1 Brexit, the 2019 General Election and the Realignment of British
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Subsidies and Funding from Some of the Largest UK Industries, She Also Signalled a Break with the Idea of the Economic State
James Webber All Change? UK State Aid after Brexit What Law? Whose Courts? Copy Proof POLITEIA A FORUM FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC THINKING POLITEIA A Forum for Social and Economic Thinking Politeia commissions and publishes discussions by specialists about social and economic ideas and policies. It aims to encourage public discussion on the relationship between the state and the people. Its aim is not to influence people to support any given political party, candidates for election, or position in a referendum, but to inform public discussion of policy. The forum is independently funded, and the publications do not express a corporate opinion, but the views of their individual authors. www.politeia.co.uk All Change? UK State Aid after Brexit What Law? Whose Courts? James Webber POLITEIA 2020 First published in 2020 by Politeia 14a Eccleston Street London SW1W 9LT Tel: 0207 799 5034 Email: [email protected] Website: www.politeia.co.uk © Politeia 2020 ISBN 978-1-9993662-9-2 Cover design by John Marenbon Politeia gratefully acknowledges support for this publication from The Foundation for Social and Economic Thinking (FSET) Printed in the United Kingdom by: Millnet Limited 6-7 Princes Court 11 Wapping Lane London E1W 2DA Foreword State Aid, the EU and the UK Economy Different Systems, Different Rules Sheila Lawlor, Director of Politeia The battle and its background.1 Very shortly the next battle with the EU will begin over an unlikely battleground: what rules should govern UK State aid and what are their implications for a trade deal with the bloc? For the UK, a country that, more than most others, has championed free trade, unfettered and competitive markets and an economy under the rule of law, the subject seems uncontentious. -
Jo Swinson: the New Liberal Democrat Leader
Jo Swinson: the new Liberal Democrat Leader 22 July 2019 Who is Jo Swinson? Jo Swinson was born in 1980, growing up and going to school in East Dunbartonshire, which she now represents in Parliament. Her mother was a primary school teacher while her father worked in economic development. She cites her earliest political experience as signing petitions against animal testing in the Body Shop. A Liberal Democrat supporter since she was at school, Jo joined the Liberal Democrats aged 17, while studying Management at the LSE. During her time at university, she worked as a Research Assistant for the Employers’ Forum on Disability. After graduating, Swinson moved to Hull, working as Viking FM’s Marketing & PR Manager. Aged 21, she stood against John Prescott at the 2001 general election in Hull East. Relocating back to Scotland, she worked as Marketing Manager for SpaceandPeople Plc and then as Communications Officer for the UK Public Health Association prior to her election as an MP. In 2011, she married Duncan Hames, who was the Liberal Democrat MP for Chippenham from 2010 to 2015, and is now an anti-corruption campaigner. The couple have two sons. What is Jo Swinson’s political background? Swinson was successfully elected to Parliament in 2005, winning East Dunbartonshire from Labour. In the Commons, she became a Lib Dem whip and spokesperson for culture, media and sport, before being promoted to Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland in 2006. Swinson gained additional responsibility in 2007 becoming Shadow Women and Equality Minister. She returned to the backbenches later that year, before becoming Shadow Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in 2008, retaining this role until the 2010 election. -
British Politics and Policy at LSE: Why Major Party Reforms Had to Be Sidelined During Jeremy Corbyn’S Leadership Page 1 of 2
British Politics and Policy at LSE: Why major party reforms had to be sidelined during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership Page 1 of 2 Why major party reforms had to be sidelined during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership Bradley Ward argues that while Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership was initially drawn towards a more grassroots vision of rank-and-file democracy, this came into tension with the demands facing the leadership in the context of intense intra-party factionalism. In a Brexit-dominated political landscape, the constraints facing internal party democracy meant that major party reforms were increasingly sidelined. Despite the promise to continue with the legacy of his predecessor, Keir Starmer’s first twelve months in office have been characterised by glaring attempts to distance his ‘new leadership’ from the last vestiges of Corbynism. This is evidenced by Rebecca Long-Bailey’s sacking from the Shadow Cabinet; the decision to withhold the whip from Jeremy Corbyn and ban local parties from discussing the case; the dismantling of the Community Organising Unit; the policy of ‘abstentionism’ on bills seen as anathema to progressive values; and an unwillingness to embrace some of the more daring policies of the previous leader. For many critics on the left, these moves have divided the party at a time when everyone should be working together to tackle the big issues of the day. Those who defend Starmer, however, see these moves as important first steps towards showing the rest of ‘the country they have their Labour Party back again’ after the rollercoaster of the previous five years. The difference between Corbyn and Starmer becomes even more pronounced if we look at internal party politics. -
