Ideas on Europe Blog

The electorate wasn’t sufficiently informed in the 2016 referendum to know whether it was right to leave the EU.

The referendum campaign did not give clear answers. The Leave campaign had to rely on colossal lies to present their case. Who knew what to believe?

But now it’s becoming clearer by the day what Brexit means.

It means Britain, and Britons, being poorer and having fewer rights and protections than we have as a member nation of the EU.

We now know that all the reasons to leave the EU were based on lies, misinformation and false promises.

The biggest lie of all – that Britain sends £350m a week to the EU which after Brexit would be spent on the NHS – was the single lie that secured Leave’s victory.

Recently the Campaign Director of Vote Leave, Dominic Cummings, admitted:

“Would we have won without £350m/NHS? All our research and the close result strongly suggests no.”

So, to think, Leave only won because of one big lie.

We are leaving the EU not because of any sound information or knowledge, but because the nation was sold a promise by the Leave campaign which can never be delivered.

If we knew then what we know now, would ‘Leave’ have won? Almost certainly not.

We are now discovering there are absolutely no benefits to Brexit. None. Zero.

But neither the Tory government nor the Labour opposition are willing to give us, the people, a chance to reconsider Brexit, even though we’re now so much better informed.

It’s as if we agreed on one hot summer’s day to buy double-glazed windows, only to discover that we can’t change our minds, even though the contract hasn’t yet been signed, the windows haven’t yet been installed, and we’ve now found out that the glass is single and not double glazed.

Am I saying that Britain has been conned? Yes, I am.

But legal advice, and the opinion of leading EU politicians, have now confirmed that Britain could withdraw the Article 50 notice and remain in the EU.

I’m not suggesting we should do this without the say-so of us, the people. But we should demand another vote on our EU membership.

We could do a democratic U-turn on Brexit. And if that’s the new ‘will of the people’, why not?

All of us should be allowed to change our minds if we think a mistake has been made.

Just look at all the benefits we’re destined to lose on leaving the EU in March next year. How many of us knew or properly understood that on 23 June 2016?

• LOSS OF FREE TRADE

In the EU, the UK enjoys full free trading status with all the other EU member states – representing the world’s most lucrative market place, and by far our most important trading partner.

As such, almost half of our exports go to the EU, and over half of our imports come from the EU.

The EU has an iron tariff wall against non-members. Outside of the EU, we will be on the wrong side of that wall.

Even non-European countries that have negotiated ‘free trade’ agreements with the EU don’t enjoy full free trade access to Europe’s internal market, as Britain does as an EU member.

• LOSS OF OUR SAY IN EUROPE

As a leading member, Britain has a say – and a veto – in the EU. Britons also have a vote every five years to directly elect members of the European Parliament, which democratically passes the laws of the EU.

As an ex-EU member, Britain and Britons will lose the right to have any say or vote in the running or future direction of our continent.

• LOSS OF ‘FREE MOVEMENT’ ACROSS THE EU

Leaving the EU means we will lose the right to go and live, work, study or retire across all of the EU plus Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland.

And citizens from the rest of the EU will also lose the right to come here to live and work, making it much more difficult to fill key vacancies, both skilled and unskilled, for which Britain has a chronic shortage of workers.

• LOSS OF EU PROTECTION

EU laws protecting the rights of workers, consumers and travellers across our continent are probably among the most important EU membership benefits.

For example, 4-weeks paid holiday a year; the 48-hour working week; anti-discrimination law; guaranteed rights for agency workers; guaranteed worker consultation – all of these protections largely exist because of the EU.

No single national government can assure safety and protection across our continent. It needs the reach of a pan-European intergovernmental organisation to achieve that (albeit with the democratic consensus of member states).

When we lose the strong armour of EU employment law, workers’ rights will be at the mercy of a Conservative government. Anyone who believes they would then be in safe hands may be in for a rude shock after we leave the EU in March 2019.

• LOSS OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

Britain enjoys cleaner beaches as a direct result of EU directives on protecting the environment.

In addition, the EU is leading the world in tackling climate change – something that individual countries alone simply can’t undertake.

When Britain leaves the EU in March 2019, we will lose the benefit of EU-wide legislation to protect the very air we breathe.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the British government must make plans to clean our air, in accordance with the EU air quality directive. The case only came about when an environmental pressure group took the government to court, because tens of thousands of British residents die every year as a result of our polluted air.

Would the government bother to act without the legal protection offered to us by the EU? It’s unlikely.

After Brexit, the government is proposing to take away the rights of British citizens to sue them over issues such as workers’ rights, environmental policy and business regulation. This right to sue our government is something we currently only enjoy under EU law.

• LOSS OF NEGOTIATING POWER

Because the EU is the world’s richest, biggest market-place, and the world’s biggest exporter and the world’s biggest importer, it can negotiate the best trade agreements with other countries.

It’s often said that when negotiating, you get better deals if you’re the same size or bigger than your opposite number.

As one of the world’s biggest economies, the EU has the muscle to negotiate extremely favourable trading terms with the world’s nations, and has done so with over 50 countries so far (including one recently with Canada).

Could Britain, being much smaller than the EU, achieve similarly good trade agreements with the world’s countries? It’s unlikely, but in any event, it will take many years to find out after we have left the EU in March 2019.
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► If you believe that Brexit is a mistake, it’s time to speak up, loudly and clearly, before we leave the EU at midnight on 29 March 2019 and take a one-way ticket into the unknown. ► If you’re one of the 17 million who voted for Brexit but have now changed your mind; if you’re one of the 16 million who voted against Brexit; if you’re one of more than 30 million who didn’t or couldn’t vote and are against Brexit: it’s time we let our political masters know what ‘the people’ really want.

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Quest for Europe and street art.

 

“I am here because I do care”

“Your choice makes the difference!”

 

 

A barricade on the avenue down to Maidan, on which some weeks later dozens of unarmed activists were shot dead from small distance.

 

 

A symbolic barricade against the backdrop of the hotel “Ukraine” (formerly “Moscow”)

 

 

Free kitchen for the protesters and Euro-Maidan visitors

 

 

“Boguslav for the EU!”, etc.

 

 

“Towards Europe!” poster with one of Kyiv´s symbols

 

 

“Ukraine is Europe!”

 

 

“We=exist / We=Europe”

 

 

Streets full of Ukrainian and European symbols.

 

 

Streets full of Ukrainian and European symbolic combinations.

 

 

Kyiv Commandant’s Office, run by protestors in front of the City Council building

 

 

Christmas tree on Maidan, decorated with a photo of Yulia Tymoshenko, imprisoned by the regime of Victor Yanukovych.

 

 

“The world´s best Christmas tree”

 

 

Photos and copyright:

ALEXANDER   SVETLOV

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The main ideological impulse, indeed, a driver for public protest on Kyiv´s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in late 2013 – early 2014 was the idea that Ukraine should be part of Europe, as opposed to the Russia-led Customs Union. Preceded by the Revolution on Granite of 1990 and the Orange Revolution of 2004, it rightfully became to be known as the Revolution of Dignity and Euro-Maidan.

 

“Euro-Maidan”: one of the posters.

“

 

“Transcarpathia for European Ukraine”: a poster on one of the Maidan tents.

 

Car drivers for the EU (Auto Maidan movement)

 

National and European symbols sell like hot dogs.

 

“Revolution of Dignity”, “The will to change everything!”, etc.

 

Auto Maidan cars: “Yes to EC/EU”

 

On the fence with the EU flag: “For Ukraine” – words from a Ukrainian patriotic song, which in 1991 was a candidate to be adopted as the anthem of Ukraine:

“For our Ukraine,
For her fate,
For honor and will,
For the people!”

 

SberBank of Russia fenced off by protesters.

 

Pandas for Euro-Maidan.

 

 

Photos and copyright:

ALEXANDER   SVETLOV

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Today’s visit to London by President Macron is important on a number of levels, not least for triggering the long-overdue debate about whether King Harold would have been a Brexiter.

If the loaning of the Bayeux Tapestry is something of a sideshow, then it also speaks the overly febrile nature of British political debate that this was largely taken as a piece of psy-ops, rather than any kind of expression of fraternité.

No matter, for the overnight preview of increasing British contributions to management of the Calais security operation – including taking more migrants – has pushed the Harold’n'Bill show to one side.

As much as some sections of the British press have railed against this, it’s something that has long been in the pipeline.

France and the UK cemented their current situation with the Le Touquet Treaty (as yes, I’m no happier than you about writing ‘the the’) as part of the management of the Channel Tunnel: border controls would be moved into each other’s territory, to facilitate traffic flows at disembarkation, while responsibility for maintaining security would also be shared. In part this was necessary because of the UK not being in Schengen, but largely it was a function of the changed physical arrangements for transit.

That system worked well for the first years of its operation, but came under pressure during the migrant crisis and the build-up of a sizeable camp at Calais. France has an interest in clearing – literally – that problem and has been able to draw the UK into supporting this, since a collapse of Le Touquet would be considerably worse for the British.

Macron visited Calais last week and indicated all the elements that are now being reported in the UK, and the government has been willing to make supportive noises, not least because of the raft of other activities they can point to, on counter-terrorism and shared military capacity.

All of this matters for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it points to the breadth of Anglo-French relations, something that has long been a theme coming from Whitehall. The British embassy in Paris has been running a substantial campaign Les Voisins (Neighbours) that precisely plays up the scope of links between the two countries, an approach that the FCO is now keen to roll out to other countries.

That relationship matters in itself, but also because it demonstrates the UK’s continuing relevance in the world. One of the more macro charges against Brexit was that it represented a cutting-off from the international community, so anything that allows a counter-narrative of ‘nothing (else) has changed’ is useful. Indeed, precisely because of Brexit, it is important to demonstrate that those other strands of the relationships with third countries are operational and active.

Secondly, that much of the business concerns military cooperation is a key aspect, since the UK government sees this realm as one in which it holds a relatively strong position, given the size and ambition of its military capacity. Working with France matters in of itself, but also because it will reassure Central and Eastern European states of its continuing determination to secure regional defence against Russia. Recall that these states have largely seen Brexit through the security prism, so this is a credible and appropriate strategy.

But finally, this all highlights the way in which Brexit is going to have very substantial secondary effects.

As much as attention is focused on the immediate consequences of ending British membership of the EU, it is evident that this is only part of the picture. Not only will it require re-working of free trade deals with third countries (which might be more tricky than thought), but also of the wider system of bilateral relations, as a function of the changed situation of the UK.

If it has proved hard to scope out the direct effects, then the indirect ones has scarcely been attempted. That suggests that there will be many more moments of realisation of the impact of the new situation still to come, and none of those will have a comfort blanket (or tapestry) to hand.

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At Prime Minister’s Questions today, the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn didn’t ask one question about Brexit.

