It made for a kind of Proustian moment. For here, walking past Le Café Brexit, so to speak, was one, or perhaps two or even three, of the Brexit models we once knew so well, although Sandbu does not mention them by name in the article. Most obviously, it reprises the ‘Ukraine model’, first propounded, so far as I know, by Andrew Duff in November 2016. It also resembles the perhaps less familiar ‘Jersey model’, first propounded, again so far as I know, by John Springford and Sam Lowe of the Centre for European Reform in January 2018.
For that matter, it resembles what, in June 2018, seemed to be what Theresa May might seek to negotiate. (I mean by that not what ended up being her backstop proposal as regards the Northern Ireland Protocol in the Withdrawal Agreement, but what was floated as the potential final form of UK-EU relations.)
The sight of once familiar faces
Since the faces of these old ‘loves’ (if, indeed, they warrant that term) may now have been forgotten, it’s worth just briefly recalling their main features. Under the Jersey model, the UK would be in the single market for goods, including agriculture, accepting EU rules not just on products but things like state aid, and social and environmental standards, and be part of the EU VAT regime and, effectively, its customs union.
Under the Ukraine model*, there would be a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) effectively entailing membership of the single market for goods and some services, again accepting product rules as well as things like state aid and social and environmental standards. There would be customs cooperation, rather than a customs union (though Duff suggests the model could be augmented with a customs treaty). However, in a more expanded sense, the Ukraine model encompasses not just a DCFTA but an Association Agreement, encompassing wide-ranging political cooperation, including in areas of foreign, defence, and security policy.
Needless to say, in both cases there is considerably greater complexity than this (for which, see the links above), and no one regards them as precise templates for a UK-EU relationship rather than being indicative of a certain type or category of relationship. Why were they not pursued? One answer can be found in another remembrance of past things, this time the famous ‘Barnier staircase’, the diagram which encapsulated the various categories into which post-Brexit relations might fall, along with the declared UK red lines which ruled all of them out other than a ‘standard’ Free Trade Agreement indicated by the Canadian and South Korean flags on that step of the staircase.
The Jersey model doesn’t feature on the staircase, but the UK red lines which precluded it were partly the same as those for the Ukraine model, which does appear as one of the steps: no ECJ jurisdiction and regulatory autonomy. The Jersey model would also cross the red line of having an independent trade policy, at least as regards agreements about trade in goods. At the same time, it is worth recalling that the Ukraine model, certainly, and the Jersey model, possibly or even probably, does not cross the UK red line of ending freedom of movement of people.
Why are we seeing them again now?
Why, then, might these models have become relevant again, at least from a UK perspective? Firstly because, in a general sense, the Labour government has committed to “tearing down” the barriers to trade created by Brexit. These models would do so, at least for goods trade, by removing many of the non-tariff barriers to trade with the EU, and not just tariff barriers (as, to a large extent, the existing trade agreement does). Since it is goods trade, rather than services trade, which has been most badly affected by Brexit, this would, unlike some of the more modest reforms Labour have suggested, actually make a meaningful economic difference and this, in turn, would assist Labour’s broader growth agenda (it would also considerably, if not entirely, remove the need for the Irish Sea border).
Secondly, and more specifically, Sandbu stresses the significance, which I highlighted in my most recent blog post, of Labour’s planned legislation to shadow EU product safety regulations. It is an important development, rightly described as “a real blow to the Brexiters” by Niall Ó Conghaile in East Anglia Bylines, and one which requires no agreement with the EU. But it also seems likely that the government will agree ‘dynamic alignment’ of Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) regulations with the EU, at least if it is serious about reaching the ‘veterinary agreement’ which has been presented as central to its European policy. Of course, product safety and SPS are by no means exhaustive of the EU regulations, but the point is that, unlike the Tory governments, the present administration has no doctrinaire objection to regulatory alignment. Nor does Starmer have to contend with Brexit Ultras on his backbenches opposing it.
Dating isn’t the same as marriage
Even under the Tories, it was de facto accepted that the possibilities for regulatory divergence were very limited in a practical sense, which Is why they identified so few, and pursued even fewer. Moreover, as the recent example of ‘tethered plastic bottle caps’ has illustrated, to the bemusement of Brexiters like poor old Isabel Oakeshott (£), whatever the UK government may do, UK businesses will often decide to follow new EU regulations.
That’s for the fairly obvious reason that it is cheaper to produce to only one standard, especially if it is that of the larger market, but, in any case, to produce to the standard which is required by one market and is acceptable in the other market (i.e. in this case, tethered plastic bottle caps are now legally required for sale in the EU and acceptable, although not legally required, in Great Britain). Moreover, there is an additional incentive for UK manufacturers, specifically, to produce goods to a standard which will be acceptable in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where EU rules apply anyway (an early example being that of baby food manufacture).
This is just one illustration of something that Brexiters have never been able to understand. They (generally) manage to grasp that exported goods have to meet the standards of their destination market, but don’t understand why firms producing goods which are not for export should have to comply with the EU rules, depicting this as unnecessary red tape. And, with Brexit, they proceeded on that basis, only to find that doing so actually increased red tape. Hence, for the most part, the UK continues to comply with EU rules but without having any say in making them (or, at least, only a very limited say, in some cases, via the British Standards Institute’s membership of European standard-setting bodies). So much for ‘sovereignty’.
But the Brexiters also failed to understand something which is admittedly more complicated, and which is highly germane to the re-appearance of the Ukraine and Jersey models. The fact that goods produced in the UK meet EU standards doesn’t in itself make those goods legally saleable in the single market. Alignment doesn’t mean access, any more than dating means marriage. It is exactly the same issue, though in reverse, which some remainers fail to understand when they wrongly assume that goods sold in the UK marked ‘Not for sale in the EU’ (NFEU) must mean that those goods do not meet EU standards.
So, for this reason, even if the Labour government shadows EU regulations for product safety and in every other area, whilst that is helpful for businesses (by ensuring there is no need to produce to two standards**), that does not in itself replicate or gain the benefits of single market membership. But if regulatory alignment is no longer a red line for the UK, then there is no good reason not to make it de jure and not just de facto (in other words, to agree dynamic alignment not just in relation to SPS, but across the board for goods)? Similarly, if dynamic alignment for SPS is to be agreed, then that crosses the previous red line on ECJ jurisdiction, which would ultimately be needed in the event of, for example, disputes. So why not do the same for all goods?
In short, since, under Labour, the UK red lines which the Barnier staircase showed to preclude the Ukraine model have now, apparently, gone, then why could the Ukraine model not be revived? Indeed, given Labour’s very clear desire for a deep security pact, there seems little the government would object to, on doctrinaire grounds, in the wider model of not just a DCFTA but an Association Agreement.
One potential issue, with the Jersey, though not the Ukraine, model, is that it implies a customs treaty, which would limit the possibilities for an independent UK trade policy. And, despite the very limited economic rationale for such independence, Labour seem as committed to this as the Tories were. However, even the Jersey model would not preclude UK trade agreements with other countries on services, and whilst it is true that, historically, FTAs have been goods-focused, it is at least arguable that a smarter UK policy would be to develop a focus on services deals. Indeed, last year’s ‘Trading Up’ report from the Nuffield Foundation funded Economy 2030 project advocated precisely that, along with replicating the arrangements for goods in Northern Ireland across the whole UK economy.
It takes two to tango
So much for the UK side, but about the EU? Sandbu suggests that admitting the UK to the single market for goods would require the EU “to abandon the theology of four inseparable single market freedoms”. It’s a slightly irritating formulation, since it’s hardly a ‘theology’, but presumably one thing he has in mind is the issue of freedom of movement of people, which remains a UK red line under Labour. However, the Ukraine model does not entail such freedom of movement (and, hence, that did not feature on the staircase as precluding the model).
Nevertheless, in terms of the likelihood of the EU agreeing to it, an obvious objection is that the current Brexit trade arrangements actually work fairly well for the EU, and also that the dividing line between goods and services is an increasingly blurred one. Moreover, as a report this week emphasized, the EU are likely to want to see the existing Brexit deal fully implemented before considering a new one. It’s also questionable whether either the Jersey model (which really only arises from the historically curious status of the Channel Islands, and anyway relates to a tiny territory) or the Ukraine model (which relates to a much smaller economy than that of the UK, and is really predicated on being a path of entry to full EU membership, rather than an exit destination), would prove attractive or practicable from an EU perspective.
