Social Europe articles on politics

I recall many years ago discussing an industrial conflict with someone who is now a senior trade union leader. Sure I can get our people “up a palm tree”, he said. But then I have to know how to get them back down again afterwards. This common sense advice was not taken by the Brexiteers. […]

There are many lessons to be learned from the Brexit vote. Among the most important is the importance of leadership and political vision. Members of the public need to feel they have some idea of where their country is going and why, and their place in it. Instead, what we have seen is a lack […]

In the 1980s, when I was teaching at the University of Exeter, my late wife and I often spent fine summer weekends on the pebbly beach at Budleigh Salterton. In addition to its splendidly evocative name there was something wonderfully retro and English about Budleigh Salterton. Tea rooms and bowling greens, gentleman’s outfitters selling striped […]

It is called disruption. New digital technologies are having unforeseen impacts on industries and services in all directions. This fourth industrial revolution is testimony to the power of human ingenuity and innovation – and has the potential to bring major social benefits and challenges alike. The impact on labour markets and workers has so far […]

On 23 June, the British people voted to leave the European Union. Against all odds and, above all, against all reason, one of Europe’s most moderate and pragmatic of peoples has decided to disregard overwhelming evidence that such a decision would have negative consequences for the country. Almost the entirety of the country’s intellectual, economic […]

The vote for Brexit has opened an existential phase for the future of the EU. Irrespective of the political debates over the past year or so, the British referendum at its core was not about Britain’s membership of the EU, but about how the country copes with deindustrialization, deprivation and one of the highest levels […]

The referendum was lost some time ago. At its most superficial it was lost because the EU failed to give Cameron enough to take back from the negotiating table in the form of plausible and sustainable gains for the UK. It was lost because Labour’s leadership catastrophically failed to join a unified platform until the […]

To say that the Euro is facing existential threats is no exaggeration. The European single currency was hailed until not too long ago as an aspiring global reserve currency, second only to the US Dollar. But the Eurozone’s handling of the Greek debt crisis is putting the Euro’s future in question. The potential for Greece […]

With the fall of Communist rule in 1989, the main goal of Czech foreign policy was to obtain membership of the EU. This finally materialized in May 2004, when the Czechs entered the EU with seven other east European countries in the single greatest enlargement of the European Community. It was a joyful, almost impish, […]

Facts matter in this referendum. Yet politics has always been about feelings and emotion as much as statistics and experience. Why else, for instance, would anti-immigrant sentiment often be highest in those areas with the lowest number of migrants and fly in the face of most, if not all, of the expert studies that have […]

This week Britain faces a defining choice about our relationship with the EU. The hope, imagination and compassion we so desperately needed have been drowned out by fear, xenophobia and racism. The EU referendum gave Britain the chance to have a more hopeful and ambitious discussion about the Europe we really want: one that is […]

As the referendum campaign nears its end, one central issue is remarkable for its absence, despite the fact that it has been a major contributor to the anger that lends support to the Brexit camp:  neo-liberalism.  The revolt against the political parties, the rejection of the experts, the distrust of the elites more generally: all […]