The EU

On BBC’s Andrew Marr Show this morning, Virgin Group boss Sir Richard Branson said it would be “inconceivable” for Britain to leave the EU and go back to paying export and import taxes on our trade with Europe. Here’s a full transcript of the interview that I prepared from the broadcast: ANDREW MARR: Now then, […]

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, speaking in Germany with her Greek husband by her side, has hinted that that she supports the UK’s continued membership of the European Union. “The United Kingdom has always been closely involved in its continent. Even when our main focus was elsewhere in the world, our people played a key part in […]

Even this is not going to cut it… Earlier this morning – a bit before 8am, in fact – a family friend turned up at our house, ‘for breakfast’. This turned out to be a misunderstanding of what we had thought was a jocular exchange of texts last night and certainly was not one the […]

A new Eurosceptic group campaigning for radical changes to the EU wants to end ‘free movement of people’ and only to allow ‘free movement of workers’. If the group achieves its aims, it could mean an end to moving to other EU countries to retire, such as to Spain where many British pensioners now reside. […]

A new anti-EU campaign, provisionally called ‘No Thanks – We’re Going Global’, is being funded by rich business people to persuade Britain to leave the European Union. The campaign, scheduled to be launched in September, is being funded with £20 million provided by some of the country’s richest entrepreneurs, according to The Telegraph. The group […]

On Alternative(s) to Neoliberal Globalization From 17 to 19 June 2015, I attended the 14th Annual Conference of the International Social Theory Consortium (ISTC) “Reconstructing Social Theory, History and Practice” at the University of Cambridge, with presentation “On Alternative(s) to Neoliberal Globalization” on the 17th of June 2015. First, the ISTC conference was about reconstruction, […]

Support for Britain’s continued membership of the European Union is currently the highest it’s been since the creation of the EU, according to a new poll released today. The poll by Ipsos MORI discovered that 75% of people are now in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the EU. Only 25% want Britain to leave. […]

This week I’m in Moldova, for a workshop of our TEMPUS project INOTLES. You’ve probably not been to Moldova, but Chisinau is a very pleasant city around which to walk, albeit one in which the local UNDP office looks like one of the more important buildings. To be here – in a country that has possibly the lowest GDP […]

This weekend marks 30 years since the Schengen agreement was signed by European leaders marking the end of passport control across a large area of Europe. Now passports are no longer required when travelling through 21 countries of the European Union, as well as non-EU countries Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The Schengen area functions […]

The European Parliament transcended into chaos today after a key debate on the controversial US-EU trade deal (known as TTIP) was postponed at the last-minute, causing a loud and prolonged protest led by anti-EU party UKIP. President of the Parliament, Martin Schulz, announced that the debate had been postponed, “to give more time … to […]