Eu

If Brexit was going to be as easy as some of its advocates had believed, we would not have had weeks such as this one. It’s hard to interpret the recent agreement over the transition period as anything other than a capitulation to EU demands. Theresa May has quietly scrubbed out her ‘red line’ on the rights of EU citizens and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Nationals of other EU countries will be free to move to Britain, seek work here and have their rights protected by the court until 31 December 2020. Moreover, she has agreed to UK waters being open to EU trawlers until that

The Brexit transition draft agreement is in – and it’s not all smooth sailing for the UK government. In a press conference, Brexit negotiators Michel Barnier and David Davis heralded the proposed terms for the implementation period as a ‘decisive step’ towards achieving an orderly Brexit. However, it’s clear that the government will have to rein in some disorderly MPs before it’s signed off by the EU27 on Friday. As proposed, the transition period will end New Year’s Eve 2020, three months earlier than expected. In terms of the pros for the UK side, the government will be able to negotiate and sign trade deals during the transition period and there is no longer a

Martin Selmayr’s power grab, elevating him to the post of Secretary-General and putting him in charge of 33,000 staff, was a brilliantly-executed Brussels coup. As Jean Quatremer reveals in The Spectator, the double promotion of Juncker’s chief of staff was over in nine minutes flat, and was described by one of those present as an ‘impeccably prepared and audacious power-grab’. So how did he do it? And how can such skullduggery be covered up? On Friday, the European Commission slipped out the minutes for the meeting on February 21st at which Selmayr earned his promotion. Early in the meeting, we learn that the job of Deputy Secretary General was vacant: But then

At the BBC early doors for the Today programme, to preview Corbyn’s speech advocating membership of a customs union. I suggest that ‘this is something Remainers can get behind’, but come off air to a torrent of denialism and abuse on Twitter. In a parallel universe, the people who feel existentially destroyed by being halfway out of the EU would have made this case passionately before the vote, instead of trying to rely on fear and platitudes now. In quick succession, the European Commission drops its bombshell, obliging Britain to impose customs controls across the Irish sea; then Theresa May delivers her speech applying for a kind of off-peak gym

Here we go. The European Commission draft guidelines for the Brexit trade negotiations have leaked – and, as expected, it doesn’t make all that pretty reading for the British government. Although Theresa May’s Brexit speech was well-received in the UK, in Brussels many of May’s arguments and proposals appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Speaking today, Donald Tusk has warned that it is not his priority to make Brexit a success: ‘I fully understand and respect Theresa May’s political objective to demonstrate at any price that Brexit could be a success and was the right choice. But sorry, it is not our objective.’ The main takeaways from the text,

It can be impossibly hard to concentrate on the intricacies of the Brexit negotiations. But over the past week, we have got a certain bracing clarity. There are two logical British positions. We mostly turn our backs on the EU way of doing things, and become a noticeably different country — less European, less regulated. That is where most Conservatives seem to be heading. Or we conclude that the economic risk is too big and stick close to the EU, ceding freedom to strike new trade deals in order to keep those nearer markets fully open. After his speech, that’s where Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour is going. What is being squeezed

There’s an unwritten law governing Boris Johnson in Westminster: every-thing he says or does is a gaffe, or can be portrayed as one. Yet actually Johnson has an uncanny knack for conjuring similes which sum up the political situation precisely. So it was for his much-ridiculed remark, in response to a question about the Irish border, that there are no border posts between London boroughs even though they have different business rates and policies on various other things. His phrasing was careless but the point stands: it is nonsense to claim that different regimes must mean border patrols. There are significant tax and excise differences on either side of the

If you wished to get to an easy Brexit, well, this isn’t the starting point you’d choose. Once again, the Irish question complicates life for Theresa May’s government. Today’s EU proposals suggesting that, in the absence of a satisfactory deal of the kind proposed back in December, Northern Ireland should, essentially, remain within the EU customs union are both evidently unacceptable to the UK government and a reminder that this is still a negotiated process. What is put on the table today is not necessarily what will be on the table when it is over.  It is difficult to see how any UK government could agree to a ‘solution’ which,

‘But what are you going to do with the powers?’ the minister asked, while I negotiated devolution of powers to London when Boris was mayor. The government wouldn’t grant powers unless we explained how we would use them. And that is what is missing in the Brexit non-debate. We are ‘taking back control’ — but we haven’t really thought what we will do with that control once we have it. It is true there has been discussion of trade deals, transforming the Common Agricultural Policy and the colour of our passports. But if that was all we could do, even most Brexiteers wouldn’t have considered it worth it. So, what

How much trouble is Theresa May in? Just three weeks ago, it looked as though the Prime Minister was at her strongest point since the disastrous snap election. Now, the BBC 10 o’clock news is leading on questions about her survival – with reports of irrepairable drift, Brexit rifts. The Sunday papers are filled with a deluge of negative headlines depicting a party out of control – including on-the-record criticism from Conservative MPs. Former minister Theresa Villiers has gone on the airwaves to warn that the Prime Minister could be about to sell a lie on Brexit. What’s more, reports claim that the influx of letters to Graham Brady continues to

A decade ago, bankers were not merely the masters of Davos, but the ‘masters of the universe’. No one calls them that any more. It is a mark of how far the global economy has shifted that the market capitalisation of Goldman Sachs was this week overtaken by that of Netflix, the online entertainment company. The world’s five largest companies are now all in the field of technology and the internet: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. Ten years ago, none of them made the top five: the masters, then, were Exxon, Walmart, China National Petroleum and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. We are in a period of

What do Europeans really think about Brexit? Do they secretly admire our unexpected decision to walk away from all those pesky regulations and sub-committees? Or are our former ‘European friends’ relieved the arrogant, entitled Brits are leaving them alone? The official response of the European political class is one of regret combined with studied indifference and a determination not to let Brexit weaken the project. That, broadly, seems to be the unofficial response too. The EU, after a couple of decades of declining popularity and a rising populist challenge, has actually seen a small up-tick in popularity since Brexit, according to the Eurobarometer polling organisation. Trust in the EU stands

I’m afraid I have a deep faith in the Democratic Unionist Party’s capacity to cede an issue of principle in return for more gold, baubles, Renewable Heat Incentives etc. It may well give in, after receiving some bung, in a few days. But its resistance, at the time of writing, to the idea of ‘regulatory alignment’ with the Republic, seems wholly justified. This is not a pernickety matter solely for the province — it should apply just as much to the entire United Kingdom. If we agree to align trade rules with EU ones (as opposed to each recognising the other’s rules), we are sacrificing the economic point of Brexit,

Following Theresa May and Jean Claude Junker’s press conference to announce that no deal has been reached (yet), Tory MPs were summoned to the Committee room corridor to be given a briefing on the progress – or lack there of. Only the meeting’s organisers, Gavin Barwell and Steven Baker, didn’t appear to have all that much to say – telling MPs that both sides were working hard to iron out the final issues holding up ‘sufficient progress’. Or, as one MP puts it, ‘what we were told is nothing has been agreed and nothing has been ruled out’. One Tory walked out with their hands in the air – though a more