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As anyone who has ever read this blog, or follows me on Twitter, knows, I am no fan of Theresa May or her government’s position on Brexit. So it was then not without a little surprise that I did not find myself shouting at the screen while listening to the UK Prime Minister’s latest Brexit… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
The superficial difference between a Hard Brexit and a Soft Brexit is political control – taking back control, to coin a phrase. A Soft Brexit leaves the UK having to abide by the rules of the Single Market or the Customs Union or both but, as a non-EU Member State, having no say on how… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
February 12, 2018
Tomorrow – Wednesday 7th February – the plenary of the European Parliament votes on a proposal from the Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) committee about the rules for the 2019 European Parliament elections, now just 16 months away in May 2019. What makes this matter controversial this time is the issue of what to do with… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
November 6, 2017
The world has been asking themselves who the “mystery professor” Joseph Mifsud is. The British press – Byline and Carole Cadwalladr in The Guardian – have been connecting Mifsud to Alok Sharma and Boris Johnson. Mifsud has good Russian connections and is supposed to be the person who facilitated the transfer of the Clinton emails… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
I’m not really into United States politics, but that a Maltese professor by the name of Joseph Mifsud was somehow connected to the Papadopoulos/Manafort revelations caught my eye. So who is this Joseph Mifsud guy? The New York Times tried to find out – and did not get very far. He’s a Professor, right. So… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
October 23, 2017
Every once in a while a Brussels media outlet or public affairs firm tries to show they are digital-aware by publishing a kind of league table of something to do with social media in the EU bubble. Yesterday it was Euractiv and ZN’s turn – they held an event called #EUInfluencer, put up a methodology,… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
October 3, 2017
I’ve spent the last three days in Barcelona, observing the 1st October independence referendum, not in any sort of official capacity, but as an interested politics nerd. Political tourism if you like. After my fascinating trip to Scotland prior to the independence referendum there in 2014, it was obvious that seeing Catalonia’s referendum first hand… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
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Barcelona, blogactiv, Catalonia, Direct Democracy, EU Politics, participation |
September 19, 2017
Theresa May is due to give a big Brexit speech this coming Friday 22nd September in Florence. With Boris Johnson having jumped the gun and penned his own Brexit vision a couple of days ago (fisked by me here), and with frustration on the EU side growing about the slow progress of negotiations, this speech… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
A story caught my eye in The Guardian this morning. “Former candidates sue Conservative party after missing out on MEP posts” it is titled. Remember that MEPs are elected on regional lists, and each party puts up as many candidates as there are to be MEPs elected in a particular region. The Guardian story explains… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
June 7, 2017
(Part 1 of this remembrance story explaining the background can be found here. This blog entry recounts the trip.) The train from Kortrijk to Poperinge rumbles its way through little villages and across the potato fields and pastures of West Flanders. Past the obligatory Frituur beside each small station. Cows munch grass. Sheep stand under… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
This coming Sunday I will travel from my home in Berlin to West Flanders in Belgium for a very special and personal act of remembrance. I will meet my parents there – they are making the trip from the UK. Our precise destination is the Ferme Olivier Cemetery, between Poperinge and Ieper, the resting place… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
May 9, 2017
Timothy Garton Ash, in a column for The Guardian about the task facing Macron after his election on Sunday, sums up the new French President’s challenges in the EU thus: it’s great that Macron also wants to reform the EU, but that’s not in his gift. With Brexit talks already turning nasty, Britain has moved… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
February 23, 2017
Iain Dale has penned a pretty flimsy piece trying to justify May’s current Brexit course in light of what happened before the referendum here. I am not going to revisit why that argument is weak as I have already dealt with post-referendum reinterpretations here. Instead he rolled out the old line against my critique of… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
The lines in Iain Dale’s blog post about the EU referendum yesterday started to gnaw at me. Here are the lines in full: They don’t even really take on the argument that the £350 million a week “promise” wasn’t in any way a promise. The words on the bus actually said “We send the EU… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
February 20, 2017
After Tony Blair’s Brexit speech last week, former Deputy Director of Britain Stronger in Europe (and now Edelman exec) Lucy Thomas tweeted this: Not all former Remain campaigners agree with this. #Brexit was democratic vote & need to work for best possible version not fight it. https://t.co/5rvPKvh3wX — Lucy Thomas (@lucycthomas) February 17, 2017 Shortly… » read more
Posted by Jon Worth Euroblog
