Democracy & Citizenship

Narrative arcs seem to be figuring in my life quite a lot at the moment. On the one hand, I’ve just started watching House of Cards and can already see the arc of Frank Underwood’s trajectory being sketched out: the initial pique, the considered revenge, the rise and – I presume – the ultimate hubris. Partly I […]

‘NIGEL FARAGE: UKIP WOULD BAN TERMINALLY-ILL MIGRANTS FROM BRITAIN’ – Telegraph My response: Turning away people with terminal illnesses? People with cancer, heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, lung disease, multiple sclerosis, liver cirrhosis, pituitary disease, mental illness… old age? All these conditions and more are potentially terminal. Nigel Farage’s vision for Britain will […]

There are many paradoxes in British politics, but the one that has most struck me in recent weeks has been the one about Europe. On the one hand, we are repeatedly told that the EU – and Britain’s role therein – is a crucial matter of public interest and public concern, and that it is […]

Focusing on what a Brexit could mean for Britain overlooks the more important question of what it could mean for Europe.

On Tuesday’s 100-days-to-go mark for the general election, UKIP published a list of ‘100 great reasons‘ to vote for them. Quite aside from the framing issues here – they’re not described as policies, for example – it’s also interesting to see where the party’s emphasis lies. With this in mind, I’ve made a small breakdown in […]

Two weeks after the shootings in Paris and ten days after the memorable rallies of 11 January, emotion gives way to lucid analysis. There should be no illusion: France stands all alone. Of course, there were millions of individuals all around the globe who instantly displayed the “Je suis Charlie” slogan in order to show […]

January is always a maudlin month: short days, poor weather and the delights of the break behind one. But this January is shaping up to be particular unpleasant for Europe. From the looming Greek elections to the pegida demonstrations in Germany, eurozone deflation and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France. From all of these things […]

The debate has been ongoing for as long as the expression ‘European integration’ has existed, and it is not likely to stop any time soon: is the self-proclaimed ‘European Community’ underpinned by a set of ‘shared values’? ‘Values’, like ‘culture’, is a sufficiently vague term to allow very divergent interpretations. It is one of these […]

  Today, writing in the Daily Express newspaper, columnist James Delingpole shockingly compares the European Union to Nazi Germany. He claimed that a “faceless commissar in Brussels” was deciding to ban every-day consumer products for no good reason. The newspaper asks its readers to play a new Christmas game called, “EU Ban Bingo” to “guess […]

Last week UCL student and blogger, Lewis Barber, wrote an article for the Jerusalem Post which was titled: “Why I will be voting to leave the European Union…” In summary, this was because, claimed Lewis: The EU no longer represented his values as a human being The decision by the highest EU court to strike […]