We are finally entering the Article 50 endgame and the next two weeks will be immensely important in the multi-dimensional standoff that Brexit has become. Brussels’ eyes will be following next week’s votes in Westminster closely in judging how much, if at all, they decide to move on the backstop. After being told by Parliament […]
As the clock ticks down to 29 March, it should be encouraging that the warring factions of the Conservative Party have at last concluded that they should try to talk to each other in search of compromise. Today’s great hope in overcoming the Brexit impasse in Parliament, the so-called “Malthouse compromise”, is a classic political […]
Last week was a bruising one for the Prime Minister. There wasn’t much for Theresa May to be cheerful about, but life was a little easier in Brussels than in Westminster. Some EU leaders have offered warm words in press conferences but the official position, as set out by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, was that […]
Today’s publication of the UK government’s thinking regarding future UK-EU customs arrangements – the first in a series that will explain its wider Brexit strategy – is welcome. You could also argue it is long overdue. The business community finally has something substantive to work with. That is important. After all, whatever the government eventually […]
The Government, including the various factions in Cabinet, appears to remain settled on the Brexit destination set out in the January White Paper – a new deep and comprehensive trade and customs agreement outside the single market and customs union. All seem to agree the UK must be able ultimately to conduct its own trade policy […]
So we are back to the language of “hard” and “soft” Brexit – terms which not only remain ill-defined, but continue to confuse more than concentrate minds on what a sensible approach to Brexit might entail. Indeed, the Brexit debate in the wake of last week’s election seems to have advanced little since the EU […]
For many Leave campaigners, part of the appeal of Brexit was that once the UK had left the EU, it would be able to determine its own international trade and commercial policy, set its own tariffs and negotiate its own bilateral free trade agreements. As well as being an opportunity, this is also a challenge. Leaving the EU […]
Of all the Brexit titbits ‘leaked’ in the scribbled notes carried out of Downing Street by a parliamentary aide to Mark Field MP this week, the most germane is probably that “headlines won’t change from now until March”. In the absence of a “running commentary” from the Government, it is understandable that every little morsel […]
