Brexit & Beyond
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons
Chris Grey is Emeritus Professor of Organization Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London, and was previously a Professor at Cambridge University and Warwick University. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). He originally studied Economics and Politics at Manchester University, where he also gained a PhD on the regulation of financial services. "Best guy to follow on Brexit for intelligent analysis" Annette Dittert, ARD German TV. "Consistently outstanding analysis of Brexit" Jonathan Dimbleby. "The best writer on Brexit" Chris Lockwood, Europe Editor, The Economist. "A must-read for anyone following Brexit" David Allen Green, FT. "The doyen of Brexit commentators" Chris Johns, Irish Times. @ChrisGrey@mastodon.online & Twitter @chrisgreybrexit
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I blog in a personal capacity and all views expressed are mine, not those of any institution or organization.
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 15 December 2023 English
A recurrent observation – made sometimes with surprise and sometimes with a kind of perverse nostalgia - about this week’s political and parliamentary events is that it is ‘as if …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 8 December 2023 English
One of the reasons why there is still any debate about whether Brexit is a success or a failure is because what Brexit meant and what it was supposed to …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 1 December 2023 English
One of the benefits of having re-enabled comments on this blog, to me at least, is to be able to see what issues get flagged up by readers as interesting …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 24 November 2023 English
The staggering success of Brexit in transforming Britain’s economic prospects has been such that in his Autumn Statement speech the Chancellor mentioned it, well, just once, and that to refer …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 17 November 2023 English
It has become increasingly difficult to separate out Brexit as a topic from British politics generally, and the politics of the Conservative Party in particular. That has been true for …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 10 November 2023 English
The Hallett Inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic still has a long way to go, but the evidence it is taking is already revealing an extraordinary picture of the British government …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 3 November 2023 English
Today’s post is the latest in a series of occasional book reviews, but it is a new departure in that it is the first time on this blog that I …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 27 October 2023 English
There is a stereotype about the British, and perhaps especially the English, that we are unwilling to complain, and will put up with quite a bit of privation with little …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 19 October 2023 English
This week’s post, which is a day earlier than usual, is the latest in a series of occasional reviews of Brexit-related books, which can be found via the ‘Book reviews’ …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 13 October 2023 English
An important development in the Brexit process occurred at the beginning of this month, with the introduction of ‘Not for EU’ labels. As well as being important in its own …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 6 October 2023 English
I’ve written several times on this blog about the problems that Brexit has caused the Labour Party. More recently, it has become increasingly obvious that it has had far more …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 29 September 2023 English
The most striking thing about Brexit is that, as many of them now accept, the Brexiters have failed to secure public support for actual Brexit – that is, the form …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 22 September 2023 English
This has been quite an important week for post-Brexit politics, in that there has been the clearest indication yet of the approach of the anticipated future Labour government, and certainly …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 15 September 2023 English
This recurring word in most commentary on this summer’s Brexit events is ‘pragmatism’. It refers to the range of ways, some quieter than others, in which the government is trying …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 11 August 2023 English
Bale, Tim (2023) The Conservative Party After Brexit. Turmoil and Transformation. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN 978-1-5095-4061-5 (Hardback). 368pp. £25(This is the latest in the occasional series of reviews of books …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 1 August 2023 English
I said that I would break the ‘summer recess’ of this blog if a Brexit event of sufficient interest or importance occurred and it has, with the government’s announcement today …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 30 June 2023 English
Last week’s seventh anniversary of the referendum saw a surge of interest in Brexit, with numerous commentaries, including my own, looking back or taking stock. What all of them had …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 23 June 2023 English
As we reach the seventh anniversary of the referendum there is a flurry of assessments and comment pieces, as now happens on each anniversary of a milestone in the Brexit …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 16 June 2023 English
Writing a weekly blog that appears on a Friday morning carries an inherent risk of something important happening later in the day. So it was no doubt tempting fate to …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 9 June 2023 English
It’s been a relatively quiet Brexit news week, with just the usual drip-drip of news about its negative impact on everything from the availability of au pairs to the production …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 2 June 2023 English
The failure of Brexit is now widely acknowledged and ever-more openly discussed. But there isn’t going to be some quick, neat or easy epochal change. Brexiters aren’t going to give …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 26 May 2023
I don’t purport to provide anything like a comprehensive weekly record of reports of Brexit damage – fortunately the indefatigable Anthony Robinson curates the closest thing there is to that …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 26 May 2023 English
I don’t purport to provide anything like a comprehensive weekly record of reports of Brexit damage – fortunately the indefatigable Anthony Robinson curates the closest thing there is to that …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 19 May 2023 English
It’s not at all surprising that so many leading Brexiters, especially those not in government office, now pronounce, as Nigel Farage did this week, that “Brexit has failed” (though it …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 12 May 2023 English
This week’s post is the latest of the series of book reviews I began in March and intend to continue as, no doubt, more and more books about Brexit are …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 5 May 2023 English
It has been a quiet week for Brexit news, but a revealing one too. The main story, if it is a story, is the latest though still not absolutely definitive …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 28 April 2023 English
One day there will undoubtedly be a book written about the impact of Brexit on the civil service, and it will be one of the most important parts of the …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 21 April 2023 English
In the last few posts on the blog, especially the most recent one, I’ve suggested that it is at least arguable that the government and, in a wider sense, the …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 31 March 2023
As expected, the UK-EU Joint Committee overseeing the Withdrawal Agreement formally approved the Windsor Framework at its meeting last Friday. There is a palpable sense that this is a defining …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 24 March 2023
There’s really only been one major Brexit development this week, the vote on the Statutory Instrument to create the Stormont Brake as part of the Windsor Framework. If that sounds …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 21 March 2023 English
Russell, Meg and James, Lisa (2023). The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-284971-7 (Hardback). 416 pages. £25De Rynck, Stefaan (2023). Inside the Deal. How the EU …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 17 March 2023 English
In last week’s post I wrote about the strategic incoherence of post-Brexit politics, despite the more pragmatic approach embodied in the Windsor Framework. The fate of that agreement, specifically, remains …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 10 March 2023 English
There was never any possibility that last week’s announcement of the Windsor Framework would be immediately transformative. Even so, it’s surprising that there’s been so little attempt by Rishi Sunak’s …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 3 March 2023 English
Where to start, after one of the biggest weeks for Brexit news for a long time? Perhaps with my post of a fortnight ago when I discussed two scenarios for …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 24 February 2023 English
Two weeks ago I posted about the ongoing schism between ‘Brexitists’ and ‘Traditionalists’ within British Conservatism. Then, last week, I wrote about the battle for the post-Brexit polity in terms …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 17 February 2023 English
In the book I wrote about Brexit I anticipated (pp. 275-278) two broad scenarios for how the immediate future would develop once the realities of Brexit began to be felt …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 10 February 2023 English
It’s almost impossible to over-state the extent to which Brexit is bound up with the peculiarities, schisms, crises and in some parts almost madness of modern British Conservativism. In the …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 3 February 2023 English
This week saw the third anniversary of the UK’s departure from the EU, and with it a flurry of assessments and opinion polls. These broadly reflect what I have been …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 27 January 2023 English
This week David Lammy, the Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary, gave a major and important speech at Chatham House. It wasn’t by any means all about Brexit, but, even where it …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 20 January 2023 English
Despite the two-week gap since my last post, Brexit developments have been relatively sparse. There is, as always, the endless drip of bad news stories and of new data on …
Individual Contributors to Policy Commons · 6 January 2023 English
In terms of the big picture of Brexit, nothing has really changed since the post I wrote just before Christmas. The gist of it was that until political leaders face …