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The Northern Star at Large

Northern Star writers have been at work elsewhere this summer. You can catch up with them here (some links paywalled).

On the seventh anniversary of Brexit, Peter Ramsay wrote for Unherd about what Brexit has taught us about British politics. In June, Peter gave a talk to launch our book Taking Control at the Liverpool Salon. He was also interviewed on the front page of The Irish News about the book and the way in which Brexit has weakened the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This provoked a response from leading Belfast commentator Alex Kane. 

Philip Cunliffe wrote in the New Statesman about the way Brexit has insulated Britain from the surge in right wing populism in the EU. In Unherd, Philip wrote on the worldwide repatriation of states’ gold reserves following the USA’s impounding of Russian assets as part of its disastrous proxy war in Eastern Europe. He was also interviewed on Ashley Frawley’s podcast about populism and politics, while on the Conter podcast he talked about Taking Control and particularly our conclusions on the implications for the Union of England and Scotland.


George Hoare wrote about ‘authoritarianism without authority’ in Compact, and in Damage about how the ruling class uses the EU to deepen the void between rulers and ruled. George also reviewed Chantal Mouffe’s Towards a Green Democratic Revolution for Sublation.

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2 responses to “The Northern Star at Large”

  1. Erwan Guichard avatar
    Erwan Guichard

    Dear Sirs,

    I am a French citizen born in 1994. I am writing this comment in the first place to praise your book Taking Control, which is very compelling in

    – locating the origins of the European Union in the decay of democracy
    – debunking the accusations of ignorance and racism levelled at Leave voters
    – shedding light on the paradox of a Brexit necessary to any kind of left-wing policy but enacted by neoliberal Tories
    – exposing the hollowness of Corbynism and other self-styled radical left-wing movements
    – contrasting the situations of Northern Ireland and Scotland

    I am therefore wishing to you the widest readership, in Britain and elsewhere.

    I would also like to make a few complementary and critical remarks.

    First, neoliberals were divided about the EEC at its inception, some bewailing its external tariffs, others extolling the removal of national control over trade policy (1). Milton Friedman favoured flexible exchange rates from the 1950s onwards (2). Margaret Thatcher’s hostility to monetary unity predated Jacques Delors’s 1988 TUC speech, as she opposed joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism as early as 1985 (3).

    Hence, for all the ills brought by neoliberalism to the world and especially to the United Kingdom, I believe this school of thought deserves some credit for Britain not joining the Eurozone. It also played a role in convincing key Conservatives to support Brexit as a way to achieve free trade on a global scale.

    Second, you are correctly stating that peace in Europe during the Cold War stemmed from the bipolar balance of terror and not from EU integration. You are nonetheless missing what seems to me the key to European peace after the Cold War : the decline of deference to the state and other forms of traditional authority. The draft has been abolished in most European countries, where most citizens are now unwilling to comply with military discipline, let alone fight and die for their country. Such an evolution makes nations less fearful of each other, counteracting the anarchic character of the international system. It explains why John Mearsheimer’s 1990 predictions of security competition among European nations did not come to pass (4).

    Third, you are mischaracterizing NATO as an enemy of sovereignty on par with the EU. Unlike EU membership, NATO membership does not entail the subordination of national policy-making to a supranational entity : member states are free to take part in an operation or not (as Germany showed with respect to Libya in 2011), they can disregard the budget guideline of 2 percent of GDP allocated to the military (as most member states do (5)). There is little point in leaving NATO.

    On the contrary, military coordination among European countries allows for economies of scale and greater efficiency in dealing with threats. NATO-Ukraine cooperation enabled Ukraine to withstand the Russian invasion, thus securing other Eastern European countries. This cooperation with Ukraine does not threaten Russia (unlike in Cuba in 1962, no missiles were deployed in Ukraine), it threatens Russia’s hegemonic designs over its neighbours. By the way, I do not favour unconditional support for Ukraine : given its disrespect for Russian-speakers, Ukraine should relinquish Crimea and the Donbas to Russia, and the stationing of long-range weapons on its territory ought to be explicitly prohibited.

    Yours faithfully,

    Erwan Guichard

    References :

    (1) Quinn Slobodian (2018), Globalists – The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, chapter 6

    (2) https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/milton-friedman-case-flexible-exchange-rates-monetary-rules#fixed-exchange-rate-regimes

    (3) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/national-archives-margaret-thatcher-faced-down-cabinet-to-block-britain-joining-erm-a7146271.html

    (4) John J. Mearsheimer (1990), Why we will soon miss the cold war, The Atlantic, August 1990

    (5) https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/7/pdf/230707-def-exp-2023-en.pdf

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  2. Philip Cunliffe avatar
    Philip Cunliffe

    Dear Erwan (if I may),

    It is always good to hear from readers, and I’m sure I speak for all my co-authors as well when I say we’re delighted to hear that you enjoyed the book.

    With respect to your specific points: we are familiar with Slobodian’s work and speaking for myself, I certainly enjoyed his ‘Globalists’ very much. However working through the divisions among neoliberals and how these worked themselves out in the course of the history of the EU, was simply too much material to incorporate into the book. Your point about neoliberal influence helping keep Britain out of the ERM is a very intriguing one, although Gordon Brown as New Labour chancellor also played an important role there, suggesting that it is likely a happy confluence of factors that kept Britain out of the Eurozone. However, assuming you are right, I am also left wondering why did neoliberal / ordoliberal opposition to fixed exchange rates in places such as the Netherlands, Austria, Italy or Germany not keep those countries out of the ERM? It is certainly worth exploring further …

    On the point about NATO, our arguments here rest on two pillars. First, there is NATO’s militaristic hostility to sovereignty as seen with its embrace of humanitarian intervention over Kosovo in 1999 as well as the responsibility to protect doctrine in Libya in 2011 – doctrines that are both premised on abolishing a state’s right to be free from external interference. One could plausibly add the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan to this list too, both of which relied heavily on humanitarian justifications and were also far from NATO’s supposedly core theatre of operations. These conflicts make NATO an enemy of the principle of national sovereignty, and therefore antithetical to a country such as Britain that is explicitly seeking to establish itself on this ground. The second pillar of our critique is the fact that NATO has evolved since its founding and especially since the end of the Cold War into a globalist organisation, which has in turn, prevented the formation of independent foreign and defence policies amongst its member-states, thereby preventing the expression of national independence. Far from yielding economies of scale in defence, the record shows that it promotes buck-passing and slavish subordination to US priorities. Compound this with the geopolitical recklessness of NATO’s eastwards expansion over the 1990s through to the Bucharest summit of 2008, and this all seems to us plenty of reasons for Brexit Britain to leave the organisation.

    I hope this helps clarify our thinking on these questions.

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