The Edinburgh Radical Review

In 2006, former Home Office advisor Nick Pearce hailed a ‘shift in the political landscape which is here to stay.’ So firmly had the public been persuaded of the benefits of migration that, Pearce believed, it had ceased to be a topic of contention: ‘Even the Tories will not row back on this.’ He could not have been more wrong. In 2016 Britain voted to leave the European Union following a referendum campaign overwhelmingly dominated by the question of immigration, 56 percent of Britons reportedly viewing it as the most important political issue. Back in 2007, when Tony Blair left Downing Street, the figure neared 40 percent. Yet ten years before, when New Labour swept to power, only 3 percent rated it their top concern and the new government came to office intending to remove the issue from the arena of political debate. Instead, they only fed what they fought to extinguish. Blair’s government was determined to appear strong on the issue of migration, determined to reass

This election is not about changing government. There is no realistic prospect of that. Mrs May will still be Prime Minister on 9th June (even the question of Jeremy Corbyn remaining Leader of the Opposition seems likely to be answered in the affirmative). Given the near inevitability of Conservative victory in the current political climate, the question put to the people is not what government, but what Brexit? This election will determine the shape of Britain's exit from the European Union and what the post-Brexit nation will look like. Britain's future prosperity and position in the world depends on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, there is no more important question in British politics today, and it must be answered rightly, In a future filled with uncertainty there is at least one truth: Labour is heading for defeat. Corbyn's leadership is not the sole source of Labour's woes, whoever the leader the electoral mountain the party needs to climb woul

Emmanuel Macron and Matteo Renzi Hailed by many as France's Tony Blair, and with a consistent lead in the polls, Emmanuel Macron seems set to beat off Marine Le Pen and become the next President of the French Republic. But though clearly a politician of the third-way, a more direct parallel for Macron than Blair appears in the form of recently defeated Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi . EM may be the acronym of Macron's En Marche movement, as well as his own initials, but it also nicely symbolizes the political affinity of Emmanuel and Matteo, cut as they both seemingly are from the same continental centrist cloth.  Parallel Policies Not only in style and philosophy, but also in proposed programme does Macron follow Renzi, with some policies outlined in the En Marche   manifesto directly paralleling those sought and implemented by the former Italian Prime Minister.  The most obvious is the €500 'Culture Pass,' promised by Macron to all 18 year ol

In his  first major speech  of the campaign, Jeremy Corbyn attempted to define this election as one of The People vs. The Establishment. Member of Parliament for Islington North since 1983, the Labour leader proved touchy when asked whether he himself might not be part of that very 'Establishment' he had just spent fifteen minutes railing against so gleefully from a horse as high as Babel. Tax the Rich! Bash the Banks! His message was a simple one: the faults of Modern Britain are due, it appears almost solely, to the insatiable rapaciousness of a dastardly top-hatted 'elite' straight out of the pages of Soviet anti-Capitalist propaganda. These puppeteers of the 'rigged system' hold a vice-like grip on Corbynland, gobbling up all the wealth for themselves and leaving none for the rest of us (wealth, of course, being a static entity in Corbynland; there's only so much to go round). The solution: Tax the Rich! It's so simple. Squeeze th