Brexit

A week on from Brexit day, it is worth stopping and reflecting on just how Britain’s departure from the EU actually came about. We’re familiar of course with those from the Leave side who contributed to Brexit. But what about the unintentional heroes of Brexit, those who ensured accidentally that Britain really did leave the EU? On the day we were supposed to leave the EU last March, I bumped into an important member of Tony Blair’s social and political circle in the lobby of a St James’s club. “Are the Tory Spartans holding firm? Are they going to stop May’s deal going through?” he asked. “Yes, quite comfortably I

The Scottish papers carry two difficult polls for Downing Street. One, from Survation, puts support for independence at 50/50; another, from Panelbase, has it at 52 per cent in favour and 48 per cent against. The cursed percentages. I say difficult polls for Downing Street rather than Westminster in general because the Union — not Brexit, or terrorism, or northern regeneration — is the number one challenge facing Boris Johnson’s government. I appreciate that I banged on about this as recently as Friday but I intend to keep banging on about it because a) it’s true, and b) I cannot bring myself to care about Nish Kumar. The Prime Minister’s

Friday was Brexit day. The day that the largest act of democracy in the history of this country was finally enacted. The day when the wishes of 17.4m people finally became a reality. And how did the BBC, the national broadcaster, mark this extraordinary democratic day? With a sneer, of course. A smug, aloof, bitter sneer at the entire country. Not only did BBC reporters huff and moan at the mass pro-Brexit gathering in Parliament Square, coming off like anthropologists who had happened upon some bizarre, exotic tribe. It also chose that day to push out anti-Brexit nonsense via its kids’ wing, CBBC. Yes, even children must now be subjected

I have always loved the story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who refused to believe the Second World War was over and stayed hiding in the Philippines until his former commanding officer was brought out of retirement and ordered him to surrender. That was in, 1974, 29 years after the end of hostilities. But I wouldn’t bet on the final Remainer holdouts giving up their struggle so quickly. If Lord Kerr of Kinlochard can be gently persuaded out from behind one of the red benches in the House of Lords before 2049 – when he’ll be 106 – I would consider it a triumph of negotiation. It would be

Remainers were there too. The first people I met at the Brexit Day festivities were opposed to the whole idea. I found them on Westminster Bridge, a man and his wife, posing with an EU flag. When the man spoke his voice faltered as if his pet spaniel had just died. ‘I married a German woman. I’ve been brought up to tolerate other cultures and lifestyles.’ I asked which of the many crises outlined by Project Fear would strike us first. ‘Economic slump,’ he said. Will Britain ever re-join? ‘Maybe in two generations.’ A couple with a toddler spotted the EU flag and joined us for a chat. They’d planned

In practical terms, little has changed tonight. Businesses and citizens here will not feel any real difference in the coming weeks and months as they interact with the EU. But in another sense, everything has changed tonight. The UK is now out of the EU and the bar for rejoining will be very high. First of all, a party would have to win an election on a rejoin platform and then, probably, have a referendum. It is hard to imagine a party serious about winning office choosing to reopen this issue in the foreseeable future. Second, there would have to be a national consensus in favour of rejoining. The EU

It’s been more than three years since the Brexit referendum, and we’re only a day away from actually leaving the EU, but it appears that some of the UK’s residents are still struggling to come to terms with the country’s exit from the European Union. Today, the pollster YouGov released a survey of Remain voters in the UK, in which it asked which of the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) closest described how they feel about the EU referendum result. The options ranged from the rather sanguine, ‘I have come to terms with the fact that the UK will leave the EU’, to full-throated denial,

Last Friday marked the signing of the Withdrawal Agreement. I know that some people in our country are still a bit upset. But what happened last week matters. We all know that we’ve just had three and a half difficult years. But we had them together – we shared them. Three and a half years of parliament being gloriously frustrating, entertaining and overall a bit odd. Three and a half years of our courts and our beloved institutions forcing us to try very hard to recall why we love them. Three and a half years of democracy. After these three and a half years, our parliament, the body of 650