17 July 2018
No less eight than eight polls wholly or partly about Brexit have been conducted since the Cabinet gathered at Chequers last Friday week (6 July). Both the statement about Brexit that was issued at the end of that meeting and the white paper published the subsequent Thursday have received a critical response in some quarters, […]
12 July 2018
It cost the Prime Minister a couple of cabinet ministers along the way, but the British government has now outlined the future relationship it would like the UK to have with the EU post-Brexit. A three page summary of its vision was published following a Cabinet away day at Chequers last Friday, while today a […]
10 July 2018
Do voters know what they are doing? This is a question that is often asked about referendums, not least by those who doubt voters’ ability to grapple with major issues of policy. Since the EU referendum it has, perhaps, been regarded as a particularly pressing question by some on the Remain side. For example, the […]
22 June 2018
Britain spent just four months debating whether it should leave the EU or not after David Cameron had renegotiated our terms of membership. In contrast, the country has now spent as long as two years debating how the majority decision to leave should be handled. It is a debate that has left many voters doubtful […]
11 June 2018
Tomorrow and Wednesday, the House of Commons will consider the 15 amendments that the House of Lords made to the EU Withdrawal Bill against the government’s wishes. Three of these amendments in particular have been the focus of most attention. The first two would require the UK government (i) to keep the UK in the […]
7 May 2018
It is perhaps not immediately obvious that local elections might be of interest or relevance to the Brexit process. After all, such elections are meant to be about who can best empty the bins rather than who can cut the best deal with Brussels. However, in practice, the broad ups and downs in party performance […]
16 April 2018
There has recently been increased talk about the possibility of holding another referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU once the Brexit negotiations have come to some kind of conclusion. A few weeks ago, two former Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and Sir John Major, voiced their support for the idea. More recently, much of the speculation […]
29 March 2018
As I first wrote in January – and have updated in a publication released today by the UK in a Changing Europe initiative – one of the striking features of the first year of the Brexit process so far as public opinion is concerned is that while the public have become rather more pessimistic about […]
31 January 2018
The Brexit negotiations are about to enter a critical phase. Between now and October the UK government and the EU have to agree an outline of what their relationship will be once the transition/implementation phase ends in December 2020. In the UK, that agreement will need to secure the approval of a House of Commons […]
9 January 2018
Brexit has added some new twists to the debate about Scotland’s constitutional status. The most obvious of these is that it led the Scottish Parliament in March 2017 to request the authority needed to hold another independence referendum, only for the First Minister to put the idea back on hold in June after losing 21 […]
