A helpful discussion of Brexit negotiations

This is one of the better discussions of Brexit that I've heard. It's from Falter Radio, a podcast from the Austrian weekly Falter. But except for the first 2 1/2 minutes, the discussion is in English. The participants are Matthew Goodwin of the University of Kent and Angus Robertson of the Scottish National Party (SNP), moderated by Bettina Prendergast of the Austrian public news agency ORF. Sackgasse Brexit 07/27/2018:

This is especially good on emphasizing how important the Northern Ireland issue is in Brexit. It even explains the "backstop" in straightforward terms, which in my limited experience is pretty rare. Usually it winds up sounding like some obscure esoteric teaching.

Just in the last few months, I've noticed a shift in the terminology used in the press for people who criticize some aspect of the currently dominant policies in the EU. For years, the term "euroskeptic" has been used mainly to refer to people who are opposed to their country being part of the EU. Most of them are on the far right of the current political spectrum, though a fraction of them are on the left. "Eurocritic" was used to describe people who were in favor of their countries being in the EU but expressed urgent criticisms of major problems like the structure of the euro currency and the lack of any adequate EU refugee policy.

But just lately, I've heard "euroskeptic" used to cover both perspectives. Political terms evolve. But it does seem like a rhetorical win for the everything-is-basically-all-right-with-the-EU view because it lumps together pro-EU gruops and positions with rightwing nationalist anti-EU ones.

One thing that's not so clear in this discussion is that both sides in the Brexit negotiations, Britain on one side and the EU on the other, have a large incentive to stall until near the final deadline on coming to agreement. Just like happens in labor negotiations. But given the divisions in British politics and the fanaticism of the Brexit hardliners, the prospects of blundering into a "hard Brexit" are not negligible.

Matthew Goodwin's webpage describes him as "an outward-facing researcher who believes that social science should be as much about contributing to wider society as to social science." It also notes that he was "co-editor of the Routledge book series on Extremism and Democracy" and an "academic member of the UK government's working group on anti-Muslim hatred (2011-2015)."

Angus Robertson is former Member of Parliament and former Deputy Director of the SNP.