Category: brexit
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Britain Against the Yookay: Nation Against Empire
Philip Cunliffe identifies the source of the increasing fragmentation of British politics and society in the imperial structures of the state, and its long experience of relying on devolved government and sectarianism to frustrate the national self-determination of the colonised. We live in the Yookay. Everyone instantly recognises their lives and surroundings in the social…
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Geopolitics at the End of the End of History
Lee Jones recently spoke to a conference of logistics professionals about the rapid changes in global politics. He argued that the current chaos is the result of the continuing decay of the old neoliberal order, and that this is leading to the militarisation of international relations, regionalisation of the world economy, and the redundancy of…
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Death Warmed Up
Peter Ramsay argues that the British right’s proposal for a Great Repeal Act only reveals the futility of its approach to the nation. An online Anglofuturist put out a video last week weaving together the words of the Tory politician Robert Jenrick, ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe and conservative historian David Starkey, each promoting the proposal…
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Is Trump 2 the End of ‘Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome’?
Lee Jones asks why the liberal expert class may be changing its tune in the wake of Trump’s re-election. Doesn’t this time feel different? Is it possible that the liberal establishment is finally winding down its eight-year temper tantrum and coming to terms with reality? While it may be too soon to tell, reactions to…
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Reconstituting the Nations: Britain and Ireland after Brexit
This is the text of a talk given by Peter Ramsay to the Desmond Greaves Summer School 2024 in Dublin. He argues that the reconstitution of a sovereign nation-state in Britain depends on the achievement of Irish national sovereignty, and that the relation of the two nations exemplifies the inherent internationalism of the politics of…
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The Far-Right Excuse
Peter Ramsay argues that the official reaction to the recent riots in England is an ideological distortion that seeks to deflect responsibility for national disintegration. The riots and disorder that spread across Britain last week involved outright racial violence and intimidation, criminal damage and looting. They were widely condemned, and prosecutors are rightly taking action…
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Rule of the Void
The UK’s general election result might seem like a restoration of the old pre-2016 political order. A bland technocrat has won a sweeping majority. However, Peter Ramsay and Philip Cunliffe argue that Labour’s massive victory is hollow and leaves the state in a weaker position than ever. The election results are a dramatic manifestation of…
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Why the Nation Matters
With a General Election looming, Peter Ramsay spoke last week at the London School of Economics about why the survival of the British nation is in doubt and why the politics of culture war are an evasion of the problem rather than a solution. Here is an edited version of what he said. Benedict Anderson…
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The British Nation: What’s Its future?
Northern Star editor Peter Ramsay will be speaking about the future of the British nation together with David Edgerton, author of The Rise and Fall of the British Nation, and Tomiwa Owolade, author of This Is Not America: Why Black Lives in Britain Matter. The event is free and takes place: Thursday 2nd May 6.30pm London School of…
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Avoiding the British Question
Following the recent restoration of devolved government to Northern Ireland after two years of paralysis, Pauline Hadaway investigates the permanent crisis that is Northern Ireland’s politics, and asks why Britain is keeping the Union on life support. Over 100 years after the Unionist Party elected James Craig as Northern Ireland’s first Prime Minister, Sinn Féin’s…
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Burying Brexit to Save Stormont
Peter Ramsay on how Sunak’s deal with the DUP neutralises Brexit and confirms what we have previously argued on The Northern Star: that Britain’s national sovereignty needs Ireland’s reunification. Jeffrey Donaldson’s announcement that the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) will end its two-year boycott of the devolved power-sharing executive that governs Northern Ireland is bad news…
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Save Us from National Saviours
Philip Cunliffe considers the current interest in ‘Anglo-Gaullism’ among some British conservatives, and asks whether there is any prospect of a national saviour on the French model coming to the rescue of an exhausted British nation. With the nation in the grip of palpable decay, our existing political system offers no prospect of change or…
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Shuffling Between Populism and Technocracy
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s latest cabinet reshuffle exposes a crumbling government torn between mindless populism and deadend, unaccountable technocracy, argues Lizzie Finegan. Another day, another cabinet reshuffle. The primary victim was Home Secretary Suella Braverman, darling of the right-populist wing of Britain’s Conservative Party. The prime beneficiary was ex-prime minister David Cameron. Rising from…
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The Embers
10 November 2023 Just when Keir Smarmer might have begun to think that he could ride a low turnout to electoral victory, the world’s most intractable conflict has emerged from the Void to wreck his plans. The Labour leadership’s idea was to bore its way into government by saying as little as possible. But now…
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Nation-Building
Last week Peter Ramsay and Philip Cunliffe spoke at the 2023 Battle of Ideas festival in London about the lessons of Brexit. They argued that Brexit teaches us that if we are ever to take control of our state then we need an independent politics of nation-building. Here is what they said. Peter Ramsay: I…
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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…
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National Sovereignty or Bust
“national sovereignty is a dangerous term for a Left that despises the nation (and in particular its working-class members), and an impossible one for a Right that may be able to stomach the nation but blanches at giving the population real influence over economic decisions.”
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The Graveyard of Euroscepticism
“There could hardly be a more fitting place for the graveyard of Euroscepticism than Northern Ireland…”
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Book Launch
‘This is the most important book to come out of the struggles over Britain’s membership of the EU, and it makes all other works on the subject look trivial.’
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Brexit from NATO
“It took two decades of provocation by NATO before Russia was finally faced with the prospect of American nuclear missiles along its 1000 mile-long border with Ukraine and decided to invade.”
The Northern Star 