Angela Merkel To Run Again: Why She's The Antithesis Of Donald Trump In A Post-Truth World

EPA/Kay Nietfeld

By Katharina Karcher, University of Cambridge

Angela Merkel has finally confirmed that she will run for reappointment as German chancellor in the country’s 2017 parliamentary elections. Many have hoped for this moment, despite the setbacks of the past few years. There is a strong sense that the world needs Merkel now more than ever. She has made some unpopular decisions in her 11 years as chancellor but she is, to many, the antithesis of Donald Trump.

Tough times
Chancellorship has been no walk in the park for Merkel of late. In 2015, she upset many supporters of her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), by opening German borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees. To curb the influx, Merkel had to commit to a dirty deal with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, offering generous EU visa terms for his citizens in exchange for stopping millions of refugees from entering Europe.

The pressure intensified in 2016, when a spate of sexual assaults, apparently committed by migrants, stirred up a significant backlash against the new arrivals.

Merkel’s CDU went on to suffer bitter setbacks in federal elections. And an Islamic State-inspired axe attack by a young man from Afghanistan in Bavaria in July 2016 was seen as evidence that Merkel’s open door refugee policy had failed.

In September 2016, Merkel’s popularity reached a five-year low. No more than 45% of German people were satisfied with her performance. During a public speech on German Unity Day in Dresden, angry protesters drew on Nazi language and called Merkel a “traitor of the people” and demanded her resignation.

On the international stage, the Brexit vote was a huge blow to Merkel and her pro-European course. She now needs to negotiate an exit for Britain without also triggering the demise of the entire EU project.

And as if all of this wasn’t enough, Merkel will have to deal with Donald Trump as president of the United States. After Trump’s election victory, Merkel gave a remarkable speech, offering him close collaboration on the basis that the new American president would respect freedom, democracy and the dignity and worth of all people.

While most other world leaders gave bland statements of half-hearted hope that the president-elect would not see through on his more controversial promises, the German leader was sending a strong signal – and even a challenge.

After the open sexism and racism that characterised Trump’s campaign, it looks like close collaboration is an extremely unlikely scenario. Merkel was effectively saying that standing up to such prejudice was more important to her than relations with the US – although whether she remains true to her principles should she be re-elected is another question.

A sense of responsibility
Given the overwhelming number of problems facing whoever wins in 2017, the easiest decision would have been to let someone else do the job of chancellor. But Merkel isn’t one for easy solutions.

There was little enthusiasm or excitement in her voice as she announced her candidacy, and she openly admitted that standing had been a difficult decision. Although Merkel didn’t mention any names, it was obvious that she wanted to send a message to Trump and right-wing populists in Europe. She emphasised that political decisions need to be based on the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, respect for the law, and the dignity of every human being.

Merkel responds to Trump’s victory.

Following her announcement, Merkel appeared on a talk show and left no doubt that she expected difficult times and an “exhausting and challenging” election campaign. Yet, she added that she felt confident that she could defend these values that hold our society together.

Merkel openly challenges Trump because there is a lot more at stake than Anglo-German relations. Fears grow that in 2017 the right-wing populist Marine Le Pen could become the next French president, and that Europe’s far right will grow further. Against this background, Merkel sees an urgent need to oppose the populism, racism and gender ideology of the extreme right, and this feeling is shared by many Germans.

Can she win?
Merkel’s statement was a manifestation of everything that people love and hate about her. She carefully assesses situations before taking decisions, she is stubbornly committed to Christian values and the European project, she seeks consensus rather than victory, and she displays a striking lack of charisma.

The New York Times has called Merkel “the liberal west’s last defender” and while she is too smart to get excited about such headlines, she knows that her approach and personality traits have become a rare commodity in the post-truth era of global politics.

Merkel has described herself as a “chancellor for turbulent times” and there is good reason to believe that she could act as an important counterbalance to the charismatic, impulsive, erratic, and polemical President Trump.

Recent polls suggest Merkel’s popularity scores are slowly recovering. Although it is to be expected that some CDU voters will switch to vote for the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AFD), she has a good chance of re-election. She may not win an outright majority, but her party would be able to form a coalition with various other parties, which would leave the CDU in a strong position to push through their candidate for the chancellorship.