Of course, it’s quite right that his questions should have been dominated by the dramatic collapse of Carillion, the company that the government awarded contracts to worth billions of pounds even after they had issued serious profit warnings.

Yet, even in December 2016, Carillion was blaming Brexit for ‘uncertainty’ and a slow-down in their business.

And it’s blindingly obvious that the Tory government is so obsessed and diverted by Brexit, that they have not exercised due diligence on other aspects of daily governance.

Commented Labour’s former Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane:

“It is clear that government taken as a whole – the Treasury, Transport, Education and Justice departments – failed to exercise sufficient supervision over the firm and its myriad operations.

“Right across national and local government, officials were awarding contracts to Carillion and its sub-contractors until just a few days ago.

“But ministers and their senior officials are now diverting so many resources to Brexit that they have no time or civil servants to oversee other key areas of government activity.”

He added, “There are many causes for the Carillion disaster but the way Brexit has taken over normal government work did not help.”

If the Opposition Leader was at all concerned about Brexit, wouldn’t he have mentioned at least something about its adverse impact on the government’s appalling record of governance and foolishly awarding contracts to the beleagured firm without due diligence?

Ok, so Mr Corbyn didn’t mention Brexit at today’s PMQs. What about last week, the first PMQs of 2018?

Well, on Wednesday last week Mr Corbyn’s questions were dominated by the crisis in the NHS. Mr Corbyn asked the Prime Minister, “If the NHS is so well resourced and so well prepared, why was the decision taken last week to cancel the operations of 55,000 patients during the month of January?”

But once again, Mr Corbyn didn’t mention anything about Brexit, or how it has resulted in over 10,000 NHS EU staff leaving, and how applications to work for our NHS from nurses from the rest of the EU are down by over 95%.

Isn’t that something to do with the current crisis and the chronic shortage of NHS staff?

If you were only to watch Prime Minister’s Questions this year, or on many occasions last year, you’d think the Brexit vote was of no interest or concern to either the leader of the Opposition or the Prime Minister.

And yet, Brexit presents the biggest constitutional crisis in Britain’s recent history, and is tying up almost all the government on nothing but Brexit. No wonder the government is barely able to cope with the daily routine of running the country.

Contrast our Parliament in Westminster today with the European Parliament sitting in Strasbourg.

Today the Ireland’s Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, gave a 20-minute address in the European Parliament. That’s something our own prime minister, Theresa May, has refused to do, despite being invited.

Mr Varadkar, who reflects Ireland’s strong commitment to the EU project, spoke in English, Gaeilge, French and German to MEPs. He said:

“Despite all the upheavals of recent years – the rise of populism and euroscepticism, nationalism and anti-democratic forces – we meet in solidarity, with a renewed sense of purpose.”

He added, “the promise of a better future has motivated people to work for the European ideal since the beginning.”

And on Brexit and peace, Mr Varadkar said, “Dear friends, it is hard to imagine the Good Friday Agreement being made without our shared membership of the European Union and the single market.”

He continued, “In Ireland we are now having to contemplate our future without the foundation that underpinned it.

“That is why the Irish Government has been so determined to protect the Good Friday Agreement, in all its parts, and in all that flows from it.

“It is why we have insisted that there can be no return to a hard border on our island, no new barriers to the movement of people or to trade.

“And it is why we are so deeply grateful for the remarkable solidarity and support we have received from Member States.

“It is everything we hoped for and more. And it is proof positive of why small countries benefit so much from membership of the EU.”

Of Northern Ireland Mr Varadkar said:

“The majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU; the majority of its representatives elected to the Northern Ireland assembly want to remain in the Customs Union and the Single Market; and it is likely that the majority of people living in Northern Ireland will remain European citizens after Brexit, because of their unique status as dual Irish/British citizens under the Good Friday Agreement.”

He continued, “The values of solidarity, partnership, cooperation, which are central to the European project, have brought Ireland from a position of being one of the least developed Member States when we joined, to one of the most prosperous today.

“For us, Europe enabled our transformation from being a country on the periphery, to an island at the centre of the world, at the heart of the common European home that we helped to build.”

And the leader of Ireland said with passion:

“European values – peace, friendship, freedom, justice, opportunity, cooperation – are the values that we are committed to advancing in Ireland, on the island of Ireland, within our European family, and in our relations with the wider world.”

Mr Varadkar concluded:

“Building on the great successes and achievements of the past, I believe that with imagination, with creativity, and with courage, we can provide a soul and a heart for Europe, creating opportunities for all our citizens.

“We can ensure that the European ideal that took flight in the last century will soar in the twenty-first.”

Does our Prime Minister, Theresa May, share those values, principles and goals at the heart of what Mr Varadkar called “the European ideal”?

No.

Even though Mrs May batted for Remain in the referendum, there’s no sign that she has any deep-felt feelings for the EU.

Ditto the leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn. Yes, he’s said he voted for Remain and would do so again if there was another referendum (another referendum which he steadfastly refuses to endorse).

But there’s been no words of passion from Mr Corbyn since the Brexit vote on the importance of Britain being at ‘the heart and soul’ of Europe. Or any speeches by him saying that Brexit was a mistake.

He doesn’t even want Britain to stay in the Single Market and Customs Union – the same as Mrs May. In other words, it’s a ‘hard Brexit’ that both our Government and Opposition are pursuing.

Yesterday in the European Parliament the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, gave a message to Britain:

“We haven’t had a change of heart. Our hearts are still open for you.”

In other words, Britain could change its mind about Brexit if that’s what Britain wants.

The European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, responded to Mr Tusk’s message by saying,

“He said that our door is still open. I hope this is heard in London.”

If ‘London’ means our Government and Opposition, if they heard the message, they are not interested. They are not listening.

But if ‘London’ really means London, one of the world’s greatest capital cities, then yes, London is listening; the city voted against Brexit and wants us to Remain in the European Union.

Ditto Scotland and Northern Ireland.

And now the latest polls by YouGov show that support for Brexit by Leave voters across the country is dropping like a heavy stone.

But with a heavy heart, I have to tell you that our political masters are stuck in the past. They keep bleating on about the ‘will of the people’ as expressed on just one summer’s day on 23 June 2016.

They are not interested to know about the ‘will of the people’ today. They don’t want to know, and they don’t want to find out.

And that my fellow Remainers, new and old, is our biggest problem. 

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It’s not often I recommend a bot to follow, but I find that HaveWeLeft is a useful daily reminder: https://twitter.com/HaveWeLeft/status/951008276761726979

In all the talk of Brexit and transitions and new relationships, it’s easy to forget that the UK remains a full member state of the EU and will continue to be so for at least another 14 months.

My personal reminder of this was taking part in a radio phone-in the morning after the referendum, listening to a woman in tears because we were still members and the £350m/year for the NHS has just turned out to be a mirage. I can only wonder how she feels now.

But why mention all this? You’re all clever people and you know that this is the case.

But it’s easy to get caught up. Witness the enduring appeal of #DespiteBrexit on Twitter, where pro-Brexit types post news of the continued strength of the British economy. Much as it’s a corrective to the Project Fear rhetoric of the referendum campaign, it does miss the point that ‘Brexit’ (in the narrow sense of the UK leaving the EU) is yet to come: take it as an extended example of confirmation bias.

In such difficult waters, there is often a tendency to batten down the hatches, especially when one doesn’t feel that there’s a whole lot of trust out there: if ‘they’ aren’t going to engage with you, why should you engage with ‘them’? As a result, a lot of people are pursuing their own project, often to the exclusion of raising their eyes and looking about.

All this was brought home this week by the leaked letter from David Davis to Theresa May, complaining that the EU wasn’t respecting the UK’s rights as a member state and that by preparing for a ‘no-deal’ outcome to Article 50 it wasn’t acting in good faith.

The latter point was rightly swatted away by the Commission, who drily noted that, faced with a British government that repeatedly talked of ‘no deal being better than a bad deal’, it was only sensible to prepare for just such an eventuality.

But the former point has something more to it.

On the one hand, it is undoubtedly clear that the British government has not given its continuing membership as much attention as it should. With UKREP moving from the FCO to DExEU, it has become more of a local clearing house for Article 50 work than a Brussels base for shaping EU legislation and agendas. British negotiators in standard EU forums have self-marginalised themselves, not standing in the way of consensus among the EU27.

But it’s also the case that the EU27 (and the institutions) have pressed on with legislative agendas without the UK. The opening of negotiations on the next financial framework this week is the clearest example yet, as the EU seeks to set out its finances without the UK (and – it hopes – the rebate mechanism).

While there appears to be very little doubt that the UK will leave in March 2019, it was clear from June 2016 that this was likely to happen. And as a member state, referrals to the Court of Justice remain an option or British nationals that consider their rights to have been infringed. Moreover, if transition does end up with a ‘membership minus‘ model, then that right will continue for some time to follow.

All of which is to remind us that Brexit is a process, not an event, and that its consequences will play out over a very long period to come.

As another bot I recommend to you might say: https://twitter.com/infinite_scream/status/654141729285648384

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University of Bergamo. Source: HERe research http://www.here-research.it/it/

Davide Donina

In recent decades, science studies have increasingly recognized that single academic disciplines are ill equipped to address complex problems that modern societies and science face (Nature 2015). Accordingly, interdisciplinarity has become a hot topic and a buzzword in the policy discourse for science and higher education. Yet, translating policy discourse into policy design and governance arrangements is not straightforward. Regarding interdisciplinarity, scholars showed that so far the discourse on interdisciplinarity conflicts with the persistence or even reinforcement of modes of governance that almost exclusively rely on rigid discipline-based classification systems.

As a matter of fact, it is the interaction of several policy instruments and governance domains that is crucial for achieving any policy goal. Therefore, in a recent article ‘Inconsistencies in the Governance of Interdisciplinarity: The Case of the Italian Higher Education System’, co-authored with Marco Seeber and Stefano Paleari (Donina et al. 2017), we took a comprehensive view on the governance of the Italian higher education system, and how this relates to the interdisciplinary target. Such perspective is particularly relevant in higher education systems like continental European ones where steering mainly occurs via laws and regulations developed by the governments and state-dependent agencies (Bleiklie and Michelsen 2013; Capano 2014; Donina et al. 2015). We examined whether the policy portfolio creates or hinders the conditions that favour interdisciplinarity by exploring the potential presence of different types of inconsistency –namely ambiguity, conflict, and incompatibility- between elements of the same policy instrument, between different policy instruments in the same governance domain, and between different governance domains. We considered four governance domains: i) universities’ internal organization, ii) institutional research assessment exercise, iii) doctoral education, and iv) academic recruitment/careers.

 

Interdisciplinarity: Between rhetoric and practice

The idea of dividing knowledge into discrete categories dates back to Plato and Aristotle. Nowadays, academic disciplines are the commonly accepted classification system for the production, communication, acquisition, dissemination, and validation of knowledge. However, disciplines could also create cognitive boundaries, which affect the organization and production of new knowledge by limiting research practices and their scope, and institutionalizing knowledge fragmentation. 

