbyn about Brexit. Apparently they were only allowed to ask him one question, so they asked the same question six times. “Do you honestly believe that Britain is better off outside of the EU?” He cannot answer. Have a watch. "Do you honestly believe that Britain […]
Gender, language and Brexit
A clever tweet caught my eye this morning: Ever wondered which gender #Brexit is? Obviously male, since 55% of men voted Leave, while 51% of women (and 80% of women aged 18-24) voted Remain. Happy #IWD2018🙂 https://t.co/8IX0doz1ex https://t.co/wqWfIQClid — Axel Dittmann (@GermanyonBrexit) March 8, 2018 It prompted me to think […]
Theresa May, getting high on theoretical sovereignty
The superficial difference between a Hard Brexit and a Soft Brexit is political control – taking back control, to coin a phrase. A Soft Brexit leaves the UK having to abide by the rules of the Single Market or the Customs Union or both but, as a non-EU Member State, […]
Farage wants a further EU referendum in the UK. Bring it on! (with some caveats)
I speculated the other day as to why Nigel Farage now wants a further referendum on the UK’s EU Membership. I don’t really mind why he’s had this change of heart, but welcome to the club, Nige. Let’s have the second referendum. Let me explain this a little more. I […]
Helping “Radicals UK”, Jeremy Cliffe’s inadvertent political movement
At 2251 on 17.10.2017, Jeremy Cliffe tweeted this: Remotely interested in a possible new anti-Brexit party with transformative social-liberal policies? Email "I'm in" to: radicalsuk@gmail.com — Jeremy Cliffe (@JeremyCliffe) October 17, 2017 At 2316 the Twitter name @RadicalsUK was secured by me, and then I messaged Jeremy. The domain name […]
Dominic Cummings (@odysseanproject) deletes his Twitter account – piecing it back together
NOTE: due to disk space requirements, the files mentioned in this blog post have been removed from the web. If you have any questions about these files, or this issue, please contact me. Dominic Cummings was Campaign Director of Vote Leave. His tweets from his account @odysseanproject became strangely compelling, […]
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 with frustration on the EU side growing about the slow […]