The EU/Brexit Blog

I apologise in advance for this post, it is a lot more reactionary to current affairs than most of my blog posts and whilst my blog posts are kind of dependent on current affairs, this is based upon the events of the past few days. For too long now, I have almost expected the UK Government and EU to reach a deal. Jean-Claude Juncker's mandate has been to reach a deal and it appeared almost inconceivable that Juncker could unsuccessfully achieve his mandate and still hold his position within the negotiating team. Similarly, a world in which the UK crashes out the EU seemed beyond belief; our financial sector, aviation, and food market would collapse almost instantaneously and leave Britain at a standstill, a first for such a developed nation - and one I didn't want to imagine. Furthermore, the positive language, until now, used by Tusk and May acted as encouragement that a deal could be done by November. The undertone set by May was that she expected, come November, the ...

Are the UK government finances as dire as many it perceive it to be? The Chancellor has been a fierce critic of Brexit since day one and his prominent position as a Remainer has brought much criticism from fellow party and cabinet members. The Chancellor has distributed statistics from the Treasury that frequently state the distinct negatives on the economy of any kind of so-called Hard Brexit. Unsurprisingly, as the economy has appeared fairly resilient to Brexit recently, and I recognise that the markets have been susceptible to statements about the Brexit negotiations, however, considering the mass uncertainty over the future relationship between the EU and Britain, the economy is performing well. Therefore, despite the dire concerns of the Treasury that Brexit would be a detriment to the economy, the Chancellor appears to be unable to eat his cake and have it at the same time. Yet on the brighter side, that means that the economy is in a stronger position than expected...

Last night, I was lying in bed thinking about Brexit, as you do, and I was thinking about the what the current EU leaders and all the parliamentarian leaders across the EU would be thinking about right now - particularly about Brexit. Now I am sure we've all heard the classic 'no one in the EU  really  cares as much about Brexit as us British do' but it seems to be becoming a more prominent issue across the EU. So I thought I would structure this blog post based on what do the other leaders of across the EU think about the Brexit negotiations and then the future for the EU as a result of these negotiations. Firstly, I thought it'd be important to say that I don't think anyone anticipated what a huge deal Brexit was until the negotiations started - now I know I'm stating the bleeding obvious but it's a key principal to note. Through the period up to summer 2017, I would regularly hear on the radio that EU leaders were unconcerned by Brexit and that it ...