Democracy & Citizenship

I’m being a bit of a dog with a bone on this one, mainly because no one else seems terribly interested in it. As I’ve discussed before (here and here), the transition phase of withdrawal from the EU has been taken as a given. All parties were happy to sign up to the March text, it’s all […]

  Today in Parliament, Prime Minister Theresa May said: “We are committed to delivering on our commitment to having no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and that we have as frictionless trade as possible with the European Union.” She added: “There are a number of ways that can be delivered.” The best way […]

At the European Parliament in Brussels I interviewed LibDem MEP, Catherine Bearder, who gave a positive message: We can stop Brexit. “Absolutely it can be stopped,” she said, “and I think that’s the message that I would like to get out.” The LibDem MEP added, “It has to be done democratically.” Ms Bearder said that […]

  Last night Theresa May’s Tory (aka UKIP2) government suffered a major defeat in the House of Lords. By a large majority, the Lords agreed to an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill to give MPs the power to stop the UK from leaving without a deal, or to make Theresa May return to negotiations […]

Inspired by the growing debate on critical approaches to European Studies, Vladimir Bortun adds his own perspective. He argues for class analysis which not only asks how to fix the EU’s specific problems but which takes a more holistic approach. Is the EU in its current form even worth fixing or do we need to […]

French society under Macron’s reform steamroller. „I do think that we can build efficient politics; politics that escape ordinary cynicism and engrave in reality what must be the foremost duty of political action, I mean human dignity.” Who would want to contradict Emmanuel Macron on this point? Certainly not the venerable ‘Episcopal Conference of France’, […]

Most Britons would now vote to remain in the European Union if there was another referendum held next week. That’s the result of a major UK-wide survey of more than 200,000 readers of local newspapers called The Big Brexit Survey. The survey also revealed that a significant majority want the UK to stay in the EU […]

The reality of Brexit is now sinking in fast. It can’t be delivered. That’s why we need another vote. Government ministers promised that Brexit will give us “the exact same benefits” as we have today. That’s impossible. That’s why we need another vote. Last year Brexit Secretary, David Davis, promised a trade and customs agreement […]

It’s one year ago today that Prime Minister Theresa May triggered the Article 50 notice for the UK to leave the EU. 29 March 2017 will not be celebrated in history. It’s the day that Britain’s interests were betrayed. Almost all of Theresa May’s current cabinet said during the EU referendum campaign that Brexit would […]

Brexit has two-faced double-standards and nobody knows what or who to believe. On the one hand, the Prime Minister, Theresa May, says that three million EU migrants in the UK are too many; they take our jobs, they cause a burden to our housing and hospitals; they have zero value. On the other hand, she […]