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    Dumb greens and unions

    One of the things historians may dwell on is how the key December 2017 and February 2018 eu drafts of the Brexit agreement came to take the forms they did. It is all the more important since the inept UK Government of Theresa May failed to produce its own draft, though it might have been expected […]

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    When shall we three meet again?

    This is a saga of sadness, a tragic tale of three ‘whiches’, a fairy ‘which’, a whichsoever ‘which’ and a wicked ‘which’. In initiating each of three referendums, David Cameron said, “You have a choice, ‘this’ or ‘that’, which do you want?”. So all three ballots were binary, and while the first two delivered what he […]

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    Irexit

    Since the Brexit referendum in June I have been rapporteur of a Private Study Group of Irish economists and constitutional lawyers who have been examining what we should do when and if the UK leaves the EU. In August their report was sent to the Taoiseach, his Ministers and the Secretary-Generals of all Government Departments. It […]

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    Oxford, Britain

    North Oxford is a heartland of academia where leafy halls of residence mingle with stately homes and rarefied hostelries. Situated in almost the very centre of Britain a windless calm favours scholarly reflection removed from modernity’s fugue. Even the traffic is orderly with bicycles sensibly preferred. It is one of the most attractive places in the […]

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