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Archive for November, 2016

Sleaford’s Brexit byelection: a people united by fear for the future – video

Wednesday, November 30th, 2016

John Harris visits Sleaford in Lincolnshire, where 62% of people voted to leave the EU, and the Tories, Labour and Ukip are contesting a byelection on 8 December after the resignation of Conservative MP Stephen Phillips. Older voters are concerned about immigration and national identity, while younger people seem to be on a different planet. But could shared fears bridge the generation gap?

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Is a progressive alliance the only way to stop hard-right populism?

Monday, November 28th, 2016

In this week’s Richmond Park byelection, Ukip and the Conservatives are backing Zac Goldsmith. Why can’t the parties of the left work together in the same way to oppose Brexit and Tory hegemony?

At 7am on Thursday, polling stations will open in an upmarket corner of west London for the Richmond Park byelection. This odd affair is entirely in keeping with a year of unexpected political events.

They might be the party of government, but the Conservatives are not putting up a candidate. The frontrunner is a self-styled “independent”: Zac Goldsmith, the unfathomably wealthy, roll-up-smoking Tory environmentalist who was until recently Richmond Park’s Conservative MP and the party’s candidate for London mayor.

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On Brexit, the Labour leadership offers anxious voters … nothing | John Harris

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2016

Who will block, delay or even question the government on its EU exit strategy? Not, it is increasingly clear, the opposition

Last week I was in Sleaford, Lincolnshire: a market town, population 17,000, with a very middle-English mixture of Barratt houses and boarded-up shops, and a political atmosphere defined by the increasingly fraught aftermath of the EU referendum.

Thanks to the resignation of its former Tory MP, Stephen Phillips, a leave supporter who admirably quit over the government’s high-handed attitude to parliament, there will be a byelection in the constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham on 8 December, which the Tories will easily win. However, since 62% of people in this part of the country voted to leave the EU, the visit offered an opportunity to find out where Brexit Britain is now at.

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