Category: Scotland

Brexit, British Government, NI Protocol, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Trade Deals, UK Labour Party

Could Labour take the UK Back into the EU?

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

This is the first BEERG Brexit Blog I have posted here since my last “semi-final” one about three months back. As I said in June/July I do not intend to continue with the regular almost weekly briefings, but I may occasionally post some more reflective pieces here, from time to time.   

 

An American friend asked me recently: “Tom, do you think the UK will re-join the EU in the near future?”

My answer was simple. No, not now, and not for a very long time. If ever.  But surely, they said, if Labour gets into government it will start talking to the EU? Its members are pro-EU. Yes, it will, but it will not look to re-join. Quite frankly, Labour does not know what it wants. It has no European policy worth talking of.

It walks in fear in the shadow of Brexit. Brexit has framed the debate

Since the end of WWII, when European integration began to be seriously discussed as a way to avoid further wars between the great nations of the continent, one or other of the two major UK parties, the Conservatives and Labour, at one time or other, was broadly in favour of closer European cooperation. However, even when well disposed, they were generally opposed to the limited pooling of sovereignty that continental Europeans appeared to be considering. 

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Backstop, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Irish border, Northern Ireland, Scotland

Dead Cats and Sleights of Hand on #Brexit

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This blogpost was written late on August 10th

Johnson in HOC

The ideological complexion of the Johnson administration makes a no-deal Brexit more and more likely and businesses need to get ready accordingly. At the very least, they need to prepare for a prolonged period of great uncertainty in the UK and in the UK’s relationship with the European Union.

The replacement of Theresa May by Boris Johnson was not just a change of personnel at the top. Nor was it just a change in the negotiating approach to Brussels with Johnson adopting a Trump-like “madman” demeanour, as he famously suggested he would, if given half a chance, at a dinner in London in 2018:

“Imagine Trump doing Brexit,” Johnson added. “He’d go in bloody hard … There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere. It’s a very, very good thought.”

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