Brexit news

After I started this blog last September, there were periods when very little seemed to be happening with Brexit, and much of what was happening was only visible through coded and ambiguous statements from various people and bodies. Now, events are happening apace and it is getting very difficult to keep a handle on what is happening and what it means. There is certainly far too much for me to analyse on my own, because even though I assiduously read up on developments I just don’t have enough time to write about all of them. So in this post I am going to give a brief round-up of some of the best pieces of Brexit reporting, analysis and comment I have read this week as well as some sources I find generally useful.

For an overall assessment of where Brexit stands now, see Guy de Jonqières’ piece on Borderlex and put this in the context of the Referendum campaign with Alistair Campbell’s latest, forceful blog and a good article by Nick Cohen in The Observer.

For a one year report on Theresa May’s premiership, with (inevitably) the main focus on Brexit, this by Ian Dunt on politics.co.uk can’t be bettered.

Also by Ian Dunt is this great analysis of ‘the Great Repeal Bill’ which can be read alongside a good article on the same topic by Adam Bienkov of Business Insider UK.

Martin Wolf of the FT wrote a scathing piece on the Brexiter Jacobins and the catastrophe they are leading us to.

The National Audit Office produced a damning report on the “horror show” of leaving the Customs Union whilst this detailed piece by Dr Peter Holmes of Sussex University on the Scottish Centre for European Relations site unpacks the Customs Union issue more broadly.

I posted about Euratom which was in the news this week (and readers of the New European newspaper will find a revised version of that post in next week’s edition) but for those who can face it the UK Government’s position paper on this has since been published and can be compared with the EU’s position paper from a few weeks’ ago. But equally important issues are emerging around, for example, pharmaceuticals, as explained in a good blog by George Peretz QC and the European Arrest Warrant, covered by Camino Mortera-Martinez of the Centre for European Reform.

The very best thing I have read this week is David Allen Green’s FT Blog where he politely but quite devastatingly pulls apart the lies still being told by Brexiters about post-Brexit trade deals.

I have not included here the many news stories this week about company re-locations, deferred investments, labour shortages and so on caused by Brexit, but a very good source for these is the Brexit Record site. For regular analysis of the evolving Brexit situation the Remainiacs podcasts are great.

The news and comment websites I find most useful (leaving aside those of UK and Irish national newspapers) for good Brexit information and comment are politics.co.uk, Reuters UK, Bloomberg, Bruegel, Centre for European Reform, Scottish Centre for European Relations, LSE’s Brexit Blog, KCL’s UK in a Changing Europe site, and the New Europeans site (not to be confused with the New European newspaper) which is especially good on EU citizens’ rights in the UK and UK citizens’ rights in the EU. [Declaration of interest: I have written for the last four on this list].

Of the many useful people to follow on twitter for (mainly) Brexit news and views consider @IanDunt, @davidallengreen, @JenniferMerode, @jonlis1, @jonworth, @lisaocarroll and @mattholehouse.

For regular postings exclusively focussed on good quality Brexit news and analysis from a wide variety of sources, follow me on twitter @chrisgreybrexit.