COUNTER•POWER

Zoe Williams, Luke Cooper and Jamie Coward … The Tory conference and May’s speech: a great exercise in fantasy and delusion or a fightback from our embattled prime minister? That’s the question on the latest Another Europe podcast. After the catastrophe of last year’s speech - when May could hardly speak and the sign fell off the boarding at the close of her disastrous performance - it could hardly have been any worse this time round. May has won plaudits for steadying the ship, some people even seemed to like her busting out some moves to Dancing Queen. And Tory moderates have described it as a surprisingly successful exercise in facing down the hard right in her party. But there’s one simply problem with this narrative: it assumes the outside world doesn’t exist. A context-less analysis won’t get us anywhere. We put the context - of Britain's Brexit crisis- back in.

Alena Ivanova and Michael Chessum ... Are Labour about to perform what would be one of the great political u-turns of all time and swing behind the campaign for a people’s vote on the final Brexit deal? As over a hundred motions on the Brexit question are submitted to the conference, are the members, to coin a phrase, looking to ‘take back control’? In this podcast, which is published a little ahead of our usual fortnightly schedule, we take stock of what’s happening with the Labour Party prior to its conference in Liverpool. To get a handle on what’s going on we’re joined by Alena Ivanova and Michael Chessum from the Another Europe Is Possible campaign HQ. They’ve been leading the efforts to get Brexit onto the conference agenda and give us the inside track on the latest developments.

Alfie Stirling and Alena Ivanova … Remember project fear? It was Cameron and Osborne’s scare campaign. The economic collapse that never came. We on the left never bought this narrative. Ours was a positive vision for Europe. But as the possibility of a ‘no deal Brexit’ has come into view, project fear might be looking a little like project fact. What are the actual economic implications of Brexit anyway? And what do they mean for British workers? We talk to Alfie Stirling from the New Economics Foundation to find out. In part two we turn to practicalities and get the lowdown on how the Another Europe campaign is going.

Paul Mason ... Oxi, Oxi, No, No, the Greek people chanted in the summer of 2015 only for their government to then - perhaps inevitably - accept Europe’s demands for a brutal austerity and privatisation programme. Back in 2015 no British journalist followed these events more closely than Paul Mason, who has since become a high profile backer of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. In this podcast we talk to him about Europe and the left, taking in some of the history of Europe’s disastrous turn to neoliberalism. We’ll also be looking at the tensions that exist between Britain’s Corbynistas and the Remain movement.

Omar Khan and Brendan McGeever … This podcast returns to the question we’ve been puzzling over for some time: how can progressives push back against the rising tide of racism? Brexit is only one part of the nationalist resurgence. From Steve Bannon to Geert Wilders and Tommy Robinson a new far right international has emerged. Not only have they raised huge sums from American white supremacists, they also stand to make a breakthrough in European elections next year. What are the causes of the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment these far right forces are feeding off? And how can we turn it around? Jamie Coward, Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper are joined by Omar Khan from the Runnymede Trust and Brendan McGeever from Birkbeck University to reflect on these questions.

Grace Blakeley and Michael Chessum ... Are the left at risk of sleep-walking into a Brexit emergency for Britain, or does the process of leaving the EU create new opportunities for radical change? A recording of a live audience debate with economist Grace Blakeley and Another Europe national organiser Michael Chessum.

Michael Chessum ... This week we’re putting our heads together to get a grip on what’s been a quite remarkable ten days in UK politics. David Davis resigned from the cabinet along with Brexit zealot Steve Baker. He was followed shortly afterwards by Boris Johnson - whose letter of resignation warned that the “Brexit dream is dying”. Somehow May managed to hold on for the long-awaited summit with Donald Trump. But just when she thought the ship might have been steadied, the Sun published an explosive interview with the American president. Trump openly backed the Tory rebels. “May has wrecked Brexit”, “the deal’s off”, he told the Murdoch paper. Meanwhile, the streets of Britain were flooded with anti-Trump protestors. We ask what this all means for the parlous state of the UK's negotiations with the EU and the prospects for defeating Brexit.

Niccolo Milanese ... This week we’re joined by Niccolo, one of two co-authors of an excellent new book, 'Citizens of Nowhere; How Europe can be saved from itself'. As the name suggests, the book challenges Theresa May’s infamous phrase – that if you are a citizen of the world, then you’re a citizen of nowhere – and offers a radical new agenda for political change. The book isn’t just a new political vision but is also in part a history of the authors' own, decade-long attempt to catalyse social change with the establishment of European Alternatives, a transeuropean NGO. We ask Niccolo for his thoughts on how the rise of the far right can be resisted, the place of Eastern Europe in the European story, and the history of 'Europe from below'.

Stephen Bush ... Host Zoe Williams and producer Jamie Coward are joined by the irrepressible Stephen Bush to discuss Labour and Brexit. He’ll give us the lowdown on Theresa May’s awful escape, and the prospects for a Labour reversal on Brexit. What he doesn’t know about the hidden wiring of the Labour Party is almost certainly bollocks. Is it mad to think Corbyn might be persuaded to oppose Brexit? Find out in our unmissable podcast.

Ann Pettifor and Sirio Canos Donnay ... Reflecting on the polarisation between the right and left which has opened up in European politics since the financial crisis this podcast discusses the neoliberal conundrum: if the EU has been dominated by free market economic thinking does that mean progressive forces across the continent should support an exit? What are the lessons we might derive from Spain and other countries? And how can progressives mobilising across borders effectively confront the insurgent far right?