Yesterday was a significant day for those who follow the minutiae of Brexit, for those of us who try to ascertain what is actually going despite the cloud of obfuscation and media distortion. For months the answer to what Brexit means has been “Brexit means Brexit“, and when Theresa May has...
So often the political debate about migration and integration sees the issues at the level of the society as a whole. What can city/region/country do with X thousand new people? How will those areas change? What opportunities or burdens will all of this present to that area? How will the...
I count a pretty senior UKIP person as a friend. Yet whenever I tell that to some liberal lefty pro-EU contacts of mine they are repulsed and perplexed. They assume the person in question must be a Paul Nuttall or Roger Helmer, someone so hopelessly dim, racist or inconsistent that they cannot...
Imagine you have just been thrown into a tank at a sewage treatment plant. It reeks like hell, you have nothing solid to grip, and you’re flailing around madly trying to grasp something firm to hold onto, but you never manage. That’s what it has felt like to try to...
This event is co-organised by the Parliamentary Group of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen in the State Parliament Berlin (Abgeordnetenhaus), the Green Party of England and Wales and the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament – I am providing the live stream. Full details of the event here! Live Stream of the...
My earlier post about immigration in the UK and Labour’s response to it prompted this reply from Rob Ford at the University of Manchester: [tweet id=”803884593510223872″] At one level this is right – my post does not propose any reform of immigration rules as part of the solution. But this...
One of the most unusual post-EU Referendum stories to date has been the news that UK slaughterhouses face a possible shortage of workers. As the BVA outlines, in the meat hygiene sector some 95% of veterinary surgeons graduated overseas. Britain, it seems, does not train enough of its own veterinary staff...
[UPDATE 9.12.2016, 1515] Guy Verhofstadt has given some more detail about how important this associate citizenship thing is to him – see The Independent. However all the main issues with it I outline below still stand! There has been quite some heated reaction to Guy Verhofstadt saying he backs the...
Back on Sunday I wrote this tweet about François Fillon winning the first round of the centre right primary in France: [tweet 800444200089042944] Then, out of the blue and without asking me anything, four days later I get this: [tweet 801744792195633152 hide_thread=’false’] “unabashedly anti-Catholic” Karnitschnig says some Greens are (as...
I normally consider this blog something rather personal, a place to express my thoughts. But more people know of me thanks to this blog, and thanks to some of the projects I have managed to launch here, than through anything else I do. Long term professional connections, and plenty of...
Picture on the cover of the Berlin Republic – 5th edition 2016, and interview about Brexit Jon Worth, blogger and communications consultant: “Since I work in Europe, I need the freedom of movement and do not want to apply for residence permits. That is why I would like to become...
Today – even by the standards of the speed of news about Brexit – has been an extraordinary day. Here are the five stand out issues: A leaked memo shows the UK government has no Brexit plan and estimates that 30000 civil servants are going to be needed to make Brexit...