A Free Left Blog

I have changed my mind on Europe. Or perhaps it’s better to say that I have now properly thought about it, looking not through a lens of vaguely liking ‘Europe’, foreign countries and people but for what the EU is and does as an institution. This forthcoming referendum on 23 rd June is not on ‘Europe’ as a place, but the EU as an institution, one which has great power over Britain and whose 27 other leaders have the power of veto over even quite modest domestic legislation here. We have just seen the latter point with David Cameron’s watered-down ‘renegotiation’ or ‘deal’ demonstrating in stark terms how our government no longer has the power to decide the country’s future in the interests of its citizens. It is subservient not just to veto from the leaders of France, Greece, Poland, Slovakia, Portugal and others, but also to the diktats of the unelected, virtually unaccountable European Commission and European Court of Justice. We may like some of those diktats, for ex...

What I have been saying here about where hegemony lies in the Labour Party has been shown off once more with bells on following Austin Mitchell’s provocative article about Labour women in the Mail on Sunday. The amount and tenor of concerted personal attacks on him have been quite remarkable, encouraged by the leader’s office (not surprising given what he says about it). Before examining what Mitchell actually said – much of which is rather delicious for any serious Labourologist – let’s have a look at what some powerful and influential Labour figures have said in response. It's very much the reaction of an establishment stamping down on an unwanted outsider and hanging him out to dry. The responses of prominent Labour women in an article for the right-leaning Telegraph for example could hardly have been stronger. Lucy Powell, shadow children's minister and Ed Miliband’s leadership bid campaign manager, referred to “ Mitchell’s sexist and misogynistic comments ”. Fo...

UKIP’s political ‘earthquake’ has happened. In these latest elections for the European Parliament, this party of no MPs in Parliament, no councils under its control and a seemingly substantial body of weird and not-so-wonderful candidates has secured the largest percentage of the vote and the largest number of MEPs of all the political parties in Britain.   This is despite a hugely-impressive campaign of sneering contempt from liberal opinion in Britain and latterly the mass media too – the Murdoch papers in particular. To paraphrase (and reduce) one of Bob Dylan's most cutting lyrics , something has been happening here, but some of us have little or no idea what it is, and others want to shut it down. There is a lot that could be said, so I’m just going to concentrate on what may be a bit different from what others have been saying. First up is the matter of what we might call ‘existential’ representation. Look at Doncaster for example, a place represente...