I was invited to speak at DG Cambridge on 14th October about UK – German relations in the context of David Cameron’s EU referendum. Antony Carpen was kind enough to film the speech, and put it up on Youtube: There are three parts to the speech: – How did UK-EU...
A gentleman called Pete North has responded to my earlier blog entry with this. While Mr North thinks it fair game to describe me thus “Jon Worth, fancies himself as a bit of a political wunderkind and sees fit to opine on the subject of Brexit” and links to the...
A tweet by Sony Kapoor: Any economically sensible relation with the #EU post #Brexit will be at the cost of a much greater loss of the sovereignty sceptics cherish — Sony Kapoor (@SonyKapoor) October 16, 2015 This is absolutely right, and let me give a little more context. If Britain...
A legend persists about the 1975 referendum that confirmed the UK’s continued membership of the then European Economic Community (EEC); Britain voted to stay in an economic union back then, it is often stated, but the European Union has since become a political union. Britain didn’t vote for that. I...
So, all hail the ‘Remain’ side in the referendum campaign! Place your trust in “Britain Stronger in Europe“, the Will Straw and Stuart Rose campaign. It’s like the late-1990s “Britain in Europe“, only with more muscle, more fight, and more nationalist fervour! Gone are the solitary star and the yellow...
I’m speaking in Cambridge next week about the UK’s EU referendum and I have been reading a lot of articles about the vote to prepare. Andrew Duff’s piece for Verfassungsblog is one of the best pieces I’ve found – an excellent, and worrying, analysis of the legal complexities facing both...
Tony Blair promised to put Britain at the heart of Europe, and then failed to do it. Not only did he not take Britain into the Euro, but he also divided the EU over Iraq (preventing the development of a proper EU foreign policy). Meanwhile his delegates to Giscard d’Estaing’s...
After the initial shock of the Tory victory in May, and the dawning realisation that the UK’s in-or-out of the EU referendum will indeed happen, a sort of calm consensus among pro-EU contacts of mine in the UK formed in the early summer. Of course Cameron wants the UK to...
So Cameron is in Riga, trying to charm fellow EU leaders that British exceptionalism a reformed EU is possible. News about it here. But one phrase particularly struck me from Cameron’s words – we’re going to give the people a “proper choice” he says. The choice Cameron proposes is his...
So the Labour Party has another leadership election. Unlike in 2010, when I was still a Labour Party member and heavily involved in the process*, this time I have no vote (having quit Labour to join the German Grüne as I now live in Berlin). However that doesn’t mean I...
The construction vehicles pictured above are a JCB 3CX (on the left), manufactured in Rocester, UK, and two Volvo Construction Equipment machines (on the right), a L120F and L120E, both manufactured in Arvika, Sweden. My point of course – in light of comments yesterday by Chief Executive of JCB, Graeme...
(note: this is a counterfactual – just in case you’re reading it after October 2015!) It is Wednesday 21st November 2015, and David Cameron has called a press conference at Downing Street. With his face going rather puce, the anger showing in the edge to his voice, he delivers the...