Conservative philosophy, then and now
The Xmas and New Year break is a good time to catch up on background reading that has sat around on a ‘to do’ list for longer than it perhaps…
The logic of the Attorney General
This note focuses on a narrow front in the Brexit wars, the Attorney General’s (AG’s) advice on the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement and the implications of that…
Mrs May’s assault on freedom: an intellectual error?
The Prime Minister’s letter to the nation of 24/11/18 reveals again the over-riding priority she attaches to reducing immigration, which might reasonably be described as an obsession that has developed…
Brexit sequencing and the ‘interim period problem’: Limbo in our time?
Withdrawal from the EU (Brexit) will occur at an instant on 29 March 2019 and that moment divides the policy questions and processes entailed by Brexit into two periods. The…
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The EEA Agreement: the key to a simplified Brexit process?
The UK is currently a member of the European Economic Area and is likely to be able to continue membership if it wishes. Its treaty rights under the EEA afford the UK a considerable degree of control over the post-Brexit outcome. Continued membership can be viewed as a 'interim measure' that would, in one step, meet most of the Leave agenda, whilst allowing time for reflection on longer-term issues.
The bespoke agreement option
This is an extract from a submission to the Scottish Parliament made on 15 August 2016. One argument in circulation at the moment is that the UK should withdraw from…
Brexit strategy in one diagram
This is another golden oldie, from the beginning of 2017, before Article 50 notification. It recommended a three-track approach to the Brexit process (a) not getting entangled in discussions of…
A cap and trade system for residency?
Regulatory innovation tends to start with a new way of looking at a problem. In that spirit what follows is a bare-bones heuristic, not a fully worked out policy design…
Pathologies of Brexit
Delivered as part of 'Regulatory Pathologies: Diagnosis and Remediation', Annual Westminster Conference 2018
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Brexit and the Single Market Revisited
As the Brexit negotiations begin to focus on future trading and customs arrangements these notes reprise the principal theme of Brexit and the Single Market2 (published in July 2016 in the wake of the referendum) and add comments on some aspects of the subsequent discourse. Very briefly, my conclusion back then was that the most efficacious way to respond to the Leave vote on 23 June 2016 would be to seek a Brexit based on the UK’s continued membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) in the period immediately following withdrawal from the Treaty of Lisbon. There were three main reasons for taking this view.