There is also the perennial problem of Britain’s Brexiters, despite them being out of government. Even Labour’s fairly modest policy on tracking EU product safety standards got a full frontpage headline in the Express declaring it to be ‘The Great Brexit Betrayal’, and the rage at something like a Ukraine-style Association Agreement can be all too easily imagined. So one question is whether Labour have the courage to defy the wave of criticism that would come from the press, and which might well impact on the electorate. My sense is that the answer is that they don’t, but I’ll come back to that.
The bigger issue is what this means for the EU. It is exactly the same problem as that which would be created by the UK rejoining the EU, or the single market as a whole: what happens if the Tories pledge to reverse whatever Labour agree, if and when they return to power? That is a huge concern for the EU, and one which we know the Brexiters would play on because at least one of them, David Frost, has already openly stated (£) that both the “Conservatives and the Reform Party must ... raise doubts on the EU side about how politically sustainable any deal might be in the medium term”. This wasn’t a reference to a single market for goods deal, or to an Association Agreement, specifically, but clearly would apply to them, and it did make explicit reference to the policy of regulatory ‘mirroring’.
It's tempting to think that what Frost and his fellow Brexit Ultras say is now irrelevant but, unfortunately, they retain a wrecking power. For the EU, having gone through the pain and aggravation of Brexit and reached what appears to be a durable form for the future relationship, and with many other issues far higher up its agenda, there’s not much incentive for a major change in that relationship anyway. But there still less if there is a real risk that, a few years later, the UK might pull out of it.
This in turn makes it less likely that Labour will seek such an agreement, even if they were minded to take on the domestic opposition to it. Why take that hit to embark on a policy which they can’t be sure of delivering? And this is a point that those who are impatient for progress, up to and including joining the EU, should take note of. Suppose Labour pursued being in the single market for goods, and were rebuffed by the EU. Then, regardless of the underlying reasons for it, it would become an established fact of British political life that ‘the EU will never give us more’.
It is this, I imagine, which informs Labour’s rather stealthy approach to alignment and to closer relations generally. Some, at least, within the government may well hope that gradually, if circumstances change, that will morph into a substantive change in the institutional form of the relationship, perhaps in a second term of office, perhaps with the Tory Party smashed again, and an eventual marginalization of the Brexiters. Such an approach could include, apart from a security pact, seeking the kind of detailed trade easements recently discussed by trade expert Sam Lowe.
The realities of single life
However, even if I am right to hypothesize that there is the coherent long game in play (and, obviously, I may not be), whilst the government ponders asking the EU to set up home together, it still has to face up to the issues of being single. The most immediate of these is the completion of full import controls on goods from the EU. This is one of the major hanging threads from Brexit, deriving from the twin scandals of Brexiters’ failure to understand that such controls were the necessary consequence of hard Brexit, and the Tory government’s abject incompetence in setting them up.
It bears repeating that the equivalent controls on the EU side were introduced, in full, the day after the transition period ended. That is now over three and half years ago, and not only has Britain repeatedly delayed doing the same but also, as I’ve detailed in the past, the Tory government created an almost incomprehensible array of partial and/or deferred implementations, with a patchwork of completion dates over the coming years. This is borne out by a National Audit Office report of May 2024, which was scathing about the costs, delays, and lack of clarity about the future timetable. Within that timetable, at least as things stand, October will see the introduction of the next phase of safety and security declarations, as well as some of the physical checks left hanging from the previous phase.
Labour’s intention is to make much of this unnecessary by reaching an SPS deal with the EU, but since negotiations will not even begin until early next year, not least because the new commission will not be in place until then, what happens in October? Another delay, with the attendant biosecurity risks? Meanwhile, the costs of preparing the new facilities will continue to mount, and port operators are already calling for compensation if it turns out these are not necessary following a new SPS agreement.
This is actually just the latest iteration of this issue, as changes that the previous government made to the checks required have already led to significant wasted expenditure on port facilities, as recently reported by Sophie Inge of Politico. There is hardly a better illustration of the absurd folly of Brexit than this saga of dishonesty, incompetence, cost, and the fact that rectifying it will entail further cost. It may also be another example of the way the Tories ‘salted the earth’ in anticipation of losing the election.
At least the import controls issue is one where, however difficult and expensive it may be, there is a potential solution. It is less clear that this is so for another Brexit-related issue the new government will soon have to face, the introduction, probably in November, of the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) and, probably next May, of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS). Taken together, these systems will introduce new processes for travellers entering the EU, and are likely to cause substantial extra delays at British airports, the Eurostar terminal, and ports, especially Dover.
Unlike import controls, these are not a hanging thread from Brexit, but they are a consequence of it. That’s not, as some Brexit commentators persist in claiming, because they are some sort of EU ‘punishment’. It is simply that they apply to all third country nationals entering the EU. The fact that they are likely to impact especially upon British nationals is because of the volume of travel between the UK and the EU. That, rather like the extent of UK-EU trade and supply chains, is yet another reflection of the basic facts of geography and economics that the Brexiters refused to understand. Now, it’s yet another price we are all going to have to pay for that ignorance.
As things stand, unless there is a further delay for technical reasons, which is possible, there isn’t much the government can do other than, as is reported to be happening, lobbying the EU to water down the impact of these new measures. But it’s not clear whether, or why, the EU will agree, and it is another example of the Brexiter myth of sovereignty that the only way Britain can ease the travel queues for its own citizens is by going ‘cap in hand’ to Brussels. What is in the government’s power, and has now been announced, is legislation to extend the rights of French border officials to operate on UK territory in Dover. That’s perfectly sensible, though, again, it scarcely betokens a great win for Brexit sovereignty.
Brexit: unloved and unlovable
It is still only the very early days of the new government, and it would be unrealistic to expect more than the beginnings of the re-set in the tone of relations with the EU, which we have started to see. In that sense, whilst it may be reasonable for commentators to take notice of foregone models of Brexit, these are still only passers-by at Le Café Brexit.
As we sip water from our bottle, with its tethered plastic top, we may have glimpses of paths not taken, and which might one day be available again, but for now we are stuck with the unloved and, even to its most ardent advocates, distinctly unlovable dishonesty, cost, and confusion of the Brexit we – in the collective sense of the polity – have chosen. As Proust put it, “it is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused”, and Brexit has certainly induced some especially stinging ones.
But Proust also suggested that “we are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full”. Although Brexit is already unpopular, that has still to happen. However, with the full impact of import controls and the new barriers to travel still to come, not to mention the accumulating drag on economic growth, it is perfectly possible that the harsh and bitter divorce created by May, Johnson and Frost may give way to a new kind of relationship and eventually, who knows, even a re-marriage. Or, since both parties will have changed, and lost times can never really be retrieved, perhaps that possibility would better be called, simply, a marriage.
Update 02/08/24, 08.26: since writing this post, I’ve seen that, just yesterday, it was reported that many of the import control processes and checks due to come into effect in October are going to be postponed, yet again, this time until the end of June 2025. Another Proustian moment! As before, this prevents, or defers, disruption, but at the risk of biosecurity breaches. It also maintains the farce of asymmetrical border controls.
Notes
*Of course, this ‘Ukraine model’ was developed prior to the war with Russia, which has had many effects upon Ukraine’s relationship with the EU. My use of the term here simply refers to the basic type of the relationship, which is also illustrated by those the EU has with Georgia and Moldova. Note also that Andrew Duff has continued to develop and advocate this model since 2016, for example in a European Policy Centre discussion paper of March 2024.
**Some readers may be thinking the plastic bottle tops example makes this point irrelevant, since businesses don’t need the UK government to shadow EU regulations if they, as businesses, do so anyway. However, the bottle top example is of a particular sort, in that the EU standard, whilst not required in the GB market, is entirely legal here. But, absent of UK shadowing of EU regulations, there could be cases in which goods conforming to EU standards were illegal to sell in terms of UK standards. The legislation prevents this happening, at least within its domain of safety standards, and albeit with some caveats.
I am not planning to post again until Friday 30 August, unless there is a major Brexit development. During that period, I will be pondering the future of this blog, which by then will be about to enter its ninth year, and circumstances have become very different. I might just continue as before, but other possibilities include scaling back from a weekly to a fortnightly, or even monthly, post; or scaling back to posting only whenever there is a major, or interesting, development however frequently or infrequently that may be. I’d be interested in the view of readers on this, and in particular whether a regular post (so you know when it will be coming) is preferable to an ‘as and when’ post, and, if a regular post is preferable, whether every week, every fortnight, or every month would be better. If you have a view, please leave a comment below this post, or a message on X-Twitter.
