Cameron's speechUK justice opt-outUK, EU & the City
  • Cameron's optimistic, risky and ambiguous strategy
    Insight by Charles Grant, 24 January 2013
    Cameron's optimistic, risky and ambiguous strategy
  • Britain's 2014 justice opt-out: Why it bodes ill for Cameron's EU strategy
    Essay by Hugo Brady, 23 January 2013
    Britain's 2014 justice opt-out: Why it bodes ill for Cameron's EU strategy
  • Britain, Europe and the City of London: Can the triangle be managed?
    Essay by Philip Whyte, 20 July 2012
    Britain, Europe and the City of London
  • The eurosceptic illusion
    Opinion piece by Simon Tilford
    The Guardian, 05 July 2009

    Britain's Eurosceptics need to come clean. The media and political class have a right to be sceptical about the EU, even hostile to it. But they also have an obligation to be honest about the economic implications of a retreat from full membership of the union.
  • The Dis-Uniting Kingdom?
    Opinion piece by Hugo Brady
    The Wall Street Journal, 30 June 2009

    Britain's European debate has gone septic. More than half of British votes cast in recent European elections went to euro-skeptic parties ranging from the mad, bad political fringes such as the British National Party to a Conservative Party promising to claw back powers from Brussels.
  • Britain’s eurosceptics need to come clean
    Insight by Simon Tilford, 25 June 2009

    Britain’s media and political class have a right to be sceptical about the EU, even hostile to it. But they also have an obligation to be honest about the economic implications of a retreat from full membership of the Union. Their failure to do so is dishonest and poses a serious risk to Britain’s prosperity. 
  • Are the British the new French?
    Insight by Simon Tilford, 05 May 2009

    The British tend to deride France as a hopelessly statist, anti-entrepreneurial country full of bolshie workers intent on extracting disproportionate rewards for their labour and a state too weak to resist them. This characterisation is not wholly inaccurate.
  • It's a fabrication that Britain doesn't make things any more
    Opinion piece by Philip Whyte
    The Times, 13 March 2009

    Nicolas Sarkozy stung us when he claimed last month that Britain, unlike France, “has no industry”. Since the implosion of the financial sector, it has become an article of faith that the British economy is paying for its excessive reliance on services.
  • Britain's Schengen dilemma
    Insight by Hugo Brady, 10 February 2009

    Britain supports more EU co-operation against terrorism, crime and illegal immigration and has done so for over a decade. This is because effective justice co-operation has clearly been in the national interest (as with the speedy capture and extradition of one of the 2005 London bombers from Italy to Britain).
  • The French, the European Commission and the Tories
    Insight by Charles Grant, 29 January 2009

    One Frenchman, Jean Monnet, invented the European Commission, and another, Jacques Delors, was its greatest president. Yet the French are increasingly hostile to this Brussels institution.
  • The Runway 3 red herring
    Opinion piece by Charles Grant
    The Guardian, 22 January 2009

    Simon Jenkins, Martin Kettle and Polly Toynbee are columnists I respect and quite often agree with. So when they - and many Comment is Free contributors - join the George Monbiots of this world in attacking the proposed third runway for Heathrow, I read them carefully.