“On the day before Labour Party Conference, Ed Miliband announced a policy that Labour would restrict student fees to £6000 rather than the Tories’ £9000 level. Everyone shrugged. Here was a short term, tactical announcement that made no effort to get to the heart of the problem about financing of […]
“Another week, and another remarkable series of events in the Eurozone. Lucas Papademos was sworn in Friday as Prime Minister of Greece, prompting a market surge. The day after, Berlusconi resigned as Italian PM, with former European Commissioner Mario Monti a probable successor. When stock markets open on Monday morning, […]
“In yesterday’s Observer Ed Miliband wrote a piece entitled “business, finance and politics are out of touch with people”, talking of how the protests at St Paul’s have highlighted the growing gulf between the values of ordinary people and those of The City. The problem for Ed, and indeed any […]
“The government talks about repatriation of EU powers. What does this actually mean, and could it work? The only solution the government seems to be able to offer to its braying backbenchers in light of last week’s debate on an EU referendum is to propose to repatriate powers to the […]
“It’s in Britain’s national interest to be in the EU” – it pains me how often we hear that phrase (or words that that effect) in speeches made by UK politicians about the EU. Yet we very seldom question its use. The need to start to question it, for me […]
It doesn’t come easily to me to ask so bluntly, but I need your vote – I’m standing for the Executive of the Labour Movement for Europe. I’ve been writing about UK-EU relations on this blog for 6 years, have been working in EU affairs for 10 years, and have […]
When he’s not getting turfed out of Dale Farm, Labour MEP Richard Howitt seems to also be the most active of Labour’s MEPs in the European Parliament, at least thanks to one measure discovered using open data from Ron Patz. The image below shows MEPs according to how many Intergroups in […]
The EU institutions are in the middle of their annual budget ping-pong. The European Commission proposes the annual budget, and then the European Parliament and Council of the European Union (where Member States are represented) decide on the budget. The Commission’s opening shot for the 2012 budget, published in April […]
One of the responses to the Tory rebellion yesterday on the EU referendum vote has – rather predictably – been a call for ‘pro-Europeans’ to be more assertive. Clegg has said Britain should lead and not leave the EU, and over at LabourList Luke Akehurst has a piece entitled “We […]
This is a mythical speech that could be delivered tomorrow in the House of Commons by a MP opposing the resolution for a referendum. In my view it’s both realistic and honest, and hence there’s not a hope in hell anyone’s going to say anything like this… but anyway, here’s […]
There are some things party politics and representative democracy struggle to solve – those few issues that divide parties, that cross left-right divides. Britain’s relationship with the European Union is one such issue and, as a result, prompts calls from the right and, to a lesser extent, from the left, […]
Britain’s relationship with the EU is absolutely vital to the economic and political future of the country, and even to the political and economic future of the EU. The structure of British democracy, the way the country is governed, is a matter of first order political importance – Britain’s membership […]
