Democracy & Citizenship

Eurosceptics often claim that they love Europe, but hate the European Union. They assert that Britain can still be part of Europe without having to be part of the European Union. That, of course, is true to an extent, but it rather misses the point and purpose of the EU. The European Economic Community – […]

Looking around in these final weeks before the 23 June vote, there hasn’t much reason to feel that the EU referendum has come to occupy a central place in the lives of the British public. While the papers and the news programmes have been full of stories and arguments, this hasn’t seemed to fully translate […]

On BBC Question Time last week, Frank Field, MP, got it wrong by repeating that old myth that the EU accounts hadn’t been signed-off. I wrote him an open letter – to which I am still awaiting a reply: Dear Mr Field On BBC Question Time last night (2 June) you told the audience: ‘I […]

The Eurovision Song Contest can be a useful and fun allegorical tool for explaining the dynamics of the EU, writes Anna Wambach. She argues that, although comparisons between the two can create strong cognitive associations over time, if taken too seriously such links can lead to misunderstandings about how the EU works in practice. It […]

As we’ve moved into the last stretch of the referendum, we’ve seen the emergence of a new dynamic: the referendum-as-general-election. In setting out more clearly what a post-Brexit future would look like, the key figures in the Leave campaign – Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Chris Grayling and Priti Patel – have also been sketching what a […]

One of the most interesting aspects of the EU referendum campaign so far has been the extent to which things haven’t changed. Six weeks into the official period, we still have polling that gives no clear advantage to either side, nor even an indication that attitudes have changed at all: the don’t knows still make […]

After what feels like a lifetime, we move into the final weeks of this EU referendum campaign. A quick peek at the calendar only gives us five weeks until the vote and all the talk of long campaigns and attention deficits feels pushed to one side, as we flip into rushes for the line, tales […]

Political myths are a particular kind of narrative used to shape the legitimacy of a political system, writes Jeremy F. G. Moulton. He argues that, despite the difference between the academic and common usages of ‘myth’, political myth theory can generate important insights for political authority, and that it may prove useful in understanding questions […]

Boris Johnson has spoken out against holding a referendum on whether the UK should remain part of the European Union. The Guardian reported that Mr Johnson’s intervention would help the prime minister, David Cameron. Mr Johnson told BBC Radio Five Live, “Whether you have an in/out referendum now, I can’t quite see why it would […]

Earlier this week, I was quoted in a Daily Telegraph piece about Grassroots Out (GO). The article had noted that ten seeming-offshoots of the group had been registered with the Electoral Commission as participants in the referendum campaign. If the Commission were to consider them as separate, then taken together they would be free to spend as […]