The greatest failure of the European referendum campaign in 2016, on both sides, was the inability to articulate an understanding of Britain’s geopolitical relationship to Europe. By geopolitics, I do not mean its current usage: interpreted merely as a synonym for international strategic rivalry. I refer, instead, to classical geopolitics, which is a confluence of […]
After a year of almost never ending Covid and Brexit gloom the emergence of strong vaccine candidates from Pfizer and Moderna – with Britain’s AstraZeneca not far behind – has finally begun to lift hope on global financial markets. When lives are in danger and there is constant broadcast chatter about the dangers of not […]
The European Union is seeking a ‘level playing field’ with the UK after Brexit. One of the key issues concerning the EU is ‘dumping’. It is worried that the UK becomes a super-competitive, de-regulated ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ that undercuts the prices of products produced in the EU, in the same way that China does. However, the opposite […]
The English language is uniquely blessed with profanities starting with the letter ‘B’. Yet among London’s tech community, few words are dirtier than Brexit. Still, four years after the vote, the very mention of the word draws a collective grumble from converted warehouses and shared workspaces across the capital. But despite loud opposition to Brexit, […]
The Government continues to insist that there will be no sea border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, even as it prepares to build Border Control Posts (BCPs) to check food and animals at Ulster’s ports and designs computer systems to deal with new customs paperwork. Almost daily, detail emerges about how complex it is […]
One of the criticisms often levelled at unionists in Northern Ireland is that they are held back by a ‘siege mentality’. They are so convinced that their place in the United Kingdom is under threat, it is said, that rather than concentrating on strengthening the Union or playing a more central role in national life, […]
It was like he never went away. Clearly tired of tracking down migrants on the Kent coast, Nigel Farage has decided to re-enter the political fray with a sort-of new party. Reform UK is the revamped version of the band formerly known as the Brexit Party, with frontman Farage promising to focus on the Government’s […]
It never ceases to amaze me that more than four years on from the referendum we are still subject to the whole panoply of EU rules which we voted to leave behind. Of course all great historic shifts have taken time to bed in, sometimes decades – and rarely produce only the intended consequences. Reflecting […]
As the Brexit negotiations near their conclusion, a key element still to be decided is what happens in future disputes between the two sides. This is known as ‘governance’ – and it will be far more important in determining the shape of the new UK-EU relationship than arguments over fishing rights. Broadly, there are three […]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGBlZKeilWk Last week we were delighted to welcome one of Britain’s leading psephologists and political academics, Professor Rob Ford, for a CapX Live webinar about his new book Brexitland, which is garnering rave reviews from across the political spectrum. In the book, Rob and co-author Maria Sobolewska show how Brexit was the culmination of decades of […]
After seemingly endless rows over chlorinated chicken and animal sentience, the Agriculture Bill has almost made it through Parliament. The constitutional oddity of ‘ping pong’ between the Commons and the Lords, which will hammer out the final text of this historic piece of legislation, started this week, When it finally becomes law, it will be […]
‘A shadowy global operation involving big data, billionaire friends of Trump and the disparate forces of the Leave campaign influenced the result of the EU referendum.’ That was how a lengthy Observer article in May 2017 presented the work of Cambridge Analytica in a piece entitled ‘The Great British Brexit Robbery’. The conspiracy theory unravelled quite spectacularly this […]
In May this year, Sir Keir Starmer rejected the possibility of an extension to the Brexit transition period. It’s fair to say this surprised many people, including me. Starmer was Remain’s standard-bearer during the December General Election. The architect of Labour’s manifesto promise to hold a second referendum, his commitment to Europe was never anything […]
The Brexit celebration I attended at the end of January was a rather sombre affair. While most were happy (and relieved) to get the formal part over with, the practical reality of what was coming was somewhat harder to take, even for the staunchest Brexit supporters. It was clear that the Withdrawal Agreement agreed last […]
There are many criticism you could level at Boris Johnson’s Internal Markets Bill, but the idea that it threatens the Good Friday Agreement is baseless nonsense. On Wednesday, Joe Biden piled in on the subject, saying that if he becomes President he will not allow the Good Friday accord to become a “casualty of Brexit”. […]
There was a profound sense of déjà vu this week as Boris Johnson threatened to disregard international law with the new Internal Market Bill. As with last year’s prorogation of Parliament, his critics – not least those in the legal profession – lined up to insist that this risked shredding Britain’s international reputation for fair dealing, as well […]
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