So, only the 6 months until Brexit is done. Or possibly not. The passing of the deadline for an extension of the transition period at midnight on Tuesday means that on a chilly Thursday night on 31 December, the UK will pass out of that period into, well, something. What that something might be isn’t […]

This post originally appeared on the UK in a Changing Europe website. The return of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings to Number 10 has seen a significant ramping-up of the British rhetoric on the negotiations around the future partnership with the EU. That’s not merely meant stronger words about refusing an extension of the talks, […]

As much as people talk about Brexit at all right now, much of what you hear is the cry that an extension of the Withdrawal Agreement’s transition period must happen. I’ve not seen a single industry representative, negotiation expert or academic say anything different for the past month, and I’m not about to go against […]

As many better scholars than me have noted, it’s hard not to get caught up in a social panic. Just I’ve written many posts about “why is anyone thinking about anything but Brexit?”, so I now get to read endless materials about how coronavirus is the only thing that matters. Yesterday’s budget is a case […]

Maybe it’s the coronavirus, maybe it’s the floods, maybe it’s the excitement around the Prime Minister’s engagement/child-to-be, but we seem to have largely given up talking about Brexit any more. Sure, there’s debate if you want it, tucked away in the Westminster/Brussels bubble and deep in the inside sections of the paper, but it’s a […]

36 hours. That’s about how long we actually had a wide-spread debate about what’s actually in the Withdrawal Agreement, back when it was agreed late in 2018. Yes, it’s been thrown around in debate ever since, but it was only for that brief window that the substance got a decent sounding and consideration in the […]

Change is coming to Brexit. At the end of next week, the UK will leave the European Union, having now completed the passage of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill through the Lords: EU ratification is a given. But there is another, broader change coming too. The constellation of politicians, commentators and journalists who were brought together […]