Always an informative and easy read; a highlight of the week! If you do make changes, Chris, I would prefer regularity over randomness. Knowing something was coming fortnightly or monthly, with the possibility of "emergency" issues as the need arises, would be my preference.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, that would be my preference too.
DeleteRegularity good, either fortnightly or monthly
DeleteI agree with this comment, regularity, please.
DeleteI'd like a regular update - fortnightly would suit me. Thanks again
DeleteAgree, regularity better, fortnightly or monthly plus emergencies.
DeleteYou have been, and still are, a beacon of sanity in the Brexit saga that I would sorely miss if you decided to stop. Having said that it I can see it must be an enormous workload to produce on a weekly basis. I agree with comments above - regular post are preferable, whether fortnightly or monthly. Thank you for keeping me sane through the worst excesses of Brexitism.
DeleteAnother vote for regularity here. Every 2 or 4 weeks would be fine, whatever suits you best Chris!
DeleteI agree with the above comments
DeleteVery much appreciate the blog and would like to see it continue on a regular basis. Thank you for all you are doing.
DeleteI am going with the regular option too. Fortnightly or monthly great with 'emergency' issues as necessary
DeleteLoving to read your post since a long time (and not being on X-Twitter anymore), I do hope to be able to read your wise words on a regular basis. Wishing you a lovely summer!
DeleteThank you for the incredible amount of work and research you have put into this blog which has been a highlight of my political reading for years. Please do continue but I entirely trust your judgement as to how often. My personal preference would be for a regular interval, ideally monthly with occasional 'specials'. You would always be able to review this pattern if and when circumstances change.
DeleteRegularity, inc fortnightly, preferred. But it's priceless - sparks and helps all of us arguing the case - please keep it coming
DeleteMe too. It’s a weekly highlight!
DeletePlease keep it regular, say fortnightly or monthly. I appreciate your valuable dose of good sense in the still topsy-turvy Brexit world.
DeleteAnother vote for regular. Your work is consistently the most informative and well thought through and expressed, that there is.
DeleteWith a new government in place and nothing significant likely to change the UK/EU relationship soon, a monthly “thought-piece” may enough for now.
ReplyDeleteAs usual an excellent post describing the possible future relations with the EU. The analysis and clarity in describing complex issues is truly impressive.
ReplyDeleteMy vote is for a fortnightly post until the end of the year, perhaps monthly after depending on what Labour is pursuing.
Thank you for your regular blogs, they are an anchor in a choppy sea. I don’t think there exists a better commentary on the practical, technical, political, and psychological aspects of this great example of the madness of crowds.
ReplyDeleteFor me, personally, you can and of course should post when you wish.
ReplyDeleteI will be checking every Friday, and then every day probably if nothing appears.... just as I have for the last 8 years.
As a British immigrant in France I avow that your blog has saved my sanity since the insane referendum.
It will be a day of mixed blessings if the UK rejoins the EU and your blog comes to a natural end.
I don’t think you need worry about that David - that day is a very long way off, if it ever happens at all. Chris Grey, as always, has admirably spelt out the obstacles, and they don’t all lie on the British side, even if it was willing.
DeleteYes I'm an immigrant in France too, and I just wish I had discovered Chris Grey's excellent blog earlier. I honestly don't know of any other source that unpicks the horrendously complicated Brexit issues so eloquently and clearly.
DeleteVery sadly, as with the other response, I don't think you need worry about the blog 'coming to a natural end' with the UK rejoining the EU in the foreseeable future!
I am sure that you are both correct.
DeleteSo Chris will be condemned to a lifetime of Brexit blogging, and his followers will enjoy a lifetime of excellent reading material.
That, for us, is almost worth the original pain.
I hope that Chris continues to enjoy the research and writing.... his knowledge is extraordinary and his style and method exceptional...
I was hooked from the start!
As to every week / fortnight / month: I'd happily leave that decision to you, involving (as it surely does) all sorts of other factors -- not least the demands made on you by the rest of your life. I remain immensely grateful for all you write: a beacon of expertise and clarity -- exemplary academic 'outreach'. How generous you have been with your knowledge, experience, and time.
ReplyDeleteI would very much miss having a regular blog post to look forward to with my first coffee of the day on a Friday, even if it was every other Friday!
ReplyDeleteToday's article is a particularly good one. If you can afford the time to write them then regular is perhaps better than intermittent. Is it possible to maintain the weekly cycle, but perhaps with shorter articles if there is less happening? I just wonder if you might lose some momentum if they are less frequent. Also I suspect those in government also read your blog, and they will certainly benefit from the clarity and insight you bring to bear.
ReplyDeleteI have thoroughly enjoyed your blog since I discovered it (and bought the book, too). I can fully understand a scaling back of the frequency of posts now that the rush of exit and adaption to that exit has slowed. I think some regularity - monthly? - might be easiest for followers but ultimately it’s your blog, Chris, and a product of a tremendous amount of work over the years. It’s been a terrific resource. Thank you, whatever your decision is.
ReplyDeleteRegular weekly blog please Chris G. Friday mornings would not be the same without it!
ReplyDeleteDear Chris, I have been a regular reader over the last years and am enjoying your weekly blogs immensely. However, over the last year I realised that I have skipped a few weeks as life had other important issues to catch up with. I am grateful for your expertise and applaud your resilience in writing this blog over this many years. Reducing it to a monthly regular post seems a good option and wouldn't stop you from posting something in between if you felt the need for it. Thank you once more for today’s post. I wish you a wonderful August break and am looking forward to your next post
ReplyDeleteThe crucial step in all this is whether to accept ECJ jurisdiction. Accept that and many beneficial things are possible, but refuse that and almost everything beneficial remains impossible. But if ECJ is accepted then one might as well go the whole way - full EU Rejoin, or the EFTA version. There is a lot of benefit to Labour in playing the long game to see whether Ukraine will prevail, and whether a sub-EFTA step will be set out for Ukraine that might also suit Labour. In the meantime the LibDem voice is not barking, so few are paying attention in the mainstream to whether there might be a better/faster approach. In any case the EU has enough troublemakers internally without taking on another.
ReplyDelete============
This is the only open-access location on the web where rational but open discussions take place on this topic by well informed and well meaning people from all walks, some who are expert in their field. Your essays are also useful synopsis of events and implications, and - like reading the paper at the cafe - that also serve to create a reason for visiting and centring the discussion, as well as being records in their own right. So continued regular publication is to be preferred over sporadic, or none. Whether you can manage monthly is of course your call.
An always excellent blog, which I look forward to reading every Friday. I've very happy with a weekly blog, but I can see how it might become repetitive as there might not be enough happening each week. Maybe try a fortnightly post for a while and see how it goes? But thanks so much for your insightful analysis of a historically important phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteThanks again Chris for this analysis and enjoy your break. Two thoughts/questions:
ReplyDelete1) I am no Brexiter but the need to follow SM rules on non-traded goods still leaves me confused. Are you able to signpost an explanation for this?
2) As for you hanging up one even two of your boots, I think a hybrid of some sort will emerge. You are likely to comment and be asked to comment on significant developments. And at the same time, an ongoing regular piece whether monthly or fortnightly would be of interest. I personally find your observations on even non-EU specific matters very insightful. Your analysis of the Tory leadership contest - Badenoch as ‘business as usual’ for instance - really useful. So you do bring a certain level of depth/detail and clarity to current affairs that I don’t receive elsewhere. I suppose I’m really saying - hold on to your quill.
Thanks. On your question, well it depends a bit what you mean. In general terms, a single market entails uniform standards (so, in the UK, we don't have different standards in Yorkshire and Lancashire, say). That applies even to a firm which isn't exporting because suppose a French firm is producing fabric. It doesn't export it, as all its customers are in France. But some of its French customers may put that fabric on, say, a sofa which it sells in Germany or Italy. So for the EU single market to work, the French fabric manufacturer needs to produce to an EU standard. But the narrower point, in this post, is that even if there are different standards, for a business it makes sense to produce to a single standard which will satisfy as many markets as possible. Does that answer your question?
DeleteYour weekly post has been a sanity-retaining read over the years (years!) for me. I think a fortnightly post would be a good compromise between your time and my impatience to read your posts, but monthly with in-between posts of important subjects would, I guess, work for me as well. Whatever, don't stop writing! Please!
ReplyDeleteI am hooked on your blog, and my Fridays just aren't the same without it. My preference, if I am to suffer withdrawal symptoms, is for a regular, less frequent and just as potent dose.
ReplyDeleteThank you again for your blog.
