Where next for Labour?

The outcome of the 2019 UK general elections dealt a huge blow to the Labour Party and its policy programme around issues of social justice. In this post, I am reflecting on the causes of the defeat, the things to come as well as possible next steps for the party. I will argue that we must not succumb to the vilification of Jeremy Corbyn, be it by the right-wing media, be it by the right inside our own party.

The reality of precarious work in Brexit Britain

While the new Prime Minister Boris Johnson praises the country’s golden future as soon as Brexit has been accomplished by 31 October, increasing social inequality in the UK has dropped off the agenda. However, nine years of Conservative and Conservative-led governments have left their mark with many people stranded in abject poverty. The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip Alston recently referred to government policy as "designing a digital and sanitised version of the 19th Century workhouse, made infamous by Charles Dickens" (BBC, 22 May 2019). In this blog post, I will look at precarious employment as one of the key causes of inequality.

Brexit Britain – A World Turned Upside Down!

Photo by Tim Reckmann

Since the EU referendum in June 2016, Britain has tumbled from one extreme to another. Positions have hardened. Any compromise solution has become increasingly unlikely. The move by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to suspend Parliament is only the most recent development in a string of drastic events. While legal in itself, the clear attempt to side-line Parliament in a decision of national importance goes completely against long-held democratic conventions, intensifying further the deep division across British society. A world turned upside down!

Labour’s woes over Brexit or No Brexit: don’t lose sight of the real problem - inequality!

Photo by ChiralJon

With all eight alternative options rejected by MPs tonight, the search for a way out of the Brexit impasse continues. As governing party, the splits in the Conservative party have been in the limelight, but Labour too is deeply divided. And positions become more entrenched. At local party meetings it is not uncommon to hear statements such as ‘if Labour backs a People’s Vote and betrays the electorate, I’ll never vote Labour again’ or ‘I would never forgive the Labour Party, if it ended up facilitating Brexit’. And yet, is there not the danger that we overlook the most pressing problem in this country, the exploding inequality in society?

Labour and Brexit: The need for a principled approach.

With a no-deal outcome increasingly likely, the Brexit negotiations by the current government are in a shambles. It has become clear by now that Brexit will have economic costs for the country. At the same time, preferential trade agreements with other countries such as India or the USA, which might be able to compensate for the loss of a close relationship with the economies of the EU, remain unlikely. Split between neo-liberal Remainers and hard-line nationalist Brexiteers, the Conservative government is on the point of falling apart. And yet there is little to gloat for Labour Party members. Labour too is split over Brexit and only being in opposition has saved it so far from more open confrontations inside the party. In this post, I will argue for a people’s vote on the final outcome of the negotiations as a principled approach from a left perspective within the Labour Party.

Britain and the EU: a merchant’s perspective.

On Wednesday, 8 March a high profile panel discussed the future of Britain’s relationship with the EU at Nottingham University. Nottingham’s Vice Chancellor Professor David Greenaway was joined by Charles Clarke, former Home Secretary under Labour, Vince Cable, former Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the coalition government of the Conservatives and his Liberal Democrats in 2010. Professor Panicos Demetriades, former governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus, complemented the panel. Professor Jagjit Chadha of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research was the chair. In this blog post, I will briefly comment on the discussions, highlighting how they were a perfect reflection of Britain’s general merchant's perspective on European integration.

Photo by Mike Licht

Reactionary working class?

Large parts of the western working class now seem to gather around right-wing populists, demagogues and racists. They vote for reactionary and fascistoid political parties. They helped to vote the UK out of the EU, to make Trump president of the world's superpower number one, and they vote so massively for the far right political parties so that they have government power in sight throughout several of Europe's most populous countries. In this guest post, Asbjørn Wahl assesses these developments from a labour perspective and reflects on a progress way forward.

Betraying Europe and the danger of collapsing integration.

Photo by Wolf Gang

Brexit demonstrated clearly what many had perceived to be impossible: European integration is reversible. The potential breakup of the European Union (EU) has been welcomed by people on the political right as well as some on the left. While the former hail the return of national sovereignty, the latter often perceive Brexit as an important blow to neo-liberal, austerity Europe. In this blog post, I will critically assess these claims and highlight the dangers implicit in current developments. What many opponents overlook is the historical achievement of the EU to overcome long-standing, historical tensions and rivalries between different countries, which had resulted in two brutal world wars in the first half of the 20^th century. Why is it, that European integration, which had been so popular amongst the involved peoples in the 1950s and 1960s, has lost so much attraction now in the 21^st century?

The Future of UK-China Relations post-Brexit - China as a Hope Project

With Brexit on the horizon, the UK is currently in search for alternative trade agreements, not only with European countries, but also other economies around the world. The emerging market of China plays a key role in this strategy. In this blog post, I will assess the potential and implications of future UK – China relations.

Photo by Sergeant Paul Shaw LBIPP/MOD

What a victory for the ‘internationalist’ pro-Brexit left!

All European citizens have just been stripped of their European citizenship rights in Northern Ireland and Britain. Hence, no right to vote in local elections, no European social rights (e.g. no European Health Insurance Card), and no right to be treated equally anymore. What a ‘success’ for the ‘internationalist’ pro-Brexit left of Britain and Ireland! As a result, European migration to the UK will be reduced significantly. But note, I mean student migration not labour migration. In this guest post, Roland Erne assesses some of the implications of Brexit for EU nationals working in the UK.  

Brexit and the rise of the nationalist right: Where next for the British left?

Photo by Rareclass

‘I don’t mind Germans, Italians, the Spanish, but I hate them Bulgarians and Romanians. Thieves the whole lot of them.

My brother in law cannot get a job in the warehouses, because these agencies favour Polish immigrants.

All our companies are owned by foreigners, German electricity company, French in the water industry. I’d nationalise the whole lot’ (Local Resident in Beeston, Nottingham/UK; 24 June 2016).

As the Brexit vote sinks in, the first nationalist and xenophobic statements can be heard on the streets. In this blog post, I am analysing the wider causes underlying the Brexit vote and reflect on the struggles ahead. I will argue that there have been two campaigns against increasing austerity and the destruction brought about by global capitalist restructuring, the progressive left campaign around the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party in the summer of 2015 and the predominantly right-wing Brexit campaign. Last night, the latter won a significant victory, when 51.9 per cent of the people voting endorsed to leave the EU against 48.1 per cent, who had voted to remain in the EU.

What position for the labour movement on the EU referendum?

On Thursday, 23 June, a referendum will be held to decide whether Britain should leave or remain in the European Union. When Jacques Delors, then EU Commission President, announced his vision of a social dimension for European integration in the late 1980s, in the UK he won large parts of the British trade unions over into a pro-EU position. Against the background of neo-liberal restructuring by consecutive Conservative governments, social regulation at the European level offered advances, which would have been impossible in a purely domestic context. Is this situation still the case today?

Photo by Descrier

In this post, I will first assess the current state of affairs for social policies in the EU. Then I will focus on the dangers of nationalism and xenophobic reactions to migration, implied in a no-vote, before concluding in the third section that the focus of the debate should be redirected on what kind of EU we want, rather than the issue of further or less integration.