On 21 March 2017 I published a post entitled ‘My Predictions for the Outcome of the Brexit Negotiations’. You can read the original post below but my key points were: (i) there will be an agreement involving a three to… Read More ›
EU
Reflections on the EU Referendum Campaign: the Immigration Issue
Looking back over previous posts on this site today, I was struck by my 31 August 2015 post ‘Will Immigration Concerns Lead to Brexit?’. As I predicted in that post, immigration has indeed become the number one issue of the… Read More ›
Will Immigration Concerns Lead to Brexit?
Pre-EU Referendum polls show a continuing (and even increasing) lead for the ‘Yes’ campaign for Britain to stay in the EU. However, I am concerned that the constant focus on immigration issues in the UK could overturn this lead by… Read More ›
The Migrant Crisis: The UK Is Trying To Have Its Cake And Eat It Too
The migrant crisis in Calais has assumed tragic proportions, with several of the people trying to enter the UK having lost their lives in the process. Attempts by politicians in the UK and France to solve the crisis have so… Read More ›
Eurosceptic Contradictions
Eurosceptics are now limbering up for the ‘No’ campaign in the UK’s forthcoming EU referendum. It is becoming clear that their key arguments for a ‘No’ vote in the referendum include the following: If the UK does not leave the… Read More ›
The Eurozone and IMF will bend more than Greece to Avoid Grexit
We appear to be nearing the end of the fractious negotiations between Greece and the Eurozone and IMF, over the Syriza government’s demand for a significant relaxation of the debt repayment terms imposed on Greece in December 2012. We know… Read More ›
EU Referendum Issues
Though I have always opposed holding an in-out EU referendum (for reasons well expressed by Tony Blair during the recent election campaign), UK voters have now decreed that we will have one. More than 50% of voters supported the Tories… Read More ›
The LibDems: A Need for Fresh Thinking
The 2015 UK election was truly a debacle for the Liberal Democrat party, of which I am a member. The LibDems now have only eight MPs in the House of Commons (down from 57), and their share of the vote… Read More ›
The Leadership Vacuum in Europe
I have always been a keen supporter of the European Union and of the UK’s membership of it. The EU has without doubt helped to keep the peace in Europe since it was established (a major achievement in itself after… Read More ›
Can Angela Merkel afford to be so relaxed about Grexit?
I am writing this post as a prediction and not as a warning, because I am certain that nothing I say will have the slightest impact on the outcome of the current Greek debit crisis. However, I cannot resist putting… Read More ›
Why we should NOT have an EU referendum
As we approach the date of the next UK election on 7th May, there will be increasing debate about the in-out EU referendum that the Tories have promised for 2017. I am writing this post to explain why I strongly… Read More ›
The EU needs more, not less, federalism
The word ‘federalism’ has become, in the UK at least, shorthand for the concept of increased centralisation of power at the centre of the EU, away from the individual Member States. This is not a popular concept in the UK,… Read More ›
No way to run a common currency
Michel Sapin says German criticisms could drive French voters into the arms of the National Front The French Finance Minister, Michel Sapin, yesterday complained that commentators in Germany were being overly critical of France’s efforts to reform its economy. He… Read More ›
Workers who come to the UK from other EU countries are not migrants
The Financial Times published an excellent letter today from Piet Eeckhout, Professor of European Law at University College London. Mr Eeckhout was responding to David Cameron’s demands, in his ‘immigration speech’ last week, that people who come to the UK… Read More ›
The EU Surcharge Furore: Who Knew What When?
Could the furore about the £1.8 billion EU surcharge on the UK be a manufactured one? The rules for calculating the UK’s GDP were revised several months ago, resulting in an uplift in measured GDP stretching back several years. These… Read More ›