I would prefer that the blog continue on a regular basis, at least monthly.
ReplyDeleteExcellent blog, my weekly dose of sanity after the press drivel. So long as the email still pops up when you do post, I don't really have a view on frequency, anything is a bonus.
ReplyDeleteHugely informative and enjoyable blog. Knowing your profound, sensible and humane levels of understanding, integrity and wisdom will be available, even monthly, will be a welcome guide through the crazy twists and turns of the Brexit journey. Thanks Professor Grey.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's sort of sad how much I look forward to reading this blog every week. I vote for regular posts at any interval you choose, you always have interesting things to report.
ReplyDeleteThe weekly updates are a fixture on my Friday lunchtimes. Informative and clear. Understandable that you want to reduce the publication rate. I’m not fussed whether it’s regular or reactive to events.
ReplyDeleteI would also prefer a regular post such as fortnightly, with additional posts as you see useful.
ReplyDeleteA regular periodic blog puts pressure on the author to deliver - even when there's not much going on. Prof. Grey's blog is truly outstandingly good tho, even in 'quiet Brexit weeks'. If I sit at this Parisian cafe table long enough, then a Chris Grey blog will come along sooner or later.
ReplyDeleteI would encourage you to continue your blog. Always enjoyable and always well thought out. And I am very happy to accept your chosen schedule as I imagine it's a lot of work.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your sharp and incisive weekly commentary, I highly value it. I would definitely prefer a weekly or fortnightly post - or, at the very least, a monthly post. I hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteRegularly please, however infrequently. But as you say it is very early days for this government: I think there is a strong case for at least fortnightly until the autumn is well under way and the government's general direction and intentions are clearer. Like everyone else, I would be very sorry to see this blog disappear.
ReplyDeleteThe brexiter theology may still be much on display, sometimes even by it's absence in the media, but it has changed, as you have already noted. Previously it was Brexit Vs remain, but has now settled into the older conservative Vs labour duality. The conservatives have had their "Brexit or your out" moment in 2019. The labour position is just as theocratic. But what do labour want? The party faithful want Brexit banished in an orgy of iconoclasm. That's probably true of most MPs. But Starmer's overriding objective is further terms in government. The problem is that the pain of Brexit will help him as long as it's blamed on the conservatives. He will change his mind only when he is blamed for intransigence and procrastination, or when the conservatives get sufficiently fed up with opposition that they push for greater access (with a suitable invocation of st Margaret's role in SM creation). Only then might I rejoice at the repenting sinner.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all this insights and clarity for so many years. So, for me, do as for you is the best and it will be a pleasure, our pleasure, to continue to read your analysis at the frequency you judge best.
ReplyDeleteWhen you start something, because you feel to have a duty (and that you have the keys) to do it, is nice but if it becomes a burden (which is easily understandable) it's best when you have the need to do it.
As an Eu citizen I find the delays implementing EES and ETIAS annoying because they are intended to give additional protection to all EU citizens and territory.
ReplyDeleteFarage and Robinson represent a risk to the EU by peddling hatred and division and surely should be denied access under the ETIAS scheme. Also a lot of EU citizens would be happier knowing that those UK women who attacked the Van Gogh painting could not come and do something of the sort in Paris or Rome.
If Farage and Robinson still enjoy access to the EU after implementation that will raise questions about passports and dual nationality which could become very interesting.
I would politely draw issue about linking EES and ETIAS to Brexit. My understanding was that as the UK had opted out of Schengen then EES and ETIAS would apply to UK citizens even if you were still in the EU. Amber Rudd did once broach this possibility but was never really clear possibly hoping that some half way opt out could be negotiated.
I still enjoy and appreciate reading your blog but yes you are right to use the summer to take stock. The real danger is that you replace the late Mr Cook with his letters from America !
Farage‘s family have EU passports. (I happened to stand behind him in the passport queue at the German embassy last year.) A lot of „Brexiters“ are of course stunningly hypocritical. But I don’t see what banning him, and on what grounds, would achieve. (Robinson may be in a different category for now.)
DeleteThis is a common misunderstanding. EES and ETIAS not specifically a Schengen thing. So, for example, they won't apply to Irish citizens and in the same way wouldn't have applied to the UK without Brexit.
DeleteThat said, completely get your point about the background checks and extra security. Not sure Farage has himself done anything ban-able. But without personalising it to anyone there will likely be a fair few people who find their applications surprisingly (to them) rejected because of serious historic offences.
"Salting the earth" used to be a military tactic to deprive the enemy of fertile ground. When done to ones own people, and country -- it used to be called treason. There is a tower in London that was the end point for such activities in the past (real or imagined).
ReplyDeleteNow, I am not calling for executions of you past five PMs, or the cabal who sold you the sick pup, but some serious accountability would be welcome -- however late, and inconsequential to the present day's status quo (of the EU-UK relations).
Yet, it seems to me that the UK will be doing its Peter Griffin's "many disguises" shtick. "Look, I bought a new hat/government. They won't know me, right. Now, where's the cake?"
The hope is that Starmer et al. is a serious enough of a team to not entertain such a disposition for long.
Time will tell.
As to your pondering on the future of this excellent blog, here's my two cents.
Understandably, with the new (non-theological) government in place, and the main act of Brexiting receding into the rear-view mirror, the Brexit links to new developments will be ever harder to, and somewhat useless, to maintain and to bring up. "What is done is done, where do we go from here" is the undeniable reality.
Your blog has been very good -- indispensable even-- at explaining those links, and developments, in an easy to understand and to follow manner.
I hope you will keep doing so, if less frequent. Regularity has its comfort -- to readers like me at least, and off-topic issues (say, book reviews, other political commentary) could be a platform for yourself to high-light stuff that matters to you/public.
You embed many articles in your blog for reference/original story. You could keep posting the links to stories without the need to write a blog everytime. Say a bi-monthly "links to relevant articles and news" post, and a once a month in-depth blog entry could be a workable model. And, with your work output, like a walk in a park.
What ever you do, thank you, again, for all the hard, invaluable work you have done
.
Chris, I hope you will continue your blog on some sort of regular schedule (say fortnightly). I can certainly understand the time and commitment it requires but you are a source of common sense and rigorous analysis in a field still far too beholden to stupid ideological rigidity and what I might term ‘reflexive atavism’. You have been a rare beacon of hope in an at time deranged world. Please continue to illuminate us. Best wishes and thanks, Philip Hall
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy your blog, but am more than happy for you to reduce its frequency. Personally I get the posts in an RSS reader, so will see them whenever they come, but I suggest maybe monthly plus anytime there is something you feel worth talking about in a more immediate manner.
ReplyDeleteHi Chris and everyone. Just read this. The Brexit Taliban have finally lost it https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/welcome-to-the-new-global-theocracy/
ReplyDeleteI prefer a fixed cadence.
ReplyDeleteAs a European I point out that the EU demands respect for EU citizens who have requested citizenship during the transition period and a new Windrush Generation means the breaking of every existing treaty on Brexit
Wonderful blog - clear, concise, hugely informative & educational! Look forward to it each week - please don't stop!
ReplyDeleteI've been a reader of your blog for many years and understand the current rethink - I would vote (if there was one) for weekly but fortnightly if you do decide to scale back - your insights and analysis of the brexit saga have been unrivaled and I've often looked forward to your blog when there were significant brexit developments/news that week
ReplyDeleteI sense there is much distance still to be travelled with Labour's developing engagement with the EU, and if anything the politics are even more fascinating than the frequent wake-up calls and encounters with reality faced by the Brexiters who have soiled us to this unsatisfactory and depressing place.
ReplyDeleteAs a writer you have a talent for boiling things down to the vital and important and also entertain at the same time. Perhaps in the early days of this Labour administration less frequent posts might be required, but it would be a massive loss to lose the Chris Grey take on evolving events.
Still essential Friday reading.
This blog has been a Friday afternoon treat for me since I began reading … quite a few years ago. I follow it up with Simon Wren-Lewis’s ‘Mainly Macro’. Hope he’s carrying on.
ReplyDeleteI can well understand you wanting to scale back. An awful lot of work goes into it and I can only defend myself by saying that I bought the book. And, if you’re on commission, you’ll be pleased to know that I bought Fintan O’Toole’s too.
I’d prefer a regular rather than occasional, if only because I’m low-tech and rely on habit to guide my fingers at or around 5pm.
