Tag Archives: UK politics

UK, not US. Few people had heard of Chris Heaton-Harris before October 2017. He is the Conservative MP for Daventry, a place most couldn’t pinpoint on a map. But he has now made himself notorious by writing to to a number of university Vice-Chancellors, asking for the names of the professors who are teaching about Brexit at their universities and copies of what they are teaching. On the surface, the MP’s letter is a simple information request. But it was not regarded as such by the people...

Apparently, whenever some poor economic news is published about the United Kingdom, journalists have to weave in their on-going gripe about the outpouring of democracy in June last year that saw the Brexit vote to leave successful. Its hysterical really. The most recent example is from the otherwise sensible Aditya Chakrabortty from the UK Guardian (October 17, 2017) – Who’s to blame for Brexit’s fantasy politics? The experts, of course. The story has nothing much to do with the June 2016...

Chris Leslie tweeted yesterday that “Marxism should have no place in a modern Labour Party.” You’d expect me to disagree, and I do. But I want to point out that a Marxist point of view might be an asset for non-Marxists within the party. I say so for three reasons. First, Marxism draws our attention to the fact that politics is shaped by an economic base – by the nature of capitalism.... Herein lies another use of Marxism. It reminds us that the state in capitalism must fulfil two...

The Great Repeal Bill grants May’s ministers the power to rewrite reams of British law without democratic oversight. Not only will there be no longer an equivalent to the Francovich ruling. The Great Repeal Bill will also diminish human, civic, social and environmental rights. It will considerably strengthen the position of the executive. A British Bill of Rights and “free” trade deals will replace the Human Rights Act and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Agreements will...