Defence and Security After Brexit Understanding the Possible Implications of the UK’S Decision to Leave the EU Compendium Report
Defence and security after Brexit Understanding the possible implications of the UK’s decision to leave the EU Compendium report James Black, Alex Hall, Kate Cox, Marta Kepe, Erik Silfversten For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RR1786 Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif., and Cambridge, UK © Copyright 2017 RAND Corporation R® is a registered trademark. Cover: HMS Vanguard (MoD/Crown copyright 2014); Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4, A Chinook Helicopter of 18 Squadron, HMS Defender (MoD/Crown copyright 2016); Cyber Security at MoD (Crown copyright); Brexit (donfiore/fotolia); Heavily armed Police in London (davidf/iStock) RAND Europe is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions. Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org www.rand.org/randeurope Defence and security after Brexit Preface This RAND study examines the potential defence and security implications of the United Kingdom’s (UK) decision to leave the European Union (‘Brexit’). -
UK's New Green Age: a Step Change in Transport Decarbonisation
THE UK’S NEW GREEN AGE A step change in transport decarbonisation January 2021 CONTENTS Alstom in the UK i The UK’s net zero imperative 1 Electrification 7 Hydrogen 15 High speed rail 26 A regional renaissance with green transport for all places 32 Conclusion 43 The New Green Age: a step change in transport decarbonisation ALSTOM IN THE UK Mobility by nature Alstom is a world leader in delivering sustainable and smart mobility systems, from high speed trains, regional and suburban trains, undergrounds (metros), trams and e-buses, to integrated systems, infrastructure, signalling and digital mobility. Alstom has been at the heart of the UK’s rail industry for over a century, building many of the UK’s rail vehicles, half of London’s Tube trains and delivering tram systems. A third of all rail journeys take place on Alstom trains including the iconic Pendolino trains on the West Coast Mainline, which carry 34 million passengers a year. Building on its history, Alstom continues to innovate. One of its most important projects is hydrogen trains—its Coradia iLint has been in service in Germany and Austria, and with Eversholt Rail, it has developed the ‘Breeze’ hydrogen train for the UK. Alstom’s state-of-the-art Transport Technology Centre in Widnes in the Liverpool City Region is its worldwide centre for train modernisation and is where the conversion of trains to hydrogen power will take place. It is among 12 other sites in the UK including Longsight in Manchester and Wembley in London. Across the world Alstom has developed, built and maintained transport systems including high speed rail in every continent that has high speed rail, and mass transit metros and trams schemes including in Nottingham and Dublin. -
Adapting to Change UK Policy Towards the Arctic Polar Regions Department Foreign and Commonwealth Office, King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AH
Adapting To Change UK policy towards the Arctic Polar Regions Department Foreign and Commonwealth Office, King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AH © Crown copyright 2013. You may re-use this information (not Any enquiries regarding this including logos) free of charge in any publication should be sent to us format or medium, under the terms of at [email protected]. the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www. This publication is available for download nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/ at www.official-documents.gov.uk. opengovernment-licence/ or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU,or email: [email protected]. Adapting To Change UK policy towards the Arctic i - Adapting To Change - UK policy towards the Arctic Mark Simmonds Minister for the Polar Regions Foreign and Commonwealth Office Adapting To Change - UK policy towards the Arctic - ii Foreword “There is no doubt that the Arctic is on the frontier of global climate change impacts. Temperatures are rising twice as fast in the Arctic as over the rest of the world.” The Arctic has proved, time and again, to be As this document sets out, the United Kingdom one of the most dynamic and influential regions will continue to support and respect the sovereign of the world, despite its remoteness from large rights of the Arctic States to exercise jurisdiction population centres and its often challenging over their territory; the people who live and work geographical and climatic conditions. in the Arctic; and the unique and fragile natural environment. At the same time it outlines the The United Kingdom is not an Arctic State, but United Kingdom’s legitimate interests in the we are the Arctic’s nearest neighbour. -
