COUNTER•POWER

Covid-19 is the most serious crisis human civilisation has faced since the Second World War. It’s a global emergency that will change every aspect of our society.  Life will go on but not as we know it. In the first of a new series of podcasts, Coronavirus Lockdown, Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper talk to economist James Meadway about the extraordinary economic impact of a virus that is closing down the global economy. How must the government respond? What will the capitalism that emerges from all this look like? And has the time come for an entirely new economic order? For more information on the issues covered in today's show check out these articles:  Coronavirus is the greatest challenge capitalism has ever faced: will a new system result? Only Scrutiny Will Keep This Government on the Right Path

In the last of our Saving Europe From Itself series, Luke Cooper is joined by Carl Miller, research director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM) at Demos and author of The Death of the Gods: the New Global Power Grab. As the global pandemic is combined with an infodemic, a proliferation of fake or misleading viral news stories, Miller offers 7 rules for digital hygiene: to stay informed, stay educated and stay smart.  For further material on issues covered in today's show check out: A long read from Carl Miller for Wired  https://www.wired.co.uk/article/taiwan-democracy-social-media Can Taiwan reboot democracy? A doc for the BBC  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbCZvU7i7VY 

The rise of the far right across Europe has given new life to the anti-feminist agenda. How do we stop the roll back and go on the offensive for a new agenda for a feminist Europe? On this podcast, hosts Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper are joined by a panel of guests in Berlin to discuss the state of women's rights in Europe and the need for new and intersectional feminist vision. Saboura Naqshband is an academic, activist and co-founder of the Berlin Muslim Feminists Collective, Daphne Büllesbach is a pan-European activist and the vice-president of European Alternatives Berlin, and Prune Antoine is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Sisters of Europe. The podcast was recorded at a live audience event in Berlin organised in collaboration with European Alternatives in Berlin and supported by the European Cultural Foundation as part of its Democracy Needs Imagination programme.

It's been emotional. Nearly four years on from the referendum result and with Britain having decisively left the EU, hosts Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper are joined by Nick Dearden, from Global Justice Now, to look back on it all. We chart the highs and lows of the historic defeat. We look back on some all too optimistic interviews we did on the podcast with Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle and anti-Brexit campaigner Eloise Todd, and review the news archive for all the big turning points in the Brexit crisis. 

Brexit has been a rough ride for the people of Northern Ireland. Having never voted to Leave the EU it felt like a colonial act of English nationalism. But it also has created a new spirit of hope that the north of Ireland's deep sectarian divisions might be overcome. Whereas the English left were thrown into mourning the day after the general election, in Northern Ireland, much like Scotland, there was a different atmosphere. A historic breakthrough for the cross-community Alliance Party, winning 17 per cent of the vote, was matched by Unionist parties returning less seats than the Nationalist parties for the first time ever. Hosts Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper are joined by Joseph Healy, longtime Irish immigrant in London and principal speaker for the Left Unity party, and curator and Northern Irish community activist, Jane Wells, to discuss whether Ulster Unionism now faces an existential crisis.

The second half of our podcast on Europe after 1989, with Andras Bozoki, Mary Kaldor, Alena Ivanova, and Quinsy Gario joining Luke Cooper and Zoe Williams.

Andras Bozoki, Mary Kaldor, Alena Ivanova, and Quinsy Gario join Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper to discuss the thirty year anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain. As Europe looks ever more mired in nationalism, we ask: what's left of the hopes and dreams of the peaceful revolutions? How in retrospect do we understand the revolutions of 1989? And was there an alternative to the quick-fire turn to neoliberalism? We discuss this and more in a podcast that will be published in two parts. The event was recorded with a live audience in Amsterdam. The podcast is supported by the European Cultural Foundation as part of its Democracy Needs Imagination series. 

A landslide victory by the Conservative Party has extinguished the hope that Britain might yet stay inside the EU. So where next after the historic defeat? Hosts Luke Cooper and Zoe Williams are joined by Michael Chessum from the Another Europe office to reflect on the anguish, agony and anger of the general election. They discuss the failure of the Labour Party to galvanise the country behind a radical, transformative vision of change, and the prospects for the left in the difficult and challenges days that lie ahead.

How about giving everyone a guaranteed basic income – a universal benefit to provide a basic foundation for our daily life? It is one of the most contested and controversial ideas of the modern age. But as the world of work transforms beyond recognition, is it only a matter of time before utopia becomes reality? Economist and financial journalist Stewart Lansley thinks so. He talks to hosts Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper about the case for a UBI.The European Cultural Foundation supports this initiative as it is rethinking Europe as an open and democratic space.

In this, the second part of our two part documentary The Forgotten Troubles, hosts Zoe Williams and Luke Cooper explore the contemporary politics of Northern Ireland and the extent to which the Good Friday Agreement makes it difficult to break out of sectarian division. They meet the Alliance Party on the campaign trail in the traditionally unionist area of Lagan Valley and ask whether it is possible or desirable to go 'beyond Orange and Green'. They explore the possible futures of the island of Ireland in the Brexit crisis, and the difficult challenges it faces.Featuring: Sorcha Eastwood, Alliance Party candidate for Lagan Valley, Katy Hayward, a sociologist at Queen’s University Belfast, Garrett Carr, author of The Rule of the Land, and Mickey Brady, the Sinn Fein MP for Newry and South Armagh.Editing and mixing: Jamie CowardThe documentary was produced in collaboration with Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Brussels Office. Funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.The European Cultural Foundation supports this initiative as it is rethinking Europe as an open and democratic space.