I was struck by something David Runciman wrote recently in the Guardian in which he argues that the (UK) government’s response to Covid-19 reveals the true nature of politics, i.e. when it comes to it the state can exercise an incredible amount of power; it’s simply that most of the …
Over the last few weeks, and more especially over the last few days, there has been a veritable media storm, both in the UK and elsewhere, regarding the approaching Armageddon driven by coronavirus (Covid-19). This is not to say that Covid-19 is something to be taken lightly – far from …
As Brexit day gets inexorably closer (as of today the 31 January 2020 deadline seems an absolute certainty), now might be a good time to remind ourselves how we got here and what ‘Brexit’ might really mean. And by this I am not thinking so much about the economic impact, …
Already the post-mortem has begun. For example, the Guardian was quick off the mark this morning with its five reasons the Tories won the election and five reasons why Labour lost the election. However, the central reason seems to amount to one word: Brexit. As I pointed out in a …
Whatever Labour likes to think, the British general election of December 2019 is predominately about Brexit, which is why Boris Johnson called it in the first place. Of course, one of the reasons that Labour in general, and Jeremy Corbyn in particular, would rather it was not about Brexit is …
In his paper Populism: What’s in a Name?, Ernesto Laclau argues that it is a mistake to try and analyse populism (of whatever political persuasion) in terms of its contents.[1] Rather, it is more helpful, from an analytic point of view, to look at populism as a logic of articulation. …
In their paper Brexit and Nostalgia Edoardo Campanella and Marta Dassù argue that the decision to leave the European Union was (and still is three and half years later) driven by nostalgic fantasies rather than any ‘rational’ economic or political considerations.[1] Furthermore, depending on how ‘hard-core’ the particular ‘Leaver’ is, …
In my previous (extended) essay on Brexit and loss of Empire I touched on the apparent paradox that those populations living in the ‘Brexit heartlands’, i.e. traditionally Labour voting, northern (and eastern and Welsh), white working class communities, voted heavily to leave the European Union. And although it is important …
As Dylan Evans points out, Lacan’s use of the term ‘real’ as substantive dates back to the 1930s, and was used by a number of philosophers at the time.1 In particular, Evans cites the work of the work of Emile Meyerson, although in the Écrits Lacan only makes one passing …
In his paper on civil society and nationalism in Hungary, Virág Molnár explores the rise of the far-right Jobbik party, which since publication of the paper in 2016 is now the second largest party in the National Assembly.[1] The rise of Jobbik, according to Molnár, needs to be seen as …