European Union
The greatest British political crisis of modern times
Brexit appears to be approaching a bewildering denouement. Prime Minister Theresa May has reached a dead end with a negotiated deal that met the criteria for leaving the…
Brexit: Britain’s Commonwealth pivot is nothing new
In the midst of Britain’s painful extraction from the European Union, a saga which deepened this week with a second parliamentary defeat for Theresa May’s Brexit deal, key figures…
Fisheries and Brexit – a slippery affair
Despite accounting for a mere 0.12% the UK’s overall economic output, fisheries is one of the most contentious issues in the Brexit jumble. Highly politicised, negotiations on the…
How did the United Kingdom get itself into such a political mess?
In March 2017 the British government invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and gave itself two years to organise an orderly withdrawal from the European Union. Now, with the…
Film Review: Brexit – the Uncivil War
A workable divorce deal hasn’t even been inked, yet already one of the most seismic episodes in British political history has been scripted, dramatised, and broadcast to an…
Brexit: British people vote with their feet
With Prime Minister Teresa May’s Brexit withdrawal deal rejected this week by the House of Commons, the future of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union remains as…
Brexit deal debate reveals dark side to EU diplomacy
The saving grace of a nasty divorce is durable insight into the true values of the parties involved. And so, with Brexit.
The Withdrawal Agreement – which has triggered rancorous…
Brexit: the Northern Ireland conundrum
Seamus Heaney, the late Irish poet and playwright, once (half-) joked that “anyone born and bred in Northern Ireland can’t be too optimistic”.
Optimism in Northern Ireland is…
Directions to the Brexit? “I wouldn’t start from here.”
It’s an old joke: a couple from the city get lost in the countryside and ask a farmer for directions back to town. “Oh, I wouldn’t start from here,” the farmer replies with a grin…
Europe: Merkel, May, and Moscovici
Underlining the continuing chaos in Europe, it has not been a good week for Germany, the UK, or Italy. The end of the tunnel looks far away, and unrelentingly dark.
In…