Twice a month now as thankfully the Brexiters have been banished from government and no one cares what they say
ReplyDeleteFantastic blog which to my mind has been the most honest monitor and diarist of Brexit since the Big Bang. I look forward to reading it weekly, but can easily understand your current position. If possible, a regular update please and I’m sure if anything major was to develop you would apprise us accordingly. And I’m not even British! 😁
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for all your work to date.
I just want to say a big thank you for all the comments so far today. I always appreciate and read all the comments, but this time many are responding to my request for preferences for the future format and in doing so making kind and supportive remarks about me and this blog, so I am really touched. I hope people won’t mind that I am not responding to each individual comment, and will read this as a thanks to each of them.
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify, it’s true that writing this blog weekly is a lot of work (not simply the writing, per se, but the reading of diverse sources) but it has also become a labour of love, so I don’t really mind the work. The point is more that, especially since the change of government, I sense that the dynamics and tempo of the Brexit process are changing. Last week, for instance, there was no post because I didn’t feel there was anything worth saying. It would clearly be silly to keep to a weekly format just for the sake of it. On the other hand, this week I’ve found plenty to write, even though not much has happened.
There’s actually a sense in which the fact that it is a ‘labour of love’ for me may blind me to the ways in which it needs to change. In other words, I may be writing it more for what it gives me to do so than what it gives other people. That’s why I asked for views, as a kind of reality check. Of course, in the end, the question is answered by whether there continues to be a readership and, so far, that has held up (it is a bit lower than it was at its height, which was around the time the UK formally left the EU, but not much lower). I also have good evidence that it is still read by a lot of opinion formers and decision makers.
Anyway, I will continue to ponder this over the next few weeks, and of course will read any other comments that may be made, and factor those into the decision on how to proceed.
Thanks so much, again.
Chris
For me this blog has been one of the savers of my sanity since 2016. I still feel tha pain of being wrenched away from part of my identity and I always will. Please publish as frequently as you can manage and go on reassuring me I haven't gone mad.
DeleteOn a wider point I think there is general agreement amongst many who think.about these things that Brexit has pointed out the many defects of our democracy. It shouldn't have been possible for Brexit to happen with such a slender margin in its favour. At the very least the UK needs some sort of basic law as they have in Germany. How ironic that the UK helped the Germans to write themselves a much better constitution than the one they had,.
I'm afraid some, perhaps many of us don't show up in your reader statistics because we read your articles as an RSS feed. I only very rarely go through to your website because it adds nothing and is narrower and harder to read because of the links to previous articles down the right hand side. It is fascinating to finally see comments, which would be a reason for me to visit the site.
DeleteI look forward to your weekly dose of sense about the insanity since the Brexit vote was announced.
A weekly report for me, even if it was only a paragraph that said little.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI look forward to your Friday posts but an alternative might simply to post whenever you feel like it and alert "subscribers" when and if you do.
In any event thank you for your always excellent and almost 100% error free posts.
Dito
DeleteFriday morning - Café Nero - Americano - Chris Grey Brexit blog.
ReplyDeleteSame routine for years, please don't stop completely but I'm OK with whatever your choice is.
Chris - I'm an EU citizen living in Brexit Britain. Your blog kept me sane throughout the last 8 painful years - where the British politicians just kept spouting absolute nonsense. So, a big thank you for that. For me it's my Friday morning fix, essential read. I really admire the way you assess everything and then write up this excellent blog. If I remember this correctly you started to write the blog, as the politicians just kept lying and you wanted to hold them to account. With a new government in place, this may no longer be the case. But I think the jury is still out. Maybe take a bit of a back seat for the next few months and see how things are panning out for Labour's big reset. In an environment dominated by right wing press I do think blogs like yours are essential information. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do!
ReplyDeleteDr Grey, thank you so much for a consistently excellent blog about such a unique, historical topic that has affected so many people's lives.
ReplyDeleteIt has been a shinning beacon of reason and sense in a storm of cruel confusion. Chapeau!
I think Mr Junker sums up the UK's position best, that concerning returning to the EU, "In a century or two, yes." And that referencing how Brexit was a teachable moment for the UK, and is, “currently discovering the consequences of its vote, and the consequences correspond exactly to what we told them they’d be.”
Until the UK actually fulfils their commitments to the existing treaties, I think you will struggle to find enough to write about more than once a month, as the pace of Brexit will slow to glacial.
Enjoy your well deserved free time!
Comme vous voulez. You have done an outstanding job explaining the follies of Brexit. Thank you. I would appreciate your thoughts on the future of the European movement in the UK, and what it means now to be British (and English) and European, on the outside looking in. I don't find the 'rejoin' frame very helpful. The UK is unlikely to be rejoining the Single Market any time soon, let alone the EU, and if it ever does happen, it will be a very different Britain joining a very different EU on very different terms, so hardly 'rejoining'. So how to conceive of our European identity and give it expression? I haven't seen much serious writing on this, though Timothy Garton Ash is always worth reading. I sometimes find myself thinking of the English Catholics after the Reformation, though at least we can express ourselves freely and don't have to pay hefty fines for not worshipping at the church of Brexit.
ReplyDeleteA J Paxton
I was introduced to your blog somewhere around 2018 and ever since it has been my anchor of sanity in an ever more crazy country. I can quite understand you may not be able to devote as much time on it as previously but please, please don't cut us adrift completely!
ReplyDeleteThank you for this latest and all previous posts. They have been essential reading every Friday and anticipated eagerly every week. However, times are changing, and I understand your wish to re-think the blog. I am happy if you decide on a fortnightly or monthly blog but echo the wish expressed elsewhere to keep it regular. It gives me insight into so many aspects of the effect of Brexit that I would not know otherwise nor have the time to investigate. And I trust your objective analysis. So, please keep the blog going in some form that suits you. It is still important to document and analyse the new governments approach, policies and implementation; then it becomes easier to see what difference they make and what effect they have. Your blog seems to be almost like a diary but read live rather than decades or centuries later – that’s for future historians. And if you enjoy writing it – I love to read it. Best wishes, Christiane
ReplyDeleteI would echo what others have said far more eloquently above - I look forward to reading your thoughts and they have helped keep me sane over the last 8(!) years! Obviously, please do what works for you but I would hope you are able to maintain some sort of regulatory in your musings, even if that is reduced to fortnightly or monthly, depending on what, and how, events transpire. In the meantime, enjoy your summer break!
ReplyDeleteI would echo the comments made by others. I look forward to reading your weekly blogs, but I recognise that they must take a good deal of time to put together, given the level of research and analysis that goes into them. My preference would be to have a regular posting, either fortnightly or monthly, but please keep them coming. Your comments and analysis remain a beacon of sanity and rationality in the crazy world of Brexit. Keep up the great work, Dave
ReplyDeleteWhist fully understand the requirement for a change in pace, sensing with dead and huge disappointment the likelihood of a reduction in the frequency of your blogs the time has come. Like all of your readers I will content myself with whatever frequency you decide the integrity, clarity and sanity your explanations bring to this sorry saga.
ReplyDeleteI would prefer ‘as and when.’
ReplyDeleteDear Professor Grey,
ReplyDeleteI've read your blog for years but I've never commented until now. Since you're asking for feedback, I want to add my voice to all the others who thank you for the truly Herculean labour you've put into this blog.
Every Friday I look for your latest posting and am disappointed if, for some reason, there isn't one!
The clarity, depth and objectivity of your analysis of the catastrophe of Brexit, together with your trenchant (and sometimes hilarious!) criticism of some of the main actors involved make it a unique resource for all those people (and I believe there are very many) who want and need to understand the issues involved. You have been, and continue to be, a beacon of sanity on an issue that is probably the greatest (and still ongoing) political crisis to affect the UK since Suez.
Long may you continue to publish regularly!
Agree absolutely - could not have put it better
DeleteI couldn't put my thoughts down any better than Anonymous (at 09:08) - I've also read your blog for years but never commented before.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd prefer a regular post, perhaps monthly, but as others have said - it's your blog!
Thanks
I also agree - your blog has been one of the few things that has kept me sane these last few years and I look forward to it every week - I'd love you to carry on as now, but can understand that you might want to reduce the frequency
DeleteDear Chris (if I may), Let me begin with my thanks for your efforts. They have been truly Herculean, and, like many have already said, they have been a great preserver of sanity. After some thought, I would counsel retirement. I think we are at a point of change. The originators of the folly have largely gone or been squashed (think Rees-Mogg). I do not wish to sound complacent because I am not. No battle is ever truly won. But the years ahead are going to be grim to watch, as we see a hesitant Starmer failing utterly to see that a degree of boldness is required. Seeing Starmer slam the door so quickly and so firmly on mutual exchange of young people between the UK and the EU, for example, tells me how utterly dispiriting it will be to see yet another 'Little Englander', narrowly educated and actually not very bright, attempt to move the UK on. It needs someone like a Macmillan to see the brutal truth and educate the UK electorate accordingly. I could cite many other examples where prevarication and ambiguity will be the order of the day from the Labour government. That's why I advise throwing off the coil, and doing something else you enjoy. All best wishes for the future, whatever you choose to do.
