Lessons from the Italian budget crisis

by Thomas Fazi

The tensions and contradictions within the European project, from Brexit and the Pasokification of social democracy to the rise of the right and the rollback of social Europe present very serious challenges to building left power across Europe. In this week’s guest post, journalist and filmmaker Thomas Fazi turns our attention towards the recent budget standoff between the Italian government and the European Commission. He argues that this example serves to highlight the arbitrary and undemocratic nature of economic governance within the eurozone and the EU more broadly. This, he concludes, may herald the ‘slow-motion implosion’ of the EU, with potential strategic lessons for the European left.

Hello and welcome to Belfast

We are Trademark Belfast, the anti- sectarian and anti-racist unit of the Irish labour movement.

Perfidious Albion

by Stiofán Ó Nualláin & Seán Byers

Following Theresa May’s historic and humiliating defeat in the House of Commons last week she has been under intense pressure to return with an alternative Brexit deal, a Plan B. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to securing a majority amongst her own party and retaining the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) upon whose ten votes she is reliant for power, is the Irish back stop agreement. The backstop is a position of last resort designed to maintain an open border on the island of Ireland in the event that the UK leaves the EU without securing an all-encompassing deal.

Where stands Brexit?

by Stiofán Ó Nualláin & Seán Byers

Rosa Luxemburg said that “The most revolutionary thing one can do is always to proclaim loudly what is happening”, consider this a whisper. Last night Theresa May’s Brexit deal went down to a staggering defeat of 230 votes, the biggest defeat suffered by a British government in modern history. In ordinary times, this would almost certainly spell the end of a prime minister. But these are extraordinary times. Although May is deeply unpopular, there is no clear parliamentary or public majority for an alternative to her deal.

Introducing ‘Brexit, Europe and the Left’: A Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung blog

by Ada-Charlotte Regelmann, Stiofán Ó Nualláin & Seán Byers

Half way into the third year of the Brexit frenzy this much is clear: The upheaval caused by the United Kingdom’s 2016 Brexit referendum will continue to shape European politics on both sides of the Channel throughout 2019 and beyond. That certainty aside, much of the political, social, legal, economic and cultural fallout this unprecedented political process will bring about is impossible to anticipate. What does this mean for the European left? How will the left respond? How does the left stand on increased European Union integration? Can we even speak of a European left as such? How do we respond to the rise of the radical right?