I’ve been turned over this question for some weeks now, mainly because it has kept on popping up in different places. And because I fundamentally disagree. Last month, I heard the line ‘sovereignty is democracy’ fall from the lips of Bill Cash, speaking on a panel about Parliamentary scrutiny of European business. I had hoped […]

2024 is going to be a busy year for UK-EU relations. As much as we talk about the 2026 TCA review as a key point, next year will see a full refresh of EU leadership and the European Parliament, plus a probable British general election, plus whatever fallout from a US presidential election might occur. […]

This week saw UK in a Changing Europe drop a report on public opinion and Brexit. It’s notable partly because there’s less and less in-depth exploration of this question with the passage of time: even if Brexit isn’t actually ‘done’ in poli-sci terms, it increasingly is in social and party-political ones (as witnessed by the […]

We’re at a bit of a junction in EU-UK relations right now. Having bumped back from the questions of good faith with February’s Windsor Framework, the two sides got to work on the next obvious target: Horizon membership. Seven months later – and with enough discretion that I could record a podcast saying it wasn’t […]

The sight of more heavy rain outside the window tells me it’s high summer. This means all the important people have gone on holiday to somewhere sunnier, leaving us hoi polloi to discuss politics. As a result, I’m at my desk when Matt Goodwin’s latest Substack post arrives, heralded as a contribution to ‘silly season’. The […]

A mild detour for me before the summer holidays kick in: the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Part of the wider logic of ‘taking back control’ was the need to unshackle the UK from other constraints on its freedom to do as it will, in order to address situations it faces. Just as leaving […]

This is an extended version of a blog originally posted with UK in a Changing Europe by Simon Usherwood and David Moloney. The conclusion of the Windsor Framework has rightly been taken as a moment for UK-EU relations to reset. As part of that, belated notice has fallen on the review clause of the Trade […]