If it had not been for the timely coincidence of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London, and it being tasked with deciding the succession of Queen Elizabeth at the head of the network, the UK Government may just about have got away with its appalling treatment of the Windrush generation residents of […]
The recent clashes in Catalonia, where more than 900 people were injured in confrontations between national police and ordinary people seeking to vote in the attempted independence referendum have again shown that a number of countries within Europe, and elsewhere too, find it hard to deal with the dynamics of regional identities supplementing or in […]
The doomsayers of Europe are increasingly finding their match in the resurgence of ideas for the future of the community. The European Union, and some of its key institutions and mechanisms that bind its members together have gone through a valley of tears for a few years. And nobody should be overly sure that the […]
Over the past year the UK has gone from a latent to an all to obvious stage of DPVID, or Delayed Post-Victory Identity Disorder, and is now well into the fits which characterise this condition. While the fits last it is pretty unlikely that any meaningful self-diagnosis and subsequent deep healing will begin. 70 years […]
Cornered animals are often amongst the most dangerous. Is the virulence of authoritarian politics in western democracies, often coupled with a retrenchment in free market capitalism, a sign of them recognising that they are facing dusk, or something else? In 1996 the late geographer Neil Smith published his work on the revanchist city, in which […]
It is the parties on the right-hand side of the political spectrum which have appealed to voters most often with messages of preserving foundational values of a given society, protecting it against unwelcome change, proposing in some cases a return to a greater or more wholesome status in the past. Crucially, the future proposed by […]
The Nigerian writer Ken Saro Wiwa once wrote a novel that simply does not age: Prisoners of Jebs. To rid Africa and Nigeria of its special criminals including deposed Dictators and the ever-present threat of their return to power and the troughs of corruption, African countries club together to create a special abode for them, […]
It is early days to hail an end to the rise of nationalism in Europe, yet it is encouraging to see how many politicians and media commentators on the continental mainland currently bask in the warm sun of the new French President Macron’s pro-European stance. Macron’s glow is inevitable: he is young, he seems to […]
Forget about Macron’s election having potentially put a stop to the rise of nationalist movements in Europe. Aside from questions of left or right, the reality is that with his election a relatively new dynamic has entered the debate about the EU: in a big and influential member state the traditional parties have been rejected […]
In any political contest including elections the dividing lines between parties and policy propositions become more acute. It is not surprising and in itself unproblematic for particular campaigns to portray the EU in a negative way and argue for alternative ways to run a nations external relations and development. What is surprising though is the […]
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