For this reason, there has been a rise of interdisciplinarity rhetoric, which implies the integration of knowledge, methods, concepts, and theories in order to create a holistic view and common understanding of complex problems. 

However, melding disciplines presents challenges. Science policy literature highlights barriers and disincentives that prevent researchers from engaging in interdisciplinary research. First, there are organizational barriers that arise from the organization around departments that promote disciplinary knowledge and reward scholars mainly for the outcomes within their home discipline. Second, research evaluation procedures are typically organized around disciplines. Third, doctoral courses are mostly embedded within a well-defined discipline, thus not fostering the development of the integration skills regarded essential to effectiveness in real-world problem solving. Finally, academic labour market values less interdisciplinarity since hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions are controlled by disciplinary departments and disciplinary professional associations, thus discouraging researchers from moving into interdisciplinary endeavours, particularly during early academic career stages. In sum, interdisciplinarity tends to be hindered by established governance arrangements in different domains.

 

Interdisciplinarity in the Italian policy design

Our analysis shows that elements promoting interdisciplinarity have been introduced in Italy, but the disciplinary rationale is still prevalent and, overall, dominates Italian higher education system governance. Therefore, inconsistencies are recognizable. 

Conflict and/or Ambiguity between laws, ministerial decrees, and evaluation agency guidelines emerge within every governance domain. Inconsistencies are evident also among governance domains. In example, the regulation of doctoral programmes is the most strongly oriented to interdisciplinarity, but Ph.D. graduates must cope with the fact that their research outcomes will be assessed predominantly from the viewpoint of a single discipline, while calls for new hires are made by disciplinarily homogenous departments and within disciplinary recruitment sectors. Thus, deviating from the disciplinary interests may reduce (national) career prospects. Another inconsistency among governance domains emerges among evaluation procedures, since the same research output can be evaluated differently for individual career purposes and institutional research assessment. 

As a result, the interdisciplinary target is hindered by different types of inconsistencies between both policy elements, instruments, and governance domains.

 

Practical way to nudge interdisciplinarity

The use of a disciplinary taxonomy to regulate curricula, organizational structures, research assessment, and careers, reinforce each other and represent a resilient disciplinary ‘iron-cage’ that is unlikely to melt soon. Reducing some of the inconsistencies and the creation of parallel structures and processes that emancipate from strict disciplinary principles can represent a realistic and pragmatic way to nudge interdisciplinarity in the short term. In example, the removal of the obligation of departments’ disciplinary homogeneity, the establishment of problem-oriented organizational structures, and the introduction of innovative recruitment procedures open to interdisciplinary profiles (such as cluster hiring and co-funded dual appointments; Sà 2008) alongside the disciplinary ones would benefit the interdisciplinary target. Clearly, similar innovations alone would not solve the problem of the governance of interdisciplinarity, unless the other governance domains are properly redesigned in line with our key message, namely that consistency in the policy portfolio is crucial in order to nudge interdisciplinary in practice.

 

Davide Donina is a post-doc Research Fellow at Cisalpino Institute for Comparative Studies in Europe-Higher Education Research group (CCSE-HERe) where he undertakes research on Higher Education Policy and Governance, particularly on the Italian HE sector, and at Department of Management, Information and Production Engineering, University of Bergamo (Italy), where he teaches Corporate management and Corporate finance. His recent articles are published on Higher Education Policy, Tertiary Education and Management, Journal of Technology Transfer, Small Business Economics, Science and Public Policy.

 

References

Bleiklie, I., & Michelsen, S. (2013) ‘Comparing HE policies in Europe’, Higher Education, 65/1: 113-33.

Capano, G. (2014). The re-regulation of the Italian university system through quality assurance. A mechanistic perspective. Policy and Society 33(3), 199-213.

Donina, D., Meoli, M., & Paleari, S. (2015) ‘Higher Education Reform in Italy: Tightening Regulation Instead of Steering at a Distance’, Higher Education Policy, 28/2: 215-34.

Donina D., Seeber, M., & Paleari, S. (2017) ‘Inconsistencies in the Governance of Interdisciplinarity: The Case of the Italian Higher Education System’, Science and Public Policy, 44(6), 865-875.

Nature (2015) ‘Why Interdisciplinarity Research Matters’, Nature, 525/7569: 305.

Sà, C. (2008) ‘“Interdisciplinary Strategies” in U.S. research universities’, Higher Education, 55/5: 537-52.

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The great thing about the Christmas period is that pretty much everyone goes on leave, so we can all get some distance from work.

That’s been true of the Article 50 process as much as anything else: a flurry of activity to book in some final bits under “work done in 2017″, before mince pies, stollen and/or carp (as per local customs).

However, in that final rush to get out of the office there stands one element that remains deeply odd, in the sense that it was a conscious decision by the EU27, but one that doesn’t really stand up.

Rewind to mid-December and the European Council. As you’ll recall, the EU27 noted ‘sufficient progress’ on Phase 1 issues, and authorised the opening of Phase 2, albeit in March. Cue much jubilation all round on the overcoming of the barriers – erected by various parties – to getting a text that created enough ambiguity for everyone to feel they could sign up.

Less noticed were the pronouncements on transition.

In essence, the EU27 set out four key points on transition. Firstly, because there would be a transition, since the Article 50 final text will only wrap up current liabilities (i.e. Phase 1 issues) and establish a framework for negotiating a new relationship with the UK, rather than actually setting out the detail of that new relationship.

Secondly, that transition should look like membership, but without voting or representation rights for the UK.

Thirdly, the transition should be short, ending in December 2020, to match the EU’s multiannual financial framework cycle. Finally, it should be a one-off, with no option to extend.

Let’s consider each in turn.

Having a transition at all is now widely conceded to be necessary, on both sides. Notwithstanding the progress on Phase 1, the scope of a new relationship treaty would be much more comprehensive and complex, especially since the UK continues to talk of ‘bespoking’, which implies creating unique arrangements. Even an off-the-shelf option would need much time to tailor to the UK’s requirements and situation. And as it’s likely to be a mixed-argument – i.e. one where the EU does not has exclusive competence – it’ll need ratification by all EU member states, including some sub-national assemblies, as with CETA.

As a result, even DExEU has stopped talking of getting this new relationship in place by March 2019: ratification alone would take a year to do, even if it went smoothly. Better/more sensible to push that part of talks out of Article 50 and into a separate track that can kick in after leaving (when the UK will become a third state).

There’s been less interest in the ‘full monty’ transition (to use Jean-Claude Piris’ phrase) so far, but it has been in part a function of the running down of the Article 50 clock: just taking the UK out of the decision-making, but keeping everything else in place, is by far the simplest interim solution, because it avoids ‘transitioning’ into anything different, and so obviates the need to negotiate anything more detailed for the final Article 50 text.

The attractions for the EU are clear: the UK still pays into the budget, applies all rules, maintains free movement and the rest, but doesn’t get to vote on anything. Obviously, that looks less attractive for the UK, but it does avoid a double transition and provides more certainty for economic operators (and citizens, as much as they figure in discussions).

Moreover, it makes sense for the EU to propose this now, since the UK has yet to offer an alternative. Without one, however much the UK might say it wants something different, it has little chance of securing that something else. As so often in British EU policy, it turns out not to be enough to say that you don’t like something; you have to offer an better alternative.

So far, so clear: there’s a clear need for a transition, and for simplicity’s sake that the transition should look like membership. Less clear are the other two points.

A short transition was sold solely on the desire to align with the budgetary cycle: by getting the UK out at the end of 2020, the EU27 can have a clean run – without major bodges – at the next cycle, negotiations for which are starting now. Since the UK has already conceded that it will pay into the EU budget until that point, there’s a nice symmetry about it. It also speaks sotto voce to the EU’s desire to get done with Brexit and redouble the focus on the other issues facing the organisation: the UK wants out, we want them out, so out they go.

For the UK, brevity of transition, especially on ‘membership minus’ terms, might be the price they extract: telling the British public that the UK has left, but continues to apply all the rules, but have no voice, isn’t a good look, so it needs to be coupled to a rigid timetable.

But we run straight into the buffers of the first point: a new relationship treaty will take a lot longer than 19 months to negotiate and ratify. Everyone knows this to be the case, so why set a new deadline that is unrealistic, especially if you also say it will not be extended? This is perhaps the most perplexing element, since it sits very uncomfortably within a system that is used to allowing some flexibility in deadlines (e.g. as with Article 50 itself).

The danger is clearly then that – come the end of December 2020 – negotiations on a new relationship are still in train, with ratification (let alone implementation) still far off. Do the two sides then drive off a new cliff-edge and into a belated ‘no-deal’ scenario? Do they negotiate an extension; in which case, who needs to approve it, especially if that involves extending the transition period arrangements)? Do they stop the clock, when that might take days, weeks or even months?

Possible answers

This conundrum has been bothering me all Christmas and no enlightenment has emerged from the half-thoughts I’ve had between the brandy butter and the abject joy of New Year’s Eve. Three basic options suggest themselves, but none look very convincing.

Firstly, maybe this was all a mistake. But that falls at the first hurdle: all but the non-extension are included in the European Council conclusions, and the non-extension was repeated by various EU leaders, including Leo Varadkar who might be expected to have an interest in drawing things out. So we can disregard this completely: it was a conscious choice.

Secondly, this might be a bit of positional bargaining: the EU goes in with an opening offer, then expects to get haggled down. One might see that, but it doesn’t sit with the rest of the EU’s approach to Article 50 to date, which has been to set out key interests, and the consequences of choices by the UK, and not to try the haggling route. Partly that’s because the EU doesn’t work that way in third-party negotiations, the internal mechanics of agreeing a mandate for the Commission tend to lend themselves to the interest-based model: partly, it’s because the EU hasn’t yet found the UK to have very robust positions, so it has ever incentive just to ask for what it wants straight out.

Thirdly, this might be a gambit of some kind. The only one that comes to mind is that by offering a ‘full monty’ transition, it might open up a discussion now that this would be unfair to the UK, so maybe it might consider agreeing a withdrawal date for end 2020, so it can still be involved in decision-making. Article 50 allows for a later departure date than the two year window, so no problem there.

Obviously, the politics of this look vastly improbable: certainly, the current British government would fall if it tried to push staying in the EU until 3.5 years after the referendum. Moreover, it wouldn’t be Theresa May’s style at all to concede on this. And even if it did happen, you’d still need a transition period to run the new relationship negotiations, so it’s only value would be to keep a dream of continued British membership of the EU alive a bit longer.

As I say, none of these options really work, so the conundrum remains. Maybe the coming months will bring some clarity.

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Christmas is a time to think about and hope for ‘peace on earth and goodwill to all men’ (and women, of course).

