2023 update ...

A short update for the new year, covering my writings since my last post.

Firstly, a warm welcome to my new followers! For those new to this Substack or who briefly want to familiarise themselves with some of my ideas, I did an interview with the excellent e-IR website here.

Since November 2022, I have written a variety of pieces for UnHerd, ranging from the brouhaha over Chat GPT /AI in higher education, through to Brazilian foreign policy as the unipolar world order crumbles. I wrote two pieces for UnHerd analysing how Britain’s industrial unrest might filter into national politics. One piece analysed why the Tories’ won’t be able to fold the strikers into their so-called ‘pro-worker conservatism’, and another asking how the strikers might find meaningful political representation at the national level. I also welcomed the strike wave as preferable to the middle-class shenanigans of Just Stop Oil and XR, etc. Also for UnHerd I analysed how our collective enthralment to the cult of individual productivity helps legitimate the status quo and compensates for poor productivity growth at the social level.

Further afield, I also had an essay on the shape of the post-Brexit British state published in the New Left Review - here I made the case for two, three … many Brexits. For the Northern Star, I wrote regarding the links between industrial strife and the attempt to restore national sovereignty in Brexit Britain, and I put forward a critique of the localist political vision offered up by Labour leader Keir Starmer. I argued that rather than deploying the supranationalism of the EU, he was seeking to use localism to eclipse the national level of politics. On the third anniversary of Brexit at the end of last month, I made the case that the wilting support for Brexit indicates the triumph not so much of Remain over Leave as much as that of Global Britain over Brexit Britain. I argue in that piece that many Tory Leavers’ commitment to Global Britain is what sabotaged their efforts to build Brexit Britain. I also gave a talk to the Liverpool Salon on my concept of cosmopolitan dystopia as part of a panel discussion that they hosted on Dreams of Order; a recording of the event can be found here. I also gave a talk to the Birmingham Salon on the what happened to the national interest (no recording).

Last but by no means not least, I’m delighted to announce a new book due to be published with Polity in April this year - Taking Control: Sovereignty and Democracy After Brexit, co-authored with my fellow editors of the Northern Star. There will be book launch events in London and around the country, so if you are interested in coming to one of those, please do keep an eye on my Twitter feed for news.

I hope these pieces are stimulating and useful, and please feel free to let me know your thoughts.