There are many things about Andy Burnham I dislike but I have to credit him with one thing: the guy always finds new ways to make me like him even less than I already do. During one of his recent copious interviews in which he is in no way seeking to put himself in the […]
Here’s how the Lib Dems should deal with Brexit from now on
With Ed Davey’s ascension to the leadership of the Liberal Democrats comes the question of what the party’s exact position on Brexit should be from here on out. Clearly, the Lib Dems are not in any danger of becoming some pro-Brexit outfit; yet there is still some doubt as to what the yellows should do […]
How Brexit fuelled Scottish nationalism in a much simpler way than is usually discussed
Scottish independence was roped into the effects of Brexit from the day after the EU referendum took place. It was said by many, myself included, that one of the reasons that the Scottish people had voted no in 2014 was because by leaving they couldn’t be assured of getting into the EU as a new, […]
Why I think Maajid Nawaz is wrong about Remainers and post-Brexit Britain
I really like Maajid Nawaz as a pundit. I think he is an interesting addition to a commentariat that can often feel boringly samey. A self-identifying Muslim who is a proper liberal and not only happy to criticise what he thinks is wrong or at least not working in the Islamic world but has taken […]
Here’s why the Liz Truss letter about post-Brexit trade is so revealing
An email from Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove outlining her concerns about what a no deal Brexit would entail has been leaked to the media. As expected, it was a big news story yesterday. Yet given all it reveals, it is amazing how relatively little attention it received. For it shines a […]
Why I believe the Boris Johnson government is going so hard toward a no deal Brexit
I wrote an article for the Spectator yesterday about how I thought Peter Mandelson was wrong when he overplayed the likelihood that the government were going to avoid no deal by getting something nailed down between the UK and the EU before the end of the year. Instead, I posited that I thought no deal […]
Why the EU could be in for a rocky few years post-Coronavirus – and why that should make Eurosceptics on the right nervous
Since June 2016, a common trope on the right in Britain has been to big up any problems within the EU between differing member states as proof that the EU is about to crumble to pieces. This is happening now, with Leavers jumping on some Italians complaining about what they perceive as the EU’s poor […]
How long will the pretence of “real Brexit” happening on December 31st, 2020 be kept up by the government?
The government is in the midst of an unprecedented crisis at present, so one certainly cannot reasonably expect daily briefings on how the negotiations with the EU are going. For those of you who are interested, they are understandably not going at all; with the EU up to its neck in CoVid related problems as […]
In the face of the Coronavirus crisis, it would be utterly mad for Boris not to extend the transition period with the EU. Utterly mad – and here’s exactly why
We were living in strange times before the Coronavirus struck; they are now surreal beyond the imaginings of an objective viewer from five years ago. Lots of people are politicising the crisis, you know, imagining that what’s happening demonstrates the folly of austerity, or shows us what life would have been like under a Corbyn […]
This is the economic theory the Tories really seem set to test at the end of this year. To say it’s risky would be vastly understating it
The weirdest thing about the political times we live in is that the government has pledged to make a revolutionary change at the end of this year and no one is really addressing what that might mean. Part of this is Brexit burnout; part of it is that we just had a general election in […]