About Today's Contributor:
Katharina Karcher, Sutasoma Research Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, University of Cambridge

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

No, This Isn’t The 1930s – But Yes, This Is Fascism

EPA/Roman Pilipey

By James McDougall, University of Oxford

The spread of fascism in the 1920s was significantly aided by the fact that liberals and mainstream conservatives failed to take it seriously. Instead, they accommodated and normalised it.

The centre right is doing the same today. Brexit, Trump and the far right ascendant across Europe indicate that talk of a right-wing revolutionary moment is not exaggerated. And the French presidential election could be next on the calendar.

The shock felt by status-quo liberals and the anguish experienced on the left are matched only by the satisfaction of those on the extreme right that finally they are winning. The so-called “mature” liberal democracies have long managed to marginalise them. They have long seen themselves as vilified for speaking the common man’s unpalatable truths to out-of-touch elites. Now their champions are taking the political mainstream by storm.

The signs are there if you look for them. EPA

And amid the disbelief, heartbreak, and protest, centre-right politicians and commentators seek to normalise and reassure. They dismiss “whingers” and “moaners”. They tell us to “get over it” and brush off talk of a new fascism as unfounded scaremongering.
Even among historians, apparently – as the conservative British writer Niall Ferguson condescended to tell Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis – analogies with the 1930s are made only by the easily confused.

The circumstances of society, the economy and geopolitics are so different, we are told, that today’s right-wing populism cannot be called a fascistic revival. The mainstream centre right assures us that all will be well in the wake of Trump’s election. It did the same after the UK’s EU referendum, even as hate crime figures skyrocketed. Conservative politicians continue to insist that the real news is about the wonderful opportunities ahead.

But that is precisely where the real analogy with Europe in the 1920s and 1930s lies. The circumstances of 2016 are indeed very different to those against which militarised party shock troops fought street battles, and monarchists looked for a strong man to capture popular grievances and save them from Bolshevik revolution.

But historical circumstances, like individuals, are always unique and unrepeatable. The point of comparison is not to suggest that we are living though the 1930s redux. It is to recognise the very strong family resemblance in ideas shared by the early 20th century far right and its mimics today.

Mussolini in 1922. Wikimedia Commons

Discussion of fascism suffers from an excess of definition. That often, ironically, allows far-right groups and their apologists to disavow the label because of some tick-box characteristic which they can be said to lack. But just as we can usefully talk about socialism as a recognisable political tradition without assuming that all socialisms since the 1840s have been cut from one mould, so we can speak of a recognisably fascist style of politics in Europe, the US, Russia and elsewhere. It is united by its espousal of a set of core ideas.

The theatrical machismo, the man or woman “of the people” image, and the deliberately provocative, demagogic sloganeering that impatiently sweeps aside rational, evidence-based argument and the rule-bound negotiation of different perspectives – the substance of democracy, in other words – is only the outward form that this style of politics takes.
More important are its characteristic memes. Fascism brings a masculinist, xenophobic nationalism that claims to “put the people first” while turning them against one another. That is complemented by anti-cosmopolitanism and anti-intellectualism. It denounces global capitalism, blaming ordinary people’s woes on an alien “plutocracy” in a language that is both implicitly anti-Semitic and explicitly anti-immigrant, while offering no real alternative economics. In the US, that was perfectly exemplified in Trump’s closing campaign ad.

Trump’s view of the world.

A view of the world is presented that is centred on fears of “national suicide” and civilisational decline, in which whites are demographically overwhelmed by “inferior” peoples, minorities and immigrants. Today, this is the French far-right’s paranoid fantasy of le grand remplacement. Geopolitics are defined by latent religio-racial war. In the 1930s, this meant a death struggle with communism. Today, it looks to, and feeds abundantly on, Islamist extremism and Islamic State, abusively identified with “Islam” as a whole.

This is a new fascism, or at least near-fascism, and the centre right is dangerously underestimating its potential, exactly as it did 80 years ago. Then, it was conservative anti-communists who believed they could tame and control the extremist fringe. Now, it is mainstream conservatives, facing little electoral challenge from a left in disarray. They fear the drift of their own voters to more muscular, anti-immigrant demagogues on the right. They accordingly espouse the right’s priorities and accommodate its hate speech. They reassure everyone that they have things under control even as the post-Cold War neoliberal order, like the war-damaged bourgeois golden age last century, sinks under them.

