Nick Cohen is the author of What's Left and You Can't Read This Book.
Republicans hate to admit it, but the stability brought by the long reign of that most careful of monarchs Elizabeth II has helped Britain manage the decline from empire to middle-ranking power surprisingly well. As the Treason Act of 1351 is no longer in force, and to ‘compass or imagine’ the death of the sovereign
A year ago, campaigners for a ‘people’s vote’ seemed an eccentric bunch of no hopers and bad losers. Mocked as ‘remoaners’, their arguments barely covered by the media, history had left them behind. As the leave campaigns’ central claim that we could have the benefits of EU membership while leaving the EU is revealed for
To anyone who knew the late and much-missed Norman Geras, the idea that the state could consider his work an incitement to terrorism would have been incomprehensible. Geras was an inspirational politics professor at Manchester University, and a polemicist and moral philosopher of exceptional insight. He devoted much of his energy to opposing the murder
Shortly before his death, the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote that capitalism crushed the integrity of artists and intellectuals. Assessed only in terms of their commercial appeal, they became ‘a sub-department of marketing’. In a touching display of filial loyalty, Julia Hobsbawm seems to be proving her old dad right. The former head of New
The conventional wisdom that we live in echo chambers always seemed too convenient an explanation of political polarisation to be true. Believers could convince themselves that their causes lost, not because they were faulty or fantastical or outright wicked, but because their opponents had brainwashed a majority of the electorate to reject them. For all
The alliance between the white far left and the Islamist right is a dirty secret in plain sight. Few can bear to look at it. None of the books and documentaries on Corbyn’s takeover of the Labour party asked, even in passing, how people who professed to be socialists and feminists, found themselves promoting theocrats
You rarely come across a character in modern literature like Jimmy Knight. He’s a racist, but that’s not what makes him a novelty act. racists, after all, are deplored everywhere in the culture industry, from Hollywood to Pinewood Studios. Of this racist, however, his ex-wife says: ‘I wouldn’t trust him if it was anything to
You rarely come across a character in modern literature like Jimmy Knight. He’s a racist, but that’s not what makes him a novelty act. racists, after all, are deplored everywhere in the culture industry, from Hollywood to Pinewood Studios. Of this racist, however, his ex-wife says: ‘I wouldn’t trust him if it was anything to
Cold calculation suggests there won’t be a second referendum. It could destroy both the Tory and Labour parties, and in any case, we appear to be heading for a classic EU fudge that will postpone hard choices. But as all predictions in 2018 are likely to be false, and the Tory right appears determined to
Cold calculation suggests there won’t be a second referendum. It could destroy both the Tory and Labour parties, and in any case, we appear to be heading for a classic EU fudge that will postpone hard choices. But as all predictions in 2018 are likely to be false, and the Tory right appears determined to
The far left is preparing the ground for its coming purge of the Labour party by burning down every rational objection that stands in its way. To take the most rational objection to its plans, consider the case of a Labour MP who breaks with Jeremy Corbyn on Brexit or racism. He or she is
This is the English version of a piece of mine that was first published in DIE WELT on 4 August 2018, in which I attempt to explain to German readers why anti-Semitism, of all things, is dominating politics in Britain, of all places. Germans visiting Britain before Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour party
Being a Jew on the Corbyn left is soul- crushing. In the name of the cause, you must excuse racism in all but its extreme forms. The presence of a real Jew in its midst provides the left with cover. But stray from the party line, and you are not a comrade having a legitimate
If Britain were not in the middle of a nervous breakdown, Shahmir Sanni would be a national hero. As it is, the British right has done its damnedest to wreck the life of the whistleblower who provided the evidence that pro-Brexit groups Vote Leave and BeLeave “worked to a common plan” to break “legal spending
In happier days when Britain was not on the brink of disintegration, David Davis told me a story about the 19th century French politician Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin. Little did I suspect that soon he would be living it. The Francophiles among you will recall the apocryphal tale of Ledru-Rollin enjoying his lunch at a Parisian
What’s one woman’s life worth as the great battles about Brexit rage? Nothing at all, apparently, as Boris Johnson’s indifference towards the fate of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe shows. The British mother is, you will recall, being held in an Iranian prison on trumped up spying charges. She says she was just visiting Iran, and there is
In happier days when Britain was not on the brink of disintegration, David Davis told me a story about the 19th century French politician Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin. Little did I suspect that soon he would be living it. The Francophiles among you will recall the apocryphal tale of Ledru-Rollin enjoying his lunch at a Parisian
The far left’s argument in favour of Brexit is a mess of invented histories, smears, crocodile tears and paranoia. Worse, it’s a party line that is repeated by propagandists out of deference to the leadership. If the leadership should stand on its head and announce it supported Britain staying in the EU or remaining a
The left middle class is filled with anger as it sees the right, and, in its terms, the far right, triumph. Every time I write about Brexit I feel its fury pulsating around me. Brexit threatens the left’s core beliefs in international cooperation and anti-racism, while making its dream of ending austerity by reviving the
For people who are meant to be professional communicators, journalists are hopeless at explaining themselves to the public. Everyone I know assumes that when we oppose the Leveson report we are supporting the Sun, the Mail and peeping Toms who hack phones and point lenses into other people’s bedrooms. The fact that the Guardian and
