debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Since last week, a sizeable number of commentators have been arguing that UKIP’s surge just made Britain a more European place. The reasoning? Farage and Co are part of a phenomenon that exists EU-wide, apparently. You can almost hear the thought-process of the euro-enthusiasts writing this stuff. What better way to discredit the anti-EU party [...]
ECFR’s Europe at the crossroads project aims at examining the state of the debate on the euro crisis and the future of the UK’s relationship with Europe. This is a guest blog post by John Palmer, the former European Editor of The Guardian and founder of the European Policy Centre in Brussels. The British capacity to be unhappy [...]
Can we move forward from the Manichean Europhile-Europhobe, Federalist-Sceptic, £/€ divide on the UK’s relationship with the rest of Europe’s nations? The ultra Federal project is dead – though who actually supported it was never clear. Tony Blair’s EU policy was actually much more cautious, prudent, and defensive than many realise. As a PPS and [...]
The success of Britain in toning down the ambitions of the European institutions, shifting the balance away from the supranational executive towards the intergovernmental method, the muzzling of a voice in world affairs that is independent of Washington, the dragooning of Europe to the cause of unfettered globalisation and ‘light touch regulation’, the internal market, [...]
Britain has long been the awkward partner in Europe. In 1951, she refused to join the European Coal and Steel Community, predecessor of the European Community. Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary at the time, said of the Coal and Steel Community – ‘If you open that Pandora’s box, you never know what Trojan ‘orses will jump [...]
In a book published last year[1], I undertook to debunk some of the most commonly held views about Euroscepticism which, in my view, have obscured our understanding of how individual and collective attitudes towards the EU integration process are shaped. Three of these “myths” are examined below and, when relevant, are questioned in the light [...]
The re-emergence of ‘the European question’ in British politics should come as no surprise whatsoever to the few Labour types based in the Tory heartlands. Britain’s continued membership of the European Union is practically the only issue which stirs the otherwise comatose political consciousness in the Home Counties – all tied in, inextricably, with feelings [...]
Social democracy has arguably been more aware of historical change than any other political movement. Liberals tend to believe that historical change is something that cannot and should not be influenced, beyond the creation of a minimal state. Conservatives might be interested in history but the idea that mankind could consciously make its own history [...]
The fallout from the eurozone crisis has utterly changed the debate over how to achieve a more ‘Social Europe’. The big question is can its supporters turn this in their favour? The ramifications of the euro crisis can hardly be underestimated. It has brutally exposed the flaws of economic governance in the European Union. It [...]
Europe is a pain in the ass for European social democracy. It represents one of those ‘dossiers’ which cause in a dramatic and existential way a split in two of its core constituencies: the internationalist academic professionals on the one hand, strongly in favour of and connected to European politics, versus the traditional constituencies, negatively [...]
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