England & Wales, You Have No Idea What You Have Set In Motion. Or What You Haven’t – June 2016. Written in the days after the Brexit Referendum, this essay explains why the Leave vote will not achieve what its proponents imagine it will, while also pointing out all the undesired effects it will have.
Do Us A Favour, Red Tories; Of Course It’s A Coup, Of Course It’s Been Planned – June 2016. The use of the result of the ‘Brexit’ Referendum as a pretext to try and overthrow Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader has been denied by MPs in a way that insults the intelligence of the public.
Words Are Changing Meaning Again; Now Democracy Means We Have To Shut Up – June 2016. Commentary on how Leave voters, who never stop banging on about ‘democracy’ when demanding Brexit be carried out, relentlessly demand silence when the negative implications of leaving the European Union are discussed.
Clearing up a little post-Brexit Myth – January 2017. Debunking a mythological quotation, wrongly-attributed to Martin Schulz, then-President of the EU Parliament, a quote that keeps going viral among Leave supporters on social media.
Brexitopia: A Short Play – January 2017. Parody skit, detailing why, despite foaming-at-the-mouth objections from Leave campaigners, the Supreme Court was absolutely correct to rule that Article 50 could not be activated under the Royal Prerogative, and required majority consent in Parliament.
Brexit begins – March 2017. Reflections on the difficult times ahead after the activation of Article 50.
“The Leave Campaigns didn’t lie about £350 million for the NHS!” Of course they did – April 2017. Rebutting claims that Leave groups did not tell lies during the Referendum campaign.
Michael Howard, what on Earth do you think you’re doing? – April 2017. A furious condemnation of Michael Howard and Michael Fallon, for making some idiotic and posturing threats against Spain over Gibraltar, at precisely the time when Britain needs to operate at its diplomatic best with its neighbours.
Theresa May is the laughing stock of Europe – June 2017. After the embarrassing backfire of the 2017 General Election resulting in a Hung Parliament, Theresa May becomes the most ridiculed politician in Europe, with almost no real power and less than two weeks to go until Brexit negotiations commence.
If you say David Davis should now resign, you are thinking too small – December 2017. Brexit Secretary, David Davis, admits to misleading Parliament when conceding that his previous assurances that he had carried out full ‘impact assessments’ of leaving the EU were untrue.
“RESIGN!” – December 2017. An historic defeat in the House of Commons for Theresa May deprives her of the power to force through a severance deal from the EU without Parliament’s approval, and exposes just how frail her administration is.
The knives are out again for May… handed to her rivals by Trump – January 2018. Media attempts to talk up an apparent revival in the pound’s value against the US dollar as a sign that Brexit may not do much harm after all overlook one major drawback; the ‘revival’ is more a reflection of the weakness of the dollar under Donald Trump’s precarious leadership than of renewed strength in sterling.
Why ‘Hard Brexit’ threatens war – February 2018. Detailing why a No Deal Brexit would be incredibly dangerous to the peace process in Northern Ireland.
The folly of the DUP – March 2018. The Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland currently props up the Minority Government in Westminster. But worries over a possible sell-out of Unionist interests by the Tories to get a Brexit deal may well lead the DUP to wonder whether they are nourishing their own future executioners.
Rather than calling me a ‘Remoaner’, why not try setting a good ‘Brexample’? – March 2018. Leave supporters often accuse Remainers of being “patronising”, but it has to be said that the insulting behaviour between the two camps is far from one-way.
“The EU needs us more than we need them!” No, not even close – March 2018. Debunking a frequent platitude-claim from Leave supporters that the EU will somehow be harmed far more than the UK by Brexit.
Andrew Marr is USELESS – June 2018. Analysis of a prime example of how weak the BBC tends to be when interviewing Conservative politicians, in this case a cross-examination of Theresa May about Brexit.
It’s October 2018; this is where appalling diplomatic failings may come back to haunt the UK – October 2018. Now could be the time when the idiotic British posturing over Gibraltar in April 2017 come back to bite Theresa May and her allies.
No sympathy for May from this direction – November 2018. The day when Brexit finally knocked Theresa May’s Government off its feet has arrived. She at last let everyone know her real ‘plan’ for Brexit, and it has pleased no one, and turned everyone against her.
Spain is making Brexit trouble over Gibraltar. Well, Tories, we did warn you – November 2018. Spain threatens to veto any Brexit deal between the UK and the EU unless it gets extra concessions over the sovereignty of Gibraltar. The British cannot really complain about it, given their earlier behaviour.
Cheer up, Labour and other opposition parties – last night was PERFECT for you – December 2018. Theresa May survived a Motion Of No Confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party triggered by her own Brexit policy. But her pyrrhic victory happened in a way that only increased the paralysis of her own position.