ReplyDeleteAs a Dutch citizen your blog has given me - over several years - many insights on both the inner processes of the EU and the (astounding) UK politics.
ReplyDeleteI truly hope you will continue this work, in whatever frequency you see fit.
Somehow or other I get an email notification when a blog is posted so I would be quite happy with an "as and when" posting.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, thanks for your blogs. They have been good companion during the recent, chaotic years of non-govenment in the UK.
ReplyDeleteI repsonse to your question this week, my preference would be for a regular. perhaps monthly post. I am sure that there will be things to comment on for a very long time to come, though now that the UK has a serious government again, I suspect the pace of events you would like to comment on will slow considerably.
Thank you for continuing to inform and make me think. No-one should be forced to do anything for free, so it’s up to you to write when you want. However, if this is an advisory referendum, my ‘vote’ is for regular updates, at a frequency that suits you. Happy to recompense!
ReplyDeleteHi Chris. I enjoy this blog so much that I would be very sad at losing this weekly update. Your analysis and commentary helps me to understand the issues and to keep my feet on the ground with regard to the chances of rejoining.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time I understand that the blog must take up a lot of your time. If you do reduce your output, I would prefer regular to random.
Meanwhile, enjoy your summer break and thank you for the work you do.
Geoff
I'd suggest a regular column – once a month, or fortnightly if you think there'll be enough Brexit matter to sustain it – combined with one-offs for special developments.
ReplyDeleteNo Please - continue with regular blogs - we are bereft without them!
ReplyDeleteLike so many others, I very much value your pieces. They are a too rare beacon of wisdom in a society that much of the time seems to have gone insane. If you, very understandably, decide you wish to reduce frequency, I join those who suggest going to fortnightly as a experiment.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for all these years of informative blogs, which I have very much enjoyed reading as we all took turn after turn round the Brexit carousel. As I get email notifications whenever you post, an "as and when" approach is fine with me.
ReplyDeleteChris - Thank you.
ReplyDeleteOriginally, I read your book and was delighted to discover the associated blog - it is a treasure, an amazing historical resource and contemporary analysis.
I would miss its weekly regularity but would welcome whatever schedule works best for you.
As a non-Brit, your work has changed my mind about Brexit.
Originally, I thought that Brexit was an irrational act of national self-harm with no redeeming features.
Progressively, it has dawned on me that it may be a necessary historical step to allow UK citizens to accept the reality of the UK’s place in a post-imperial 21st century world and the fact that the EU/Brexit is neither the source nor the solution of all of their problems.
By 2015, the UK had secured the most bespoke membership deal of any EU country. It participated in developments that it promoted and favoured and excluded itself from those that it disliked. It regarded its exceptional membership deal as its due with little or no appreciation for the flexibility of the other members that allowed for it.
But it wasn’t enough for the UK electorate.
They voted to leave.
The 2019 general election delivered a “get Brexit done” mandate and a majority government led by committed Brexiters purged of “remainers”.
It was a government characterised by incompetence, scandal and leadership turmoil.
Yes, there was a pandemic and an expanded invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but these events affected every other country too.
The 2024 election decimated a Conservative party that, in government, managed to disappoint nearly everyone. But, to use Chris’s excellent word, Brexitism lives on.
While Brexit itself was rarely mentioned in the election, Labour specifically committed to maintaining the Brexiters ‘red lines’ and to ‘making Brexit work’. The Conservatives and Reform are unrepentant Brexitist parties.
Make no mistake, Brexitism lives on.
While Brexitism remains a significant force in UK politics, there will be a need for a blog such as ‘Brexit and Beyond’ to record and analyse its features.
Chris, please keep up the good and necessary work.
Every 2 or 4 weeks would suit me - whichever is best for you. I assume you'd write every 4 weeks with an interim post if anything important happens. I really value your work - thank you.
ReplyDeleteChris, so many thanks for your insightful analysis, the one place I always return for light to be shed on the ongoing Brexit darkness!
ReplyDeleteAs others have said, I am pretty sure your blog is read in the corridors of power, and they need whatever illumination they can get.
Please do keep up your posts as regularly as possible...they give many of us hope!
Thanks so much for your dedication to this blog. Always insightful and a massively important resource for historians as well as contemporary readers- not least the politically inclined ones.
ReplyDeleteI’ll continue to read whatever you produce on this subject, as I have done since you started. Clearly things will continue to evolve
and it would be great to have the
continuity of your perspective, if you can bear it!
My preference would be for regularity.
Always an informative read, thank you. I'd be happy knowing that a post would regularly appear on a set timescale that fits in with your other commitments.
ReplyDeleteAs a confessed Brexiteer, I do still enjoy this blog - it gives interesting perspectives especially those of a technocratic nature. Starmer being a technocrat & legal lawfare guy, is designed & built for the EU.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it's still hard to reconcile any discernable UK emotional attachment to the EU .
Even after Brexit, Labour views the EU very much as a trade vehicle - truth is , we've reached a new trade equilibrium, albeit lower in goods & yet services exports are up with the EU and Rest of the World. There doesn't appear to be a desire to move to more than a transactional relationship including full legal and political oversight of the ECJ/CJEU.
So, given the lack of emotional attachment and the still non alignment with much of the eurozone, its hard to see the UK getting strategic political benefit from the EU apart from some small beer trade augments.- let's keep schtum on Trump presidency - it doesn't bode well for anybody especially US, UK or EU relationships. Brexit always was a long play process - Politico .eu even broached the Idea of rekindling a Swiss type option. That's for the fairies too.
@John Jones. I’m fascinated at your comment that services exports are up. Do you understand what a single market is and the huge qualitative difference in the UK service sector trading as a member of the SM and the much more limited and poorer quality of trade in services possible now as a third party outside the SM.
DeleteA single market is best thought out as an internal market (which is the name the EU Commission uses) in which all members are legally ‘domestic’ and under a singie overarching law & courts this allows for seamless borderless trade in goods and full free trade in services.
House of Commons Library data shows that in 2019 - which is a good baseline since the UK was in transition and still a member of the SM, and also it was the last year pre-covid and it’s huge effects on shutting down much world trade - 44% of UK goods exports were to other EU states and 39% of the business activity of the UK service sector was in the rest of the EU.
Looking at the issue of services, let’s note that 80% of UK GDP GDP is from services and 80% of UK employment is by the service sector.
In 2019 the biggest service sector was finance & insurance who alone accounted for 12% of GDP and when taking into account finance and insurance and its needed secondary and tertiary industries it accounted for 20% of inward tax revenue.
Other service industries include such things as accounting, architecture & design, agricultural services (eg soil science, veterinary, crop science), engineering (many types), education, healthcare & medical, hospitality & tourism, IT & telecoms.
Over the 4+ decades the UK was a member of the EU thousands of UK domiciled small, medium and large size services businesses did business AS DOMESTIC entities all over the EU internal market. For all of these they could be and were wholly British owned and directed and all tax on all business was paid into the UK Treasury.
For example UK insurers built a healthy business selling household, business and vehicle insurance to punters in France and Spain.
A small engineering business i know (my cousin was s co-founder) designed and built and then sold and importantly serviced on an ongoing manner some highly niche machinery used in industrial food production. They had a number of customers in Ireland & in France and had a strong relationship with them.
UK tour operators could and did offer guided European luxury coach holidays, with all staff and guides British citizens resident in the UK.
On leaving the single market all the business of the UK service sector as a domestic in the EU stopped overnight. The financial sector which really was goose that laid the golden egg has lost its passport and inexorably the UK financial sector which grew huge first by profiting from an empire, and then from being the financial center of the EU is leaching away to centres in Europe.
Now when you read of rising exports of services from the UK to the EU or the USA it’s small fry compared to what was possible as a member.
Now all service exports are basically consultancies whereby a UK company with a unique skill set is hired by an EU owned and directed entity. Huge swathes of UK services exports have ended - such as UK tour operators running bus trips in Europe.
The baleful effects of Brexit are only just starting.