Peace is precious, because around the world there are so many conflicts and disasters that make world peace impossible.

From conflicts and disasters come death, destruction and displacement.

The world currently has the worst crisis of people displacement since the end of the Second World War in 1945.

More than 65 million people have been forced out of their homes because of war or other disasters. Twenty million of these have had to cross borders from their home country.

In East Africa, millions of people are experiencing chronic hunger and the threat of famine. Violence, persistent severe drought, and rocketing food prices are to blame. The people are dying of starvation.

Following more than six years of civil war in Syria, the Syrian refugee crisis is recognised as the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time. The country’s national standard of living has been set back by decades.

In western Myanmar’s Rakhine State more than 600,000 people have fled their homes to Bangladesh since late August alone, because of fresh fighting between inter-communal groups, minority groups, and government military forces.

This year’s hurricane season in the Caribbean and Atlantic regions has been of historic proportions. Successive hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria delivered some of the strongest and wettest storms on record.

Even though the Democratic Republic of the Congo is extremely rich in minerals and other natural resources, around 77 percent of the population is extremely poor, living on less than £1.50 a day. The country is near the bottom of the world’s human development index due to many years of political instability, armed conflict, and human rights violations.

Terrorist attacks have resulted in multiple deaths and injuries across the world including the UK, which saw attacks on London’s Westminster Bridge in March, at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in May, on London Bridge in June, and on the London Underground in September.

Of couse, there are currently many other world conflicts.

But today’s world conflicts and disasters are likely to be dwarfed by the planetary problems caused by climate change, undoubtedly now the worst threat to world peace and stability.

A new report published last month by the Environmental Justice Foundation predicted that tens of millions of people will be forced from their homes by climate change in the next decade, creating the biggest refugee crisis the world has ever seen.

If there is anything we should learn from history, it’s that world problems are best resolved by countries working together.

Indeed, countries ‘going it alone’ are often the cause of world problems, and create barriers to preventing or resolving world conflicts and disasters.

‘There may be trouble ahead,’ goes the Nat King Cole song. But we can now be pretty certain that as far as world troubles ahead is concerned, there is no maybe about it.

A wave of populist, isolationist sentiments, however, has turned some key countries to become inward thinking and less co-operative with other countries.

USA President Trump has shunned co-operation on climate change. He intends to pull the USA out of the United Nations Paris Agreement, which aims to prevent global warming. The USA is now officially the only country to reject the agreement.

President Trump sold his ‘go it alone’ policies to the populace by claiming that this was the way to, ‘Make America great again’. It was such an important slogan to him that he registered it as a trade mark.

One of his first actions as President was to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

One of his big election promises was to build a wall  between the USA and Mexico.

He also pledged to crack down on inward migration and have a ‘total and complete’ ban on all Muslims entering the country.

He also threatened to withdraw from NATO.

The President’s way of making the USA great is to isolate the country.

His message is that America doesn’t need other countries to be successful. The USA is so wonderful, it will do better on its own.

Mr Trump’s populist, isolationist ‘American dream’ was so similar to Nigel Farage’s vision of Britain ‘going it alone’, outside the European Union, that Mr Trump tweeted during his election campaign:

‘They will soon be calling me MR BREXIT!’

America’s and Britain’s current wave of populism have the same DNA.

It’s born from a nationalistic fervour that drove Germany, Japan and Italy to ‘go it alone’ in the 1930s, because their leaders persuaded ‘the people’ that their country was better than all the others.

‘The people’ could get ‘their country back’; ‘the people’ would be in control; their country would be ‘great again’, they would ‘restore their national identity’, and ‘the people’, however lowly or depressing their jobs and lives, would also feel ‘great’ and expand their chests in hubristic nationalistic pride.

But anyone with any understanding of history should know that such nationalistic ideologies often lead to disaster, and do nothing to help create peace or reduce international conflicts, but instead, are more likely to cause them.

Because any country that is so driven by such self-pride and introspection will look down on other countries and not want to work or collaborate with them.

This was the lesson learnt by the six founding countries of the European Economic Community back in 1957.

France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg joined together for one purpose and one purpose alone: to create lasting peace between them, after the most devastating war between them.

These were countries that in the past were used to ‘going it alone’ and resolving differences between them through violence and war.

But they came to realise in the post-war years that only by closer co-operation, through trade, through the sharing of some sovereignty and common goals, would they ever manage to create the circumstances for enduring peace.

And it’s worked. The nationalism and self-pride that previously led these countries to go to war with each other, turned instead into a care and concern for each other.

Sure, they could still be self-respecting nations with their own languages, cultures and traditions. But they could also be proud citizens of their own continent, and in turn, the world.

Because by looking less inward, these countries were able to look more outward, and co-operate.

And it’s been a remarkable success story.

The EU has created the world’s biggest free trade area.

It has enabled lasting peace between EU countries.

And it has achieved substantial co-operation on so many levels, such as an EU-wide commitment to tackling climate change with a common goal to transform Europe into a highly energy-efficient, low carbon economy.

The EU’s ambassador to the USA, David O’Sullivan, summed up these achievements brilliantly when he told an American audience earlier this year:

“The great strength of the EU has been that we have found a new way of living together on the European Continent.”

He added:

“When you look at the devastation of two World Wars in the 20th century and the Holocaust, and you now look at over 70 years of peaceful coexistence on the European continent, it’s the longest period of peace we have ever known.

“This has been the most successful peace project in the history — probably of mankind.”

Indeed, this was recognised in 2012 when the EU received the Nobel Peace Prize for advancing the causes of peace, reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.

In awarding the prestigious prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee explained that its decision was based on the role the EU has played in transforming most of Europe ‘from a continent of war to a continent of peace’.

The EU’s most important achievement, according to the committee, has been, “the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights”.

It should come as no surprise then that the Global Peace Index 2017, published every year by the Institute for Economics and Peace, reported that whilst terrorism levels had jumped in Europe, it still remained the most peaceful region on the planet.

The Institute reported:

“Europe remains the most peaceful region in the world, with eight of the ten most peaceful countries coming from this region.”

But the Institute also warned that in Europe, “the sharp increase in support for populist parties in the past decade closely corresponds with deteriorations in Positive Peace.”

Their report added:

“Increased perceived levels of corruption within the political elite, rising inequality in wealth, deterioration in press freedoms and media concentration, along with diminishing Acceptance of the Rights of Others are linked to many of the issues populist parties have successfully capitalised on.

“This demonstrates how the negative trends in Positive Peace across Europe cannot be separated from the rise of populism across the continent.”

The lesson could not be clearer. The populism that’s now raging throughout the USA, the UK and across parts our continent, is the enemy of peace.

Countries need to be looking out, and not in.

It’s only by countries working and collaborating more closely together that we can achieve lasting peace, and tackle global threats such as climate change.

More than ever, the world needs the UK, and the USA, to be a part of that process, and not apart from it.

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An amendment by the Liberal Democrats to enshrine into law a new referendum on the final Brexit deal was defeated in the House of Commons last night.

Amendment 120 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill would have given ‘the people’ a final say on the deal that Theresa May brings back from Brussels.

There was hardly anyone in the Commons to vote on the proposed amendment and so it was easily defeated.

The LibDems claimed that their amendment was defeated by the Tories after Labour “failed to turn up.”

Commenting immediately following the defeat, Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said:

“This is a shameful showing from the Labour party. They are meant to be opposing the government, but instead they are clocking off early for Christmas.

“Once again the Labour leadership have failed to take a stand over Brexit. They claim they are standing up for the many, but as soon as the opportunity comes to give the people a say on the nation’s future, they pull a sickie.”

The Liberal Democrats say that they would campaign to remain in the EU in a new referendum on the deal, as they believe no deal the government could negotiate would be better than the one currently enjoyed as a member of the EU.

Tom Brake Tweeted after the defeat:

‘Just voted to give you a Vote on the Deal and an Exit from #Brexit. Joined by Plaid, a handful of Labour MPs and Caroline Lucas. No Tories or SNP. Shame on them and the Labour front bench.’

During the Commons session, Mr Brake said in support of the amendment, “..the will of the people as expressed on 23 June last year is not necessarily the will of the people as expressed today.”

He added, “It is because I respect the will of the people that I believe that the people should be given the chance to vote on the final deal that the Prime Minister secures. There is absolutely no doubt that the final deal will look very different from the deal that they were offered on 23 June last year.”

Mr Brake explained that the new referendum “would require legislation, followed by a three-month election campaign, and then a vote that would have to take place before we finally leave the EU, but that is perfectly possible.”

He concluded by saying that the referendum would enable the UK population to have a vote on the deal. “They would be able to express their views on whether they still want to accept now what they were offered on 23 June last year.”

Although there were hardly any Labour MPs in the Commons, the LibDems amendment had the support of Geraint Davies, the Labour Co-operative MP for Swansea, who made a passionate speech in favour of another referendum.

He said, “People whom I meet in Swansea who voted in good faith to leave the EU on the basis of more money, market access and less migration, and to take control, are saying to me now, ‘This is not what I voted for.’

“They were told by the Foreign Secretary that they would have £350 million a week more for the NHS. The Financial Times has just told us that we will lose £350 million a week. The London School of Economics has told us that inflation is 1.7% higher than it would have been otherwise, at 2.7%.”

Mr Davies added, “The average worker is losing a week’s wages every year thanks to this decision. That is not what people voted for.

“They are told that they will have to pay a £40 billion divorce bill – £1,000 for every family. That is not what they voted for.

“In 2015, they were told by the Conservatives that we would be part of the single market, which we may not be. We are haemorrhaging jobs as various institutions relocate. That is not what people voted for.

“They were told that they would take back control, but it is clear from clause 9 of this shoddy Bill that Ministers are still seeking to take powers – Henry VIII powers – to change things as they think appropriate. That is not what people voted for.

“There are Members who seem to assume implicitly that nothing has changed, but the latest polling by Survation shows that half the people want a referendum on the exit package and only a third do not. What is more, 51% of people want to stay in the European Union and 41% now want to leave.

“The facts are changing, and as Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

He added, “The great majority of politicians here know that it is bad for Britain to leave, yet they are going ahead with it although the majority of people have woken up to the fact that it is not in their interests.”

Unfortunately, without the support of Labour’s front bench, the passion for another referendum as supported by Mr Davies and a few other Labour MPs, the LibDems, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party, the amendment was doomed to failure.

Shame on Labour. They lost a golden opportunity to give ‘the people’ a final say on Brexit. 

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Hello Theresa May, I’m an avid follower of your Facebook page. On Friday you posted, “We will deliver on the will of the British people..” That’s great news.

Just last year you advised the British people to vote for Remain, which you said would be in the best interests of the country. Couldn’t agree more.

Unfortunately, by a slim whisker, ‘the people’ rejected your sage advice and voted instead for Leave.
Being pragmatic, you decided to change your advice and follow ‘the will of the people’.

