Please boycott any US products and services if you can. And when it comes to leisure, there’s plenty of choice. Do it.

Good article. The far right in Germany, Spain and France is on the same bus. Those of us who like a fair society and women being free need to make our votes and voices count

Underwhelming. But good for the charlatans in the Labour Party to get votes from gullible pro European people. The sooner this party disappears, the better.

This is the hill I would die on.

Exceptionalism is believing that the EU owes us something. It is also being concerned only with Britain's interests and not those of member states - which is the whole point of the EU and of EU solidarity. I have no grounds or wish to 'police' the issue. However, I am entitled to opinions.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social You left the EU and excluded yourselves from the Single Market which is the largest competitive labour market in Europe. And now you’re lecturing us about being afraid of competition? bsky.app/profile/andr...

How dare these European bureaucrats attempt to unburden our students

To be fair the policy of not chasing the polls has been a complete success

The UK-US “special relationship” is purely a British construct: a post-imperial need to feel exceptional. Washington has only indulged the rhetoric out of politeness to date, but no longer.

At the most basic level of 'have some self-respect', Conservative MPs should not put forward someone who visibly is not intellectually equipped to be prime minister as their candidate to be prime minister.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social Starmer isn’t in a position to demand anything of the EU. He can make proposals. The EU-27 will consider them on their own merits and decide whether they suit the Union. That’s how negotiations work when you’re the outsider. bsky.app/profile/andr...

The finest take down of the institution of monarchy and "class" and the grasping, greedy, venal, entitled, and very stupid people it enables that you will read today or any day. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

All of Europe needs to become independent when it comes to energy. Being dependent on Russia, the US and the ME was never going to end well. Some European countries have already reduced this dependence by committing to the production of renewable energy.

Leaving things “as they were” stopped being an option the moment the UK left the EU. The legal framework changed overnight: Gibraltar became an external Schengen border. What follows isn’t spite, it’s the legal and geographic consequences of that choice.

That’s the geography talking. Gibraltar is tiny, densely built and physically constrained. Expanding hard border infrastructure would mean major demolition and economic self-harm. This deal exists because frictionless movement is a practical necessity, not a political luxury.

A visa waiver isn’t “permission without paperwork”, it’s a harmonised Schengen policy agreed collectively and embedded in EU law. Limited territorial visas are the opposite: tightly controlled, exceptional and supervised. One is the rulebook; the other is a narrow footnote.

That’s a leap. Limited territorial visas are narrow, exceptional tools tied to specific border arrangements and not a backdoor rewrite of Schengen’s 90/180 rule. Treaty architecture doesn’t get redesigned by creative extrapolation.

It’s not “unfathomable”, it’s technical. Limited territorial visas with Schengen-state oversight are a legal safety valve, not a secret workaround. Journalists aren’t ignoring it; they recognise this is regulatory plumbing, not a sovereignty thriller.

They’re not “more rights in our territory” - they’re exercising EU rights inside the EU legal order. The UK chose to leave that system. Rights didn’t move; the UK did.

Because Gibraltar now sits on the EU’s external Schengen frontier. If people can enter Spain from Gibraltar, Schengen law requires a Schengen state to control entry and visas. It sounds dramatic, but it’s simply how external borders work once you leave the club.

“What are we getting?” is the wrong lens. Gibraltar gets a functioning frontier, legal certainty and continued economic survival. Post-Brexit diplomacy isn’t about winning trophies, it’s about managing consequences.

There’s no need for melodrama about “pressure” or shadowy threats. Gibraltar’s economy depends on a fluid frontier; Spain has treaty obligations as a Schengen state. Negotiations between unequal legal positions tend to produce legally coherent outcomes, not romantic victories.

Brexit exceptionalism in one screenshot: the shock that EU citizens retain EU rights while the UK chose to leave the system that created them. Consequences mistaken for injustice.

Always entertaining watching armchair “experts” rediscover Schengen while others gasp that reality has consequences. Gibraltar sits on the EU’s external frontier, so Spain gets oversight. Not coercion, not betrayal: just treaties, geography and Brexit colliding.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social Calling Gibraltar “another Andorra” flatters Gibraltar and undersells Andorra. Andorra controls its own borders, isn’t claimed by Spain, balances two neighbours, and chose its model. Gibraltar will rely on Spain to run Schengen checks in a live sovereignty dispute.