The risk, at least for the West, is not a new world war, but merely a poisoned public life, a democracy reduced to the tyranny of tiny majorities who find emotional satisfaction in a violent, resentful rhetoric while their narrowly-elected leaders strip away their rights and persecute their neighbours. That might be quite bad enough.


About Today's Contributor:
James McDougall, Associate Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

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How Brexit And Trump Will Affect James Bond

Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/EPA

By Klaus Dodds, Royal Holloway and Lisa Funnell, University of Oklahoma

James Bond will likely next grace cinema screens towards the end of 2018. Whether he will inhabit a filmic world in which the UK is no longer a member of the European Union and Donald Trump is the US president is yet to be seen – but if so, what a different world it will be. Bond’s mission is likely to involve the navigation of an increasingly porous Europe, vulnerable to malign influences from a resurgent Russia. The UK’s cyber-security defences face further challenges as industrial espionage and military and intelligence hacking intensifies. Bond is going to have his work cut out for him.

So it’s interesting to consider how these changes might effect Britain’s premier super-spy. As we explore in our new book, The Geographies, Genders and Geopolitics of James Bond, Bond’s geographical mobility is pivotal to mission success. And however good he is, he needs allies and access to the resources that they are able to mobilise. Take away those “assets” and Bond’s agency is degraded. So do these tumultuous times – with the possible end of the Anglo-American special relationship and UK-European co-operation – also mean the end of Bond as we know it?

Since Bond is British, Brexit and the contemporary backlash against globalisation seem the most obvious things to consider. The ramifications of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and the disillusionment with neo-liberal globalisation will certainly alter the way in which he is able to move and execute his secret missions in both subtle and not so subtle ways.

Brexit Bond
Brexit will certainly have an impact on his mobility. In most of the films featuring airports, including the earliest Dr No (1962), Bond is depicted as walking through them with brio, as a man untroubled by the “petty sovereigns” (as literary critic Judith Butler might have it) who administer and police airports. Travel could become more complicated for a post-Brexit Bond. His ability to glide through customs and border inspections airports and seaports would certainly diminish.

So new storylines might place further emphasis on Bond’s ability to circumvent conventional state controls and offer up further evidence of MI6 investing in multiple passports. As the Jason Bourne series suggested, an assassin needs, among other things, a decent selection of passports, including those of close allies such as Canada and New Zealand and adversaries such as Russia.

But M will likely have bigger concerns than passport problems, because the UK may suffer when it comes to cooperation with EU intelligence agencies. In Spectre (2015), we learned of the “Nine Eyes” intelligence network that included traditional working partners such as the United States and newer members like South Africa. But this network would likely be compromised in this emerging nationalistic world. European partners might react badly to Brexit and tell the UK to rely on the United States. Disillusionment with globalisation more generally might make partners less likely to share information and secrets – every state for itself could become the new rallying cry even for the closest of allies.

The ‘special relationship’
Working with the United States might be tricky, though. Recent Bond films have suggested a more ambivalent relationship with the former “special partner”. The CIA’s Felix Leiter was helpful in Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008) but did not feature in the two most recent films. The warm relationship that Bond enjoyed with earlier incarnations of Leiter has long gone. In recent years, other spy films like M1-5 (2015) and Eye in the Sky (2015) have also raised concerns about the role, viability, and morality of British intelligence, particularly when collaborating with US military and intelligence agencies.

This sense of unease with the UK-US relationship is sure to only increase with Trump as president. He may prime his administration to insulate and isolate the United States from forms of globalisation that are antithetical America’s recovery to “greatness”. America (as represented through the CIA) may well not want to work with Bond/M16 and share its resources and intelligence as part of a new directive to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain. Leiter could be told in the future not to share intelligence with Bond because America needs to protect its interests first and foremost.

So in a world without the security of an Anglo-American connection in addition to the degradation of European partnerships, Bond’s role is likely to look very different. Will Bond still fight for global security or be repositioned more and more as a lone hero who fights for Britain and its safety in a post-globalised world? It might be too much to think that Bond could make Britain “great” again but he could help to stop a further “slide” down the international pecking order.

Goodbye Britain? Geoff Caddick/EPA

Bond’s Britain
And what might Brexit do to Bond’s relationship with the country itself? In Skyfall we see Bond’s ancestral home in Scotland and his retreat to his family estate is critical to luring the villainous Raoul Silva away from a chaos-ridden London. While M dies in Scotland, Bond’s return to London is foregrounded by his pose on top of a government building in the centre of the city. Large Union Jack flags are fluttering away on top of the structure while others serve as part of an official tribute to the late M.

