For yet another month of precious, fast-ebbing time, Brexit negotiations have gone absolutely nowhere. For new readers, let us not confuse the negotiations between the UK and EU, which are not happening, with the other Brexit struggle between fast-multiplying factions…
A critic famously wrote about Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot that “nothing happened, twice”. That is pretty much what has been happening in the Brexit debate for the last couple of months, which is why we have written very little…
The cross border organisation ICBAN and Queen’s University have published a new study on border residents views on the impact of Brexit. Brexit at the Border finds that generally people are more informed about the issues, partly because it is…
One can only have the utmost sympathy for EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier as he valiantly tries to nail the latest helpings of Brexit porridge to the hard wall of economic reality. One must have admiration too for his patient,…
A number of thoughts occur following the recent announcement by the Irish Government of a 300 million euro Brexit loan scheme for Irish business. The loans, backed by the European Investment Fund, are for future working capital requirements to fund…
The debate on the border has focused on how Northern Ireland might be kept in ‘the’ or at least ‘a’ customs union with the EU. This still leaves the question of how the agri-food industry north and south would have…
In a Radio Ulster look-back interview this morning former First Minister Peter Robinson admitted that on the basis of the economic case, he would have favoured the UK remaining in the EU. However, ‘we are where we are’ and he…
Compare the present Irish border with what is outlined in the the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee’s Smart Border 2.0 report and its clear that a future border arrangement, with or without a political agreement, will be anything but frictionless. Commissioned by…
The Brexit debate has focused largely on the threats to goods exports and particularly to agri-food if we end up trading with the UK on the basis of World Trade Organisation tariffs. But as noted in a recent article, we…
South of the border where there is a strong consensus that Brexit is a bad idea inflicted upon us, the debate is primarily economic. In the north and Britain the debate is more emotional and extremely ideological, and many participants…
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