Just over a year ago I was speaking on a panel about Brexit at King’s College London with Richard Graham, Tory MP for Gloucester. “The democratic tradition” Graham said in sickly smooth tone 23 minutes in, “is much deeper in the UK than anywhere else in the European Union.” He […]
So with less than a month to go until Brexit (or it being delayed or cancelled), I am setting off around Europe, talking to different groups about the UK’s exit from the EU, and what we can expect between now and 29.3.2019. Details of all the events are below and […]
42 days to go to Brexit. Just over 1000 hours. And we still do not know what is going to happen in the Brexit saga. Yet as the clock ticks, some things become clearer. My Brexit diagrams have fewer branches. There are fewer possible outcomes. An early general election (or […]
The House of Commons adopted two Amendments to its Brexit motion on Tuesday this week – the Brady Amendment to replace the Northern Ireland Backstop with “alternative arrangements”, and the Spelman/Dromey Amendment against a No Deal Brexit but lacking a mechanism to achieve that. The Cooper/Boles Amendment that would have […]
Back in December I wrote that trying to break UK party politics was not the way out of Britain’s Brexit conundrum. The events of this past 7 days underline this even more. Back in December, 117 Tory MPs voted to No Confidence May as Tory leader. 118 voted against her […]
Looking for new diagrams? There is a whole new series from May 2019 onwards here! Diagrams as featured by The New York Times! I have tried to make sense of Brexit through a series of flow diagrams that have evolved as Brexit decisions have been taken. This blog post gathers […]
Cowed and weakened after the events of the past few months, Theresa May will nevertheless stagger into the New Year as Prime Minister of the UK. And what she does between now and 17th (or possibly 21st) January will shape the path of Brexit – whether we like it or […]
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn might be atypical leaders of their respective parties, but in one way they are as traditional as they come: the extent to which they are partisan. Tribal. Defenders of their own parties above pretty much anything else. May emphasised her commitment to the party when […]
I am not sure this answer to a troll by Jean-Claude Piris this morning will change the guy’s mind. But “I have written a good part [of it]” when it comes to understanding the Treaty of Lisbon is a tremendous put down. That’s not all though. I am followed by […]
Even by the standards of the two and a half turbulent years since the Brexit referendum, the last 7 days have been quite something. Four major events shaped the week, and will shape what happens to Brexit now and – I think – perhaps not in the ways that many […]
In a fortnight the House of Commons will almost certainly reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal when the so-called “Meaningful Vote” happens. After that the path ahead is unclear, but one of the ways forward would be for a second Brexit referendum – a People’s Vote – to take place. If […]
So we have a Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration. A Brexit “Deal”. And at the time of writing it looks pretty unlikely that such a deal will manage to get through the “Meaningful Vote” in the House of Commons (more on that here), a second referendum (so-called “People’s Vote”) on […]