What a clever move by Corbyn! – December 2018. A cleverly-timed call of a Motion Of No Confidence in the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, due to her refusal to hold a vote on her Brexit deal, leaves Theresa May cornered.
230 – wow – January 2019. ‘Beware the Ides of January’? A truly historic moment in Parliament. Theresa May finally submits her deal with the EU to a Commons vote, and it is rejected by an unprecedented margin, for the biggest defeat of a sitting Government of all time.
Theresa May – the PriMINO – March 2019. After delivering an immensely patronising, blame-shifting speech, pinning the responsibility for her inability to deliver Brexit onto Parliament, MPs respond by voting to seize control of the process from her. She is now as powerless as a constitutional monarch.
Even when she no longer has a job to hold onto, May cannot resist lying to make herself sound good at it – May 2019. The Prime Minister finally accepts the inevitable and announces her departure from Downing Street, due to her constant mishandling of Brexit. But she cannot help but continue lying to the country as she speaks, even to the last.
Boris Johnson is different to Theresa May, but not too different to make the same mistakes – July 2019. The new Prime Minister is Boris Johnson, and he has already demonstrated consummate inability to deliver Brexit – as minimally skilled as Theresa May.
“Reversing Brexit will damage the credibility of democracy!” Folks, Brexit itself has already done that – September 2019. Essay highlighting how damaging Brexit has been to the notion of democracy, due to it lending equal weight to the views of people who know nothing about the EU as it lends to those who are experts.
Let’s clear up something about BoJob’s “new policy program” – September 2019. Boris Johnson announces an ‘exciting new policy program’, for which he claims he requires the suspension of Parliament for over a month. The program is actually an underwhelming fraud, and his real reason for the Prorogation is to sneak through a No Deal Brexit.
“The Night of the Even Longer Knives” – September 2019. Boris Johnson, losing his first vote in the House of Commons as Prime Minister, stirs memories of Harold MacMillan, as he reacts with sledgehammer aggression to a backbench rebellion against him over Prorogation and No Deal Brexit, by expelling over twenty of his own Parliamentary Party.
There is one reason, and one reason alone, to be grateful for Brexit – September 2019. Analysing how Brexit has arguably been the phenomenon that has kept Jeremy Corbyn in charge of the Labour Party.
The ‘traitors’ are not those who oppose a No Deal. The traitors are its supporters – September 2019. Brexiteers keep mindlessly accusing Remain supporters, and politicians who oppose Hard Brexit, of being ‘traitors’. As this article notes, that tendency is more than a little ironic.
The Tories are trying to win by acting too stupid to understand the contrary argument – September 2019. The Conservative Party keep pretending not to understand Labour’s policies on Brexit and a new General Election, and there is a danger that, instead of making Labour look indecisive, it will make the Tories themselves look stupid.
BoJob, what the hell do you think you’re doing? – September 2019. Boris Johnson publishes the notorious ‘Yellow Hammer’ document, which outlines the predicted effect of a No Deal Brexit and what contingencies are in place to alleviate the harm. But the version published has very clearly been doctored. In the context of a time when his Prorogation of Parliament has been deemed illegal, such a flagrantly deceitful move is dangerously foolish.
Could the Queen fire Boris Johnson? – September 2019. With the Prorogation of Parliament sent for scrutiny to the highest court in the land, the Constitution of the UK is now in the throes its biggest crisis since the 1930s. Even if the Supreme Court judges against Boris Johnson, who has clearly suspended Parliament just to ease the path of Brexit, there are real worries he may just ignore the ruling. So what happens then? One possibility could be Royal intervention against him.
Tuesday was one of the great days for British democracy – September 2019. That the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled against the Government’s Prorogation of Parliament is one of the most historic and vital developments of 21st Century Britain. The very authority of Parliament and the Constitution would have been endangered had the decision gone the other way, and had Brexit been allowed to continue without MP scrutiny.
Boris Johnson’s proposal for the border in Ireland is either hazardous or hilarious – October 2019. Scrutinising an astonishingly silly proposal tabled by Boris Johnson to resolve the border anomaly in Ireland that would be created by Brexit, by effectively implementing two borders between Northern Ireland and Eire instead.
The most aggravating aspect of Brexit – October 2019. Detailing why Brexit will likely cause the very sovereignty shortfalls that its advocates imagine it will resolve.
Time for Remainers to face facts as well. Voting for Jo Swinson is NOT going to stop Brexit – November 2019. Explaining why Remainers who are siding with the Liberal Democrats during GE2019 are deluding themselves if they imagine there is any chance it will lead to the reversal of Brexit.
Britain: A country that cannot say those Three Little Words – July 2021. After 18 months officially out of the European Union, it is fair to assess the effect Brexit has had on the UK. Admittedly aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic, nonetheless, it has been uniformly bad news.
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