Democracy & Citizenship

The chairman of Aviva, Britain’s biggest insurance company, said at their AGM yesterday that the company would prefer to “avoid the uncertainty” of Brexit. Sir Adrian Montague, CBE, the company’s new chairman, was answering a shareholder’s question about the board’s view on the EU referendum. At first he gave a guarded response. “I am not […]

A straightforward comparison between Britain remaining in the EU and leaving isn’t possible. That’s because we know what ‘Remain’ in the EU means – it’s the status quo and we’ve experienced it for four decades. But Leave? Nobody knows; nobody can say for sure. Even those campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union cannot […]

Isn’t it strange how history sometimes seems to repeat itself? Not always in exactly the same way, but in ways to make it seem uncanny. Take the remarkable resemblances between the referendum of 1975 and the one we’re having now, both regarding Britain’s future in Europe. Back in 1974 Labour leader, Harold Wilson, won a […]

The opening of the official campaign on the EU referendum hasn’t been all fireworks; instead, it’s been mostly more of the same. Each side trading consequences and perils, questioning the other side’s competence or intent. In particular, we’ve been lacking vision. The vision thing is an easy one of trash: too many overtones of Tony […]

Monday 11 April saw the launch of an impartial and independent review: the EU referendum and the UK environment. Authored by 14 international experts – and led by the three of us – this review draws on the findings of over 700 publications to investigate how has EU membership affected the UK and what might […]

Only three months ago, I asked myself in these columns how a politically aware French citizen could you not be jealous of Spain and the renewal of its democracy that it is currently undergoing. Sure, the Spanish learning process is difficult: instead of living with the oh, so convenient binary system and its comfortable pseudo-stability, […]

If you’re young with a University degree and live in London, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, you’re more likely to vote for Britain to remain in the EU. But if you’re older, with only a secondary education, and live in provincial England, you’re more likely to vote for Britain to leave the EU. That, in […]

Rival groups are bitterly battling each other to gain the official nomination to run the EU referendum Brexit campaign. Three campaigns with different visions of Britain after Brexit have applied to the Electoral Commission to be designated as the official ‘Leave’ group. Only one group from ‘Leave’ and one from ‘Remain’ can be awarded the […]

All day long on Friday, the entire spectrum of German media paid tributes to Hans-Dietrich Genscher. They were joined in the evening by the Chancellor, who ‘bowed in deep respect for the lifetime’s work’ of the former foreign minister. All of them referred to the key scene of 30 September 1989, when Genscher appeared on […]

  There’s not much that’s clear so far in the referendum, but one thing that looks pretty certain is that the campaign has yet to catch the public’s interest fully. Indeed, it might not be pushing things too far to say that most people don’t really care. The reasons for this are many and various. […]