For at least three years – and in some cases much longer – Brexiters have peddled fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about what Brexit would mean and how it could be done. Ever since the 2016 referendum more and more of these have been exposed or debunked, as many of the posts and links on this blog testify.

Fake news to influence the UK public to vote for Brexit has mostly come from our very own so-called professional journalists right here in the UK. / Here’s a list of fake news by the UK press over the last 20 years. Every single story here has been debunked as fake news.

Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg was wrong about this but he’s never corrected his mistake, and the myth persists. What is the claim and why is it wrong?

Unfortunately, both points raised by Jacob in this clip are incorrect. Firstly there isn’t a 10-year window under WTO rules that allow us to retain on our current trading arrangement with the EU.

What happens in the next three months, perhaps even the next couple of weeks, is going to shape the fate of the country for decades. If Brexit goes ahead, in any form, it will enact a profound misreading of the nature of the contemporary political and economic world and represent an unprecedented failure of British statecraft.

Beneath a lot of sound and fury, the main story of this week is that Britain continues to go round in circles over Brexit.

The so-called Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause contained in several of the EU’s existing trade agreements, could also limit the extent of concessions granted by Brussels to the UK. / This Briefing Paper explains what the MFN clause is and why it could be problematic for the UK. It maps out which EU agreements contain MFN clauses, their scope and the various exceptions they contain.

Bob Hancké reports on a recent study which suggests not only that the agreement has made trade in goods between the UK and the EU very difficult, but that it has also severely limited Britain’s ability to conclude free trade agreements with the rest of the world.

It’s probably fair to say that Owen Paterson was not a household name until the events that led to his resignation last week. However, he played a significant role in the Brexit saga, albeit of a particular sort.

Brexit has turned our lives upside down and I had two options: to sit down and wait for my fate to be delivered to me, or fight for my rights and my beliefs. I choose to stand up.

It’s now less than a month, and less than 20 working days, until a massive change in the way that the UK trades with and relates to its own continent, and in many ways to the rest of the world as well.

It may be time for the UK to consider the possibility the German car industry might not be riding to the rescue.

'For at the same time as attempting to relegate Brexit to distant memory, the government is also claiming all kinds of benefits from “having left the EU”.'

Brexit will never be over.

Brexiters are often accused of living in the past. That is manifest in the now recurring Brexiter response to concerns about Brexit: ‘but we did perfectly well before’.

For almost 50 years, the NHS benefited from easy access to a large market, meaning it’s been first in the queue for the latest innovations. But what impact might Brexit have on medicines, medical devices and life sciences in the UK? Mark Dayan explains, in a blog that was first published in the BMJ on 26 February.

“We want to use GATT Article 24” means “We want a free trade agreement in goods that complies with WTO rules”. It doesn’t say much.

The most important Brexit event of the week came and went with relatively little fanfare, yet it marks a significant moment.

One of the consequences of leaving it so late – 24 December 2020 – to agree The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) was that ratification could not be completed before the Agreement entered into force on 1 January 2021.

'The Brexiters have no more idea in private than they do in public about what they are doing. Predictions based upon their concealed intent project on to them a competence they simply don’t possess.'

"The first week of Johnson’s new administration has seen both speculation about, and the beginning of some answers to, how he intends to undertake Brexit. The outrageousness of that situation shouldn’t pass without comment."

In my previous post I made reference to the recent upsurge of Brexiter interest in GATT Article XXIV. As noted there, it was mentioned as a way of avoiding the damage of no-deal Brexit by Boris Johnson in one of the leadership debates. Shortly afterwards, his claim was debunked by Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England (£) but he has continued to push it in interviews this week.