So Theresa May is going to make her highly awaited speech in Florence tomorrow. There has been plenty of analysis and speculation about what she is and is not going to include. Here – in a blog post I will update as more sources are available – are some of […]
This morning Oliver Robbins was moved from Permanent Secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU) to become EU Adviser to Theresa May, based in the Cabinet Office. This afternoon it was announced that DExEU’s Director of Trade and Partnerships Antony Phillipson is departing for New York. At a […]
Theresa May is due to give a big Brexit speech this coming Friday 22nd September in Florence. With Boris Johnson having jumped the gun and penned his own Brexit vision a couple of days ago (fisked by me here), and with frustration on the EU side growing about the slow […]
Regular readers of this blog know my own views about Brexit – seen from the UK side I have found the whole thing foolish from the start. But over the past few weeks I have been asking myself a different question: why is the Brexit process going quite so badly? […]
In these febrile political times since the UK’s General Election it feels like something could break any moment in Britain’s arduous EU departure process. Rather than the inexorable track towards a Hard Brexit (with the threat of “no deal”) that looked likely prior to 8th June, the past few weeks […]
In the UK’s Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition between 2010 and 2015, neither side could get all it wanted. Deals were struck and there was some give and take. Both sides understood the needs of the other to some extent, meaning – for example – that the Lib Dems restricted […]
After the problems the UK has caused the EU over the years, and the short term headache posed by the Brexit referendum last year, Theresa May ending up with a hung parliament having hoped for a huge win last week resulted in plenty of mirth in the rest of the […]
When Theresa May called the UK General Election on 18th April, her speech was all about Brexit and how the election was necessary in light of that. You can read the whole thing here, but a few quotes give the idea. “Division in Westminster will risk our ability to make a […]
Note the date of this piece: 1st June 2017. One week prior to the UK’s General Election. This is written in response to the current state of the election debate and opinion polls. I cannot judge which of these outcomes will now come to pass – I instead am plotting what will […]
British politics is messed up. Brexit shows it. The previous PM Cameron promised an in-or-out of the EU referendum back in 2013 if the Conservatives won the General Election, despite the fact that EU matters were considered rather unimportant by voters at that time. He promised this would happen by […]
This morning I took it upon myself to read the parts of the Conservative Party Manifesto for the 2017 election that deal with Brexit. My interest in this issue was piqued yesterday when the Tory Party lines for the Paxman interviews were leaked. “…only Theresa May has a plan [my emphasis] […]
A few short weeks ago when Theresa May called a General Election there was only one question on people’s minds: how big will her victory be? Faced with a Labour Party trailing in the polls, assumed to be demoralised thanks to Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, and perceived to be too left […]