Service Review
Delivering Quality First in Northern Ireland DELIVERING QUALITY FIRST IN NORTHERN IRELAND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The BBC in Northern Ireland aims to bring the highest quality, most distinctive programmes and services to local audiences, reflecting the diversity of its cultures, communities and languages, and informing, educating and entertaining all its citizens. Our ambition is to deliver content driven by the unique needs of our local audiences, fulfilling the BBC’s public purposes within the context of political, economic and social change in Northern Ireland. The capacity to evaluate and reflect a Northern Ireland society during this period of significant transformation is at the heart of our proposition. Northern Ireland-specific output such as BBC Radio Ulster/Foyle is extremely popular and highly distinctive. On television, BBC Newsline and the current affairs programme Spotlight combine with live sports coverage and a wide range of non-news programming such as The Estate, Belfast Blitz and House of the Year to deliver significant value to local audiences. In the first quarter of 2011, ten of BBC One Northern Ireland’s top twenty programmes were locally made Northern Ireland programmes. Within a very competitive television news market, the BBC’s television news specifically for Northern Ireland audiences (BBC Newsline) is highly trusted and valued by our audience. When the BBC’s programmes for Northern Ireland audiences opt into the BBC One and BBC Two network schedules, they consistently add to the overall channel performance. BBC Radio Ulster/Foyle reaches on average almost 38% of the Northern Ireland adult population each week – amongst the highest reach of all of the BBC’s national and local radio services. -
Which Politicians Receive Abuse? Four Factors Illuminated in the UK General Election 2019
This is a repository copy of Which politicians receive abuse? Four factors illuminated in the UK general election 2019. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/162172/ Version: Published Version Article: Gorrell, G. orcid.org/0000-0002-8324-606X, Bakir, M.E., Roberts, I. et al. (2 more authors) (2020) Which politicians receive abuse? Four factors illuminated in the UK general election 2019. EPJ Data Science, 9. 18. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-020-00236-9 Reuse This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This licence allows you to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as you credit the authors for the original work. More information and the full terms of the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Gorrell et al. EPJ Data Science ( 2020) 9:18 https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-020-00236-9 REGULAR ARTICLE OpenAccess Which politicians receive abuse? Four factors illuminated in the UK general election 2019 Genevieve Gorrell1* , Mehmet E. Bakir1 ,IanRoberts1 , Mark A. Greenwood1 and Kalina Bontcheva1 *Correspondence: g.gorrell@sheffield.ac.uk Abstract 1Department of Computer Science, Sheffield University, Regent Court, The 2019 UK general election took place against a background of rising online 211 Portobello, Sheffield, UK hostility levels toward politicians, and concerns about the impact of this on democracy, as a record number of politicians cited the abuse they had been receiving as a reason for not standing for re-election. -
A New Conversation with the Centre-Right About Climate Change: Values, Frames and Narratives
A new conversation with the centre-right about climate change: Values, frames and narratives Adam Corner Climate Outreach & Information Network Supported by Acknowledgements Sincere thanks go to George Marshall, with whom the initial ideas for this project were developed, and whose insights are found throughout the report. Thanks also to Valerie Mocker – Valerie’s post-graduate dissertation at Oxford University provided an important opportunity to explore questions about how messages framed in different ways are received by conservative audiences, and I was very happy to co-supervise it. Preparation and publication of this report was supported by funds from the Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability & Society (BRASS) at Cardiff University. I would like to thank Professor Ken Peattie, then Director of BRASS, for agreeing to support the project. Barbara Mendes-Jorge conducted media research as part of this project (detailed on page 9), and also provided crucial administrative support at the roundtable meeting. I’d like to thank everyone that participated in the roundtable meeting, including the MPs Zac Goldmsith and Greg Barker, and additionally Laura Sandys MP for agreeing to be interviewed separately. I would like to thank Guy Newey at Policy Exchange, who has worked hard to draw attention to the issue of climate change communication on the centre-right over the past 18 months, and Christian Hunt for extremely useful comments on this report. Thanks also to Claire Lamont for proof-reading and helpful comments, and to Oliver Cowan, who provided the design for the report (http://www.urbanthrope.com). Finally, I’d like to thank everyone – including Rich Hawkins (Director of the Public Interest Research Centre), Guy Shrubsole (Friends of the Earth), Alex Randall and Jamie Clarke and everyone else at COIN – with whom I have had very helpful discussions with on the topic of climate change communication and the centre-right. -
