As the world watched the crisis at Ukraine’s border escalate on Monday, EU negotiators were preoccupied with a different geopolitical threat on the other side of the continent. After a meeting of the ‘joint committee’, set up to oversee Brussels’ Brexit deal with the UK, an official told a reporter about the peril of olive […]
Historically, an advantage of being set in a group of small islands floating free from the western coast of mainland Europe has been easy access to the rest of the world. Put together a decent navy, and you’re good to go scurrying off around the globe, bringing back spices from India, tea from China, oils […]
Britain is no longer such a green and pleasant land. Almost half of our species are in long term decline and 1 in 6 are threatened by extinction. The government has committed in law to halt the decline of nature by 2030. But achieving this will require bold reforms to how we manage our land and […]
In an op-ed last week, Jacob Rees-Mogg issued a rallying cry to Sun readers to help him scrap irritating Brussels bureaucracy. ‘Through thousands of small changes’, Rees-Mogg wrote, ‘we can enact real economic change — which means The Sun’s readers will feel a real Brexit bonus in their pockets and in their lives every day.’ […]
Napoleon Bonaparte once called Britain a ‘nation of shopkeepers’. He meant this as an insult, but we wear it as a badge of honour – every generation of Britons have been great entrepreneurs. Now as an independent trading nation, we must build on this legacy – and grow, modernise, and enhance our economy to deliver […]
The political situation in Northern Ireland is, undoubtedly, difficult. As one fictional minister from the Armando Iannucci movie In The Loop once explained to a fictional foreign government, we have a saying for situations like this in the UK: ‘difficult, difficult, lemon difficult’. While no solution is perfect, it is fair to say that any proposal […]
Despite releasing its ‘Benefits of Brexit’ white paper earlier this week, in too many areas the Government still seems to lack the will or the imagination to diverge from EU laws. Ministers seem more concerned with putting crown symbols on pint glasses than potentially saving the lives of millions of smokers by taking advantage of […]
There is much to welcome in the Government’s newly published ‘Benefits of Brexit’ white paper, particularly when it comes to regulation. The direction of travel is certainly the right one – regulating only when necessary, involving business in ‘co-creating’ rules that affect them, aiming to become the ‘best regulated advanced economy in the world’, and […]
Last week the Government announced it was to start negotiations for a trade deal with Greenland. Right on schedule, the continuity remain crowd went into meltdown, pointing out that Greenland has a very small economy and that we already had a deal with them when we were members of the EU. The outcry was so […]
For a project that was so often dressed up as about freeing Britain from red tape, the Government took a decidedly unambitious approach to dealing with EU regulations when we finally left. In fact, Boris Johnson ended up rolling over so many regulations that his legislation ended up being unofficially dubbed the ‘Continuity Bill’. This […]
Within the next week Northern Ireland’s Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots is expected to order officials to stop checking goods at the Irish Sea ‘border’ between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The province’s First Minister, Paul Givan, confirmed yesterday that his Democratic Unionist Party colleague would act unilaterally to halt Protocol checks at Ulster’s ports. Mr […]
In an article in this week’s Sunday Telegraph, Foreign Secretary and Brexit negotiator Liz Truss reiterated that the UK will trigger Article 16 if the EU does not make rapid concessions on the Northern Ireland Protocol. For more than six months, ministers have directed this threat at Brussels, as the Government tried in vain to dismantle […]
Who is the bigger expert on the Belfast Agreement? Might it be Lord Trimble, the former Ulster Unionist who brokered the deal and won Nobel peace prize? Or could it be Tim Farron, who spent two undistinguished years as the leader of the Liberal Democrats and whose career will likely be remembered only by the […]
Marcus Aurelius was emperor during the golden age of Rome, with all the might, learning and general Hollywoodness that entailed. His realm was vast, his legions many, his diktats supreme. Yet burrow into book nine of his Meditations, and you come across this particular aperçu: ‘Don’t hope for Plato’s utopian republic, but be content with […]
If there’s one area where Britain can benefit from better post-Brexit regulation, it’s pulling ourselves away from blanket bans on chemicals that are critical to making the modern world cleaner, cheaper and faster. PFAS, or Poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of over 4,700 individual chemicals, each with specific purposes, that are fundamental to […]
At 6.30am on Monday morning, the Northern Ireland Protocol saga took a sinister new twist. In the predominantly unionist town of Newtownards, two masked and armed men hijacked a double-decker bus and set it alight, seemingly in protest against the Irish Sea border. The leaders of unionist political parties, including the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson, […]
Watch or listen to CapX’s weekly podcast ‘The Capitalist’ wherever you get your podcasts.
