At long last, the “deal” has landed, bringing with it opprobrium from both Leavers and Remainers. Speculation today has mostly been centred on which cabinet members will resign shortly (so far, none have) and whether May has any hope of getting this “deal” through parliament. Thinking ahead, however, a much more interesting question emerges, this […]
Brexit: what is next for the Left? More complicated even than it sounds
I chaired an event last night in a House of Commons committee room entitled “Brexit: what’s next for the Left?” with panelists Femi Oluwole and Cathleen Clarke from OFOC, Khalid Mahmood MP, shadow minister for Europe (which I have to admit, I was unaware of pre-event. Wait, why does Labour even have a shadow minister […]
An article in which I attempt, as best as possible, to summarise the current state of play
All week I have had at the back of my mind the idea of writing something about where we are – on Brexit, on everything in UK politics at the moment – without really knowing what to say. Everything comes down to “the deal” – which is not, amazingly enough, going to be a deal […]
Looking at the Arron Banks on Marr interview in relation to election spending rules
Many people are upset about Arron Banks being given a slot on the BBC’s prime weekend politics programme yesterday morning to try and plead his innocence over the airwaves; I will not get into that matter within in the content of this article. Nor can I make any comment on anything Arron Banks has done […]
Interpreting John McDonnell’s latest interview on Brexit – yes, I do go beyond “It’s laughably crap”, don’t worry
So, what is there to say about Brexit anymore? We’re all just waiting for the May-EU drama to play out, for the prime minister to present the deal to parliament – and then the actual unknowable, namely will such a thing get a majority in the Commons or not. As has been obvious for a […]
Imagining the May 2019 Euro elections – in the UK
So, that whole UK-EU negotiation thing is almost all wrapped up, right? I haven’t bothered to look at the news over the last week or so, but I don’t need to in order to know that May got the cabinet and the DUP to accept the backstop and now everything’s pretty much on plan for […]
We’re down to four possible Brexit scenarios – here they are
Dominic Raab heads to Brussels for a chat with Barnier – but nothing is agreed regarding the backstop. A feeling of drama grips the bubble, while calm continues in the rest of the UK, and indeed, in Brussels itself. Where does “hell week” leave us then? There are only really four ways I think Brexit […]
How Theresa May’s Brexit negotiation is reaching its inevitable conclusion
There is said to be cabinet “unease” around the latest May proposal for dealing with the backstop issue the UK seemingly unwittingly signed up to in December 2017. Namely, that until a super-whizz bang trade deal between the UK and the EU can be agreed and implemented, the UK essentially stays in the Customs Union. […]
Here’s a connection between free market fundamentalism and Brexit I’d never realised before
I was having a chat with a prominent Brexiteer this week, as you do. I said to him that while I had to concede there was a Brexit that could provide for an economic boost in the abstract, in hard reality it was going to be tough precisely because business thinks that it will be […]
Keir Starmer and his “Remain” comment: what could this mean for Labour and for Brexit?
The line was ad-libbed, apparently. “…and nobody is ruling out Remain as an option.” As anti-Brexit statements go, in the abstract at least, it is comically tame. Yet given the fact that we’ve had a couple of years of Corbyn saying things along the lines of “I hate the capitalist EU and can’t wait to […]