English

To defend the NHS we need a Norway Plus Brexit deal for the UK

The main argument against my Norway Plus proposal is that such an agreement would jeopardise the capacity of the UK government to strike out into the world to bring home a variety of tailor-made trade deals with the US, China etc. At the same time, hard Brexiteers continue with their disingenuous promises of daily millions that will flow to the NHS, money saved from the UK’s contribution to the EU budget. Now, here are two excellent reasons to back Norway Plus! Let’s look at them briefly:

The Magnificent Oomph: Aiming for Norway Plus to secure a progressive Brexit – transcript of speech

Courtesy of opendemocracy.net, here is the transcript of my speech of 29th January at the House of Commons. The theme? How should Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party secure a progressive Brexit consistent with a socialist agenda for the UK but also with DiEM25’s campaign to democratise Europe.

Bloody Sunday, Brexit & The Democratic Process – Audio of speech, Derry, 26th January 2018

In what was a tremendous honour, the Bloody Sunday March organising committee invited me to Derry’s Guildhall to deliver the annual memorial lecture highlighting the legacy of Bloody Sunday and linking it with Brexit and DiEM25’s pan-European campaign for democracy and shared prosperity. An audio of my talk is now available here. Afterwards, I was treated to the even greater honour of a public discussion with the legendary civil rights campaigner Bernadette Devlin – DiEM25’s latest member!

Bloody Sunday, Brexit & The Democratic Process: Public lecture, followed by ‘In conversation with Bernadette McAliskey’ – Derry, 26th January 2018, 7.30pm

Why ‘Bloody Sunday, Brexit & The Democratic Process’ ?

Much like many other parts of the world at that time, the North of Ireland was undergoing a process of profound political change in the early 1970’s.  By the time January 1972 came around the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) had already been holding peaceful protests and marches for close on 4 years.

“La crisis se está haciendo más profunda, más tóxica, más permanente” (“The crisis is getting deeper, more toxic, more permanent”) – El Diario interview, 13/1/2018 (including the original English text of the interview)

“Europa es exactamente lo opuesto a democracia”, asegura el ex ministro griego de Finanzas y cofundador de DIEM25, que ajusta cuentas con los protagonistas de la crisis del euro en  “Comportarse como adultos

“El Gobierno español actuó firmemente en Bruselas contra los intereses de la inmensa mayoría de los españoles”
“El bitcoin es una espléndida burbuja y nunca podrá operar provechosamente como moneda”