Boris Johnson gave a speech about the next stage of Brexit earlier this week in Greenwich. The initial reactions mostly focused on how this was the UK Government setting out its stall that was at odds with the line the Commission’s negotiator Barnier outlined the same day. Then there was...
A country where 42.4% of the vote gives a party a solid majority in Parliament. A country where a decent and ethical chair of a parliamentary committee is ousted in favour of a government lackey. A country where a report into foreign influence over its democratic procedures is swept under...
This tweet of mine drew quite a lot of critique – why are you so sceptical, people asked. There is a pro-EU majority in the UK now. When Brexit really happens (i.e. when the transition period is over) people will see the damage that was done, and the UK can...
As my train accelerated away from Berlin this morning, heading onwards towards Hannover, Köln, Brussels and eventually Bruges, the grey-green of the Brandenburg fields streaked by outside the window under a leaden sky. My destination: the College of Europe in Bruges, to teach the next generation about how the EU...
It’s not by chance that I have borrowed the title of this blog post from Peter Pomerantsev’s book about communication techniques in Putin’s Russia. Garry Kasparov’s observation – that the point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda, but to exhaust your critical thinking and to...
First let’s get a few things out of the way. This post concerns only two parties – the Liberal Democrats and Labour – and in one part of the UK – England. It also will not get drawn on who is to blame as to why there has been no...
I was a member of the Labour Party from 1996 until 2013 when I quit and joined the German Greens (I explained my choice at the time here). However having been away from the UK only since 2012, and not yet having got German citizenship (it’s being processed), I still...
I have been making flow diagrams since January 2019. Series 1 was more my effort to get to grips with this diagramming lark. Series 2 was the first with probabilities, and predicted a Brexit delay – and that’s what happened. Series 3 started after the European Elections in May 2019...
The Brexit deadline 31st October is just 32 days away. The House of Commons is sitting because prorogation was ruled unlawful and void by the Supreme Court. But UK politics is still on a knife edge because what will happen with Brexit is still unknown. The quandary is essentially this....
Yesterday pretty much all the Brexit commentators were poring over comments by Jean Claude Juncker that “we can have a deal”, and seeing the chances of a Deal rising. Meanwhile Mujtaba Rahman was trying to interpret Barclay’s words in a speech in Madrid, estimating that the opposite were true due...
Oliver Letwin. Tom Watson. And Tony Blair. All of them have in the past fortnight suggested the UK should first hold a 2nd EU referendum, and only thereafter hold a General Election. This is the opposite of the prevailing thinking in Westminster – that is that first a General Election should happen,...
tl:dr; Opposition parties want to call an election as soon as possible, but want that election to happen as late as possible. An unconventional route – via a Vote of No Confidence tabled next week (9th September) – offers a route to this. First of all: this is not my...