Dear Subscribers,
A recurring theme of these Newsletters has been the Labour government’s growing desire to reverse Brexit. On Wednesday, Starmer made his latest statement to this end: ‘In the coming weeks we will announce a new summit with our EU partners… we want to be more ambitious… a partnership that recognises our shared values, our shared interests, our shared future.’ To be sure, the Daily Mail reports that Starmer is planning a summit for around the time of the tenth anniversary of the referendum on 23 June.
Underlining Starmer’s ambitions, it has been revealed that marmalade will have to be re-labelled as ‘citrus marmalade’, so that British marmalade is absorbed into the EU’s legal definition of marmalade (according to which, marmalade comprises all non-citrus spreads). This is the consequence of a food deal made in March which was overshadowed by the ‘Mandelson files’ and the government’s definition of ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ (see the Newsletter from 15.03.2026).
Ed Miliband continues to attract attention. On Thursday The Times reported that he will be approving ‘the first major North Sea oil and gasfield project in almost ten years’ owing to the strains of the Iran war. It is hard to be sure as to why Miliband u-turned on this issue: in The Spectator Ross Clark suggests it was cynical, in light of John Swinney (SNP leader) announcing his support for granting a licence to drill, the fear being that Labour doesn’t want to compromise its Scottish votes. Clark ends on a blunt note: ‘so long as the net zero target remains in place, the fanatics are [still] going to be in charge.’
It was revealed in the Mail on Sunday that Jonathan Powell’s consultancy firm, Inter Mediate, was awarded £1 million by the state in October 2025 following the Chagos deal. Aside from this article, no coverage has been made by the mainstream tabloids of such a scandal, which, in many ways, is far more damning than anything for which Mandelson was brought down (ie, past associations and conduct, as opposed Powell’s conduct in this government). This week it has also come to light that a captain in the Royal Navy has stepped down, having been implicated with the Labour MP Joani Reid – whose husband was arrested on suspicion of spying for China.
Lastly, the teachers union (NEU) held their annual conference this week. They announced their determination to oppose ‘all forms of racism, fascism and far right extremism, including the divisive politics promoted by Reform UK.’ Meanwhile the BBC reports that there is a ‘masculinity crisis brewing’ in schools, referencing a rise in teachers reporting misogynistic abuse. Nothing is elaborated on, such as which communities and areas this is occurring, nor is there much imagination or thought as to why it is happening (‘online radicalisation, sexism and hate…incel ideologies’ a la Netflix’s Adolescence).
Blog
Rachel Reeves Wrong on Brexit by Graham Gudgin
Calls to move closer to the EU or even to rejoin the EU are becoming stronger from the Labour Party. The claim is that Brexit has damaged the UK economy. These claims are supported by much economic research but most of this is flawed. Because most academics oppose Brexit few economists have bothered to contest the existing research.
Media
Chris Bayliss in The Critic: Crisis? Watt crisis?
Madeline Grant in The Spectator: Religion has been resurrected in British politics
(An interesting follow-up discussion on The Spectator YouTube channel: Is politics becoming more religious? With Tom Holland & Jonathan Sumption)
Dominic Sandbrook in The Times: Who does Keir Starmer remind me of? Edward Heath
Analysis
Net Zero: a dividing line
‘Ed Miliband has sold us all out… [Labour] are bought and paid for’ went Zack Polanski’s response to Miliband’s granting a drilling licence in the North Sea. Quite how sincere or deeply held Polanski’s commitment to green politics is questionable, even doubtful.
But green politics here do not only serve a literal, policymaking function. They also have a party-political function. It is an expedient commitment Polanski can make to distance the Greens from the Labour party; and, as such, to position itself as the party of the British left.
On the right there is a near consensus that Net Zero has been a net failure. Where it was once a position that a variety of liberal conservatives or socialists could take, it is now hardening into an formative issue, upon which one can stake one’s political identity either leftwards or rightwards. It does not matter whether Polanski is deeply committed to it or not: it matters that he is seen doing so and therefore undercutting the Labour party’s grasp on the left-wing vote.
Teachers, children and social media
It is becoming boring and predictable to see the modern liberal mind at work. The cause of classroom misogyny, we hear, is social media, which is apparently brainwashing the youth. The effect is physical violence against women – note that the effect is never argued, just assumed. There, reader, is a formula for writing your own Adolescence.
The hysteria (or irrationality) which breeds such one-dimensional thought is typical of liberalism. There is an assumption that what is thought must necessarily lead to a corresponding action, regardless of any sort of practical reality or context in which all action in real life takes place. (The same logic informs much of our political thinking: see how critics of Brexit insist that it must be the cause of economic damage.)
In the case of teenagers, it is believed that their minds are blank slates that are fed rants by Andrew Tate, for example, criticising women. Because teenagers are not intelligent enough to think for themselves and are just receptacles of doctrines and beliefs, they will robotically adopt all the attitudes which they are fed on social media.
It is assumed that the age of 18 is when humans start thinking: why, of course!, because it is written down in law that they are officially adults – forget that Mozart was composing at younger than 10, Pope translating the Iliad aged 12 or Nelson sailing to the Arctic aged 14. No, before turning 18, teenagers are only the receptacles of thoughts, programmable like robots, incapable of self-conscious thought. Therefore, they must be taught to think correctly – something more like the NEU’s opposition to fascism, the Reform party and other targets of liberal resentment.
Now, the desire to ban social media and phones from schools is well-intended by some campaigners, most prominently Sophie Winkleman. But in others these are tedious arguments of an insidious intent – one which ultimately comes down to ensuring that the youth are thinking correctly.
Amidst these debates it is worth reflecting on how many aspects of it are uncritically assumed. Why, for instance, must the consumption of ‘manosphere’ videos necessarily inspire a hatred of women? Why not disgust at Andrew Tate’s vulgarity? Is it possible to watch such content and not want to inflict violence on women? Why, moreover, is anything conservative or anti-liberal universally reviled – worse still, censured – by the teaching establishment?
Like liberals in politics, liberal teachers are deluded about their claims to authority. They wish to command absolute moral authority, as a religious clerisy would, and silence dissent by condemnation. Yet they have no sense of how arbitrary their moral authority is – nor do they realise how susceptible they are to extreme ideas.