Skyfall is overwhelmingly a celebration of a United Kingdom. Bond’s Anglo-Scottish heritage is integral to his movement from London to Scotland and back again. But given a divisive Brexit vote in June, might Bond’s identity shift and become a more English in the wake of Scotland’s overwhelming vote to remain in the European Union?

And if the process of Brexit proves troubling and time consuming as we expect, leading to heated discussions about parliamentary scrutiny, MI6 may be the victim of a blowback as parliamentarians seek to reclaim their authority from the executive. The late M was very vexed about such scrutiny; she patently did not care for it. Bond will have to hope that he and MI6 are still “trusted” and permitted to operate in the “shadows”, and allowed to do so in a world where nations find it harder than ever to trust each other, let alone the global political and economic system.


About Today Contributors 
Klaus Dodds, Professor of Geopolitics, Royal Holloway and Lisa Funnell, Assistant Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Oklahoma

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

Lego Vs Daily Mail Strikes At Paper's Weak Spot: Its Advertising Revenue

Image via Trumpton

By John Jewell, Cardiff University

Perhaps providing a welcome diversion to all the apocalyptic press reaction following the election of Donald Trump is the news that Lego, the Danish manufacturer of plastic bricks, has announced its intention to cease advertising in the Daily Mail.

Responding to tweets from social media campaign group, Stop Funding Hate (SFH), and a letter from a concerned parent on Facebook, Lego tweeted on Saturday: “We have finished the agreement with the Daily Mail and are not planning any future promotional activity with the newspaper.”

As veteran journalism blogger Liz Gerard writes, Lego’s actions may well be a game changer because in the midst of the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Lego’s decision there’s the possibility that other companies might follow suit and act upon Stop Funding Hate’s plea that they stop advertising in the Mail, Sun and Express over coverage of refugees and others that are deemed to be hateful and divisive.

The Co–op has been considering its position for some time. Its chief executive Richard Pennycook said in October that that the group is “looking at our advertising for next year to see whether we can align it more closely with our natural sources of support rather than more generic media advertising”.

And, as I write, John Lewis – a company which annually tries to make us believe Christmas exists solely as a vehicle for their latest campaign – is being heavily “brandjammed” by SFH and its army of social media followers. When the retailer recently released its Buster the Boxer ad, it quickly responded with a glossy pastiche video of its own which contained footage of previous John Lewis, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and M&S Christmas campaigns juxtaposed with the front pages of The Sun, Express and Mail.

The message is: the millions of pounds we spend at these stores is used to fund advertising in newspapers which peddle fear, hostility and hatred. To date the parody has had 6.1m Facebook views.

At the moment, though, John Lewis is currently resisting the growing pressure. It recently issued a statement claiming it “fully appreciates the strength of feeling on this issue but we never make an editorial judgement on a particular newspaper”. But there is no doubt that these negative associations will worry them, M&S and others a great deal. As the Guardian reported, John Lewis makes 20% of its annual sales – and 40% of its profits – over the Christmas period, profiting £8 for every £1 spent on advertising and the sense of its own worth is frankly staggering. As its ad strategists told Campaign, the ad industry’s trade publication:

Failing to engage the nation would have a significant commercial, social and cultural impact on the John Lewis brand.

War on hate
The fact is, Stop Funding Hate is gaining momentum and something which began as a Facebook page in August now has 176,000 likes and 58,000 Twitter followers.

Mail on migrants. Daily Mail

Perhaps more to the point, it enjoys the support of celebrities such as Lily Allen and Gary Lineker, who seem perpetually locked in their own war against the tabloids.
Its raison d'être is very simple – to take on what it sees as the divisive campaigns of the Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express by persuading advertisers to pull their support. The campaign’s organiser, Richard Wilson, told the BBC:

It’s going to keep happening until the financial balance changes and if we can get to the point where actually you don’t make money by publishing these headlines, you lose money because advertisers are going to walk away.

Advertisers walking away is of course the major issue for the newspapers targeted by SFH. In a generally growing UK ad market, newspaper print ad revenue has been declining year-on-year and national daily newspapers as a whole suffered an 11% fall in ad spend in 2015 with tabloid titles seeing a 16.2% decline in print advertising.

