Just a short post this week, since I already wrote about this in a Twitter thread earlier in the week: The thread was an attempt to make sense of what the UK is doing and whether it might work. As you’ll see, I’m not that confident that it will. Conversations with people on both sides […]

This week has seen the full return of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol to political agendas, after a lull during the UK’s party political conference season. Last night saw the publication of the Commission’s extensive proposals on enabling the implementation of the Protocol, following much consultation both within the EU member states and with Northern Irish […]

This post originally appear on Encompass Europe. This is a good moment to reflect on one of the many paradoxes of Brexit: for something that has occurred under so much time pressure, there has always still been a summer break. That was true in 2017 and 2018 during the Article 50 negotiations and even last […]

At various points in the Brexit process I’ve produced trackers, primarily to capture interactions between the EU and the UK. that included ones for the negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade & Cooperation Agreement (and this), as well as the progress of UK enabling legislation. The aim has been to keep sight of […]

This is a version of a piece originally posted on Euronews. This summer has provided ample demonstration of the difficulties of the relationship between the UK and the EU. The constant rumbling of discontent over the Northern Ireland Protocol has been accompanied by periodic British threats to walk away from it. Last week’s State of […]

The past month or so has been relatively quiet in the world of the WA/TCA: the British proposals in its Command Paper had sat, largely uncommented, since late May as more prosaic matters have swirled. However, as Brussels and Westminster have restarted, so too has there been a degree of movement. Most importantly, there has been […]

As a parting gift before a summer break, I’ve pulled together the various legal pathways currently available to changing the Protocol. This is based on the text of the Protocol/Withdrawal Agreement itself, plus a bit of customary international law, and covers both modification and disapplication of the Protocol itself. As the graphic suggests, there are […]