The UK lawyer and journalist David Allen Green has a series of tweets in which he offers his suggestions for places to look/people to follow for information about Brexit.  It’s presented here ‘without comment’

@davidallengreen tweets at
https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/876681957991751680

1.  So – which accounts should you follow so as to follow the thrills and spills of the Brexit negotiations?

2. Having followed Brexit for a year, there is a broad hierarchy of sources of useful reliable information.

Without snark, as follows.

3. The most reliable information on Brexit will come from the EU institutions.

Unfortunate for UK, but sadly true.

4. This is the page of the EU negotiation team:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/brexit-negotiations_en#latest

5. The official EU commission account is @EU_Commission. But @MichelBarnier and (especially) @WeyandSabine are the ones to follow.

6. The latter is the EU’s deputy chief negotiator, and her RTs. tweets and likes are interesting and indicative.

7. Most of the EU key documents will be posted speedily and will be available in plain sight.

8. After the EU, the best sources are certain journalists. (You will see UK government will be further down this list, at number

9. In particular, peerless @alexebarker. If did not write for FT, I would subscribe for his stuff on Brexit. Also @ftbrussels generally.

10. Some other excellent journalists to follow on Brexit:

@JeremyCliffe
@mattholehouse
@JenniferMerode
@pmdfoster
@BrunoBrussels

11. (Apologies to those missed off, but I will RT their good stuff as well. Some outstanding Brexit journalism out there.)

12. The third best source for information on Brexit is, oddly, the UK parliament (not the government).

13. House of Commons library @commonslibrary has produced outstandingly thorough briefings on EU issues (pity MPs don’t read them enough)

14. And various Commons and Lords committees have also provided outstanding reports. Both @CommonsEUexit and @LordsEUCom should be followed.

15. With parliamentary reports, the detailed oral and written evidence is also posted and always worth looking at, not just the reports.

16. The fourth best source for reliable Brexit information are various thinktanks: @CER_EU @Bruegel_org @instituteforgov are must-follows.

17. And fifth and last, comes the UK government, which is woeful on providing reliable Brexit information. But for completeness, @DExEUgov.

18. For commentary rather than than information, I am sure you all have your preferred sources. But this thread not about commentary.

/ends

For those of you who are new to working for a Member of Parliament, or who are continuing to work for your newly re-elected Member, you might like to know that Chris Sear, Head of Customer Services for the Customer Team, is very happy to discuss any issues you might have.

Chris can be contacted by email at [email protected].

You might also like to know that two events for Members’ staff are planned and more will be set up shortly. There is an event in Westminster – in the Attlee Suite in portcullis House – on 7 July and in Scotland (location to be confirmed) on 11 July. The programmes are varied and will cover a number of different services that will help you with your work, and are a great opportunity to meet House staff and each other. If you are interested in attending these please let the Customer Team  know. We will post full details on w4mp as soon as we have them.

We’ve had a note from Andy Mabbett about MPs and Wikidata:

The days after a general election are a good time to remind MPs and their staff that Wikipedia has a biography of every MP. I’ve written before about how MPs can work with Wikipedia  and its sister projects, to ensure that those articles are complete and up-to-date.  Several items of data about MPs, such as their website, Twitter name and Facebook profile, and whether Wikipedia has an openly-licensed image of them, are stored in one of those sister projects, a central database called Wikidata, so that they can be accessed not only by Wikipedias in many languages, but by anyone wanting them, as linked, open data, for reuse in other websites or apps.

Wikipedia volunteers are currently busy ensuring that the recent election results are accurately reflected – noting former MPs, updating data about those who continue, and, of course adding new ones. Nonetheless, it would be great if  staff could assist this process to check the details held about their members is complete.

Accordingly these two Wikidata pages show:

data about new MPs

data about all MPs in the new parliament. (where that is shown in
their entry)

And we’d be very grateful for your effort in ensuring it is accurate.

The fine people at Democracy Club are building a Twitter list of new Members of Parliament, which you may find worth taking note of.

twitter.com/democlub/lists…

It’s worth noting that Portcullis House search and screening will be closed from Monday 8 May until Tuesday 6 June, inclusive. 

Between 8.00am-6.00pm passholders can still access the estate via this entrance and passholders and visitors will be able to exit in the usual way.

The nearest alternative visitor access points are 1 Parliament Street and Cromwell Green Entrance.

Further information

For more information please contact the Serjeant at Arms Office ([email protected]) or on x0145.

Gyula Péter [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Key findings of the report include:

• A Positive ‘Referendum Effect’ Fails to Materialise. There has been no positive ‘referendum effect’ on public attitudes after the June 2016 EU vote, of the kind witnessed after the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. Claimed interest in (53%) and knowledge (49%) of politics have declined (by four and six percentage points respectively) compared to last year. Satisfaction with the system of governing Britain has barely changed and remains low at 31%.
• Changes in Political Behaviour? Although the public’s attitudes are proving hard to shift, there are some positive signs of change in political behaviour. After the high turnout in the EU referendum, people’s certainty to vote remains at a high watermark. There are also signs of some improvements in public engagement with Parliament. Just over half the public say they have engaged with Parliament in some way in the previous 12 months – a 10-point increase on last year.
• Perceptions of Parliament. The public clearly value Parliament, with a substantial majority (73%) believing it is essential to democracy. However, overall satisfaction with the way Parliament works (30%) is now six points lower than when the first Audit was published in 2004. Claimed knowledge of Parliament has declined by seven points from last year to 45%, but remains higher than at the same stage of the political cycle after the 2005 and 2010 elections. In relation to its core functions, the public think Parliament could do a better job of scrutinising the use of public money, representing ordinary people’s interests, and encouraging public involvement in politics.
• The EU Referendum Support for more referendums has declined by 15 points. But a clear majority of British people (61%) still think referendums should be used more often for determining important questions. Eighty-eight percent of UKIP supporters support the use of more referendums compared to just 42% of Lib Dems who say the same, while the views of Labour and Conservative supporters are broadly identical (59%).  On top of this, just 43% claim to feel knowledgeable about the EU, a rise of just five points since last year’s study.

To read the report in full click here. To find out more about The Hansard Society, their work and publications visit www.hansardsociety.org.uk