Where is the British Election Taking Europe?
It is tempting to hope that the general election on 7 May will sort out Europe’s British problem for good. Tempting but wrong. There may well be clarification, and even some terrible...
View ArticleFrom Posture to Rupture: Cameron and Europe
Conservative parliamentarians have lined up to deride David Cameron’s speech of 10 November as falling far short of the radical renegotiation of Britain’s terms of membership that they want. This...
View ArticleWhy the British demands on national parliaments must be resisted
Ever ambitious, the British government is seeking to renegotiate the terms of UK membership and to reform the European Union all in one go. One of its key demands is to strengthen the powers of...
View Article‘Dear Prime Minister’. An open letter to David Cameron from Andrew Duff
Dear Prime Minister, I understand from press reports that you are increasingly frustrated by the obstacles that appear to obstruct your renegotiation of the terms of UK membership of the European...
View Article‘Facilitating Coexistence’: the endgame for Brexit
There is much said and to be said about this Brexit business. But here I will deal here only with the continuation of the negotiations between now and the meeting of the European Council on 18-19...
View ArticleWhat Could Possibly Go Wrong at the European Council?
European Council meetings are deliciously unpredictable – especially, like today’s, when constitutional matters are raised. There are new faces around the table (including the new Latvian prime...
View ArticleHow to Leave the European Union Properly
Consider, for a moment, what will happen next if the Leavers win the referendum. After a raucous weekend, one assumes that the prime minister will make an apologetic statement to the House of Commons...
View ArticleNow you’ve read Article 50, read this
Most people will have never read a single article of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) before they stumbled recently across Article 50. Alas, those ‘most people’ seems to include many British lawyers...
View ArticleBrexit Beyond the Market: Towards a Treaty of London
For the moment, attention is focussed on the future trade relationship between the UK and the EU. Given that Brexit means Brexit, as Theresa May lucidly puts it, British negotiating options boil down...
View ArticleRunning Commentary II
1. The British government has decided to offer weekly Brexit briefings to the foreign media. But British journalists will be excluded, leaving many of them in their habitual state of incomprehension or...
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