COUNTER•POWER

Fintan O’Toole ...

Brexit is the long agony of English nationalism: a nationality in a multinational state that has struggled to find a place in the world after the end of empire. But a short boat ride away, an often neglected part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, has had its own struggles with monolithic national identity.

What can a divided Britain learn from the Northern Irish experience? And could Brexit tear it all apart? These are the questions we’re asking in this special edition of the Another Europe Is Possible podcast with Zoe Williams from the Guardian, and Luke Cooper from Anglia Ruskin University.

Our guest on today’s show is Fintan O’Toole, and his explosive new book, ‘Heroic Failure; Brexit And The Politics Of Pain’ sees the vote to leave the European Union as indicative of a crisis of Englishness, a national identity in search of a story.

Tim Bale ... How divided is Britain? A case of when two tribes go to war? Or is it time to give peace a chance? In Parliament, the Tories and Labour look incredibly divided on where to go next - with splits crossing traditional party lines. But this isn’t the case with their voters, let alone their members. Tories are more pro Leave than ever, while for Labour voters the opposite holds true. When it comes to party members the trend is even starker. Our guest in this podcast is political scientist Tim Bale from Queen Mary University. He’s led a lot of the research in this area, finding out what Britain’s political party members really think. As Theresa May’s deal looks set to be defeated in Parliament this week we pick Tim’s brains on what on earth will happen next.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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