Soft Brexit

03.12.2017 Brexit

Why even clueless Brits should care about the Irish border and Brexit

Let me lay out my cards on the table: I am clueless about Irish political history. I was born in the early 1980s in Wales. My childhood was spent in England and Wales. In did not learn about Irish politics

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

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