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ATHENS – Ever since Boris Johnson moved into 10 Downing Street vowing to re-negotiate the United Kingdom’s withdrawal agreement with the European Union, the conventional wisdom among many Brexit opponents has been that the UK’s new prime minister is “doing a Varoufakis” and will be crushed in similar fashion.

The liberal order is under threat. Increasing inequality, the rise of far-right nationalism and the climate emergency pose unprecedented challenges. It’s time for some radical thinking. On November 4th Intelligence Squared is bringing to its stage two of the world’s great radicals – Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister known for his trademark leather jacket, motorbike and self-described erratic Marxism, and legendary music producer Brian Eno, known for his progressive politics and human rights activism.

MeRA25’s entry into Greece’s Parliament marks the return of anti-austerity, anti-troika, radical europeanism. In this first speech I outlined our campaign to oppose the new parasitic oligarchy that New Democracy will be building on the 4th Bailout deal with the troika that SYRIZA left behind

Jeremy Corbyn must expose Boris Johnson’s no-deal Brexit as a Trump-deal Brexit and put forward Labour’s plan to end the interminable Brexit ordeal immediately, suggests Yanis Varoufakis

Boris Johnson is the first British prime minister in a long time who is free of dilemmas regarding his approach to the European Union.

StartupTV presents Yanis Varoufakis, Greek academic, economist and politician, talking about his vision for the future of European politics, including a Green New Deal for Europe. In 2015, Varoufakis launched his own party, The Democracy in Europe Movement, or DiEM25, alongside Croatian philosopher Srećko Horvat.

On Sunday 14th July, the Labour Party and DiEM25 leadership teams agreed to embark upon a common agenda for Europe and beyond. Later that day, the collaboration was announced at the closing plenary of the International Social Forum convened by the Labour Party at SOAS, London and opened by Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party. Introduced by John McDonnell, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor of the Excequer, Yanis Varoufakis explained the task ahead.

 
(Photo taken after the event during a joint interview by Corbyn, McDonnell and Varoufakis)

Christine Lagarde was a key member of the infamous troika – Greece’s official creditors – who crushed our people’s resistance to perpetual debt bondage. The other key figure alongside the International Monetary Fund’s then managing director was Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, who played a central role in that drama by engineering the closure of Greece’s banks.

“We have to talk to people in a way that combines addressing these [economic] anxieties with the issues of the environment. Unless we manage to do that, we will fail.”

Kate Aronoff  Summer 2019
Yanis Varoufakis celebrating the anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 2018 (Pedro Ribeiro Simões/Flickr)

Small incidents can pack hefty messages. Yesterday afternoon, a tiny drama unfolded at Paris airport, as I was disembarking the airplane that had brought me over from Athens. It speaks volumes about the state of our European Union and the drift toward inane authoritarianism.

A French policeman, for no obvious reason, took it to himself to be hostile and to manhandle me after having checked and returned my passport. As I conclude in my official complaint (lodged by my lawyers) with the French Police,