This essay was commissioned by Léo Keller on behalf of the Blogazoi blog, as part of a collection to be published following the German election. It is over 21 years since Angela Merkel took over from Wolfgang Schäuble as leader of the CDU, Germany’s most consistently successful political party. Schäuble, the [...]
Nine months into Brexit and it is already apparent that musicians are one of the main sectors whose lives and livelihoods are being radically disrupted by Brexit, to the point that it is causing 21% of musicians to consider changing their career. Sir Simon Rattle recently stated that it was [...]
Division has been central to the electoral strength of the Johnson Conservative Party. It might also prove key to understanding its potential weakness. Conservative victory in December 2019 was achieved partly through identifying a social cleavage and securing a large proportion of the support of those on one side of [...]
This article was first published by Civil Service World. The Government have very quietly published a grandly title “Declaration On Government Reform”, signed by the Prime Minister and Cabinet Secretary no less. It was apparently agreed at a meeting of the whole Cabinet with all Permanent Secretaries in attendance. [...]
From Unidentified Political Object to European Democracy Thirty years after the foundation of the European Union by virtue of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty the nature of the Union has been established at last. At the time of its creation as successor of the European Communities the EU used to be [...]
6 years ago I published a book “Brexit. How Britain Will Leave Europe.” It came out before the May 2015 election. It set out all the reasons, based on 20 years of door knocking in what we now call a red wall seat, why I thought that if a populist [...]
“Take back control” was one of the main battle-cries of Brexit. Underpinning it was the notion that the UK had ceded its sovereignty to the EU and was no-longer an ‘independent’ country. We will leave aside the issue of whether or not Brexit really represents a return of sovereignty to [...]
In Scotland, there is a real sense of its politics and the constitutional debate moving into a new phase as the aftermath of the pro-independence SNP and Green parties’ success in the elections sinks in. Turnout, at 63%, was the highest it has been since the first elections to the [...]
Within ten days after the finalisation of the UK withdrawal from the EU, the European Union is to start an ambitious Conference on the Future of Europe. The aim of the Conference is to discuss the place of the citizens in the construction of the Union and to underpin European [...]
The first months of Brexit are a bit like the phoney war of autumn 1939 and winter-spring of 1940. No-one really know what its full impact will be. One thing is certain. Brexit has not been “done”. We are entering the era of “Brexiternity”. In so many ways Brexit is [...]