If the people want Brexit, you said, that’s what you’d deliver.

I say, well done!

It’s clear that when you first became our new Prime Minister, you weren’t quite sure what Brexit meant (same as the rest of us, Theresa!)

So, you came out with all sorts of impressive phrases such as, ‘Brexit means Brexit!’ And ‘We’re going to make a success of it!’ and ‘Brexit is red, white and blue!’

I understand. It got you by during a difficult time.

It’s not easy to follow ‘the will of the people’ when nobody really knew what that might be (obviously, you didn’t.)

After all, ‘the people’ only had a choice of providing one-word in answer to that difficult question of whether Britain should stay in the EU.

Many weren’t sure which word to choose, ‘Remain’ or ‘Leave’.

Many didn’t vote for either word because they were so unsure.

Others would like to have voted for one word or the other but were denied the chance.

You voted for ‘Remain’. A sensible choice I think. But slightly more people voted for ‘Leave’.

So, Leave won.

But there was no manifesto for Leave.

Nothing in your Tory manifesto – only that your party wanted the UK to stay in the EU and to expand the Single Market.

There was no clear explanation during the referendum as to what the word ‘Leave’ meant.

Boris went on a bus to tell the country that Leave meant the NHS getting an extra £350 million a week.

‘The people’ loved that!

Recently the Vote Leave campaign director said that promise alone clinched the win for them.

Frankly, I’m not surprised. Who wouldn’t want an extra £350 million a week for our cash-starved NHS?

But now we know that promise can’t be delivered.

Leaving the EU is going to cost us an enormous fortune. It’s likely the NHS will get less money.

Many of those voting for that word Leave said it was because we have too many EU migrants here, taking our jobs, making our country poorer, and causing too much pressure on hospitals and schools.

But last week you wrote an open letter to all those EU migrants – over 3 million of them – saying the country would be poorer without them, and you wanted them to stay.

All of them!

During the referendum, prominent Brexiters said we could leave the EU and stay in the Single Market.

Just like Norway, which isn’t an EU member, but enjoys the benefits of EU membership by being in the Single Market.

You now say that can’t happen. Leave means Leave.

But Theresa, we really didn’t know that before. The word Leave was never properly defined or agreed.

We were only given the opportunity to choose Leave or Remain.

We’ve never been given an opportunity to choose what Leave would mean.

But now we do have a much clearer idea about the Brexit you’re going to deliver to the country.

It seems very hard, Theresa.

You’re deciding for us what Brexit means, and it doesn’t look as attractive as the one we were told about last year.

We now know that after Brexit, trade with our most important customers and suppliers on the mainland of our continent will be costlier and more complicated.

Our cost of living will go up.

Many companies are planning to move to another EU country and jobs here will be lost.

Many EU migrants have left already, and many have decided not to come.

Around 10,000 key EU staff working in our NHS have gone, and it won’t be easy to replace them.

Unpicked food is rotting on our fields because farmers can’t attract EU labour here any more.

And Brexit hasn’t even happened yet.

We don’t even know if you’ll get any deal with the EU that’s worth having.

But we do know for sure now that the deal you’ll get can’t be anywhere near as good as the one we we’ve got, as an EU member.

So, here’s the thing Theresa.

The country is changing its mind.

You said, ‘Brexit means Brexit’.

But now we know what Brexit means, we don’t want it.

The latest opinion polls are increasingly showing that Brexit is no longer ‘the will of the people’.

According to a new opinion poll by BMG published today, most Britons now back Remain over Leave by ten points.

It’s the biggest lead for Remain since the referendum.

And according to other recent polls, almost twice as many think we’ll be worse off after Brexit than better off.

Similarly, nearly twice as many think Brexit will be bad for jobs as those who think it’ll be good for jobs.

In fact, more and more of us think that the UK’s standard of living is going to drop because of Brexit.

Polling by YouGov since June’s General Election shows that the majority in Britain now thinks the Brexit vote was wrong.

You must be delighted, Theresa. The country has come around to your original advice.

Brexit is not the right decision for Britain. You said so last year, and now the country agrees with you at last.

So, Mrs May, will you now follow and deliver on the new ‘will of the people’?

I know you will. After all, you’ve always promised to follow the ‘will of the people’.

It might be best to put it to a vote, just to make it official.

But you and I already know what the result will be, don’t we?

The country doesn’t want Brexit, just as you said we shouldn’t.

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Grischa Fraumann

At any rate, altmetrics, or alternative metrics, are gaining momentum in higher education (Holmberg, 2016). This post is based on my master’s thesis (Fraumann, 2017) that explores the usage of altmetrics with a focus on research funding. Altmetrics track down and count the mentions of scholarly outputs in social media, news sites, policy papers, and social bookmarking sites. Then altmetrics data providers aggregate the number of mentions. This allows an observation of how many times research has been viewed, discussed, followed, shared, and downloaded.

By following this line of thought, one might relate these mentions to impact or attention in the wider public or the society outside of the scientific community. As such, everyone with an internet connection would be able to engage with scholarly outputs online, even if only a fraction of the overall number of users do so. Nevertheless, it is important to note these mentions do not correlate with the quality of a scholarly output, they mostly visualise a community of attention, that is internet users that engage in some or way or the other with a scholarly output, such as a journal article. Altmetrics is an innovation with potential for further development (Bornmann, 2014; CWTS, 2017; Holmberg, 2016; Liu & Adie, 2013; Piwowar, 2013; Priem, Taraborelli, Groth, & Neylon, 2010; Robinson-García, Torres-Salinas, Zahedi, & Costas, 2014; Thelwall, Haustein, Larivière, Sugimoto, & Bornmann, 2013).

Following this development, altmetrics have reached the highest levels in European policy debates, and have been discussed, for instance, during the Open Science Mutual Learning Exercise (MLE) by the Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility. MLEs are carried out under the Joint Research Centre Research and Innovation Observatory (RIO), and are aimed at providing the best practice examples from European Union (EU) Member States, and Associated Countries (European Commission, 2017b). Further evidence can be found in EU high-level expert groups that advise the European Commission, among others, on science, research, and innovation. From 2016 until 2017, altmetrics have been discussed in several reports of these high-level advisory bodies (European Commission, 2017a).

 

Key Findings

For this study, representatives of a research funding organisation, and policymakers were first interviewed. Second, reviewers of a research funding organisation and researchers registered with an institutional altmetrics system were invited to take an online survey. Overall, the survey respondents and interviewees were unaware of the usage of altmetrics. The data also suggests a few of respondents are well-aware of the debates on altmetrics. If one closely follows the international debates on the usage of altmetrics, it might come as a surprise that the concept is so widely unused in this sample. It was expected that more respondents would be aware on the usage of altmetrics. In particular, if altmetrics are discussed in high-level policy debates in EU research policy, researchers need to be made aware of it, because this might also affect their academic career to some extent.

 

Recommendations

As discussed before, altmetrics seems to be on the rise in policy papers and further international initiatives, such as at the level of EU policy. In turn, the findings that could be drawn from this sample of stakeholders suggest that altmetrics are not yet widely spread. In fact, they were unknown to the vast majority of the study participants. Furthermore, findings from the interviews also showed that different organisational types, academic disciplines, and further categories have to be treated differently. As proven in several technical studies, altmetrics are not yet ready for routine use in research evaluations, and several challenges need to be addressed (Erdt, Nagarajan, Sin, & Theng, 2016). Nevertheless, through altmetrics, it is possible to make a certain impact on the society visible or to visualise attention. How this impact is interpreted and set into context is essential.

Additionally, it was suggested by some interviewees that altmetrics might play a larger role in reporting on funded research rather than demonstrating impact in research funding applications. Criticisms were put forward by some respondents on altmetrics. Further, altmetrics should only be seen as a complementary measurement compared to citation counts and, especially, peer review. For instance, the impact of sharing a research data set can be made visible in a timely manner compared to citation counts of a journal article. The context of altmetrics data and aggregated scores needs to be analysed, as suggested by several scholars. As previously mentioned, the study findings for this sample of stakeholders in research funding indicate that altmetrics are mostly unknown. This needs to be considered if and when the usage of altmetrics is proposed by policymakers.  

 

Grischa Fraumann is a recent graduate of the Master in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) at University of Tampere (Finland) and Danube University Krems (Austria). This blog post is based on his master’s thesis: ‘Valuation of altmetrics in research funding’.

 

References

Bornmann, L. (2014). Do altmetrics point to the broader impact of research? An overview of benefits and disadvantages of altmetrics. Journal of Informetrics, 8(4), 895–903. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2014.09.005

CWTS. (2017). CWTS Research Line in Altmetrics. Retrieved June 5, 2017, from https://www.cwts.nl/research/working-groups/societal-impact-of-research/altmetrics

Erdt, M., Nagarajan, A., Sin, S. J., & Theng, Y. (2016). Altmetrics: an analysis of the state-of-the-art in measuring research impact on social media. Scientometrics, 109(2), 1117–1166. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2077-0

European Commission. (2017a). Europe’s future – open innovation, open science, open to the world: reflections of the Research, Innovation and Science Policy Experts (RISE) High Level Group. Brussels.

European Commission. (2017b). Mutual Learning Exercise on Open Science: Altmetrics and Rewards under the Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility (PSF). Second Workshop on “How to use Altmetrics in a context of Open Science.” Retrieved from https://rio.jrc.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/Agenda MLE Open Science_Meeting 31 May 2017_Helsinki.pdf

Fraumann, G. (2017). Valuation of altmetrics in research funding. Master’s Thesis. University of Tampere.

Holmberg, K. (2016). Altmetrics for information professionals: Past, present and future. Waltham, MA: Chandos Publishing.

Liu, J., & Adie, E. (2013). New perspectives on article-level metrics: Developing ways to assess research uptake and impact online. Insights: The UKSG Journal, 26(2), 153–158. http://doi.org/10.1629/2048-7754.79

Piwowar, H. (2013). Altmetrics: Value all research products. Nature, 493(7431), 159. http://doi.org/10.1038/493159a

Priem, J., Taraborelli, D., Groth, P., & Neylon, C. (2010). altmetrics: a manifesto. Retrieved from http://www.altmetrics.org/manifesto

Robinson-García, N., Torres-Salinas, D., Zahedi, Z., & Costas, R. (2014). New data, new possibilities: exploring the insides of Altmetric.com. El Profesional de La Informacion, 23(4), 359–366. http://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2014.jul.03

Thelwall, M., Haustein, S., Larivière, V., Sugimoto, C. R., & Bornmann, L. (2013). Do Altmetrics Work? Twitter and Ten Other Social Web Services. PLoS ONE, 8(5), e64841. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064841

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My editorial today for the Reasons2Remain campaign: The Daily Mail this morning reported:

“Eleven Conservative MPs last night voted to give the Commons a ‘meaningful’ vote over any Brexit agreement with the EU, despite government pleas to let ministers retain control.”

