Concrete Achievements

Tag: brexit

  • Links from the week of 26 June 2017

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Personally, I left the UK 30 days after #euref.

    Personally, I left the UK 30 days after #euref. It was something I’d been vaguely planning for years and the referendum crystallised it.

    I haven’t regretted it for a moment. I’m half English half Polish, my kids are English-Polish-Swiss-Belgian mongrels. We’re happy here.

    Also, as someone who works on democracy, Europe is an interesting and important to be in the next few years. In the words of Tom Paine

    (the internationalist after whom my son, 15 today, is named) “we have it in our power to begin the world over again”. 🇪🇺

  • A year on from #euref the sovereignty fantasists are still insisting it’s not about…

    A year on from #euref the sovereignty fantasists are still insisting it’s not about immigration. The racists are still insisting it is.

    The Liberal Leavers are still trying to disown the forces that propelled their side to victory, the soft Remainers still trying to find

    a way of selling the EU vision without admitting they won’t “reform” in the sense of doing what they tell them. The internationalists

    are still despairing (or emigrating) and British politics is still in bits on the hard shoulder, every significant problem put aside while

    we handle the consequences of a referendum on an issue that didn’t ever make the top ten public concerns. Never doubt that a small group

    of committed people can totally screw up the country, indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.

    And meanwhile, the world moves on. The British bubble seems to be far more self-absorbed than the Brussels one.

  • Brexit negotiations are not war.

    Brexit negotiations are not war. EU are not enemies. The EU has been one of the pillars of peace in Europe. Quit the jingoistic bullshit.

    Nothing makes me more ashamed of my British passport than this “fight them on the beaches” crap from tissue-soft political journalists.

    It reinforces the idea that Britain is wallowing in some half-remembered gin-soaked Simla imperialism. We look mad. But worse,

    We look tacky and thoughtless. I don’t think Brexit can be a success but it can at least not be a national embarrassment.

  • Links from the week of 12 June 2017

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Just one poll, but it’s hard to see Brexit getting more popular …

    Just one poll, but it’s hard to see Brexit getting more popular … or politicians being brave enough to turn away. twitter.com/simon_nixon/st…

    There’s a lot of fantasy about how we can “go back and get concessions greater than Cameron” and then stay in. We can’t. We can withdraw A50

    but we need agreement and would probably have to give up things not get more concessions. EU won’t let – shouldn’t let – Britain’s emotional

    spasm bring (what UK press wd call) benefits. Would weaken EU and give boost to populist cause just when it is being shown up as empty.

  • PM calls election to win massive support for hard brexit (leaving EU customs union)

    PM calls election to win massive support for hard brexit (leaving EU customs union)

    -> DUP runs on manifesto saying no hard border (so no hard Brexit) ->

    -> PM gets shellacked and loses majority, mood among Tories gets antsy about hard Brexit plans ->

    -> DUP enters talks to support minority government. DUP agrees to support leaving customs union (and hence hard border in NI). *Why?*

  • I do find it amazing that even now, with less than 10 days to go before negotiations…

    I do find it amazing that even now, with less than 10 days to go before negotiations start, UK political/media class don’t get Brexit.

    They don’t understand how the negotiations will work, or what they want, or that 27 democratic countries are involved, or – worst of all –

    What the consequences of even the best deal will be. I would love to think there will be an “Oh SHIT” moment and we’ll step back from the

    Brink but I suspect that it would come too late, if it happened at all.

  • Links from the week of 5 June 2017

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • There’s definitely a sense that *any* deal is going to be spun in press as “bad”.

    There’s definitely a sense that *any* deal is going to be spun in press as “bad”. Chaotic Brexit definitely more than a small chance.

    Then of course it will all have been the fault of spiteful Europeans who didn’t give us what was our right.

    I would love there to be some reckoning in due course for the people who have led us here, but it doesn’t seem likely.