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, rather more famous and more controversial bus, the one that...
UK EU Referendum
So the House of Lords, with a pretty solid majority, voted to unilaterally protect the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK post-Brexit, passing an amendment to the Article 50 notification bill with a majority of 102. Even a few Tories voted for the amendment. But – surprise, surprise...
The lines in Iain Dale’s blog post about the EU referendum yesterday started to gnaw at me. Here are the lines in full: They don’t even really take on the argument that the £350 million a week “promise” wasn’t in any way a promise. The words on the bus actually...
After Tony Blair’s Brexit speech last week, former Deputy Director of Britain Stronger in Europe (and now Edelman exec) Lucy Thomas tweeted this: Not all former Remain campaigners agree with this. #Brexit was democratic vote & need to work for best possible version not fight it. https://t.co/5rvPKvh3wX — Lucy Thomas-Harle...
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 Twitter debate, but nothing like what has happened the past...
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 country down Giving any detail about Brexit shall be ruled...
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 UK post-Brexit. The piece contains this line: People living in...
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 could ever remember what the five tests were (they are here...
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 case in point. Now I am always someone who wants...
“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 Brexit timetable and demanded a Brexit plan from the government...
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 has been “Brexit means Brexit“, and when Theresa May has...
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 Helmer, someone so hopelessly dim, racist or inconsistent that they cannot...