Merkel’s Toxic Legacy
COMMENT | Unflappable to the point of seeming stolid, Angela Merkel has for 13 years been a fixed point in a Europe of unnerving flux. Her political obituaries are therefore verging on the euphoric, even though her time as Germany’s Chancellor is far from over…
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Backstops, UK Politics and Getting to a Brexit Deal
COMMENT | With little fanfare, the supposed deadline for a Brexit deal – the October 2018 EU summit – has passed. The emergency summit pencilled in for November has been removed but could re-emerge; more likely, for now, the mid-December summit will…
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Post-Brexit Immigration Policy: The Implications of Sajid Javid’s Proposals
COMMENT | In the last few days, immigration has re-emerged as a key battleground in the Brexit negotiations. Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Prime Minister Theresa May finally began to outline their ideas for a post-Brexit immigration system at the Conservative…
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The UK’s Chronic Brexit Crisis
COMMENT | As the UK’s tortuous, groundhog day Brexit negotiations with the EU stagger on, uncertainty continues to reign. Will there be a deal and what will it look like? Will a deal pass at Westminster and at the European Parliament and European Council? What will…
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After Salzburg: Time for Realistic UK Proposals on the Irish Border and Future Relations
COMMENT | The informal summit of EU heads of state/government in Salzburg was clear – the European Council will only hold an extraordinary summit on Brexit in November if sufficient progress is made after the October Council on the unfinished issues. From last…
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Time for the SNP to Get on the Front Foot on Brexit
COMMENT | Is the Scottish government starting to toughen up its Brexit policy? Perhaps. But it doesn’t so far look like a more coherent strategy putting the government and the SNP on the front foot ahead of the other parties on Brexit. Yet as Labour fudge their…
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Defending an Independent Scotland Post-Brexit
COMMENT | The main focus of the Sustainable Growth Commission report is, unsurprisingly, Scotland’s economy. But it does contain a couple of paragraphs on defence in what others have called the ‘if we were independent pitch’. The commission report…
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Blind Deal Brexit Beckons
COMMENT | September sees the re-emergence of politics from the summer recess and, with the continuing Brexit negotiations in Brussels bringing no breakthrough, the situation is as confused as ever. Two key points describe the current shape of the Brexit landscape…
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