Two weeks after the UK voted to leave the EU, the country is still reeling from the impact. The economy is in disarray, as the pound has crashed and the financial markets have taken a $2 trillion hit. Reports of racist violence are surging to new heights. Infighting has ensued across the political echelon, and the government itself is paralysed. Fear and anger can be detected almost everywhere. This is Britain at its best. (More…)
It doesn’t require much insight to see that many of the Britons who voted “Leave” did so because they were anxious, and uncertain about their place in the world. But the reasons for their sense of insecurity and the appeal different potential solutions held for them still demand closer scrutiny. (More…)
The outcome of the Brexit vote has knocked politics in the UK into a cocked hat. David Cameron, whose ill-conceived attempt to resolve a split in his own party gave rise to the whole affair, has resigned, content to let an unlucky successor preside over the putrid remains of conservative politics. (More…)
The Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature that originated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was the expression of the struggle against this power, was introduced into Germany at a time when the bourgeoisie, in that country, had just begun its contest with feudal absolutism. (More…)
In April and May 2014, anti-government paramilitaries overran first Crimea and then moved quickly into eastern Ukraine, doing so with the backing and organization of the Russian armed forces and intelligence community. As the late Boris Nemtsov outlined in his report on “Putin’s War” in Ukraine, the groundwork was well-laid to take advantage of the post-Maidan chaos. (More…)
In one of the most contested votes in British history, the UK has voted for the unknown. Many believed the fear of change would triumph over anger. This is a moment of profound emotion. The door is wide open and there is nothing out there, but darkness. The unknown is here. The old post-war certainties are dead. (More…)
Some of us thought this day would never come. Others prayed it never would. The long awaited referendum on Britain’s EU membership will take place tomorrow. The results will be out by Friday morning. Project Fear is still going strong. But it looks unlikely to settle one of the biggest divisions in UK politics. (More…)
Historic tradition has given birth to the superstition among the French farmers that a man named Napoleon would restore to them all manner of glory. Now, then, an individual turns up, who gives himself out as that man because, obedient to the “Code Napoleon,” which provides that “La recherche de la paternite est interdite,” he carries the name of Napoleon. (More…)
The Social Republic appeared as a mere phrase, as a prophecy on the threshold of the February Revolution; it was smothered in the blood of the Parisian proletariat during the days of 1848 but it stalks about as a spectre throughout the following acts of the drama. (More…)
As was inevitable, the upcoming referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU has exposed deep divisions in the Conservative Party. For an exercise that appears to have been intended to finally allow the party to move on from its endless civil war on Europe, the referendum appears to be making matters much worse. (More…)
In parliament the nation made its general will the law; that is, it made the law of the ruling class its general will. It renounces all will of its own before executive power and submits itself to the superior command of an alien, of authority. Executive power, in contrast to the legislative sort, expresses the heteronomy of a nation in contrast to its autonomy. (More…)
Sometimes an accusation is all that’s required. Placed under investigation on Wednesday (25 May) for lying under oath to the Saxon state parliament, for Frauke Petry’s critics, the allegation could not have been more apt. (More…)