COMMENT

‘Dear Rishi’ – The code words of British politics

— Britain’s political landscape is full of coded language, where words and phrases mean something entirely different to the public than to those in power. They carefully craft their language with purpose, speaking in a way that will be understood, not necessarily heard.

Long-Read

The battle for Britain’s post-Brexit polity

— Professor Chris Grey on the ongoing battle between rapprochement and repetition in UK-EU relations, what reactions to Ditchley reveal and why re-joiners should avoid their own ‘betrayal’ narrative.

UK Politics

Northern Ireland protocol: Why Tory backbenchers are rebelling over Rishi Sunak’s revised Brexit deal

— Members of Rishi Sunak’s own party could disrupt his biggest policy move yet.

Long-Read

How Brexitism is eating conservatism

— Professor Chris Grey’s Brexit analysis – placing Truss’s ‘essay’ and Sunak’s many woes in the wider context of a ‘Brexitist’ capture of conservatism, and how that could lead to a re-alignment of the political right.

OPINION

The Conservatives are gunning for our human rights

— The Conservatives are threatening our human rights. We need to be prepared to fight back.

Long-Read

Three years of failure

— Professor Chris Grey’s latest Brexit analysis. Three years on, with public support declining, there were no celebrations last week – only lies, excuses, and the usual cries of ‘betrayal’. Nothing new, but as time passes, the failure of the Brexit project is simply inescapable.

OPINION

Brexit : Three years on, lies, deceit and delusion

— Brexiters don’t have any real Brexit benefits to boast of, so they have to make stuff up.

Long-Read

Untying Brexit’s toxic knots

— Professor Chris Grey’s latest Brexit analysis on David Lammy’s speech that was maybe the first time since Brexit that a major politician challenged its central, flawed assumptions. A small but welcome first step to realism.

Long-Read

Strange days

— Professor Chris Grey’s analysis on how the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Retained EU Law Bill processes rumble on undramatically but with potential for crisis and chaos, the idea that Brexit is dying, and thoughts on how Re-joiners will need to build and sustain a ‘big tent’.

Long-Read

Another Brexit year begins

— Professor Chris Grey’s latest Brexit analysis on why it is not in the “remainers’” power to create a post-Brexit consensus, a discussion about the Retained EU Law Bill and Northern Ireland Protocol, plus some thoughts prompted by Frost’s hero-worship of Edmund Burke.

Long-Read

Brexit is slowly being discredited, but there’s still a long way to go

— Professor Chris Grey’s latest Brexit analysis, looking at how and why even over Christmas the Brexit debate continued, and the case for caution as well as optimism in reading the most recent opinion polls.

Long-Read

Post-Brexit Britain: A country broken by lies

— Two years into full Brexit there is a palpable sense of a broken country. Last week’s dishonesty about regulation, foreign policy, and trade, continues the pattern of lies that broke it.

Long-Read

There is a better Brexit strategy available to Labour

— With Labour looking like a government in waiting, the understandable caution of its Brexit policy faces calls to be bolder. Actually, it just needs to be more imaginative, Professor Chris Grey argues.

Long-Read

Our politics is incapable of responding to the failure of Brexit

— Professor Chris Grey’s latest Brexit analysis on why despite last-ditch attempts by Brexiters to redefine ‘success’, the public view has settled that Brexit has failed. But for now, our politics is incapable of responding to the failure of Brexit.

Long-Read

The Brexit silence is breaking

— Professor Chris Grey’s analysis on how the budget aftermath exposed the costs and the lack of public consensus for Brexit. Some of the revived debate repeats the past, but there is a new context. How Labour responds now is crucial.

Long-Read

Can’t pay? Won’t pay!

— Rishi Sunak’s pitch of economic competence brings the cost of Brexit into new focus. For all the claims of the usual suspects, voters won’t be willing to pay the price of this failed and unpopular project.