Tomsk79

Some Remainers are upset at Jeremy Corbyn again, after he apparently ruled out staying in the single market after Brexit . Many have taken umbrage at his claim that single market membership is intrinsically linked to EU membership, pointing to the EFTA countries Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland as counterexamples. But Corbyn is technically correct to say that the single market is not a club that can be joined. You can of course loosely say that the likes of Norway and Switzerland are "in" the single market, but their high level of access comes through the EEA agreement and bilateral treaties respectively, which include exceptions such as agriculture and fisheries. It's not a binary distinction by any means. Rather than argue semantics, a more fruitful exercise is to analyse what Labour would actually hope to achieve if they were in charge of Brexit negotiations. As with the Conservatives , it is clear enough if you take at face value what they say t

In the phase 1 Brexit agreement , the UK has made a commitment to keep the Irish border open in all circumstances: The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South cooperation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border. Any future arrangements must be compatible with these overarching requirements. The United Kingdom's intention is to achieve these objectives through the overall EU-UK relationship. Should this not be possible, the United Kingdom will propose specific solutions to address the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland. In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement. Many commentators have interpreted this to mean that the only destination now possible in phase 2 is a so-called soft Brexit, where to all intents and pur

It's been heartening to see that the  softening of Labour's Brexit position over the summer has not led to a decline in its polling figures, and may even be driving them up a little. Labour's change was apparently motivated at least in part by the fear that a new "centrist" party would emerge that would hurt them more than the Tories . Certainly, there's been much talk recently of such a party, despite or perhaps because of the lacklustre performance of the existing centrist party, the Lib Dems, in the snap election. The belief that a new centrist party would sweep all before it is based on the idea that if Labour moves left while the Tories move right, a great yawning gap of homeless voters will appear in the middle. Assuming voters are normally distributed across the political spectrum, the picture looks something like this: Which is fine as far as it goes, but the label "centrist" bugs me, both as a tag for the potential new party and in i

Yes really. But don't worry, this blog has not renounced its political values. Let me explain... It's only been a few months since the EU referendum, but already it's clear that it has catalysed a fundamental realignment of English politics (just as Scotland was realigned by the independence referendum). First consider how voters of different parties divided on referendum day: (Source: Lord Ashcroft Polls ) One thing that leaps out immediately from this breakdown is that the major reason for Leave's victory was David Cameron's failure to bring his own voters with him. Labour voters on the other hand broke for Remain in much the same proportion as the resolutely pro-EU SNP, belying the idea that Corbyn's half-hearted campaigning was to blame for the result. The figures for the smaller parties were no surprise, although with the notable exception of UKIP there were substantial minorities opposed to the party line in each case. Now compare with a YouGov

These are tough times to be a supporter of the European Union. For decades the EU and its predecessors were rightly held up as a guardian of peace and prosperity of Europe. Then came the global financial crisis, and the Euro currency, the totemic symbol of European integration, became a "machine from hell" (in the words of one German official), ripping apart the fabric of Europe that the EU had previously done so much to stitch together. The Eurozone crisis remains unresolved to this day, stuck between the very reasonable desire of creditor countries not to risk their own finances in bailing out the debtor countries, and the very reasonable desire of debtor countries not to have their people ground into the dust by the lunatic austerity regimes imposed by the creditors. Why then should we stay in an institution that has pursued such a reckless experiment? For starters, obviously, we are not in the Eurozone and its tribulations will affect us no more or less if we vote

Amid the impressive and heart-warming displays of solidarity, there has sadly also been a lot of rubbish written about Charlie Hebdo and its cartoons on the English-speaking web over the past week (I've seen the beautiful term 'anglosplaining' used for this phenomenon). Rather than add to the pile, here are some links to pieces doing the rounds that I've found genuinely informative. Two of them are by actual French people. On the French satirical tradition: http://artgoldhammer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/tragedy-at-charlie-hebdo.html On where power really lies: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/08/charlie-hebdo-martin-rowson On American know-nothingery: http://67-tardis-street.tumblr.com/post/107589955860/dear-us-followers On not taking satirical cartoons at face value: http://www.quora.com/What-was-the-context-of-Charlie-Hebdos-cartoon-depicting-Boko-Haram-sex-slaves-as-welfare-queens On targetting racism in France: http://www.dailykos.co

As if the EU hasn't got enough problems to worry about at the moment, the Fidesz government in Hungary is busy removing checks on its rule . It can do this because it achieved a two-thirds majority in parliament in the last election , which allows it to modify the constitution. Hungary's electoral system is, to put it mildly, complex.There is a mixture of first-past-the-post seats and two types of PR, one of region list seats and another of "compensation seats" for runners-up in the first-past-the-post seats. Not to mention the two rounds of voting with three-candidate runoffs in the second round. But have you ever wondered how such a bonkers system came in to being? Of course you have! Who hasn't? Certainly not Kenneth Benoit and John W. Schiemann, who wrote a paper about it: Bargaining Over Hungary's 1989 Electoral Law (PDF). In summary, the major opposition parties sat round a table and hammered out a compromise between their favoured systems, whic