Ipsos MORI June 2019 Political Monitor Voting Intention
Ipsos MORI Political Monitor© Ipsos MORI June 2019 Political Monitor Topline Results 27th June 2019 Fieldwork: 21st – 25th June 2019 Technical Details Ipsos MORI interviewed a representative sample of 1,043 adults aged 18+ across Great Britain. Interviews were conducted by telephone: 21st – 25th June 2019. Data are weighted to match the profile of the population. Where percentages do not sum to 100 this may be due to computer rounding, the exclusion of “don’t know” categories, or multiple answers. An asterisk (*) denotes any value of less than half a per cent. Voting intention figures exclude those who say they would not vote, are undecided or refuse to name a party and in the headline figures, are filtered as discussed below. Data are based on all adults unless otherwise stated Voting Intention Voting intention polls between elections are a measurement of how a representative sample of the public think they would vote at a given point in time. Voting intentions should be read in conjunction with other political indicators. Voting intentions: headline indicator Our headline indicator takes into account past voting behaviour (do people always or usually vote in general elections, or say it depends) as well as stated likelihood to vote in an upcoming election (those who say they are at least 9 out of 10 certain to vote). We continually review our methods, and may make further refinements to our methodology in the future. As previously, please note that this measure is not based on the assumption that this is the group who will vote at the next general election, as this population is not accurately identifiable at this stage of a parliament. -
Type Document Title Here
The other leadership race that really matters Blog post by Practice Lead Tom King, 13 June 2019 There is only one cast-iron certainty in British politics. That is that whoever replaces Theresa May in Downing Street this summer will be faced with the same set of problems. Of course, the identity of the prime minister matters. But it is not likely to change the questions facing MPs of all parties come the autumn. Largely unnoticed, there is another leadership contest underway that might have a much more important effect. The Liberal Democrats had an exceptional spring, roaring back into the public eye with a strong local election performance before comfortably pushing Labour into third place at the European Parliament elections. Ironically, the Lib Dems probably have a smaller party to thank for this turnaround. The party’s ‘Libby’ bird logo had been thought more of a dead duck, its brand too toxic after the coalition years to be restored. Under the directionless leadership of Vince Cable – who seemed to behave more like an analyst than a politician – there seemed little hope. And it was because of this that Change UK was born. The hodgepodge of frustrated Conservative and Labour Remainers, informally led by Chuka Umunna, Heidi Allen and Anna Soubry, chose to plough their own furrow rather than join the largest Remain-supporting UK party. It made sense: they simply looked over at the Lib Dems and thought, ‘we can do better than that’. The now divided Change UK’s biggest legacy may turn out to be to have forced the Lib Dems into action. -
'Covidiots': the United Kingdom and the Populist Future
Journal of Contemporary European Research Volume 17, Issue 2 (2021) Commentary From ‘Brexhaustion’ to ‘Covidiots’: The United Kingdom and the Populist Future Russell Foster and Matthew Feldman Citation Foster, R. and Feldman, M. (2021). ‘From ‘Brexhaustion’ to ‘Covidiots’: The United Kingdom and the Populist Future’ in, Journal of Contemporary European Research 17 (2): 116-127. https://doi.org/10.30950/jcer.v17i2.1231 First published at: www.jcer.net Volume 17, Issue 2 (2021) Russell Foster and Matthew Feldman Abstract One consequence of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic is the acceleration of Britain’s shift towards populism, and the rejection of expert-informed policymaking in favour of vox populi claims. The continuation of this toxicity beyond Brexit means that nationalist narratives have become Britain’s new ‘politics of everything’ (Valluvan 2019). The past five years have seen growing British contempt for technocracy, with ‘us and them’ populist narratives gaining widespread traction as the United Kingdom’s (UK) volatile political environment moves away from the political procedures and economic values by which the UK has operated since 1945. Since early 2020, this narrative has been significantly accelerated by Covid-19 countermeasures, with anti-EU parties and narratives on the left and right becoming anti-lockdown or anti-vaccine advocates. This commentary approaches the surge in British populism as emblematic of the UK’s shift from centrism towards polarised factions defined not by party, but by cross-spectrum contempt for technical governance. We argue that while populism is a worldwide phenomenon, it is not homogenous and the UK is particularly vulnerable to anti-status quo discourses and narratives.