What would George Orwell make of the Brexit right?
I don’t believe in turning George Orwell’s writing into Holy Scripture – he would have hated the reverence as much…
This is Brexit’s La La Land moment
From Venezuela to Zimbabwe, the noise that defines failing states is the wail. It’s not our fault, their leaders cry.…
Snobs and mobs agree on the cost of a second referendum
Britain moved a step close to Weimar yesterday when the Prime Minister used the threat of terrorism to get her…
What Corbyn’s far left has in common with Trump and the Brexit right
Even though Jeremy Corbyn and the men and women who support him are often shabby and occasionally reactionary figures, the…
How much longer can Orbán's apologists ignore what he's doing to Hungary?
Hungary is the Venezuela of the Western right. Just as radical leftists revealed the emptiness of their concern for the…
The betrayal of the Brexit bunch
It is now standard on the right to say that the establishment is sabotaging Brexit. I could pick one of…
The quack doctors of Brexit ignore the cure to Britain’s strife
The British are like patients with an incurable illness. Thinking and worrying can do no good, but those who understand…
How the ‘people’s vote’ campaign gained momentum
A year ago, campaigners for a ‘people’s vote’ seemed an eccentric bunch of no hopers and bad losers. Mocked as…
The censorship of Norman Geras
To anyone who knew the late and much-missed Norman Geras, the idea that the state could consider his work an…
Don’t blame social media for the state of our politics
The conventional wisdom that we live in echo chambers always seemed too convenient an explanation of political polarisation to be…
The far left’s Islamist blind spot
The alliance between the white far left and the Islamist right is a dirty secret in plain sight. Few can…
J.K. Rowling and the darkness on the left
You rarely come across a character in modern literature like Jimmy Knight. He’s a racist, but that’s not what makes…
Why an insurgent Remain could win a second vote
Cold calculation suggests there won’t be a second referendum. It could destroy both the Tory and Labour parties, and in…
In the cult of Corbyn, dissent will not be tolerated
The far left is preparing the ground for its coming purge of the Labour party by burning down every rational…
The old left and the new anti-Semitism
This is the English version of a piece of mine that was first published in DIE WELT on 4 August…
The Brexit right is letting ideology trump democracy
If Britain were not in the middle of a nervous breakdown, Shahmir Sanni would be a national hero. As it…
Boris is gone. What now for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?
What’s one woman’s life worth as the great battles about Brexit rage? Nothing at all, apparently, as Boris Johnson’s indifference…
We don’t know where Brexiteers are going now. And neither do they
In happier days when Britain was not on the brink of disintegration, David Davis told me a story about the…
Brexit exposes the truth about the Corbyn personality cult
The far left’s argument in favour of Brexit is a mess of invented histories, smears, crocodile tears and paranoia. Worse,…
Brexit exposes the limits of Jeremy Corbyn’s radicalism
The left middle class is filled with anger as it sees the right, and, in its terms, the far right,…
Trump’s meddling shows why Leveson’s critics are right
For people who are meant to be professional communicators, journalists are hopeless at explaining themselves to the public. Everyone I…
Tommy Robinson and the rise of the new extremists
Other people’s worries are no different from yours. Just as you worry about how to pay the bills, and wonder…
Ireland’s referendum was nothing like the Brexit vote
The wags of the right have been chuckling since the Irish electorate voted to legalise abortion. Ha, ha, ha, they…
The Tories are the masters of ‘vice signalling’
If you want to get on in right-wing politics, it is essential you master the art of vice signalling. You…
The Israeli right’s allies are no friends of Jews
The contrast between Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Jared Kushner and other great statesmen of our age under investigation swanking it up…