It could be that the pressure finally tells. Remember that the closure of the News of the World in 2011 can be at least partially attributed to an online campaign and the fact that a host of companies including Virgin Media, Boots, O2 and Asda withdrew in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

Undue influence?
There are broader questions, too. However distasteful one might find – as I do – the continued demonisation of refugees and asylum seekers by certain elements of the press, should any company’s advertising money have any bearing on newspaper content? Because the clear implication of the Lego decision is that they won’t return until something changes. Even if SFH argues that it is not asking advertisers to influence copy, a change in attitude will have to be the outcome if public pressure continued and Lego and any others who left the bandwagon were to confidently return.

Mail on judges. Daily Mail

On the other hand should we applaud the actions of SFH and its supporters? This is a movement creatively and effectively articulating the disgust felt by many people. It’s evident that left to their own devices and a toothless regulator, The Sun, Mail and Express will simply carry on as usual. What we are seeing now is consumer activism that is based, fundamentally, on a care and concern for fellow human beings. It might just have positive and far reaching results.

The fact is Lego listens to its customers and does have a record of corporate social responsibility. In 2014 it ended a partnership with Shell following lobbying by Greenpeace – and there are undoubtedly many who applaud their actions. Twitter and social media have been alive in the last few days with people spontaneously communicating support and (most crucially for company profits) their latest Lego purchase.

And there’s the rub – while the right-wing press cannot do without advertisers’ money, the likes of Lego can certainly get by without campaigns in the right-wing tabloid press and partnerships with the likes of the Daily Mail. And if sales of the little bricks increase too? Watch others follow as brands seek to limit damage by association.


About Today Contributor
John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

Let's Take A Stand Against Racism In The Media! [Petition]

Image via Avaaz.org

The Sun newspaper has launched a shocking attack on Channel 4 just because newsreader Fatima Manji reported on terrorism while wearing a headscarf. Fatima has already lodged a formal complaint -- let’s stand with her against racism and create the biggest ever mass complaint to the press watchdog. 

>> Click here to sign the petition 

How The #BBC's Obsession With Balance Took Labour Off Air Ahead Of #Brexit

Not enough air time given to concerns of Labour voters. Gareth Fuller/PA Wire

By Angela Phillips, Goldsmiths, University of London

As Britain reflects on the fallout from the EU Referendum, analysis from Loughborough University demonstrates that the BBC, in common with all other media, ignored concerns of Labour voters in favour of an entirely artificial notion of “balance” that was pitched as a ball-by-ball commentary of a Conservative power struggle.

Labour members canvassing in the streets and housing estates, waited in vain for the BBC – the country’s most trusted news source – to provide any serious analysis that could back up the Labour message on the doorstep. They had been expecting the BBC to deliver, as promised, “impartial and independent reporting of the campaign, providing them with fair coverage and rigorous scrutiny of the policies and campaigns of all relevant parties and campaign groups”.

Television is bound by rules of impartiality and the BBC is committed to ensuring that “a range of views is appropriately reflected” in its coverage. In spite of this, David Deacon, professor of communication and media analysis at Loughborough, found that all television channels covered the campaign in very much the same way as each other – and the press.

In the first month, up to June 8, the Labour Party had attracted a mere 6% of the campaign coverage on TV (less even than the 9% in the press). The Conservatives, meanwhile, grabbed 32% of the coverage.

One Nation PM: Theresa May Enters Downing Street Promising Unity

A new chapter begins at 10 Downing Street. PA/Stefan Rousseau

By Ben Williams, University of Salford

Having now started work as Britain’s second woman prime minister, Theresa May has the chance to carve out her own distinct variant of Conservatism. And outside the famous front door of 10 Downing Street, she confirmed that her top priority will be building a “one nation” government, pitched firmly in the “centre ground” of British politics.

Reminding the country that her party’s full title is the “Conservative and Unionist Party”, May spoke almost exclusively of unity before entering her new home. This was unity for the nations of the UK, in geographic terms, but also unity “between all of our citizens – every one of us – whoever we are and wherever we’re from”.

Theresa May Has Clout To Last As PM – If She Can Contain #Brexit Economic Fallout

Theresa May. Dominic Lipinski

By Matthew Francis, University of Birmingham

It has become popular to assume that Theresa May, Britain’s new prime minister, has survived the wreckage of Brexit by virtue of “not being a shambles”. The thinking seems to be that May sat back while her rivals for the Conservative Party leadership eliminated themselves one-by-one.

