EU
My advice to Leavers: go for a second referendum – you might just win
My first encounter with a plan to hold not one but two referendums on Britain’s European Union membership happened more…
The builder boyfriend and I have left the EU – and it’s great
After all that waiting and arguing, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed leaving the EU. The builder boyfriend and I…
As an ex-Brexit minister I can tell you – May’s ‘plan’ was built on sand
Management books often repeat the dictum: ‘If there’s one thing worse than making mistakes, it’s not learning from them.’ So…
I’m back in New York: the city that’s perennially offended
New York Goodbye, snow-capped peaks; hello, swampy brown East River. So long, fresh alpine air; greetings to choking diesel…
Europeans can’t understand the existential drive behind the British wish to leave the EU
What can the EU do to help the Britons out of their Brexit quagmire? Until very recently, the answer would…
Neil MacGregor’s intense, impassioned new radio programme is shamelessly anti-Brexit
I suspect that whether or not you admire Neil MacGregor’s latest series for Radio 4, As Others See Us (produced…
Could the vote on the Brexit deal set a record for a government defeat in the Commons?
Big defeats Could the vote on the Brexit deal set a record for a government defeat in the Commons? Aside…
May’s legacy: her Brexit deal could crush the Tories
At David Cameron’s final Prime Minister’s Questions, a Labour MP asked him how his plan to get the Tories to…
Anger? Yes. But in another country, leaving the EU would mean bloodshed
Did any of us, whatever our opinions, expect the level of blustering indignation that has emerged since the 2016 referendum?…
May’s Brexit deal: the legal verdict
The most important point about the draft Brexit withdrawal agreement is that, once it is ratified, the United Kingdom will…
The elites will never let us peasants fully revolt
Peasants’ Revolts tend not to work out too well in this country, for the peasants. I suppose that is why…
History will judge UK ministers harshly for the Irish backstop
We may or may not hear news soon of a settlement of the Irish border issue that will allow Brexit…
Is Emmanuel Macron having a meltdown?
Emmanuel Macron was elated when France won the World Cup in July. The photograph of him leaping out of his…
Divide and rule: how the EU used Ireland to take control of Brexit
The story of Britain and Ireland’s relationship has, all too often, been one of mutual incomprehension: 1066 and All That…
A Greek tragedy: how the EU is destroying a country
‘Now Greece can finally turn the page in a crisis that has lasted too long. The worst is over.’ With…
All by herself: Theresa May and the politics of isolation
Few people would choose to celebrate their birthday by listening to Philip Hammond speak, but that is the pleasure that…
Portrait of the week: Tories against Brexit, the Salisbury poisoning and Sweden’s election
Home Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, was said to want to throw a lifeline to Theresa May, the…
From ancient Egyptian smut to dissent-by-currency: I object at the British Museum reviewed
‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear,’…
Now May’s talking tough over Brexit, we might actually get somewhere
Ever since Theresa May declared that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ she has seemed to be drifting…
May’s Brexit plan has failed. She needs a new one – and fast
Handling Brexit was never going to be easy for Theresa May, given that the Tories have been fighting a civil…
The sense of betrayal feeds the demand for a no-deal Brexit. Watch this space
The collapse of Mrs May’s Chequers plan, followed by Tuesday’s failure of the Tory Remainers to defeat the government, creates…
Brexit is in chaos. It’s time to delay it – then stop it
Omissions can be as instructive as inclusions. I noted a curious example in a column Nick Timothy wrote last month…
Jean-Claude drunker
The atmosphere in Brussels has become, of late, reminiscent of the late Brezhnev era. We have a political system run…
The EU is sending migrants home – into the hands of people smugglers
What to do about illegal migration from Africa into Europe? The EU’s repatriation programme seems at first like a great…
Why did Theresa May ‘clear’ the EU deal with Merkel before consulting her colleagues?
Why do the British turn to the Germans in their moments of European trouble? It never works. When Jacques Delors…