The UK is just a bullshit ex-boyfriend that drunk dials you for YEARS after he broke up with you whining about wanting to meet up with you for sex without strings. EU should really just block the UK's number at this point.

I hope I'm not responsible for any jibes, but I rate Niall as one of the shrewdest opinions on whither now for Brexit. In fact I often commission him to write for us. I've never known him to be abusive, though I can imagine his sometimes brutal honesty can be unsettling for some.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social Those arrangements don’t prove what you think they do. They’re narrow, historic exceptions built into Schengen at the start and not a template for new carve-outs decades later. And the visa strategy isn’t “fixing a problem”; it’s about consistent external borders.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social Brexit is unique but not in the way you mean. It’s the first time a member chose to leave the club. That doesn’t create entitlement to special perks; it creates caution about special treatment. That’s the political reality.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social That’s a counterfactual, not an argument. The UK was a member, then chose to leave and that changes the politics and the trust calculus. You don’t get treated like a never-member after walking away. That’s the reality.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social That’s pure speculation. There’s no evidence the EU is trying to centralise all visa issuance in Brussels. Short-stay rules are already Schengen-wide; long-stay visas remain firmly a member-state competence. Inventing a centralisation plan doesn’t make it real.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social It is more complicated. Youth mobility = specific visa framework; visa-free travel sits inside Schengen rules and can’t be reinvented piecemeal. It wouldn’t break Schengen but would require changing how Schengen currently works. Calling it simple doesn’t make it so.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social No, bilateral visa waivers aren’t an option. Schengen explicitly prevents member states doing side-deals on short-stay entry. They can issue national long-stay visas, yes. But new bilateral visa-free schemes for Brits? Not how Schengen works.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social Backwards. It’s 90 days MAXIMUM in any 180, not ATLEAST 90 in 180. That is a basic Schengen rule. Long stays are indeed national competence. Mis-stating the short-stay rule is either ignorance or malignancy.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social Why would it be inappropriate? A personal perspective on history and politics is context, not misconduct. If you disagree, challenge it. Speaking of “appropriate”, how is reposting my posts while blocking me and denying a direct reply in line with European values?

Miles Davis - In a Silent Way #MusicSky #VinylSky #VinylCommunity

With your attitude, no one would want you back.

@andrewhesselden.bsky.social - I know you say you have blocked each other, but might I suggest you (via one of your sock puppets) check out this thread to enlighten yourself on who we are and our values. bsky.app/profile/nial...

@1daveymo.bsky.social - So does the same standard apply to Robert Galbraith or John Le Carre? Both are pseudonyms. And are a long-standing literary and professional norm: anonymity isn’t deception unless the content itself is dishonest.

Rightwing pundits like Ms Urback are surely grinding their teeth at Prime Minister Mark Carney’s success thus far. But maybe the real lesson they should learn from the neophyte politician is that politics isn’t that complicated after all. Start by not being a jerk, for one thing. 😉

This one hits hard.

“Our transition to EVs is aimed at ensuring our energy sovereignty,” said Ethiopia’s state minister for transport and logistics. “As a net importer of fuel, we are affected by global supply and price fluctuations. In contrast, EVs use electricity, which we produce locally and can price ourselves.”

Carney's incredible secret sauce seems to be - say what the problem is, whose fault it is, what you will have to do about it and what it will cost.

In what relevant sense is the UK European? It rejects supremacy of European law, a common customs schedule, European standards, and payments into the community budget. And it doesn't like the idea of Europeans living and working in the UK. Why would we include it? A 🧵

The many-faced enemies of Europe are stirring the pot again. Here they are working against the defence of Poland.

It is normal when EU free movement exists because 27 countries share the same rules, courts and obligations. What’s “radical” is wanting those benefits back while refusing the common rules that make them possible.

I understand why Britons want to annul Brexit rather than make the case for Europe. Making the case is hard. Like they did in Poland and Spain and Ireland. Like they did at Maidan and are doing in the trenches of the Donbas and the streets of Tbilissi today. And like they did in the UK in '75

@zarahsultana.bsky.social - seriously?

This isn’t abstract policy talk but real people terrified of being torn from their families and forced into insecurity by a government that prefers cruelty to coherent planning. It’s performative cruelty, not serious governance. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...