George Osborne was too closely associated with losing the Remain campaign to take the job, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove destroyed each other with political treachery, and Andrea Leadsom ended her chances through pure self-immolation. It’s a persuasive argument, but it is far from the full picture.

#Brexit: Heal Not Hate

Image via Avaaz.org

Britain’s far-right extremists and the media that echoes their hate are using the Brexit vote as proof that half the country agrees with their racism -- and it’s causing a terrifying rise in harassment across the country. 

>> Join the call to show them that the United Kingdom still values love over hate << 

Great news! Over 93,000 of us have joined, sign and share now -- let’s get to 100,000 and demand editors that fan hate are removed.

#Brexit: Why UK Could Be Doomed To Years Without Proper Access To World Trade

Uh-oh. Phoenixman

By Kristen Hopewell, University of Edinburgh and Matias E. Margulis, University of Stirling

While most discussion since the Brexit vote has focused on how the UK will negotiate the terms of its new trading relationship with the EU, much less has been said about the rest of the world.

Brexiters have tended to believe that the UK could continue to enjoy the access to foreign markets that it currently receives through the EU’s trade agreements with over 50 countries; and that for other markets it would simply resume independent membership of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the body through which 162 states set the rules for world trade.
In fact, this is highly uncertain. It will require a long and complex process of negotiation, for which the UK is under-prepared and has little leverage.

By Riding The Tiger Of Populism, The Conservatives May Have Destroyed The UK

Go back inside and think about what you’ve done. Matt Dunham/PA

By Charles Lees, University of Bath

It’s a familiar cliché that the Conservative Party is the most successful political party in the democratic world. Once called the natural party of government, it has been in power for most of the last 150 years and, for good or ill, has shaped modern Britain. The UK is a conservative country in all senses of the word.

But the past four decades have demonstrated that the modern Conservative Party can no longer be trusted in its role as the guardian of British institutions.

The revolutionary free-market zealotry of the Thatcherites and their successors not only put the social fabric of Britain under severe strain, but also undermined the credibility of the UK’s constitutional arrangements. Of the three pillars of High Toryism; church, state and monarchy, Britons only seem to still like the latter.

The decline in Tory respect for British institutions has also been on full display, not least in David Cameron’s willingness to risk the union’s survival twice – first in the Scottish Independence referendum, and then, probably fatally, in the EU membership referendum.

#EURef: Britain Votes To Leave The EU, Here's What Happens Next

Leave ahead. Anthony Devlin / PA Wire

By Gavin Barrett, University College Dublin

Britain looks on course to leave the EU. This is having an immediate effect on markets. It will have immediate political ramifications too. David Cameron will, fairly soon, need to decide if he can continue in his role as British prime minister.

Legally speaking, though, the process of actually leaving will take a lot longer. Britain will now enter a kind of phoney Brexit period. It is still a member of the EU. The referendum vote is not as such legally binding. It is advisory only – but if it is out it creates a political imperative for the UK government to arrange its exit of the EU.

Sound And Furry In #EURef Twitter War

Twitter/Lilian Edwards

By Yin Yin Lu, University of Oxford

Twitter was always going to be a major battleground in the EU referendum but the sheer number of hashtags being used in the debate has been surprising.

Both sides are linguistically inventive: for every pro-Leave hashtag, there’s a pro-Remain equivalent. Virtually all synonyms of “Remain” and “Leave” – from #britin and #britexit to #votin and #voteout – have been used. There’s even the somewhat clunky #brout and #brin, as well as whimsical phrases like #brexitandchill and #remainandgain.

Not all hashtags trend, of course. In fact, the vast majority don’t. To measure resonance, the content of tweets must be taken into consideration; it is not just a numbers game. Hashtags aren’t always used as a supportive device – a tweet that includes #GrassrootsOut, for example, might not necessarily endorse the movement.

To untangle the question of success, I have been gathering tweets containing 250 referendum-relevant hashtags since March 10. I’ve analysed the first three months of data from what has already become a collection of 10m tweets.

While Brexiters appear to be winning on Instagram, it’s the Remainers who seem to be running Twitter. The Brexiters are making a lot of noise – but that doesn’t necessarily amount to winning the war.

