Current Affairs

I need some work done at home and invited firms to quote. “That’s a smart van,” I said in passing to the managing director of a limited company that visited last week. “Oh, we’ve got six of those,” he replied. We went through the project. In the past, companies had sent me quotes with the […]

For our weekly “Ideas on Europe” editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we welcome Dr Theofanis Exadaktylos from the University of Surrey, in England.

Boris Johnson is “not a complete clown”, his new communications director, Guto Harri, said this month adding, “he’s a very likeable character.” Really? I would say instead that Boris Johnson is a completely dangerous clown, and nothing he’s done for the country is at all likeable. Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, questioned the seriousness […]

The EU referendum was entirely flawed according to criteria set by former Brexit Secretary and ardent Brexiter, David Davis, on how referendums should be “done properly”. In July 2016, Tory MP, Mr Davis, accepted the result of the EU referendum and the dual-role of Brexit Secretary and Chief Brexit Negotiator in Theresa May’s new government. […]

In France, the presidential election monopolises all the attention. Of candidates and non-candidates, activists and voters, media and pollsters, domestic and foreign observers. That’s understandable. The playbook is irresistible: rhetorically overblown visions of society collide in a dramaturgy replete with plot twists and cliffhangers, the absence of any post-election compromise allows for a merciless showdown, […]

As I seem to find myself regularly explaining, Brexit is a process, not an event. Which is all well and good, but also a bit problematic when you want to work out the appropriate context for that process. At one level, it is evidently simply part of a much longer process of developing British European […]

For our weekly “Ideas on Europe” editorial by UACES, the University Association for European Studies, we have a very special guest today, Dr Kathryn Simpson from Manchester Metropolitan University. Dear Kathryn, welcome back to euradio!     euradio · Ireland and the European Union – Much More than Brexit – Ideas on Europe     […]

“What unites us better than Les Bleus?” (“Qui nous unit mieux que les Bleus ?”). Good question. TF1, Europe’s largest television channel and long-standing partner of the French national team, used it as teaser during the European football championship last summer. An excellent promotional slogan, underpinned by an emotional video of suffering and celebrating the […]

For years now, party-based Euroscepticism has been broadly conceived – various taxonomies notwithstanding – as either in favour of reforming the EU ‘soft Euroscepticism’ or leaving it altogether ‘hard Euroscepticism’. It has been particularly so in the case of Euroscepticism on the left. However, in a recent article for the Journal of Common Market Studies, […]

Recent years have seen a rise of populist radical right (PRR) forces across Europe. Inside the current European Parliament (EP), they make up almost a third of MEPs, more than doubling their seat share in a decade. This increase in representation reflects growing public scepticism towards European integration. Still, ideological divergences have so far prevented […]