I’d just like to echo the great chorus of comments above. Your blog has been consistently a fantastic piece of work (and given the scale, dry complexity and frequency of publication of the material you have dealt with, I do mean work). It is to your enormous credit not only that you have found something interesting and useful to say, but that you have maintained such a high standard of commentary for such a long period of time.
ReplyDeleteThank you for all your efforts.
As others have said, It is your blog and if you want to reduce its frequency or even wind it up, that is your well-earned privilege. But personally I would be delighted if you kept it going. As others have said regular updates would be my preference.
But regardless of what you decide to do - many, many thanks for your excellent work. It is very much appreciated.
Geoff
Dear Chris,
ReplyDeletePlease just do whatever suits your preference but please don’t stop. Can I also here say ‘Thank You’ for all you’ve written over the past years? Your logic and reasoning, along with your humour and graciousness, has been a masterclass in how to face and deal with an event that actually wounded many in our nation in so many different ways.
Your blog enabled so many of us to have clarity and hope by calling out the hubris and mendacity surrounding the whole situation. You reassured us calmly, and factually, that just because we believed differently to the strident voices, we were not mad. Your blog gave us space to breathe and gave shape and substance to our thoughts and enabled us to understand the multilayered levels of what we were grappling with.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Jane
I absolutely love your blog. I've followed it from the start. A monthly update would be most welcome..
ReplyDeleteI’m from the Netherlands and reading your blog weekly already for years. Although Brexit us nearing its 10 years lustrum I never got bored by your weekly blogs and I don’t have the idea I will be if you decide to continue writing weekly. To me this would be more the welcome.
ReplyDeleteI highly appreciate this blog, it's a regular read for me. But I don't see the point of writing if there's nothing to write. The way to get round the problem of regularity, as others have said above, is the email announcement sent to regular readers. I get the current email: does everybody? Making that service more prominent on the page could get round the need for promising a regular weekly, bi-weekly or monthly output.
ReplyDeleteEntirely selfishly, I vote for more posts rather than less.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is, and has been since it started, essential reading for anyone trying to understand the mess that is Brexit. Having signed up for your e-mail alerts, I find those perfectly adequate for being informed when a new article has appeared. Obviously, for me as a reader, the more regular, the better, but it's an enormous amount of work for you. I subscribe to e-mail updates for other blogs, for instance those via Substack, getting a message whenever something new has been written, whatever the frequency.
ReplyDeleteI have really valued your insights and deep knowledge of Brexit and all the economic, organisational and wider policy implications that have swirled around it over these past many years.
ReplyDeleteI can also imagine just how much time you put in, to draft and refine each blog you publish. I think of them more as essays than blogs.
Personally I would love to see you continuing to write on a regular basis, whether that's fortnightly or monthly, but appreciate it's a lot of work, done freely and generously.
If you do decide to wrap it up, thank you for everything that you have written, all the research you've carried out, and for the positive influence you have undoubtedly had on the direction Brexit has taken, and the extent to which we can start to mend, or heal, after the deep injuries inflicted on us, as people, as a society and a nation.
Further to my comment upthread, thanks once again for all the very kind comments. I'm really overwhelmed by the kindness of what so many people have written. Just one point about email sign-ups. I've had quite a lot of reports over the years of it not being 100% reliable (and I can't control that). Also, to reiterate that the issue as regards posting isn't so much the work involved, it's really about whether the dynamic of events no longer warrants a weekly post. Anyway, I'll make a decision over the summer.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much again for all the incredibly generous messages. I'm truly grateful, and really quite moved.
This blog has been a lighthouse of sanity in a country gone mad and will be essential reading for future historians seeking to understand the madness. I have found it indispensable, both informative and therapeutic. And I have hugely enjoyed and much admired the writing style. Thank you! I bought your How Brexit Unfolded book and would gladly read anything you write.
ReplyDeleteI abandoned Twitter the day Musk bought it and will not return. I followed you on Mastodon but you seem to have given up on it. My preference would be to get an email alert when you post. Ghost is worth a look if you care to try something new with paid / free subscriptions, Fediverse integration etc.
Best wishes from Ireland to the best of neighbours
Reading your excellent blog with the first cup of tea of the day on a Saturday morning has become a habit over the last almost ten (?) years. I will miss it if you do decide to stop, although I can understand why - it must be becoming more difficult to find something to write now the main cause of the disaster has been voted out of office, and I'm sure it up takes a lot of your time. But it would be nice if you could at least continue in a reduced form when something significant happens, as you say.
ReplyDeleteMark Bangert
Chris, I value your blog very much. You handle complex issues with skill and flair. It is hugely important to me as a source of authoritative information. But I appreciate that it must be very time consuming for you - so, I’d suggest changing to a fortnightly model, at least for a trial period.
ReplyDeleteWhatever you do, please don’t stop! Thank you.
Prof Grey tells us that a FP;
ReplyDelete"economics commentator Martin Sandbu ponders the possibility that, .....some new agreement might be reached whereby the UK as a whole, and not just Northern Ireland, participated in the single market for goods."
What exactly is a 'a single market for goods'?
In a SM there is seamless borderless full free trade in goods and full free trade in services & for this to happen there has to be a single overarching law and courts. Being a member of an SM is a constitutional state of being and not a FTA between third parties. Legally every member of an SM is considered as 'domestic'.
The US, Australia, & Canada are federal superstates and each with such an SM. In these nations federal law and courts and the federal legislature is superior to state law & courts and state legislatures in every aspect whereas the EU is unique in that its a union of nations who have only pooled certain competencies of law necessary to have a SM and this means that EU law is overwhelmingly related to commercial law and employment law and the ECJ is primarily a commercial court.
There is no such thing as a third party having 'close alignment' with the SM and enjoying the privileges of seamless borderless full free trade in goods and also in services.
At least Mr Sandbu does understand that no agreement between third parties such as the EU and UK can ever have full free trade in services as that requires a single overarching law & courts, but he seems to be continuing the delusion that a third party can have the same seamless borderless trade in goods with the EU that EU members enjoy in their internal market.
The best trade deal the UK can ever have with the EU is a comprehensive FTA with tariffs set at zero & myriads of sectoral agreements of mutual equivalence of standards (MEA's) to overcome sectoral non-tariff-barriers (NTB's).
There always will be a customs border but there will be next to no inspections because of very high trust between the two parties.
For this to happen the EU has made it clear from the beginning that the UK will have to sign up to MEA's that are based on 'dynamic equivalence' i.e. UK laws and regulations automatically follow changes in EU laws and regulations and as a third party the UK has no vote on any changes although eventually with high trust it will likely be consulted.
Now of course Brexiters scream 'how dare the EU require the UK agree to dynamic equivalence when other comprehensive FTA's the EU has with developed nations like Japan don't have as strict a requirement.
There are at least two reasons the EU can and is doing so;
1) the close proximity of the UK (a large economy) to the EU and the stated aims of Brexiters like Rees-Mogg and Frost who talked of UK manufacturers trading in the EU SM free of the [costly] constraints of strict EU standards and so having a huge cost advantage.
This is what Brexiters meant by building 'Singapore on the Channel' - although as the late Tony Judt remarked the dream is more the Libertarian ideal of China on the Channel.
The EU is well aware of this dream and therefore is adamant it wont happen.
2) it is a fact that world trade is a jungle where the 'Big Gorilla's' make the rules and today the big gorillas are the USA, China and the EU. Paradoxically its only the EU and its ecosystem of 19 high quality comprehensive FTA's with developed nations (and the EU-UK TCA is not one of these) that is trying to maintain and extend the post WW2 GATT/WTO ideal of building a rules based level playing field where all nations large & small trade under the same rules and with disputes refereed by neutral arbitration. The US & China are retreating to the 19th century Imperial power model of naked mercantilism.
So when it comes to negotiating a fit-for-purpose comprehensive FTA with the EU to 'fix' the awful TCA the big gorilla EU has all the cards and if its insisting on MEA's based on dynamic equivalence then the UK has a choice sign or no deal.
The US doesn't have a single market comparable to the EU's
Deletefsi.stanford.edu/events/why-europe%E2%80%99s-single-market-surpassed-america%E2%80%99s
Yes and no. The single market in the US (and the single markets of Canada and Australia) can be thought of as a ‘side effect’ of what was a drive for political union in a fully federal state.
DeleteSo during the process of negotiation about what were sovereign nations becoming a greater whole there was a lot of horse trading in the matter of trade whereby the various states coming together in political union were allowed to protect local monopolies and especially in the services sector.
Hence in the US, Australia and Canada, their internal markets are full of frictions and outright blocks for trade and this is because they were not, unlike that of the EU, primarily designed to create a single internal market for trade in services and goods.