UK: Stop The Nigel Farage Of Newspapers

Dear friends in the UK, 

The day Jo Cox was murdered, the Daily Mail ran a shrill front page story about migrants, stoking fear and hate in the referendum campaign. The story was plain wrong -- but instead of remorsefully retracting it, the Mail just buried a tiny correction in the paper.

Our democracy relies on media that tells the truth, but the Mail’s anti-EU editor, Paul Dacre, has spun a steady stream of misinformation and fear, adding to a climate where rage and xenophobia flourish.This is not what one of Britain’s biggest newspapers should do on such a significant national decision.

But there’s a chance to stop it. Rumours abound that the Mail’s owner Lord Rothermere, who is pro-Europe, sees Dacre as a growing liability, and is considering replacing him. If tens of thousands of us call him out for what he is -- the Nigel Farage of newspapers -- it could catch on, trigger a broad push and help end this hate media. 

Click here to join this urgent call and share with everyone. 

Left Wingers For #Brexit Need To Wake Up To What They're About To Do

Shutterstock

By Ragnar Weilandt, University of Warwick

If you listen to some left-wing voices – proponents of what is being called Lexit – the European Union is an undemocratic, neo-liberal empire. It is ruled by Angela Merkel and an army of cold-hearted, faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who spend their lives plotting to privatise British public services and deliberately making life in Southern Europe as miserable as possible.

Listening to both left-wing and right-wing arguments for Brexit can be rather confusing. Similar to Schrödinger’s immigrant who lazes around on benefits while simultaneously stealing jobs, the EU seems to be at the same time both communist and predatory capitalist. It has transformed Europe into a fortress while at the same time opening its borders to mass immigration. The EU’s rescue packages for Southern Europe have been too stingy while at the same constituting an outrageous burden to British taxpayers.

You do not have to be an idealist europhile to find these accusations a bit harsh. As a project that’s main purpose is the creation of a single market, the EU is indeed an economically liberal endeavour. Its key purpose is to replace those national laws which hamper trade with common European legislation.

Britain's Moment To Reflect: What Would Jo Cox Want Us To Think About?

PA/Yui Mok

By Scott Lucas, University of Birmingham

I only met Jo Cox once. Among her numerous interests, the MP chaired Britain’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Syria and she had asked me to present an analysis of the need for safe zones to protect Syrian civilians.

She was gracious, charming and animated by energy and passion. Jaded by years of failure to get any effective action over Syria, I felt a flicker of hope when she explained what needed to be done. We parted with a promise for a discussion in the near future.

We could never quite arrange that further meeting, but I was fortunate to know much more about Jo. I worked with her staff on the Syria issue, and they never stopped talking about her devotion and unfailing optimism, even in the darkest of moments.

I discovered more about her compassion and dedication to better the situation of immigrants and refugees, beginning with her humanitarian work at Oxfam and continuing into her parliamentary service. Through social media, I followed Jo in her constituency in West Yorkshire, from visits to schools and community centres to her camping trip with a Brownie troop.

On Wednesday, I read of her pride in her husband and two children: in the campaign over Britain’s European Union membership, they had joined a Remain boat in a jovial response to the invasion of a Leave “flotilla” up the River Thames in London.

Now Jo Cox is dead, shot and stabbed outside her constituency surgery.

UK: Carry Jo Cox's Banner Of Love This Sunday

Image via Avaaz.org

Dear Avaazers in and around London, 

Only light can sweep away the darkness, only love can heal hate. As we mourn for and honour Jo Cox, we also have to go on -- to carry forward the banner of love and hope for a better world that she carried so gracefully. To unite, as her husband Brendan said, “to fight against the hatred that killed her.” 

And to do just that, on Sunday hundreds will be kissing against Brexit -- attempting to break a Guinness World Record for the largest kiss! The kissing chain will be continued in Rome, Paris and Berlin, sending a powerful message that we're taking back our politics from fear and lies with beautiful unity and humanity. And it starts in London. 

Dear Donald Trump And The Dividers: We Are Europe!

Image via Avaaz.org

Trump is coming to Britain! He’s launching his global crusade of hate here, just when the far-right is rising and the United Kingdom could leave Europe. Let’s tell him and his European counterparts to keep their hate out of Europe -- we’ll deliver it directly to Trump and his divisive allies, and launch a world-record EU kissing relay - to flood the media with images of love and unity, not division. 

>> Click here to join the movement now! <<