United Kingdom
Julian Assange’s case is special, and no point pretending otherwise
On a cool May afternoon in Canberra seven years ago, then foreign minister Bob Carr was hot with indignation about the case of Julian Assange. The family and supporters of the…
The greatest British political crisis of modern times
Brexit appears to be approaching a bewildering denouement. Prime Minister Theresa May has reached a dead end with a negotiated deal that met the criteria for leaving the…
The strategic consequence of the Chagos Islands legal dispute
At the end of last month, the African archipelago nation of Mauritius secured an important legal victory in its territorial and maritime disputes against its former coloniser, the…
Brexit: Britain’s Commonwealth pivot is nothing new
In the midst of Britain’s painful extraction from the European Union, a saga which deepened this week with a second parliamentary defeat for Theresa May’s Brexit deal, key figures…
Fisheries and Brexit – a slippery affair
Despite accounting for a mere 0.12% the UK’s overall economic output, fisheries is one of the most contentious issues in the Brexit jumble. Highly politicised, negotiations on the…
Learning from Brexit in Donald Trump’s America
For those of us with an internationalist viewpoint, watching the Brexit process unfold in the context of the Trump Presidency has left us demoralised and despondent. In both cases…
How did the United Kingdom get itself into such a political mess?
In March 2017 the British government invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and gave itself two years to organise an orderly withdrawal from the European Union. Now, with the…
Repatriating female foreign fighters: political not personal
The Islamic State is on the verge of total defeat. As a result, many of the remaining foreign fighters who travelled to the caliphate are coming out of the woodwork. One of…
Film Review: Brexit – the Uncivil War
A workable divorce deal hasn’t even been inked, yet already one of the most seismic episodes in British political history has been scripted, dramatised, and broadcast to an…
Brexit: British people vote with their feet
With Prime Minister Teresa May’s Brexit withdrawal deal rejected this week by the House of Commons, the future of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union remains as…