Pieria View

Some weeks ago I wrote a thread outlining why, in my opinion, far too much focus has been given to (admittedly self-described) amateur sociologists’ theories (in particular the work of Chris Arnade and David Goodhart) to explain the emergence of a disaffected electoral block responsible for the rise of Trump and the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. I promised to write up these thoughts into a blog post - so here it is. This is intended to be my very last word on the subject and my apologies to everyone already exhausted by the debate to date. The full thread can be found here , but below is a short summary of the main points: 1) There is a genuine problem of inequality of access to the public sphere and consequent marginalisation of people and groups whose problems are therefore de-prioritised in policy circles. This, however, does not mean that all barriers to the public sphere are illegitimate (e.g. those that protect others from harm). 2) The authors in question t...

Now the many horrors of 2016 are behind us, the world is waking up to the horrors that await in 2017. In particular, the UK is bracing itself for the triggering of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty marking the formal notification of Britain’s intention to leave the European Union. In and of itself, there is no great significance attached to the event. It marks the start of the two year mandated negotiation period, after which either both sides will have reached some sort of agreement, there is a unanimous vote to extend negotiations or Britain is unceremoniously dumped out of the EU and into WTO rules. Well, that’s a 2019 problem which we’ll have to deal with when we get there. In 2017, the problem facing the UK government is twofold: How to come up with a negotiating platform that leaves open the possibility of a non-disastrous settlement for the UK and how to keep those who voted to Leave onside as the inevitable compromises get struck. Ah, you’ll hear some say, Prime Min...