However the US, Canada and Australia are aware of this and slowly but steadily moving towardvthe goal of genuine borderless free trade in goods and services.
Yes they are nowhere near as advanced in this as is the EU/EEA
with the result for example a New York lawyer cannot easily do business in California it’s definitely not the same as being a full third party to the USA. Ditto in Australia and Canada.
Hi Chris. I’ve read and enjoyed your posts over the years. They have kept me well informed about what is going on in our nearest neighbour. I live in Ireland but have a lot of family living in England. I urge you to keep up the good work but am aware of how draining it must be on a weekly basis. How about twice a month? First and third or second and fourth Friday of each month?
ReplyDeleteWhatever you opt for I want to thank you once again for your enlightening efforts.
Thanks. Sam Hamill
Very much appreciate the blog and would like to see it continue on a regular basis. Thank you for all you are doing
ReplyDeleteHi Chris. My comment pales into insignificance before the many well-deserved ones already submitted. Thank you so much for so many years of enlightenment. As I have said before, the saddest parts of your blogs are the ones which say "There will be no blog next Friday." I will be delighted to continue reading your blogs as frequently as possible in the future. Thank you again! Greg
ReplyDeleteAs a French reader, part of the pleasure of reading your excellent blog (nearly from the beginning on a very regular basis) is not only the wise content, but also your Proustian writing style that enchants me ! I will continue to read you "à votre rythme " !
ReplyDeletePlease keep writing the blog, although if the pace of developments slows, you may not need to post every week.
ReplyDeleteDear Chris (if you'll forgive the familiarity), Like so many others I must begin by thanking you for your dedication and time in taking up the reins of rationality and truth over such a long time. How many times have I glanced at my watch on Fridays mornings and checked, "It's 8.20 - Brexit Blog should be there now." Aside from the fear of losing an old and trusted friend, there is one reason for maintaining the blog: Brexit has not gone away. It's damage will be with us for a long time: as John Major put it, "Brexit is the greatest act of economic self-harm any nation has ever committed." The Brexiters, those who foisted it upon us have not gone away, either: the likes of Johnson, Frost and Rees Mogg are still defending themselves in the Mail, Telegraph, etc. and ready to scream blue murder at anything they perceive as back-sliding. And even today so many protestors on the streets who were sold the pup of Brexit as the new Eden are in part motivated by the realisation that it was simply that. - a mangy, misbegotten cur. So Brexit and Beyond is still vitally needed on a regular basis for fear of losing momentum against a flow of Brexiter lies and damage. How regular? Once a month should ease your workload with timely interventions when circumstances demand - provided that there is some system for alerting faithful followers such as
ReplyDeleteKen
Chris,
ReplyDeleteEver since I read your book on Brexit I have been following this blog. For me as CEO of a non-profit organisation based in The Netherlands but with a large branch office in the UK, this blog has been extremely valuable in understanding the issues between UK and EU. I understand it is time consuming, but I really hope you can continue to write, maybe on a fortnightly basis. Thanks for all your efforts so far. Much appreciated.
Erik
Thanks Chris for still writing your blog after 9 years. I read every issue and learn something every time. I do hope you continue to post regularly. I’d like to keep learning, but also you provide an emotional fillip every time for die hard and ever hopeful remainers that there will one day be a happy ending ie some sort of resolution to our angst. We need you!
ReplyDeleteTo echo others, I cannot thank you enough for the extraordinary dedication and attention to detail you have expended over the 9 years ... I too have read then all. But moving forward, a less frequent blog would lessen your burden, especially as the direction of travel becomes aligned to the baby-steps towards eventually (re)-joining. Your blog will likely never penetrate the cloth-ears of the 'Ingelunders', but it will continue to provide a serious source of commom sense for those wedded to an EU future. Take care, and thanks once again!
ReplyDeleteDear Chris (excuse the familiarity, but I feel - as many other readers of your excellent blog - like we have become acquaintances, or better, friends, and presume therefor some latitude for this), first of all many, many thanks for your thoughts, reflections, analysis and facts about so many topics related to Brexit. Your blog has, like for others, meant a wonderful constant in troubling times.
ReplyDeleteI am a Netherlands-based taxlawyer with clients in the UK, many of whom shared their sentiments in the early hours of June 24th, 2016 by asking me "Can you please tell me what the fxxx happened yesterday?". I don't recall precisely when I started following your blog, but I guess it can't have been long after the referendum date.
I have found myself becoming somewhat addicted to reading your blog and felt a tinge of disappointment on fridays when you skipped (with some lame excuse of you needing vacation or such nonsens) and immediately felt the pain of the addict, not being served with it's regular recipe. As an associative thinker and worker, I don't mind telling you that more often than not, I found myself spending half the friday morning digging up all sorts of related stories, for instance on non-tariff barriers, democratic systems, impact of media and much more. Thankfully, I am self-employed and I dare not think the comments I otherwise would have received for my lack of billable hours on such fridays.
On the other hand, much more important, you have guided me through complex systems (international, financial, legal, social etc etc) and helped me to better put a wide range of matters in perspective. And, all the while you have been able to retain most wonderful of qualities that is called 'self-reflection'.
For whatever periodicity (is that actually a word?) you may choose, rest assured that I shall ever remain on the lookout for your latest blog, knowing that there will (almost) always be an angle, a quote, a source or a suggestion that I can pick-up on and that I may use as a tool to improve myself professionally and, somewhere, find the courage to be mild to others who do not have the good fortune of benefiting from your blog.
I do wish you and your loved-ones, without whose support I reckon doing your blog would have been next to impossible and to which my gratitude most assuredly extends, all the best and sincerely hope that you will continue sharing your thoughts and insights with us - in whatever format or timing suits you best.
Yours sincerely, Rudolf Kaarsemaker
Thanks, Rudolf, that's super-kind and much appreciated, Chris.
DeleteChris, When I read what you say about the essential economic incentives that British business have to conform to EU rules, I American) can only shed a single scalding tear for the days gone by when American business was sensitive to real-world incentives. Since our contagion infects you, at whatever lapse of time, you need to know that all decisionmaking, strategic or tactical, by American business is purely emotional/ideological, never affected by any pragmatic or material considerations. So we have had our (call it) "Mexit", our exit from domestic manufacturing, executed as blind and overt revenge for the gains made by the American labour movement in the wake of the Great Depression and the World Wars. Now there are "serious" proposals to reverse Mexit by imposing tariffs, like unto embargo, upon imported goods -- raw and feedstock materials as well as finished goods. But this is a fairytale, because the entire supporting infrastructure of manufacturing, from energy production and distribution through construction to transportation, has been torn out, and there isn't enough money in the world to rebuild it. So with all your troubles (which I do not minimize), you have it light so far, but our mistakes are travelling towards you with the prevailing winds and will overtake you soon or late.
ReplyDeleteRestez lá monsieur! You must keep your seat at the café on Boulevard Brexit for as long as you're able to maintain your illuminating source of information and comment on the passing grotesques. Monthly, perhaps, or whatever best suits you.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, merci mille fois!
Restez lá monsieur! You must keep your seat at the café on Boulevard Brexit for as long as you feel able to give us your illuminating commentary on the grotesques passing by. Monthly, perhaps, or whatever suits you (and events) best.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, merci mille fois!
I very much appreciate the effort and time you put into this weekly blog. It is essential reading for anybody interested in the outworkings of Brexit. I hope you will continue even on a fortnightly or monthly basis.
ReplyDeletePlease continue the blog, which I've read with so much interest over the years. As sporadically or regularly as suits you!
ReplyDeleteIt is part of my Friday morning routine to check whether there is a new post to enjoy. I will continue to do so for as long as you keep this blog going, however frequently or infrequently it suits you to publish.
ReplyDeleteProf Chris Grey,
ReplyDeleteI appear to be _very_ late to the party (I have been super busy for the last few weeks), but I have your blog pinned on my browser, so that I can be assured of (generally) keeping up with your erudite analysis every Friday.
Everything you have done to explain the complexities of Brexit is already hugely appreciated; anything you choose to do going forward will be gratefully received!
Thank you!
Dear professor Grey, I check in for your blog every Friday, so I would definitely prefer a regular update to an "as and when". I would love a weekly or bi-weekly update. I really appreciate your work, and have been reading your blog since somewhere in 2018. I will keep reading your blog whatever format you choose.
ReplyDeleteThank you sincerely, and please continue to post at times that suit you
ReplyDelete