The risk that we will wake up on May 1 to find we have a no-deal Brexit after all has not disappeared. The deadline for the ratification by the European Parliament of the trade deal between the European Union and the United Kingdom was due to be February 28. But Parliament postponed the deadline...
The United Kingdom’s exit from the European single market on January 1 has sent trade in goods plummeting amid much confusion. By contrast, Brexit was carried out in an orderly manner in the financial sector, despite significant movement of trading...
Among the consequences of Boris Johnson’s greatest accomplishment, Brexit, the question looms of the possible imminent fracturing of the union of nations known as the United Kingdom. The act of shattering one union — the EU — may have launched a trend. As the second most important...
The UK has finally cast off all its shackles and is ready to assert its freedom under the creative leadership of Boris Johnson, the man who made Brexit happen. Things are a little complicated for the moment, but once COVID-19 can be tamed, British creativity will find its cruising speed. Brexit...
The Guardian offered its readers what is certainly the most comic and hyperreal sentence of the week when it reported that “Boris Johnson accused the EU of preparing to go to ‘extreme and unreasonable lengths’ in Brexit talks as he defended breaching international law amid a mounting...
It is increasingly likely that, unless things change, on January 1, 2021, we will have a no-deal Brexit. That would mean the only deal between the European Union and the United Kingdom would be the already ratified EU withdrawal agreement of 2019. There are only around 50 working days left in...
The European Union’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, gave a stark warning recently about the lack of progress in the post-Brexit negotiations with the United Kingdom. But now, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come back to work after his battle with COVID-19, the disease caused by the...
“Can we please go back to talking about Brexit?” For the past few weeks, I got used to seeing this message on Twitter at least once a day, breaking the monopoly of news about the novel coronavirus. For some, it was a joke, half-nostalgically taking us back to the...
If I were the European Union, I’d be wiping my hands, sighing in relief and slamming the door after the United Kingdom’s long-delayed departure. Britain had been a noisy, pushy houseguest for 47 years, and it was only growing ruder. It spent the last three years hanging out in the foyer,...
In early 2017, Europe’s far-right parliamentary bloc met in Koblenz, Germany, to plot its political future. The meeting of the bloc’s leaders — which included Marine le Pen from France, Matteo Salvini from Italy and Geert Wilders from the Netherlands — took place shortly after the...
The year 2020 has started in the West as the year of maximum suspense. The various dramas of 2019 had built to a crescendo that seemed unrivaled in the sheer number of open questions with no obvious answer history had thrown into the arena. Everyone was aware of the conflicts and debates that...
I dutifully got a shot this winter to inoculate myself against four different flu viruses. By exposing myself to weakened strains of these diseases, and preemptively suffering some mild flu symptoms, I can ward off the more serious consequences of a full-on infection and do my part to help stop...
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has given Jeremy Corbyn a good old-fashioned thumping. The Conservatives won 365 seats out of 650 in Parliament, gaining 47. They smashed the “red wall” of solid Labour seats in northern England. The Johnson-led Conservatives achieved the highest vote swing...
In the frenzy and fury of yet another UK election that whirls and swirls around Brexit, our politicians are dancing in a conga line of counter-accusations, misinformation and outright lies. Savvy political pundits and sage pollsters assess and debate the direction of travel of the conga line. And...
The Brexit virus has infected the Brits and destroyed their natural immune system. Opportunistic infections and cancers now thrive in the weakened British political metabolism and have enabled Boris Johnson to come to power, and other unnatural organisms to flourish. Brexit Party...
