Importers of cheese and charcuterie can breathe a sigh of relief. According to the Financial Times the Government’s much-feared import checks on food from Europe have been delayed once more. Jeremy Hunt apparently intervened to push the introduction of new checks from October until the New Year, following fears that they would increase food prices. […]
Do you remember the Windsor Framework? It was an agreement between the UK and the EU that Rishi Sunak sealed in March that was supposedly going to end ‘any sense’ of a border in the Irish Sea. Spoiler alert. It didn’t. The agreement was touted as a benefit to Northern Ireland that would remove the […]
Brexit is now, in a majority of voters minds, linked with high interest rates, trade friction, travel friction and general incompetence. The reality may be more complex, but that doesn’t matter – it’s about perception, and the perception is that Brexit is not only a failure but a liability. And there is more pain to […]
For devolution to work it must be based on the consent of both unionists and nationalists and on respect for all aspects of the Belfast Agreement, which includes relations with the rest of the UK as well as with the Irish Republic. Every proposed solution so far has elevated an open border between Northern Ireland […]
Metro-Land, mid-2016. In a school assembly a few weeks before the EU referendum, myself and the rest of Year 10 were asked by a Politics teacher how we would vote, if we could. Remain? Every hand in the room but one went up. Guess whose that was? Sixteen-year-old William was a Eurosceptic through and through. […]
Seven years after leaving the European Union, we have seen absolutely no change in our regulatory framework. Successive Tory governments have promised to change the UK’s regulatory landscape to make the UK economy more competitive and dynamic and for the UK to become the best place in the world to set up and run a […]
This week marks the anniversary of the Brexit vote, so you can expect to see lots of articles about the scandalous way that British voters were misled. How a group of manipulative and well-funded political charlatans played on the emotions and fears of credulous older voters less well educated than themselves. I’m talking, of course, […]
First year medical students are taught one great diagnostic precept: ‘Coincidence is not causation‘. That simple mantra saves millions of lives. It could also save British exports. Data for 2021 showed that trade declined by 15-17% and Brexit got the blame. The Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) said its forecasts on Brexit were confirmed by […]
Brexiteers were predictably fed up when Kemi Badenoch told the press on Wednesday that she had had to abandon the plan to eliminate all but a small proportion of the EU law mountain by the end of this year. This was quite understandable: the Retained EU Law Bill had been seen as a concrete demonstration of […]
It’s now a week and a half since the Government published the ‘Windsor Framework’; a deal that it claimed restored Northern Ireland’s ‘full and unfettered’ access to the UK internal market. The province’s biggest unionist party, the DUP, promised to apply ‘seven tests’ to this agreement. They would gauge, among other things, whether it removed […]
One rule I try to live by when writing about the Northern Ireland Protocol is that politicians and journalists from the mainland should be very cautious before second-guessing Northern Irish unionists about the merits of any deal. There is a powerful temptation for many on this side of the water to grab onto anything which, […]
The Government finally reached an agreement with the EU yesterday – one it claims will solve the chief problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol. Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, unveiled the ‘Windsor Framework’ at the town’s historic Guildhall. The Protocol, which has been in place since January […]
Rishi Sunak’s critics have long claimed that he resembles a sales executive rather than a statesman. On Friday, he pitched his anticipated Northern Ireland Protocol deal to the leader of the DUP, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, and other senior party officials. In the aftermath of that meeting, they seemed uncertain whether to buy the Prime Minister’s […]
This week marked three years since the UK officially left the European Union. To mark the occasion, a new poll from UnHerd revealed that 54% of voters now think leaving was the wrong decision. Much as that finding will gladden the hearts of the Rejoiner community, it’s really not that surprising. After all we are […]
Last week, the Government took the historic decision to trigger Section 35 of the Scotland Act for the first time and strike down Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial gender recognition bill. This example of ‘muscular unionism’ was hailed by Lord Frost, and other Tories, as an overdue assertion of the UK’s status as a unitary state. In […]
Over six years ago, the British people chose to leave the European Union. Even now, there is a small but vocal minority who are yet to reconcile themselves with this decision. Some, like Steve Bray, stand outside Parliament screaming day and night. Others, quieter but no less committed, see any divergence from EU law as […]
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