The Another Europe Podcast

Lloyd Russell Moyle MP ... Britain is in the middle of a constitutional crisis. With Theresa May facing a huge defeat on her Brexit deal she pulled the vote. Parliament was denied its say even though MPs had already debated the bill for several days. And our guest on this podcast wasn’t having any of it. In an act of defiance Labour MP Lloyd Russell Moyle grabbed the mace - a symbol of royal authority in Parliament that Oliver Cromwell referred to as a "fools' bauble". Now May is facing a no confidence vote from Tory MPs. She is scrambling for support at home, while in European capitals she is begging for concessions that won’t be forthcoming. So what next for the Brexit crisis? Are we looking at the dying days of the Tory administration?

Asad Rehman ... Tommy Robinson has called a 'Brexit Betrayal' march in London. Backed by North American money - and with nearly a million followers on Facebook alone - Robinson has become an icon of this dangerous far right insurgency. How do we analyse this new movement? What lessons should we draw from the past? And how does Brexit fit in? These are some of the questions we discuss on the podcast with Asad Rehman, who works in the NGO sector but is speaking in a personal capacity. He's been very involved in the Stop Trump Coalition and is a seasoned campaigner in numerous anti-racist struggles down the years. We’ve also pulled in Alena Ivanova and Michael Chessum from the Another Europe office.

with Eloise Todd ... On what must be the most momentous day since the referendum result, with cabinet ministers resigning every hour, listen NOW while we're at the peak of our relevance and freshness. Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper are joined by Eloise Todd from Best for Britain, who is a leading campaigner against Brexit and is well-equipped to explain what might happen next.

Ash Sarkar, Mary Kaldor and Gian Giacomo Migone ... Europe has been gripped by crises in recent years that increasingly throw the entire future of the European Union into question. In this first ever 'live audience' event, hosts Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper are joined by three guests that cross generations and perspectives. They explore the history of the union, the distinctive vision of the socialist left for a united Europe free of capitalist exploitation, the entanglement of the project of unity in the continent's history of colonialism, and the contemporary prospects for an internationalist and transformative politics at the European level.

Zoe Williams, Luke Cooper and Jamie Coward … The Tory conference and May’s speech: a great exercise in fantasy and delusion or a fightback from our embattled prime minister? That’s the question on the latest Another Europe podcast. After the catastrophe of last year’s speech - when May could hardly speak and the sign fell off the boarding at the close of her disastrous performance - it could hardly have been any worse this time round. May has won plaudits for steadying the ship, some people even seemed to like her busting out some moves to Dancing Queen. And Tory moderates have described it as a surprisingly successful exercise in facing down the hard right in her party. But there’s one simply problem with this narrative: it assumes the outside world doesn’t exist. A context-less analysis won’t get us anywhere. We put the context - of Britain's Brexit crisis- back in.

Alena Ivanova and Michael Chessum ... Are Labour about to perform what would be one of the great political u-turns of all time and swing behind the campaign for a people’s vote on the final Brexit deal? As over a hundred motions on the Brexit question are submitted to the conference, are the members, to coin a phrase, looking to ‘take back control’? In this podcast, which is published a little ahead of our usual fortnightly schedule, we take stock of what’s happening with the Labour Party prior to its conference in Liverpool. To get a handle on what’s going on we’re joined by Alena Ivanova and Michael Chessum from the Another Europe Is Possible campaign HQ. They’ve been leading the efforts to get Brexit onto the conference agenda and give us the inside track on the latest developments.

Alfie Stirling and Alena Ivanova … Remember project fear? It was Cameron and Osborne’s scare campaign. The economic collapse that never came. We on the left never bought this narrative. Ours was a positive vision for Europe. But as the possibility of a ‘no deal Brexit’ has come into view, project fear might be looking a little like project fact. What are the actual economic implications of Brexit anyway? And what do they mean for British workers? We talk to Alfie Stirling from the New Economics Foundation to find out. In part two we turn to practicalities and get the lowdown on how the Another Europe campaign is going.

Paul Mason ... Oxi, Oxi, No, No, the Greek people chanted in the summer of 2015 only for their government to then - perhaps inevitably - accept Europe’s demands for a brutal austerity and privatisation programme. Back in 2015 no British journalist followed these events more closely than Paul Mason, who has since become a high profile backer of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. In this podcast we talk to him about Europe and the left, taking in some of the history of Europe’s disastrous turn to neoliberalism. We’ll also be looking at the tensions that exist between Britain’s Corbynistas and the Remain movement.

Omar Khan and Brendan McGeever … This podcast returns to the question we’ve been puzzling over for some time: how can progressives push back against the rising tide of racism? Brexit is only one part of the nationalist resurgence. From Steve Bannon to Geert Wilders and Tommy Robinson a new far right international has emerged. Not only have they raised huge sums from American white supremacists, they also stand to make a breakthrough in European elections next year. What are the causes of the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment these far right forces are feeding off? And how can we turn it around? Jamie Coward, Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper are joined by Omar Khan from the Runnymede Trust and Brendan McGeever from Birkbeck University to reflect on these questions.

Grace Blakeley and Michael Chessum ... Are the left at risk of sleep-walking into a Brexit emergency for Britain, or does the process of leaving the EU create new opportunities for radical change? A recording of a live audience debate with economist Grace Blakeley and Another Europe national organiser Michael Chessum.