This is the big question of late 2020 in Brexit-land. All summer and into the autumn, we’ve have multiple briefings, this way and that; some setting us on the road to a rapid settlement, others pointing towards whatever euphemism-of-the-day we might have for a no-deal outcome. So which is it? Rather than try to list […]

Given all the recent interest in breaking treaties, I thought it’d be useful to provide you with a quick guide to what is generally accepted to be the international framework for this: pacta sunt servanda. A short Twitter thread puts some words to it, and a PDF version is available here.

As I’ve sat down to write this, I’ve just reminded myself that I said only a short time ago that a leading indicator of heading to an agreement on the Future Relationship would be a de-escalation of the rhetoric. Make of that what you will, both in regard to Brexit and to me. This past […]

As we roll back round that time of year when schools briefly re-open and we all head back to the office [sic], it’s worth considering the progress made on the Future Relationship talks. Recall that after the June decision that no extension to the transition period would be sought, the UK government pressed for – […]

All that summer rest finally gave me the impetus to put together this little chart the other day. It’s a simple breakdown of the time allocated to the 11 headings of the Future Relationship negotiating rounds, including this week’s 7th. Weightings are based on a negotiating block (usually a half-day), with some joint sessions (e.g. […]

Last week, almost as an aside to another conversation on Twitter, I noted that the UK was always going to have a much more difficult time of it all with Brexit than the EU because it (the UK) has to build and rebuild a huge pile of government functionality, while the EU just keeps what […]

I was very glad to have attended the EPOW seminar series this week, where one of my longer-standing thoughts about Brexit finally got some more robust grounding than the impressionistic approach I’ve taken to date. Sara Hobolt was presenting her co-authored paper on the impact of attitudes towards Brexit on attitudes towards your own country’s […]