@cleodavies
Assistant Professor in Politics and International Relations at Forward College in Paris. Formerly with PAIS Warwick Uni on project ‘Living with the Neighbours: the UK, the EU and wider Europe' - UK in a Changing Europe.
Can anyone help me: did Starmer attend‘ a gathering of EU leaders’ this week? @financialtimes.com Janan Ganesh starts his column yesterday with a reference to this meeting 👇 I remember Starmer attended the informal EU council in February 2025, which was the first time a UK PM attended since Brexit…
Amazing moment on French TV. A French judge explains how Trump sent people from the US Embassy basically trying to intimidate her during Le Pen's trial for embezzlement - something they've done to other judges around the world.
😃 👌
Who has moved their position? Zahawi or Farage? Well maybe the politics of Brexit and the delusions of grandeur that some had about it, are the original link that survives today 👇 bsky.app/profile/cleo...
Two options I can see:
1) hopes latest move will take him closer to that 'greater Britain I want to see... by leaving the EU' (final words of 2016 op-ed ). One who believes that benefits of Brexit have been squandered by 🇬🇧 bureaucracy
2) purely for his self advancement/for self aggrandising
🤔..
Zahawi has been on a journey:
'There are some extremely unattractive figures campaigning to leave the EU, from George Galloway to Nigel Farage and it pains me to be dragged towards them on any issue'
written in his op-ed on why he backed #leave 🇪🇺 in Feb 2016
conservativehome.com/2016/02/22/n...
Our work on 🇫🇷-🇬🇧 bilateral relations reports 🇫🇷 has always taken view that Starmer would have to choose, that the strategy to ‘straddle both relationship with 🇪🇺 and Trump’s 🇺🇸’ would soon become untenable (🇫🇷 waiting to see)
@thibaudharrois.bsky.social
Read 👉
media.ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/u...
Indeed 👌 opener! 👇
And Spain had to react (or it at least very expected) given its political, social and economic ties with the region.
Quite the optimist!
It is very very rare for France to be outvoted - in public Council votes, it has been the least outvoted country every year.
This is also because usually France strikes a compromise. Here my reading is that Macron wants to be seen to be outvoted to evade blame for Mercosur in France.
👌 on behaviour of Trump’s close advisors mimicking a royal court, I had the exact same observation on IR theories 😬😬 👇 bsky.app/profile/cleo...
Well to be precise, the 🇫🇷 leader…. To be fair to 🇪🇸 Sanchez, he already had (see below), but the British press has a bit of a blind spot (😬) on 🇪🇸 politics. Just a country to go on holiday to. 👇 bsky.app/profile/cleo...
This is 👌 overview on 🇪🇸 PM Sanchez stances on US and Trump.
‘Sánchez’s criticism of Trump may be less risky than it first appears – but he is still being bold in articulating what many other European leaders think, but dare not say.’ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Very pertinent 👌. A logic that flies in the face of elaborate models developed to predict and explain state behaviour in international relations… though I suppose the reverberations of court behaviour are commensurate to the power held by the king/president (a new take needed on notion of hegemon 😬)
On the case for Starmer’s refusal to criticise Trump and the strategic paralysis it conceals. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Do they have oil, rare-metals, rare-earths?
If ‘tariffs’ ended up being one of the key terms for the global political economy in 2025, I admit I did not have ‘imperialism’ being one of them for 2026
Couldn’t agree more!!!
…🇬🇧 to make ‘sovereign decision’ to align on single market rules on sector by sector basis if in 🇬🇧’s national interest. Tautological language ‘sovereign decision’ of gvt to align 1st used by Thomas-Symonds in Lords in July 2025 as reply to Frost’s question on whether gvt is giving up sovereignty 🤷🏻♀️👇
Starmer speaking to Kuenssberg this morning on 🇬🇧 approach to 🇪🇺 = tautological formulation: ‘we made the sovereign decision [sic] as a gvt to align rules’ on food & agriculture ‘so that we can access the single market’. Going forward… 1/2 m.youtube.com/watch?v=qHU7...
On so many issues I find myself short of pertinent theories and frameworks capable of providing pertinent analytical insight when teaching my undergraduate courses in comparative politics and international political economy.
Mohamed Harbi: A great historian, whose work on Algerian nationalism I was very privileged to have discovered during my degree in history. An inspirational scholar who has shaped some of the great work on the recent history of Algeria-France relations www.lemonde.fr/disparitions...
Others doing 👌 challenging author’s take on 🇬🇧 domestic politics & policy. But on ‘🇪🇺 “friends” wanting to punish us for leaving’ it’s a serious strategic failure of 🇬🇧 gvts & analysts not to have anticipated 🇪🇺 reaction to what 🇪🇺 perceived as an existential threat. Brexit not only about 🇬🇧 #realpolitik
Our latest explainer @husseinkassim.bsky.social for @ukandeu.bsky.social (👇)can be read as a double bill with the one we did on 'How the 🇪🇺 manage and organise its relationship with the 🇬🇧 post-Brexit'.
👉 ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/h...
👇 also covers the different types of instruments needed for each area of deeper 🇪🇺🇬🇧 cooperation + procedure for adopting these. Builds on @husseinkassim.bsky.social & my longstanding work on 🇬🇧🇪🇺 relations + regular meetings with parties involved.
Disclaimer: published before 🇬🇧 agreement on Erasmus+
This is fair 👇
Probably the best status report written so far.
Tank you!!
Agree. But there is a spanner in the works: the 🇪🇺 perception of Starmer being weak is having consequences on its own negotiating stance 👇 bsky.app/profile/cleo...
And in turn, Starmer weak domestically leads to hardening 🇪🇺 bargaining stance, making his reset gains all the more unlikely 👇 bsky.app/profile/cleo...
