The opening of the official campaign on the EU referendum hasn’t been all fireworks; instead, it’s been mostly more of the same. Each side trading consequences and perils, questioning the other side’s competence or intent. In particular, we’ve been lacking vision. The vision thing is an easy one of trash: too many overtones of Tony […]

The return from whatever Easter break there might have been marks the opening of the last long phase of the EU referendum: There’s a clear stretch now through to late June, which will split into two parts. The first will be until early May and the local elections, the second through to the vote itself, […]

  There’s not much that’s clear so far in the referendum, but one thing that looks pretty certain is that the campaign has yet to catch the public’s interest fully. Indeed, it might not be pushing things too far to say that most people don’t really care. The reasons for this are many and various. […]

The other night I was very happy to talk as part of UCL’s European Institute event on ‘Brexit Divisions‘. Of course, I might have been even happier if the two individuals from the main campaign groups in the referendum hadn’t decided at all-too-literally the last minute to duck out, but actually I doubt it, since […]

Is it really only a week since the European Council?* Since then we have had so much debate, about the settlement, about whether it’s legally binding, about Boris, about who’s a Remain-ian and who’s a Leaver, some more about Boris. Dave’s all pumped up and we’re all good to go. And yet I find myself thinking […]

Just a brief post this morning, since we stand on the verge of the European Council that will sort out everything for the UK. Possibly. Or possibly not. As always, the capacity of the EU to make life even harder than it already it for itself should never be underestimated: despite no-one having a good reason to […]

Thanks to the foresight that all academics are blessed with, I find myself almost half the world away from the UK this week, just as everyone seems to be having a brief pause before next week’s European Council. I might pretend that my Canadian and American colleagues here on the West Coast are pestering me […]