Latest Publications
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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Stalled Progress on Brexit and Talk of No Deal Are Causes for Concern
COMMENT | On Brexit, it does not look good. Little progress has been made in the negotiations, and there seems to have been almost no advances in mutual understanding, since July. In particular, key differences remain regarding the Irish Protocol (the…
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Brexit: Debunking the Myths about the EU Position
COMMENT | Autumn 2018 is crunch time in the Brexit negotiations, with many on the EU side increasingly concerned about the risks implied by only finding a conclusion to the Brexit negotiations perilously close to the exit date of 29 March 2019. While the hopes of…
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Labour, the SNP, a People’s Vote and a Brexit Deal
COMMENT | The extraordinary idea of the army delivering food and medicines to people in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit is, unsurprisingly, currently taking up a lot of Brexit attention. But both the UK government and the EU are still focused on getting a deal. If…
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The UK’s White Paper Raises Many Questions and Crosses EU Red Lines
COMMENT | What is in the UK government’s White Paper generates many questions which I am sure will be asked by the EU and will have to be responded to if we still aim at an orderly withdrawal with a transition period and a joint political declaration on the…
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Theresa May Has No Choice but to Obey Jacob Rees-Mogg
COMMENT | The Conservative MP Anna Soubry stunned the Commons and the media earlier this week by asking rhetorically whether it is the Prime Minister or her fellow backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg who ‘runs the country’ when it comes to Brexit. The…
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Chequers: ‘Soft’ Brexit or Just Any Brexit?
COMMENT | Theresa May’s three pages long Chequers agreement on the UK’s Brexit position has been hailed as a shift to a ‘soft’ Brexit. But, in itself, it is only a ‘soft’ Brexit on goods and a ‘hard’ Brexit on services. And, crucially, the EU is not likely to accept…
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