So here we are, about a month into the new government. How’s it shaping up with the EU referendum thing? For me, four things stick out so far. Firstly, David Cameron has conformed to type in his approach to the matter. Assuming that he was a surprised as the next man (that next man being Ed […]

On Tuesday I went to one of my alma maters, LSE’s European Institute, to listen to a panel on Britain’s EU policy. As well as storifying it, I’ve also been thinking about the discussion and particularly three of the things mentioned by Simon Hix, one of the panellists. “Never underestimate the EU’s ability to find a way to muddle through” […]

As part of my wide range of consumption of reading, I chanced upon an article that talked about di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, and its famous assertion that “everything needs to change, so everything can stay the same.” It wasn’t talking about UKIP, but it might well have been. On Monday, I was writing about Nigel Farage’s […]

Since Ryan Heath‘s been kind enough to mention all the work I do on this site on Brexit, it seems like a good opportunity to mention a new project I’ve been working on. ‘A Diet of Brussels‘ is a podcast about the referendum here in the UK on EU membership. In it, I want to try […]

“…and on the third day, he rose again.” Last week was both a triumph and a disappointment for UKIP. On the one hand, they secured almost 4 million votes in the General Election, a performance almost unsurpassed for a third party in the UK. On the other, the inequities of the electoral system meant that […]

Somehow, finally, it’s the last week of campaigning for the general election. In previous weeks/months, I written about how the British debate has failed to pick up and explore in any detail what the UK’s relationship with the EU might/should be. Today I’m swinging the focus around to the rest of the EU. The prompt […]

A couple of interesting polls this week help to illustrate UKIP’s situation at the moment. The first, a YouGov poll on media bias, repeats a survey from last year about how voters see media coverage of the different parties. As last time, UKIP is seen as having a much more negative bias against it than do […]