The Daily Mail accused those 11 Tory MPs of treachery.

We say they upheld and restored Parliamentary sovereignty at last. 

The Daily Mail called them “11 self-consumed malcontents.”

We say they are 11 brave democrats who did what all MPs should do: recognise that it’s Parliament, not the government, that should have the final say on what happens to Britain.

The Daily Mail says that those MPs who voted for Parliament to have a real say on the Brexit deal betrayed “17.4 million Brexit voters.”

We say Brexit was sold to those voters on the promise that Britain would have more Parliamentary sovereignty, not that it would be so weakened as to make the role of Westminster meaningless.

The 11 Tory MPs who voted against their government last night were Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry, Ken Clarke, Nicky Morgan, Antoinette Sandbach, Stephen Hammond, Heidi Allen, Bob Neil, Sarah Wollaston, Jonathan Djanogly and Sir Oliver Heald.

They voted with Labour, the LibDems, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party in favour of an amendment to ensure that Parliament takes back some control of Brexit.

The Daily Mail pictures them all on their front page today as if they are criminals and asks, ‘Proud of yourselves?’

We are proud of them, Mr Paul Dacre (editor of the Daily Mail).

But we don’t think you have anything to be proud about.

What kind of doublespeak is it on your front page today that attempts to conflate patriotism with dictatorship?

Since when was denying MPs a vote on something as seismic as Brexit anything to do with democracy or taking back control.

Dominic Grieve’s ‘Amendment 7’ was a perfectly rational Parliamentary proposal to ensure democratic checks and balances against an executive that looks increasingly dictatorial.

By just a majority of four votes, MPs last night backed Mr Grieve’s amendment to ensure that Parliament, and not government ministers, must approve the final Brexit deal before it can go ahead.

If the amendment was lost last night, our headline this morning would have been, ‘Death of Parliament’. We had planned to picture a hearse with the Houses of Parliament in the back.

Fortunately, 11 Tory MPs put their country before their party to prove that Parliamentary democracy is alive and kicking (just) and that it can, and must, assert its authority over the executive when it is in the best interests of us, the people.

Thank you.

Now you have found your voice again, Parliament, please use it more and more to protect the interests of the United Kingdom. 

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As we await the verdict of tomorrow’s European Council on the move to Phase 2, it’s perhaps useful to reflect on the decision-making style of Theresa May.

Last night provided a vivid illustration of this, with the amendment to the Withdrawal Bill, which provides Parliament with a vote on the final deal. We might discuss on another occasion how meaningful this is as a policy, given the likely political and time constraints, but its value for present purposes lies in the way it came about.

In essence, there are two ways you can make decisions: open or closed.

In an open model, you aim to build a consensus. That means reaching out to different voices and opinions, finding common ground. This makes it slower and more incremental, since you often have to work around specific concerns, but the pay-off is that you have a broader base for embedding the decision in the longer-term. As someone mentioned to me the other day, there’s a value in reaching across the aisle, if you know there’s a chance the other lot might be in power before too long.

The closed model is much more focused on power. You gather enough of it to overcome opposition at veto points (like votes) and you hoard it as much as possible. Because your supporting community is smaller, you can be more agile and are likely to make fewer compromises on the way, but without the inclusivity of the open method: it doesn’t matter if they don’t like, because they have to follow your decision, and they might come round in the end, in a realpolitik kind of way.

I’m putting May firmly in this latter camp, not just on Brexit, but throughout her political career. Perhaps it was a function of her long stint as Home Secretary – the Home Office has never been a place to promote inclusive policy-making – but it is clear that she does not care to share power any more than is necessary.

In the context of Brexit, we see this time and again. As Prime Minister, she has always kept the strategic planning to Number 10, gate-keeping through the (rare) speech and her slogans on the meaning of Brexit. The taking over of the final phases of Article 50 talks in recent weeks points to her desire not let Davis run loose. Her resistance to the High Court challenge from Miller and to Grieve’s amendment last night point to an unwillingness to open up domestic decision-making.

This is all quite understandable. The country faces a severe test of its abilities and intent, and May wants to have as much control as possible to pilot the very rough seas: her whole pitch to the party last summer was centred around her being the steady pair of hands, the calm leader in times of trouble. ‘Trust me’, she was saying, ‘but let me get on with it’.

But this all points to the fundamental weakness of the closed model: it’s brittle.

The point at which May lost control probably came with this year’s general election. It robbed her of her aura of determination and crystallised all those doubts that existed in the minds of others. The abruptness of that shift was all too visible, but it happens in almost every case of closed approaches: the signs are there around David Davis, especially after the fallout from Sunday’s interview with Andrew Marr (something that might still get much worse tomorrow).

Once broken, it’s very hard to repair the closed model, just as it’s hard to shift to an open model: May is temperamental not inclined to such a shift and others might mistrust her new-found openness.

Which leaves us with a question about what happens now.

For some, last night’s Parliamentary rebellion is the marker of a new, open model: Parliament will take the edges off the hardness and build on the latent consensus for a soft Brexit, maybe even ending up with full Single Market and Customs Union membership (rather than just ‘full alignment’). The absence of other credible leaders for the May-ist model might seem to point that way too.

But this risks over-determining last night. It remains far from clear that Labour is now solidly whipping for a particular outcome – as opposed to just making life uncomfortable for the Tories – or that Tory rebels have broad-enough common cause with the other parties.  Much feels as if it is still about opposing May, rather than a more positive project for Brexit.

Of course, negative projects can succeed – witness the EU referendum – but once beyond the thing you dislike, life becomes a lot more problematic – again, witness Brexit.

As long as the UK and British political debate remain stuck in debating why they don’t like things, they will find that – open or closed – they are much more likely to be the recipient than the instigator of meaningful political decisions.

The post On being open (or closed) appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Prime Minister, Theresa May, suffered a major defeat in the Commons tonight when MPs voted to curb government powers on Brexit – something she definitely didn’t want.

It’s the first time that government has been defeated on its main Brexit legislation.

MPs voted to back an amendment by the former attorney general, Tory MP backbencher, Dominic Grieve. His ‘Amendment 7’ won by by 309 votes to 305, a majority of just four.

The amendment means Parliament will have to approve the final Brexit deal before it can go ahead. However, the amendment does not give Parliament the power to stop Brexit.

The Independent reported this evening, ‘The setback is a major blow to Mrs May’s political authority, underlining how fragile her parliamentary majority is and also signalling that those who disagree with her Brexit plans are ready to cross a line in opposing their own leader.’

Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, called it a “humiliating” defeat for the Prime Minister. He said:

“This defeat is a humiliating loss of authority for the Government on the eve of the European Council meeting.

“Labour has made the case since the referendum for a meaningful vote in Parliament on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

“Theresa May has resisted democratic accountability. Her refusal to listen means she will now have to accept Parliament taking back control.”

Dominic Grieve said he was invoking the spirit of Winston Churchill to put “country before his party”.

Mr Grieve said he had grave concerns over the potential for Theresa May’s flagship Brexit legislation to become a “very worrying tool of executive power”.

His amendment required that any final Brexit deal has to be approved by a separate act of Parliament before it could be implemented.

Mr Grieve sought to change clause nine of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, which provides the Government with the power to use secondary legislation to implement any Brexit deal.

That would require less scrutiny by MPs which clearly worried just enough Tory backbenchers to defeat their government.

Leave-supporting MPs including Dennis Skinner, Grahame Morris, Ronnie Campbell and John Mann all supported Mr Grieve’s amendment in order to inflict defeat on the government.

Writing for The Guardian, Jessica Elgot reported that one party whip described tonight’s loss for the government as ‘a game-changer for the hung parliament’.

The MP told her:

“It has broken the dam. It will be much, much easier to do it again. Rebelling once gives you a taste for it. The discipline has been broken and it shows actually that if you do risk it and rebel for something you believe in, you can make a difference.”

The Prime Minister is having to travel to Brussels tomorrow to meet her fellow EU leaders with her authority once again put into question.

Newspapers reported tonight that the government will now be under strong pressure to drop its goal to enshrine into law that the UK must leave the EU on 29 March 2019.

It is scheduled to be put to the vote next week, but after tonight’s defeat Theresa May could now conclude that it’s too much of a risk to lose that vote too.

Tonight, Parliament proved that it is alive and kicking – just.

We now need to see more evidence that Parliamentary representative democracy has more life in it, and is prepared to kick much more against the looming danger of the government imposing an undemocratic Brexit that the country never actually voted for.

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Petitions to Parliament calling for a second EU referendum have been rejected by both the Conservatives and Labour.

The biggest petition, which attracted 137,941 signatures, called for another referendum on the ‘final Brexit deal.’

The petition requested a new poll before March 2019 with three options on the ballot paper:

(1) To revoke Article 50, thereby keeping Britain in the EU
(2) To reject the UK-EU deal and leave the EU
(3) To accept the UK-EU deal and leave the EU

The petition was created by Londoner, Tom Holder, who stood for the Liberal Democrats in Castle Point, Essex, in this year’s general election.

He explained:

‘Regardless of whether individuals voted to remain or leave the EU in the June 2016 EU referendum, everyone should have a chance to decide their future based on the final agreement negotiated between the UK and EU.’

But the petitions were rejected. The government gave its standard response:

“On 23 June 2016 the British people voted to leave the European Union. The UK Government is clear that it is now its duty to implement the will of the people and so there will be no second referendum…

“There must be no attempts to remain inside the European Union, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door, and no second referendum. The country voted to leave the European Union, and it is the duty of the Government to make sure we do just that.”

The petitions calling for another referendum were debated in Westminster Hall on Monday.

Brexit minister Robin Walker said there would be no second referendum and Labour spokesman Paul Blomfield said he understood the “frustration” behind the petitions but ruled one out.

Lib Dem MPs, several Labour members and the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas supported another referendum on the final Brexit deal reached between the UK and the EU.

Said Labour’s Paul Flynn:

“Second thoughts are always superior to first thoughts.”

But this was rejected by Conservative MP, Martin Vickers, who said most people who signed the petitions wanted to change the result of the first referendum.

The SNP’s Peter Grant said he would not rule out another Brexit referendum at this stage but added that people had to “live by the results of their decisions”.

Of course, that’s how it works in our own lives, isn’t it?

If you take the wrong job, you can never resign. If you choose the wrong partner, you can never leave. If you go on the wrong journey, you can never turn back.

Yup. Parliament reflects exactly how things work in our own lives. Thank you.

But actually, no thanks.

Nobody gave an informed decision for the UK to leave the EU in last year’s referendum, because we were not adequately informed.

On the contrary, the country was misinformed, in a referendum that was profoundly flawed.

The Leave campaign had to rely entirely on lies, mistruths and false promises to win the referendum.

Furthermore, their win was only by the tiniest of margins.

