United Kingdom

By Matthew Cole | – Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, has confirmed that he will call a vote on holding a general election if MPs legislate to block a no-deal Brexit. His pledge came after he lost a key vote to the so-called rebel alliance of MPs, which included numerous members of his own […]

European Union

To preserve democracy, the UK needs a mass movement both inside and outside Parliament

Waging Nonviolence

By Symon Hill ( Waging Nonviolence) – Thousands of people poured onto the streets of the United Kingdom . . . to challenge Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to suspend Parliament. Activists are used to calling on politicians to make decisions, not to take direct action. But that’s precisely what’s needed to stop Boris Johnson’s […]

European Union

Brexit: After PM Boris Johnson’s Coup, what’s left of the British constitution?

British Policy and Politics

The contemptuous ease with which the Johnson-Cummings regime has attempted to cripple parliamentary consideration of alternatives to a no-deal Brexit by proroguing Parliament raises further serious issues about the remaining value of the UK’s ‘unfixed constitution’. This controversy comes after a prolonged period in which the executive under May used every micro-institutional weapon to blackmail […]

United Kingdom

Boris Johnson and the New Battle of Britain: Can Labour Keep UK in Europe?

John Feffer

(Foreign Policy in Focus ) – As hard Brexiteer Boris Johnson takes over, Labour is finally coming down on the side of Remain. Will it be too late? UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Photo: nottheviewsofmyemployer / Flickr / creative commons). All eyes are focused these days on Boris Johnson, the new prime minister of the […]

United Kingdom

Perfidious Albion? Is UK PM Boris Johnson an Islamophobic, anti-Immigrant, anti-Gay Bigot?

The Conversation

By Luke Reader | – After the election of Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and prime minister, does Britain have a populist, nativist politician as its head of government? It’s hard to say. Johnson has been a little of everything during his career. Over three decades in public life, Johnson has shifted between social […]

Iran

Crickets from European Union over Questionable UK Seizure of Iran tanker: With Brexit, London should Get Used to It

The Conversation

By Barry Ryan | – It’s rare to experience silence in this age of political anger and loudness, of bombastic tweets, insulting truths and incredible lies. It’s so unfashionable for a politician to not immediately respond to an event with lightening praise or withering cynicism, that when we hear nothing, it seems as though something […]

Donald Trump

The ‘inept’ Mr Trump – and the Lost Art of the Diplomatic Cable

Brian Whitaker

(Al-Bab.com) – The point of diplomatic cables, and the cause of excitement when they are leaked, is that they are meant to be private – from which we might assume they contain information that is not generally known and is perhaps too interesting to be shared with the public. Sadly, that wasn’t the case with […]

Featured

Scotland’s Green Energy makes Enough Electricity 1st Quarter to power 88% of Households

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In the first three months of 2019, Scotland produced 17 percent more electricity from renewables than in the same quarter a year earlier. Driven mainly by onshore wind, Scotland’s burgeoning green energy sector keeps breaking records, making enough electricity the first quarter of this year to provide 88% of the […]

Donald Trump

Trump and Don Jr. Wage Scathing War of Words on . . . Conservatives of Britain and Germany?

AFP

Chancellor Angela Merkel sid Germany would “continue our effort” to raise defense spending “but not at the expense of development aid.”