Brexit

02.12.2016 Brexit

The Brexit debate – flailing around in a pool of shit

Imagine you have just been thrown into a tank at a sewage treatment plant. It reeks like hell, you have nothing solid to grip, and you’re flailing around madly trying to grasp something firm to hold onto, but you never

30.11.2016 Brexit

The Labour Party, and immigration in the UK post-EU referendum

One of the most unusual post-EU Referendum stories to date has been the news that UK slaughterhouses face a possible shortage of workers. As the BVA outlines, in the meat hygiene sector some 95% of veterinary surgeons graduated overseas. Britain, it

26.11.2016 Brexit

Notes on Associate EU Citizenship for Brits after Brexit

[UPDATE 9.12.2016, 1515] Guy Verhofstadt has given some more detail about how important this associate citizenship thing is to him – see The Independent. However all the main issues with it I outline below still stand! There has been quite

15.11.2016 Brexit

Brexit. One mighty crunch ahead.

Today – even by the standards of the speed of news about Brexit – has been an extraordinary day. Here are the five stand out issues: A leaked memo shows the UK government has no Brexit plan and estimates that 30000

14.11.2016 Brexit

You cannot conclude anything from the EU referendum other than the UK should leave the EU

Now, 5 months on from the EU referendum, I am growing rather tired of people over-interpreting what the referendum meant, and trying to use something that happened before 23rd June to justify what should happen now. First of all, the

13.11.2016 Brexit

Trump to the left of you, the EU to the right, stuck in the middle… of the Atlantic

My first reaction to the Trump-Farage pictures last night was to be repulsed, not least because the group picture also shows Arron Banks and Raheem Kassam there with him – a nastier threesome in British politics would be harder to

05.11.2016 Brexit

A conversation about Brexit

“So what does Brexit mean?” “It means Britain will leave the EU.” “Is that it?” “Essentially yes. The referendum asked the British people whether they wanted to Remain in the EU or Leave the EU. A majority said they wanted

01.11.2016 Brexit

Online debate around #Brexit – quick notes

I am presenting at reCampaign in Berlin today about the online communications around the Brexit vote. I do not have the time to completely and coherently write up what I will say, but here are simply some of the links

12.10.2016 Brexit

Soft Brexit and Parliamentary Sovereignty – sovereign only to be able to give sovereignty away again?

The opinion piece in The Guardian by Stephen Phillips MP has been praised by many as making a good case for the involvement of the House of Commons in the Brexit process. On that point his piece is solid, but

11.10.2016 Brexit

Whatever Brexit you want, make the case for it. Don’t dream up justifications from prior to 23rd June that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

What sort of Brexit did the British actually want? That’s actually a damned hard question to answer – because before 23rd June we did not have a concrete Brexit plan that the Brits were voting on. The Leave campaign remained vague

11.10.2016 Brexit

The hard vs. soft Brexit framing will do just fine

Owen Jones has a piece in The Guardian about the language of Brexit. We should not use the term “Hard Brexit”, he argues, because actually what a “Hard Brexit” means is a “Chaotic Brexit”. Jones is right to talk about

08.10.2016 Brexit

Keir Starmer – the best person Labour has for Shadow Brexit Minister (for now)

Jeremy Corbyn’s latest Labour reshuffle has – rather predictably – prompted a storm of critique about the people the leader appointed, and the means he chose to appoint them. Yet this particular cloud has a potential silver lining: the choice