The Syrian air strikes show that legality is only one consideration for states contemplating the use of force, but that it nevertheless remains important.[1] It is unsurprising, in the wake of the air strikes carried out by the US, UK, and France on 14 April 2018 against the Syrian Government’s chemical weapons facilities, that questions […]
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A bit early, to avoid it getting lost in the rush to the Easter weekend. The past month has seen movement on the draft Withdrawal Agreement, and the second version literally highlights the progress made. The infographics reflect that with some further reductions in barriers to reaching an agreed outcome in October. However, substantial barriers […]
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So, for all the worrying, it looks like tomorrow’s Art.50 European Council will be a procession. The draft Withdrawal Agreement is 75% green, transition agreements are all in place and the events in Salisbury have reminded everyone that there are good external reasons to get on with each other. Of course, it’s not nearly that […]
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This piece was originally published in the Huffington Post For a lot of people, the mention of Brexit is enough to trigger a response of “still?!?” 21 months since the EU referendum, we’re still a year away from actually leaving the EU. But at least then, we’re done, right? Wrong. While a lot of attention […]
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Yesterday I was speaking at an event in Portsmouth. The subject was Brexit, naturally, but with a mix of activists and academics. One theme that came up was a view from a former UKIP councillor to the effect that’ things could be worked out’ on the future relationship. We did pick this up after the […]
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After last week’s scenario-planning for October‘s meeting of the European Council, I’ve now done the same for the up-coming March meeting. It’s a bit vaguer than October, largely because there’s more time to play with. However, it’s also clear that any blockage will have substantial knock-on effects, and if negotiators want to leave themselves any leeway […]
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