A Federal UK With Hard internal Borders? Children in Need

Guided Busway Nov 2012

The main news on Brexit has been the response to Prime Minister Theresa May's visit to Donald Tusk. Progress has been made in terms of treatment of EU citizens post Brexit in the UK and UK citizens in the EU. However, the EU wants more movement on commitment re the divorce bill and Ireland has come out sharply stating that they will block any decisions that create a hard border between the North and South of Ireland. The Telegraph is speculating that David Davis might resign as he is being excluded from some civil service communications on Brexit and that the EU might withhold the hallowed rebate, negotiated by Margaret Thatcher.

The Spiegel brought an interesting study and potential solution to light, proposed by legal expert Nikos Skoutaris from the University of East Anglia here in Cambridge. If the UK adopts a real federation of the Four Nations, without any seceding from the UK, then Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland could opt to remain in the EU. The hard border would then be at the boundaries of England. A fascinating theoretical solution - see https://doi.org/10.1017/cel.2017.11.

Woke up late, the bus arrived late, so I couldn't make the Taproom for the A14 networking this morning, instead going straight to the Norris. I was doing some online work, in-between a fascinating conversation around GM, pests and diseases. This evening was dominated by the annual Children in Need charity event on BBC1. At the end of the program, the sum collected was an amazing £50,168562!