Blogs
Opinion and Editorial from the Policy Exchange team.
Choose A Category
Arts and Culture
Demography, Immigration and Integration
Crime and Justice
Demography, Immigration and Integration
Economics and Social Policy
Education
Environment and Energy
French Presedential Election
Foreign Policy and Security
Government and Politics
Housing and Urban Regeneration
Industrial Strategy
International Trade
Security and Extremism
International Trade Blogs
Europe’s Trade Problem: Closed markets that stay closed result in a defective approach to science and the management of risk evaluation
Policy Exchange’s Head of Economics critiques the European Union’s “ascientific” approach to trade regulation.
The Brexit White Paper – room for improvement
Policy Exchange’s Head of Economics Warwick Lightfoot – former Special Adviser to three Chancellors – assesses the Government’s Brexit White Paper and finds room for improvement.
What Does Chequers Mean for Northern Ireland?
In the first of a series by Policy Exchange experts reflecting on the Chequers Agreement and Brexit White Paper, our Chief Economic Adviser Dr Graham Gudgin reflects on their implications for the Irish border. Dr Gudgin, a former Special Adviser to the Northern Irish First Minister and leading expert on issues around the border, concludes that if the White Paper’s recommendations are implemented, the Northern Irish border ‘problem’ is largely solved.
Dr Graham Gudgin examines the likely options for a future trade relationship between the UK and EU
Policy Exchange’s Chief Economic Adviser, Dr Graham Gudgin, outlines the likely proposals to be put before Friday’s Cabinet and explores how they might work.
Don’t listen to the doom-mongers – why the UK (including Northern Ireland) can leave the Customs Union, avoid a hard border and preserve the Good Friday Agreement
Graham Gudgin, Chief Economic Adviser to Policy Exchange and a former special adviser to the Northern Ireland First Minister, and Ray Bassett, Senior Fellow for EU Affairs and a former Irish Ambassador to Canada, demonstrate that the UK can leave the Customs Union, avoid a ‘hard’ Irish Border and preserve the Good Friday Agreement.
Time for political game-playing over the Irish border to stop
Policy Exchange’s Senior Fellow on EU Affairs Ray Bassett – himself a former senior Irish diplomat – argues that ‘any hard border in the Irish Sea and North/South would hurt Ireland a lot more than it would Britain’ and that Ireland’s interests are more aligned with the UK than EU. Consequently, he says Dublin should drop its efforts to keep Northern Ireland in the Customs Union.
The EU’s own report confirms that the Irish Border issue can be resolved with technology – does this expose other motivations in Dublin and Brussels?
Dr Graham Gudgin – himself a former special adviser to the First Minister of Northern Ireland – finds that the EU’s own research group has identified technological solutions to avoid a ‘hard border’, raising questions about Dublin and Brussels’ intransigence on this issue.
The return of the internationalists? Unpacking Labour’s position on foreign policy.
Last week, Chuka Umunna spoke to Chatham House in a much-needed intervention on the state of British foreign policy.
In recent years, the British foreign policy debate has not kept up with the pace of global political and economic change. For that reason alone, there was much to commend in Umunna’s sense of urgency. To adapt to the challenges of the twenty-first century, as he put it, “we need to look ahead and develop a proper national strategy on the basis of a clear understanding of what our interests are”.
The Realities of a US-UK Free Trade Agreement
In a piece first published by ConservativeHome, Geoff Raby, Policy Exchange’s Head of Trade Policy, contends that while ‘undoubtedly the UK and USA will be able to negotiate a post-Brexit high-quality FTA’, many ‘major unknowns’ remain as yet unresolved.
Britain’s Services Trade Can Flourish Outside of the EU’s Single Market
Geoff Raby — Policy Exchange’s Head of Trade Policy — and Andrew Stoler contend that ‘the reality is that the UK has many realistic options outside the Single Market, and both the UK and EU have much to gain from negotiating a sensible agreement on services’