Many people directly affected by the outcome of the referendum were denied a vote.

And only a minority of registered voters voted for Leave – just 37% of the electorate.

That proportion would not even be sufficient to change the constitution of the Conservative Party, or UKIP.

It would not have been sufficient to allow Theresa May to hold a snap general on 8 June, because that required the permission of at least two-thirds of all MPs.

Nobody knew in last year’s referendum what Brexit meant, and we still don’t know.

But according to our political masters, you’re not allowed to change your minds. Oh no. You’re stuck with what you were told in last year’s referendum, even though what you were told was wrong.

Never mind that voters could not possibly have made the right decision based on the wrong information.

The electorate was wrongly told that £350m was sent every week to the EU and this could instead be used in the NHS; that Turkey was joining soon and we could do nothing about it; that the EU isn’t a democracy; that Britain has open borders and EU migrants could come here without any restrictions.

And there were many more lies besides.

Polticians say that the electorate has to live by the results of its decision because of course it’s the fault of voters that they believed the lies of politicians.

In other words, those politicians got away with it. They sold us a dud product. And now it’s too bad, you can’t question it or reject it or have any further thoughts about it.

Welcome to Britain’s brave new world, where politicians insist decisions can’t be undone.

Even though, it’s the primary function of democracy: to allow previous decisions to be undone, if that’s what voters want.

If Brexit is so good, politicians should not hesitate to give voters an opportunity to have another vote on the final Brexit deal, based this time on the facts that we didn’t have last year.

(Note: giving the electorate another referendum ‘based on the facts’, with an option to ‘exit from Brexit’, is the official policy of the Liberal Democrats).

• Related video: ‘Why the EU referendum was flawed’

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Is there a connection between the rise of right wing parties in Europe and America, and the devaluation of and the debasement of our languages?  Mike Ungersma thinks there may be a link

Words. They are stones shaped to the hand.
Fling them accurately. They are horses.
Bridle them; they’ll run away with you.

Caroline Fisher

“All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.  When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer”  It was April of 1946 and George Orwell was alarmed at the debasement of English.  “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” he wrote in his still relevant essay, Politics and the English Language.  Three years later, in the futuristic novel 1984, he attempted to show how the very meanings of words can be turned upside down to support a maniacal and repressive police state.  In the essay he went on:

Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Later, in the same work, he adds: “I should expect to find – this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify – that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.”

Is poetry possible after Auschwitz?

Orwell may have felt he lacked the expertise to link what he perceived to be a degrading of these three European languages to the rise of Nazism, Communism and Fascism, but scholars like the cultural historian George Steiner did not.  In a 1960 article for THE REPORTER, Steiner meticulously traces the connection between the rise of Hitler and the alarming and deliberate misuse of the German language:

Make of the words what Hitler and Goebbels and the hundred thousand Untersturmführer made: conveyors of terror and falsehood.  Something will happen to the words.  Something of the lies and sadism will settle in the marrow of the language . . . It will no longer perform quite as well as it used to, its two principal functions: the conveyance of humane order which we call law, and the communication of the quick of the human spirit which we call grace.

Are Orwell and Steiner – and many others – correct? Is there something special about ‘political speech’?  Do the words, the phrases, the repetition, even the rhythm of a politician addressing a crowd – or more likely today, the TV cameras – differ from the speech the rest of us use?  And why do we ridicule them for such speech?  Or accuse them of lying and avoiding the questions put to them?

At their recent joint news conference to announce a ‘breakthrough’ in their negotiations over ‘Brexit,’ the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, and the European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, employed the language we associate with virtually any modern politician.  Vague generalities, vague promises, few details, with much left unanswered and much more open to competing interpretations.

‘Bare ruin’d choirs’

Like a vicar in a Sunday sermon, May and Juncker were employing the vocabulary of aspiration: “We want the world to be different and better,” not what is, but what ought to be.  For them, politics is a process – a never-ending endeavour to create a better tomorrow.  Unlike the vicar who promises eternal life in exchange for an earthly commitment to sinless living, or damnation for ignoring God’s commandments, the politician can make no such bargain.  For him, there can be  no concrete goal, no identifiable end, no resolution beyond continuing and endless effort.  Like the vicar, the politician seeks to convince, not convert.

Religious homilies and political rhetoric have much in common, but the task of both – the vicar and the politician – has been made much more difficult, religion by the relentless march of science, and politics by the devaluation of language.  For religion, the issue seems decided – at least for Christianity.  Hundreds, thousands of churches today are bingo halls or deteriorating, empty shells, what Shakespeare may have had in mind in his sonnet that spoke of ‘bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.’ Church attendance has plummeted.  Those who identify with Christianity are a shrinking minority.  Sunday is just another day in the week, and even Christmas is robbed of its original meaning.

Just as the Renaissance and its successor, the Enlightenment, eroded the authority and foundation of Christianity, careless use of language may now be undermining politics and even democracy.

Walk into any British pub in the 50s, 60s or even as recently as the 1980s, and you found two permanent fixtures on the bar: a charity box for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and another apt to be labelled, ‘Fifty Pence for Each Swear Word.’  Keep up the flow of profanities, and the publican would admonish – “Gentlemen, there are ladies present.”

The RNLI box remains.  The ‘swear box’ and the landlord’s warning are long gone.

A volley of expletives

Nothing quite devalues a word more than its overuse.  The utter pervasiveness of profanity at every level of modern society has rendered words that were intended to shock useless.  What once was a scale of obscenities that could be employed with gradualness to reach a crescendo of emphasis is no longer available to any writer or speaker.  In every walk of life, profanity abounds – in film, music, theatre, social media, TV – and sadly – even in the school yard.

This one example of the debasement of language has yet to creep into political dialogue – but something else, far worse, has.  Restraint, logical argument, efforts to rationally persuade, all are increasingly replaced by rant, bombast and histrionics.  A new and frightening coarseness and total and intentional disregard for the truth has become the lingua franca of much political rhetoric.  When challenged, the politician responds with the charge of ‘fake news’.  The political right relishes the opportunity to use the tactics this trend offers, and it is having an appreciable effect.

Aided by an enabling technology, the internet and its social media, everyone wants to be heard and no one wants to listen.  Can’t be heard? Then just crank up the volume and shower the world with rage.  Will extreme language lead to extreme politics?  The evidence mounts in virtually every democratic country.

More worryingly, it might even lead to the perfected technique of Nazi Germany, where, as George Steiner notes:

Gradually, words lost their meaning and acquired nightmarish definitions.  Jude, Pole, Russe  came to mean two-legged lice, putrid vermin which good Aryans must squash, as a party manual said, “like roaches on a dirty wall.”  “Final solution,” endgültige Loüsng, came to signify the death of six million human beings in gas ovens.

Steiner concludes his article on post-war Germany, The Hollow Miracle, this way:

Everything forgets.  But not a language.  When it has been injected with falsehood, only the most drastic truth can cleanse it.

 

Mike Ungersma, Benicassim, Spain

December 2017

The post Anything Goes appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Prime Minister, two-faced Theresa May, is at it again. On the one hand she says three million EU migrants in the UK are too many; they take our jobs, they cause a burden to our housing and hospitals; they have zero value.

On the other hand, she says we need you all, we’ll be poorer without you, please don’t go.

Can anyone ever believe anything this duplicitous woman says?

In an open letter this week to all EU migrants in the UK, Theresa May wrote:

“I greatly value the depth of the contributions you make – enriching every part of our economy, our society, our culture and our national life. I know our country would be poorer if you left and I want you to stay.”

Oh, don’t give me that forked tongue nonsense Mrs May. For years you have been saying that Britain has too many EU migrants, and we need to bring numbers down to a trickle.

If that had happened, we wouldn’t now have the three million EU migrants you now say the country can’t do without.

People believed you when you said Britain has too many EU migrants. Why do you think they voted for Leave? They voted so those migrants would Leave. They voted because you said you’d bring the numbers down.

Now you’re saying we need them all. There weren’t too many after all. The country will be poorer without them.

Do you really know what you’re doing? You’re messing with people’s heads; and their hearts, and their lives. What you are doing should be a criminal offence.

Oh you closed your letter with:

“I wish you and all your families a great Christmas and a very happy New Year.”

You think you can wave all this away with a Happy Christmas?

For 18 months since the EU referendum result, you have let EU migrants here suffer whilst they have not known whether they can stay here on the same terms as they are here now.

The answer is clearly no. Their rights will not be as good as they’ve got now. (Ditto UK migrants living across the EU).

If you sincerely think that all the hard-working, upstanding, law-abiding, tax-paying EU migrants in the UK are needed and wanted, why didn’t you say so before the EU referendum?

Instead, at the Tory conference immediately prior the referendum, you said the current numbers of EU migrants in the UK are of zero value. Yes, you did.

As Home Secretary, in your speech to the Tory Party faithful in October 2015 you said,

“..at best the net economic and fiscal effect of high immigration is close to zero.”

High immigration to you then represented the three million EU migrants in the UK.

The front-page headline in The Telegraph the next day was your mantra that migration is “harming society”, causing ‘thousands of British people to be forced out of their jobs.’

You said then that, “when immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society.”

You added:

“It’s difficult for schools and hospitals and core infrastructure like housing and transport to cope. And we know that for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether.”

You blamed too many foreign students (how can you possibly call students migrants?) and too many EU migrants.

You said:

“The numbers coming from Europe are unsustainable and the rules have to change.”

You quoted your party’s manifesto, ‘we must work to control immigration and put Britain first’.

(Is it any wonder that President Trump is somewhat confused as to what you support?)

Now you say:

‘As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I am proud that more than three million EU citizens have chosen to make your homes and livelihoods here in our country.’

Now you say, ‘I know our country would be poorer if you left and I want you to stay’.

Now you say that those three million EU migrants are welcome here, when you previously made clear that you didn’t want them here.

Now you say you are proud that those three million EU migrants made their homes and livelihoods in our country, when you previously said they were stealing our jobs and putting pressure on our schools, hospitals, homes and wages.

Do you really understand what is true and untrue, Mrs May? Because you cannot have it both ways.

I will tell you the truth, which somewhere nestling in your heart and soul you must surely know, even if it’s a truth you are not principled or honest enough to say.

You know bloody well that the UK needs those three million EU migrants here, even though you and your cohorts made it absolutely obvious that those three million EU migrants weren’t wanted or welcome here.

(That’s why you won Brexit, get it?)

They are needed because Britain has far more jobs than Britons to do them. You know that. That’s why you dare not let those EU migrants leave, even though you previously said you hadn’t wanted them to come here in the first place.

You know that if those EU migrants go (and thousands already have – around 10,000 from our NHS alone in the past year) then we will not have enough Britons to do all the jobs in Britain.

You know that.

You also know that it’s a lie that migrants are stealing jobs, bringing down wages, and putting pressure on schools, homes and hospitals.

