Simon Deakin explains in this audio podcast that Britain’s low-wage, low productivity economy is the result of 40 years of neoliberal economic policies.  While some on the Left think that Brexit will allow a reset of British economic policy, this view is implausible. Even a benign or ‘soft’ Brexit will cause a shock to Britain’s […]

The document agreed by the EU and UK in the early hours of 8 December 2017 is not a contract or treaty, merely a ‘joint report‘ on progress made in phase one of the Brexit negotiations.  However, its contents are likely to be incorporated into the withdrawal agreement envisaged by Article 50 TEU and, in […]

The final days of the UK referendum debate look set to be dominated by social policy, centred on the question of migration, but not confined to that. The overriding issue is now economic insecurity and the dangerous political dynamic it has created. The Leave side is polling well in areas of the country which have […]

From the very beginning of the debate over Britain’s place in Europe, it has been argued that membership of the EU and its predecessors would entail a loss of ‘sovereignty’ for the UK. It has also been claimed that the institutions of the EU are ‘undemocratic’ and ‘unaccountable’ compared to those of the British state. […]

A common response to the wave of protests over Uber is that its opponents are ‘Luddites’. The implication is that resistance to new technology today will prove futile, just as it did in the nineteenth century, when the original Luddites were unable to prevent the rise of the factory.  This view misunderstands what Luddism represented, […]

On the occasion of the centenary of the outbreak of the war in Europe, it is my great privilege to give this address to the graduating Masters class of 2014, and to continue the historic ties between Cambridge and Louvain. A century ago, our two universities stood in solidarity against the common threat of war […]