Are Britain's rulers quietly dismantling democracy? Robert Tombs argues the Starmer government is...
Author - Robert Tombs
France and Britain are great powers brought low by little men
With both nations crying out for a heroic figure like De Gaulle to fight their corners, they are...
Is Britain Broken?
Is Britain ‘broken’? Despite the meaning being undefined, this has become a dividing line between...
The great ‘Reset’ con
Brexit-bashing is in vogue. For a government whose response to every failure is a variant on ‘It...
What was Macron’s state visit for?
An earlier version of the following article was published in the Sunday Times before President...
Facing up to danger
The perils we face in an increasingly uncertain world are real, but less frightening than were...
Where does our security lie?
Britain’s oldest diplomatic strategy is in ruins. Donald Trump has begun to wake us up. We need to...
Who actually wants a reset with the EU?
We are constantly told by pro-EU voices that the country has turned against Brexit and now favours...
Brexit is not yet done
There is a stubborn attachment to the faded utopia of the EU among those who resented Brexit. If...
Britain’s Place in the World
Our co-editor Robert Tombs was recently invited to take part in a discussion at St George’s House...
The response of the intellectuals to the 2016 Brexit referendum
This is a shortened version of a paper recently given to a conference at the European Parliament on...
D-Day and Putin
Wars are inevitably won by economic and industrial power. But only on condition that governments...
The Michaela Community School
The Michaela school is a bright spot in an often depressing cultural and educational landscape. For...
Four years on
Four years after Brexit many people still regard it as a mistake. Much at fault here are...
Books on Brexit: This Sovereign Isle
We thought that BfB readers might like to hear this interesting and thoughtful interview with our...
The illusion of decline
There has long been a belief that Britain is a country in decline: once a ‘superpower’, now simply...
Global Britain: allies, enemies, interests
We are necessarily rethinking our global strategy not only due to Brexit but because of new dangers...
M. Barnier’s little helpers
During the tortuous negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union (represented...
Prophets of decline
What are the views of the people who represent us abroad and direct our foreign policy? If Lord...
The Abuse of History for Brexit Bashing
It is sad to see feeble and rather hackneyed anti-Brexit clichés being produced by academic...
What’s wrong with claims of a ‘£1tn export failure’? Just about...
The recent Guardian article lamenting that the UK ‘will be 15 years late in hitting £1tn annual...
50 Years of dithering about Europe
The 50th anniversary of Britain’s accession to the then Common Market seems a good moment for...
The Queen and the people
Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Queen of Canada...
Badenoch for PM: a personal view
There is no new formula for political success: now as always it is energy, intelligence, honesty...
What Remainers are saying now. And getting their facts wrong.
A debate against Stella Creasy and Dominic Grieve.Last Thursday I took part in a debate in London...
Why is St Paul’s Cathedral commemorating a Benin slave trader?
Professor Tombs accuses the Church of England of hypocrisy in a new memorial in St Paul's Cathedral...
Deterring catastrophe: some lessons from history
In trying to understand the present crisis in the Ukraine, and suggesting how further disasters can...
Should Boris apologize to the French?
Sylvie Bermann, France’s ambassador in London from 2014-17, has written an article in The Guardian...
The UK’s fraught relationship with France
In his Interview with Gilles Senges of L’Opinion magazine, Robert Tombs described the French...
Michel Barnier’s diary: a review
We shall soon be able to read Michel Barnier’s ‘secret Brexit diary’ in English. It is an important...
Brexit: 5 years on
What in 2016 seemed a very British decision to leave the EU, now seems part of wider changes in the...
The Cambridge debacle
Repeated and serious damage is being done to the University and its international reputation by...
A reply to critics of Brexit
Two prominent and heavyweight Remainer commentators recently took me to task over Brexit. How solid...
The British economy has long outperformed the EU.
This simple and demonstrable fact is something that many people find very hard to accept. Why...
A devastating indictment of the EU
The prominent Left-wing intellectual Perry Anderson has just published a comprehensive and crushing...
Britain is part of Europe: but how much a part?
Brexit proves that, even in the 1970s, it was too late to alter the global orientation of our...
Only a ‘good’ Brexit can stop Scottish independence
Professor Robert Tombs views Scottish separatism as a pipedream. To be accurate it is a dream of...
The return of the Remainer Undead
They don’t give up! Having tried and failed to force an ‘extension’ to the transition period...
Brexit in Hindsight: Historical Reflections
Much of the debate about Brexit has been based on some notion of history, and what history tells us...
Dealing with the French: Frost versus Barnier, Bacon versus...
Over the centuries, the British and French have found each other particularly difficult to...
Sovereignty: people, parliament, government
Brexit has always been about the sovereignty of the nation. It has now become just as much about...
What Makes Die-Hard Remainers Tick?
What makes the die-hard Remainers tick? This is not about whether it was more sensible in 2016 to...
The Money Behind Remain
It is well known that the continuing campaign to overturn the 2016 vote has been lavishly funded...
Prof. Tombs warns demands for a People’s Vote are...
In another exclusive B4B podcast Professor Robert Tombs, co-founder of the B4B website, considers...
Imposing a ‘backstop’ on Northern Ireland will infringe the...
The arguments contained in this article have been read and fully endorsed by Rt Hon Sir Richard...
Who are the Populists? By Robert Tombs
The ‘People’s Vote’ campaign is a shameless example of Populism. Indeed, it is the most frivolous...
Transforming the political landscape. Lessons from history. By...
To transform the political landscape, there needs to be a crucial issue about which both active...
The UK between Isolationism and Global Britain by Professor...
In his recent lecture for the Académie Royale de Belgique, Professor Robert Tombs argues that...
Preparing to Exit. An BfB Report on Alternatives to Chequers
This report examines the Chequers White Paper and compares its proposals with four alternatives set...
Preparing to Exit by Professor Robert Tombs
Robert Tombs introduces a dossier based on articles by BfB contributors suggesting alternatives to...