Welcome to Brexit 2.0

The ongoing Brexit process is in one of its periodic ‘quiet before the storm’ moments, with the storm threatening at times to be a hurricane and at others just some lingering drizzle. Over the last couple of weeks it was generally being assumed that the UK would ‘trigger Article 16’ of the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) as early as next week, when COP-26 had ended, or if not then in early December. Thus speculation shifted to how the EU would respond, from targeted introduction of tariffs up to