EU migrants are not stealing jobs. We have the lowest level of unemployment since 1975. We have more British people at work than ever before.

Yes, we have too many Britons struggling, on unwanted zero-hour contracts, on wages that haven’t gone up in years, on having to use food banks, and only just getting by. But you know, yes you do, that that is not the fault of migrants.

So whose fault is it?

It’s your fault, Mrs May. Yours.

Yours and successive British governments who have miserably failed to invest sufficiently in the infrastructure of our country, to ensure that we have enough homes, hospitals and schools to adequately accommodate ALL the workers the country needs, whatever their nationality.

You know this. That’s why it is so convenient for you to blame someone else. Migrants.

But now the truth is dawning. Because if you act out your nasty, racist, xenophobic rhetoric that we have too many migrants, and they go, our economy will crash. And then Britons will have even fewer jobs, homes, hospitals and schools, and even lower wages.

And then you won’t be able to blame migrants anymore, because they won’t be here, or at least, not in the numbers you previously said were too high, but now magically say are all wanted and needed.

The fact is that migrants are making a massive net contribution to our Treasury and our economy.

Figures released by HM Revenue & Customs show that in the 2014 tax year, EU migrants here paid £14.7 billion in tax and national insurance, but only took £2.6 billion in tax credits and child benefits.

That’s a huge profit for the country, Mrs May; money you should be using to invest in more schools, hospitals and housing.

But like your Brexit Secretary, David Davis, you are not interested in evidence-based politics and policies. If you were, you would take on board the considerable volumes of evidence that EU migrants are a boon, and not a burden to us.

Last year the Centre of Economic Performance, part of the London School of Economics, published extensive research concluding that:

• EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they use public services and therefore they help to reduce the budget deficit.
• The areas of the UK with large increases in EU immigration did not suffer greater falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers.
• EU immigrants are more educated, younger, more likely to be in work and less likely to claim benefits than the UK-born.

And a separate study concluded by University College London in 2014 concluded that:

• European immigrants who arrived in the UK since 2000 have contributed more than £20bn to UK public finances between 2001 and 2011.
• Those EU migrants endowed the country with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in spending on education.

And Theresa May’s own office whilst Home Secretary also undertook their own extensive review of the evidence that concluded:

• There is relatively little evidence that migration has caused statistically significant displacement of UK natives from the labour market in periods when the economy is strong.

What’s more, EU migrants – all migrants – enrich our country in so many more ways than just economically.

What’s that, Mrs May? You don’t believe the evidence? Oh, that’s also the common response of Brexiters, who must now be very confused by your welcoming of three million EU migrants that previously you said were unwelcome.

Well get this. I don’t believe anything you say.

You are not fit to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. You are disuniting our country and our people in a most nasty, despicable way, and destroying the reputation of a once fine, tolerant and progressive country.

The sooner we have a true statesperson leading us, who puts the country and its people first, the sooner Britain can be Great again.

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Brexit Secretary David Davis will have the perfect excuse when Brexit destroys the United Kingdom.

Ignorance.

He admits he hasn’t done any in-depth research on the impact of Brexit. He doesn’t believe in it. He just believes in Brexit; it’s a faith for him.

Who needs facts when you’re a self-described “determined optimist”?

But Theresa May will have no such excuse. She’s known all along that Brexit will be bad for Britain. She said so before the referendum when she advised the country to vote against Brexit:

“Remaining inside the European Union does make us more secure, it does make us more prosperous and it does make us more influential beyond our shores.

“I believe the case to remain a member of the European Union is strong.

“I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.”

Mrs May knew then, as she knows today, that the UK cannot get a better deal with the EU than the one we have now.

She knows, and so that makes her far more culpable than David Davis, who knows very little, and cares even less.

What’s more, Theresa May is in charge. She could put a stop to this farce at any time.

Or, if she really had principles, she could resign.

The EU is the world’s largest free trade area.

As a member, we receive huge benefits worth enormously more than the net annual membership fee of £7.1* billion a year (net amount calculated by the UK Statistics Authority) 

As a member, we enjoy free, frictionless trade with our biggest trading partner by far, right on our doorstep, where almost 50% of our exports go to and over 50% of our imports come from. Nowhere else in the world comes close to that.

Prime Minister Theresa is desperate to continue to enjoy similar membership benefits of frictionless trade with the EU after we have ended our membership, because she knows, more than David Davis, that our economy’s survival depends on it.

She has said she wants Britain to continue to enjoy membership benefits as an ex-member, without being part of the EU Single Market or customs union, without agreeing to the rules of the EU and its market, without being subject to the European Court of Justice to oversee those rules, and without paying anything to the EU for access.

She says she aims to achieve this with a new trade agreement with the EU that’s unique to us, that no other country in the world has ever achieved.

It’s never, ever going to happen. And Mrs May knows this.

Before the referendum she said clearly and loudly:

“It is not clear why other EU member states would give Britain a better deal than they themselves enjoy.”

And this weekend, EU officials have echoed a similar home truth. They have insisted that a bespoke deal more favourable to the UK than other non-EU nations was out of the question.

If the EU allowed the UK to have a better deal than members and non-members enjoy, it would effectively mean the end of the EU.

Already, non-EU countries are complaining that the UK should not have a better deal with the EU than they have.

This weekend an EU official close to the EU talks told The Guardian:

“We have been approached by a number of [non-member] countries expressing concerns and making it clear that it would constitute a major problem for them if suddenly the UK were to get better terms than they get.”

The official added that once the UK is out of the Single Market and customs union in March 2019, there could be no replication of the terms of the current trading relationship, or anything close to it, and no special treatment.

“It is not just an indication of some strange rigid principle. It is because things won’t work,” he said.

“First and foremost we need to stick to this balance of rights and obligations, otherwise we will be undermining our own customs union and single market. Second, we cannot upset relations with other third countries,” the official said.

“If we were to give the UK a very lopsided deal, then the other partners with whom we have been engaging and who entered into balanced agreements would come back and question those agreements.”

The Guardian also reported that Lord Kerr, the former diplomat who drafted the article 50 process for leaving the EU, said:

“The chances of concluding even a modest deal [like the EU- Canada deal] and getting it ratified in all 27 [EU]countries, during a two-year standstill period, verge on zero. So, the cliff-edge still beckons: the standstill only postpones it.”

The UK is heading for a sheer cliff edge, that will cause us all enormous damage, from which it may take decades to recover.

David Davis isn’t fully aware of this. He simply doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to know.

He’s walking us over the cliff with his eyes wide shut. The ‘determined optimist’ just thinks we’ll all be able to walk on air.

But Theresa May, she knows. She is fully aware of the dangers ahead.

She knows there is not a hope in hell of the UK getting anywhere near as good a deal with the EU as we have now.

She knows that leaving the EU is going to cause her country, our country, incalculable pain. Yet, she is still taking us over the cliff.

May is acting with malice aforethought. Davis is acting without any thought.

If you love our country, it is incumbent upon you to speak up.

There is only one group of people who can bring the nation to its senses, and urgently apply emergency brakes to the terrifying Brexit juggernaut now hurtling at speed towards the sheer cliff edge.

It’s our Members of Parliament. They are the ones who are supposed to represent us. They are the ones who are supposed to act in the best interests of the country.

This coming week the Commons will vote on an amendment to give MPs a “truly meaningful vote” on Brexit.

The “meaningful vote” amendment is the brainchild of former attorney general, Dominic Grieve, and calls for MPs to have a binding vote on the final Brexit deal before ministers can go ahead with Britain’s departure from the EU.

Senior figures from across the Commons told the Observer last night that MPs considering whether or not to support the amendment should “put the national interest, not party politics, first”.

For the love of Britain, please write to your MP today urging him or her to back this amendment (known as Amendment 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill).

Only those against Parliamentary sovereignty would not want our MPs to have a “truly meaningful’ say on our country’s future.

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Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, says Britain can vote to change the Brexit deal at the next general election, scheduled for June 2022.

But that will be too late. Mr Gove made his comment for an article for The Telegraph because he’s clearly concerned that Theresa May’s Brexit has now gone from hard to soft.

This is about Mr Gove wanting a harder Brexit than Mrs May is now pursuing, and probably more importantly, (to him), he wants to be Prime Minister.

He said that if the May administration proves too cautious, the electorate will be able to demand a more radical split with the European Union at the next general election.

“The British people will be in control. If the British people dislike the agreement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge,” wrote Mr Gove.

But if the British people are really in control, then we should be able to vote on the direction of Brexit now, and not after the deal has been done.

There is confusion and disarray within the Cabinet this weekend as to exactly what Theresa May and her sidekick, David Davis, agreed with the EU’s negotiators.

The thorny issue of avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland after Brexit was completely side-stepped, to be settled at a future date. And if it can’t be settled, the fallback position according to a joint statement by the UK government and the EU Commission will be for the UK to “maintain full alignment” with the rules of the Single Market and Customs Union.

But this option was completely ruled out this morning by cabinet member Andrea Leadsom, leader of the House of Commons, who stated categorically that the UK will be leaving the EU, and its Single Market and Customs Union.

Justice Minister Dominic Raab clearly outlined how unclear everything is when he said on BBC’s Newsnight last night:

“You can call it strategic ambiguity, you can call it constructive ambiguity… what I am admitting to you, very openly, and honestly, is that we have agreed principles, but that the details still need to be ironed out on this very bespoke set of issues around Northern Ireland which can’t be dealt with properly and responsibly outside of the context of the broader negotiation on customs and trade and all of those other things we have said all along.”

According to media reports, the UK will pay a “divorce settlement” of between £35 and £39 billion. But EU officials have indicated that no firm figure has yet been agreed.

Who really knows what’s going on?

Certainly not the Cabinet. According to The Telegraph Mrs May is now facing a ‘Cabinet battle’ over Britain’s future relationship with the EU amid claims that a “very soft” Brexit had now become inevitable.

Certainly not the British people. Nobody knew in last year’s referendum what Brexit really meant, and we still don’t know.

The government has admitted that they haven’t even done any in-depth research on the impact of Brexit.

Everyone is in the dark, and it’s into the darkness that the government is now taking us.

Our political leaders are blindly going ahead with Brexit because, they say, that’s what “the people” told them to do.

But “the people” were only offered the option of a one-word answer to the extremely complicated question of whether the UK should leave the EU.

Slightly more people chose ‘Leave’ as their one-word response rather than ‘Remain’. But it was not an informed response, because the country was not informed. On the contrary, we were misinformed.

When you have an operation, you have to sign a form that says you give ‘informed consent’ for the operation to go ahead.

Nobody gave informed consent for Brexit, and yet it is still going ahead.

It’s now time to properly inform the nation, and then for the nation to have an opportunity to properly inform our political masters of the true ‘will of the people’, based on the facts.

Only those who are against democracy would disagree.

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