A Note on Definitions: politics, policy and the constitution

We hear an awful lot about how Brexit is breaking the UK constitution, written though uncodified as it is. It certainly seems that way: politicians are running amok regardless of party discipline, the minority government is pushing the limits of what the executive and parliament can do, MPs are abandoning their parties altogether, the parties …

Division! Forgotten Origins in Brexit

The Brexit whirlwind moves ever onward. In the process it increasingly drains the word 'meaning' of definition like a dementor drains happiness. Each day, politicians make passionate speeches (or write passionate articles) about a position they may not have held even yesterday - and then proceed to vote in the opposite direction. Each day, fellow …

We have a Brexit Government, not a Conservative one

If there is one fact we can all agree on, it is that Brexit has completely shifted the centre of gravity in UK politics. Just as Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s ratcheted the centre ground to the right over her ten-year tenure, Brexit has yanked it into another dimension like a slow, inexorable landslide, which …