Brexit

05.01.2017 Brexit

There’s going to be a Brexit crunch or crisis of some sort, and maybe that’s for the best?

Sod all this cheery coming together lark. I admire Ian Dunt for trying it, but ultimately I do not think it is going to work, not least – as Richard Elwes elegantly points out – so many Remain people rightly

27.12.2016 Brexit

Some further thoughts on Andrew Marr and the Brexit debate

When I set out to dissect Andrew Marr’s “An optimist’s guide to Brexit” (his piece here, my fisking here) I had no idea quite what a reaction it would provoke. Whenever I write something about Brexit it ends up leading to some

24.12.2016 Brexit

Fisking Andrew Marr’s delusional view of Brexit

Perhaps already too filled with mince pies and and excessive alcohol, or maybe just clutching at some sort of good news amongst the doom of Brexit, many commentators who should otherwise know better have been gushing in their praise for Andrew

20.12.2016 Brexit

Varieties of Brexit

Various varieties of Brexit crop up in the British media, but it has all started to get a bit unmanageable. So here, as a sort of summary, are twenty varieties of Brexit! Soft Brexit One of the two original varieties of

19.12.2016 Brexit

For the rest of the EU, it’s as if a Soft Brexit has already happened

The amusing film of Theresa May at last week’s European Council looking rather confused and isolated drew the predictable reactions – Brexiteers saw it as the EU bullying the UK, while Remain people saw it as a symbol of Britain’s

16.12.2016 Brexit

The 10 laws of Brexit

Trying to talk to someone in the UK about Brexit? Don’t contradict the laws of Brexit! Brexit means Brexit The British are never to blame for Brexit or any of its consequences Anyone seeing any problem with Brexit is talking the

14.12.2016 Brexit

Residence for EU citizens in the UK post-Brexit, and healthcare

Another day and another “that can’t possibly be true, can it?” Brexit moment. This morning I read this in The Guardian, quoting Helena Kennedy and the House of Lords work on the rights of EU citizens to stay in the

13.12.2016 Brexit

Labour’s Brexit pledge card (fictitious, but could the idea catch on?)

Ask any Brits whose formative political years were the 1990s and they can answer you this question: “When will Britain join the Euro?” The answer, of course, is: “When the five economic tests are met!” The thing was that no-one

13.12.2016 Brexit

Short term anti-Brexit tactics: just oppose, oppose, oppose

I am often confronted with the line of argument that because something or other may or may not happen sometime into the foggy future, opposing Brexit is hopeless now. A Twitter conversation with Rachel Heyburn and A C Grayling this morning was a

09.12.2016 Brexit

Leave constituencies, Remain MPs? It’s more complex than that

“Brave MPs” was how Guido Fawkes described the 6 Members of Parliament who represent constituencies that nominally voted Leave in the referendum, but who voted against the opposition motion* in the House of Commons this week that supported the government’s

08.12.2016 Brexit

The UK government has promised a Brexit plan. But what does that mean?

Yesterday was a significant day for those who follow the minutiae of Brexit, for those of us who try to ascertain what is actually going despite the cloud of obfuscation and media distortion. For months the answer to what Brexit means

06.12.2016 Brexit

The challenge of Trump and Brexit for the “mainstream” – we’re being out-thought

I count a pretty senior UKIP person as a friend. Yet whenever I tell that to some liberal lefty pro-EU contacts of mine they are repulsed and perplexed. They assume the person in question must be a Paul Nuttall or Roger