Brexit is going to happen, and we’re heading into a tough few years for people living in or near the UK. I don’t regret campaigning for remain, and I don’t think the fight for decency is over. We are heading into a difficult time, but I don’t intend to despair or to feel helpless. Citizen … Continue reading “EU Revoir”
Are you angry yet? You bloody should be As I write this, Theresa May is poised to trigger Article 50 and start the process of taking us out of the EU. Now that it’s certain we’re going to set this juggernaut in motion, I expect Leave voters are feeling pleased and a little relieved that … Continue reading “Brexit: are you angry yet?”
So how much is Brexit going to cost? The simple answer is that nobody knows. In some ways, this is understandable – trying to add up the bill is tricky when it’s based on forecasts of events which may or may not happen. But it is striking that we appear to be heading towards Article … Continue reading “Leaving the EU will be eye-wateringly expensive. Leaving the Single Market would be economic suicide”
I wonder what Sir Arthur Cockfield would have thought of this Brexit business? Perhaps more than any other single individual, Cockfield can lay claim to having created the EU single market. It almost certainly wouldn’t have happened without him. When Theresa May tells us that we will probably leave the single market, I think we … Continue reading “What is the Single Market?”
David Davis made it all look so easy. In articles and in tweets, he told us we’d have a wealth of new world-wide trade deals all signed and ready to go on the day we left the EU. He told us Germany and France would be rushing to make individual deals to sell us their … Continue reading “Negotiating to leave the EU is going to be harder than the Brexiters would have you think”
No really, why wouldn’t they give us everything we want? They need us more than we need them. Don’t they? The claim was repeatedly made across the Leave side of the referendum campaigns — we import a greater value of goods from the EU (£291bn in 2015) than we export to them (£223bn), so they rely … Continue reading “Why on Earth would the EU give in to our demands?”
We are in the dark. We are sitting in a bus at the top of a hill, and our Prime Minister is in the driving seat, about to start us rolling downhill towards a cliff edge we know is somewhere out there in the dark. Some of the passengers want to turn on the headlights … Continue reading “Stepping back from the brink”
Government rushes us towards the cliff edge in a panic The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill has just been published. The main part of the Bill runs to just one section and two short subsections: 1 Power to notify withdrawal from the EU (1)The Prime Minister may notify, under Article 50(2) of the Treaty … Continue reading “Article 50 Bill published”
MPs must block Theresa May’s power-grab Brexit Bill With only days to go until the Bill that will give the Prime Minister the power to trigger Article 50 and take us out of the EU is debated in Parliament, there is still no sign of the White Paper Theresa May promised MPs to allow them … Continue reading “URGENT: Last chance for MPs to control Brexit”
As we suggested you all do, I wrote to my (Labour) MP. Here is our correspondence:
A tweet-storm about Labour fleeing the pitch One day into the Parliamentary debate on Theresa May’s rushed Article 50 Bill, which will hand her the right to start the Brexit process, it is now starting to become clear just how little control we are going to have over the whole process. The Supreme Court ruling … Continue reading “Article 50 and the Labour Party – A Status Report”
There’s no good trade deal available, and cosying up to Trump in the hope of scraps is only going to harm our standing in the world If we crash out of the Single Market, as Theresa May intends to do if the EU don’t give in to her negotiating demands, we will need to expand … Continue reading “Hanging our Brexit hopes on a US trade deal will be damaging for the UK”
