We welcome back Philip Cunliffe for the Leeds book launch of Taking Control: Sovereignty and Democracy After Brexit (Polity 2023) by Philip Cunliffe, George Hoare, Lee Jones and Peter Ramsay
Taking Control argues that neither side in the Brexit debate really understood the European Union or what was involved in reclaiming Britain’s sovereignty. The EU is neither a supranational nanny state, nor an internationalist peace project. It is the means by which Europe’s elites transformed their own states in order to rule the void where representative politics used to be. Taking Control argues that leaving the EU was a necessary but insufficient step towards closing the void between rulers and ruled.
But do you agree? Was it necessary to leave the EU to reclaim sovereignty and democracy? Is sovereignty really even possible in today’s globalised world? Doesn’t the return of war in Europe, and other international threats, make institutions like the EU more important today? And what is the cause of “the chasm between rulers and ruled”, and how might we close it?
