Boris Johnson's Peculiar Game of Kamikaze Chicken is About to End

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pursued exactly one strategy in his EU trade negotiations: threatening to drive Britain into a no-deal wall unless he gets what he wants. In other words, Johnson has been approaching this extraordinarily important matter of national interest as a peculiar version of the game of chicken. This explains much of his bizarre behaviour over the last 18 months, such as his antagonistic attitude, stubbornness, time-wasting, and even (part of) his buffoonery. Nevertheless, to be explained is not to be justified. Not only will the strategy fail, as it did before when Johnson used it in the Withdrawal Agreement negotiations. It has also foreclosed any hope for a substantive trade deal that could have fulfilled the positive aspirations of Brexiteers.

The Revolt Against Liberalism: Diagnosing and Defeating Populism

Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy. (Francis Fukuyama, The End of History, p.330)

Liberal democracy won the Cold War but a generation later it is losing the peace. In country after country across the comfortable, safe, prosperous western world populist parties and movements dedicated to its overthrow are advancing steadily towards power. Why is this happening? A righteous indignation enabled by complacency. What can be done? Radical liberalism

Privatise the Monarchy!

Source

Are you a subject or a citizen? You're not alone if you're not sure. Many supposedly liberal democracies - from Britain to the Netherlands to Canada - still live under a constitutional bricolage of medieval and republican institutions.

We deserve better. In our private lives - in the private space for decision-making that citizens enjoy - those who like the monarchy can continue to express that admiration, just as those who wish to worship within a particular religious denomination can do so. But there is no justification for continuing the undignified farce of constitutional monarchy.

Scottish independence would have been good for Britain too

Like many English people I observed the progress of the Scottish independence referendum campaign in a rather detached way. Since only the Scots got to vote, it was easy to suppose that it only really concerned the fate of Scotland - their business not mine. Only towards the end when the Yes campaign surged in the polls did it begin to feel real and exciting. And only then did I start to appreciate its significance to the rest of Britain. What if the Scots decided to leave? What kind of political crisis would that create? And what kind of opportunity to reinvent RumpUK as something new and better?

Britain's Sudden and Bizarre Resentment of Migration

Source

All three of Britain's major political parties are competing to sound tough on migrants. I can't really condemn them for that, however, since they seem to be reluctantly acceding to the popular demand reflected in the opinion polls and the rise of 'nativist' political parties like UKIP. The successful diffusion of anti-racist social norms in recent decades has constrained the most natural expressions of anti-migrant prejudices. But the bizarre arguments now being trotted out about the harm foreigners do to British prosperity, rights, and culture remain an expression of xenophobia rather than reason.

Why I do not wear a poppy

It is that time of the year again. Volunteers at train stations and shopping centres, often wearing military uniforms, are selling little red paper and plastic poppies to remember the service of British veterans. These little paper poppies have long taken over the official remembrance day and converted it into a month long ritual from which one cannot opt out without having to take a position. Well, here is my position.

I reject the coerciveness of the poppy ritual, the way it tries to bring everyone together around a single shared narrative of remembrance, with its compulsory yet glib emotions of gratitude and sorrow. I reject the unquestioning acceptance of the value of that military service and the implied necessity and meaningfulness of war in general. And I reject the government's intimate involvement. What should be an occasion for remembering the political failures that lead to wars has been neatly converted into a propaganda exercise that forecloses reasoned public scrutiny of our government's past, present and future militarism.

Human rights, the rule of law, and British parliamentary sovereignty: Prisoners' right to vote

7 years ago the UK was found in breach of its legal obligations to uphold the European Convention on Human Rights for its blanket ban on prisoners voting (Ruling of the European Court of Human Rights).Yet the British parliament has still not managed to pass legislation to address the fundamentally arbitrary and discriminatory character of this ban, by providing a justification of disenfranchisement that relates to the nature of particular crimes and making it an explicit part of sentencing. Rather, parliament is now in open revolt against the very principle of a supra national court telling it what to do.