Down the rabbit hole into the government’s never-never land fantasy, all will be spiffing in ten years’ time according to the Dominic Raab, the UK Foreign Secretary. Which is scant comfort, if not outrageously insulting, to businesses facing bankruptcy or having to relocate part of their operations inside the EU to survive. The right-wing media … Read more
Last week had definite signs of Boris’s government losing the plot altogether as it descended into panic over the new virus strain, scaremongering the electorate on the basis of unsubstantiated research. And Matt Hancock’s idiotic idea about paying people who had positive Covid reactions money that would have cost the Exchequer a sum equivalent to … Read more
The final (allegedly) moment of the irrevocable parting of the ways from the EU will come at 11pm London time tonight. This produces a mixter maxter chart with three distinct strands: Neptunian dreams with Venus in freedom-loving and adventurous Sagittarius opposition a wild-child Gemini North Node square Neptune in the employment and health 6th … Read more
“Welcome to the future, negotiations without end.” That’s one acerbic view of the Brexit deal with the text containing no fewer than 244 references to “arbitration tribunals” and a further 170 to a “partnership council” – the bodies that will decide the details and settle future disputes, hinting at further negotiations. There will be 19 … Read more
The Brexit Deal was signed at 2.44pm and announced at 3pm in London, with sighs of relief all round. The devil will be in the detail but even Nigel Farage says the long haul out of the EU is over. It will still have to be ratified by both parliaments but the reckoning is … Read more
“With your feet on the ground you’re a bird in flight with your fist holding tight to the string of your kite.” The deed is done, the die is cast – more or less, maybe. As the Boris tribe skip merrily on humming ‘practically perfect in every way’ it is tempting to believe past fears … Read more
How fare the fervid Brexiteers? As negotiations teeter on the brink of – yes, no, maybe and why don’t we postpone the agony by stretching the deadline – it seemed worth looking at Rees Mogg, Liam Fox and the Tory ERG leading members (European Research Group which despite its name is virulently anti-EU and does … Read more
The Brexit negotiations are following the standard EU script of doom, disaster, never-going-to-agree. So it’s tempting to see this week’s impasse ‘as the usual diplomatic dancing in the darkness before dawn breaks on a deal’, in the words of Tim Shipman of The Times. Yet the Tory true-believer insiders appear to be sanguine about the … Read more
Whither Brexit? I’m not sure why I’m embarking on this post since nothing is remotely clear from the astrology. Despite the current mood of paralysis there is no doubt the UK has left the EU and is, thus, not liable for the EU Covid bailout fund or contributions to the EU budget. … Read more
From here to eternity had nothing on the endless Brexit negotiations which have stuttered and stumbled, slithered and shambled well beyond the public’s tolerance levels or attention span. Does anyone care anymore? If the referendum were held tomorrow with the looming CV-19 economic hit would the vote flit to a no? Not that the EU … Read more