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Charlie Laderman is Research Fellow in History at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge.

June 22, 2016|Boris Johnson, Brexit, European Communities Act of 1972, Richard Dawkins

The “Vote Leave” Campaigners Haven’t Thought It Through

From left, Democratic presidential candidates businessman Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., stand on stage, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, before a Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

On the day that Britain decides whether its destiny lies within or without the European Union, I will be in California. On the surface, I could not be more far removed from the Brexit dilemma. The cool, clear Californian air seems a world away from the toxic atmosphere currently engulfing Britain. And yet, California offers a unique vantage point on the EU referendum. For the Golden State is the clearest example of a polity rendered, at times, almost ungovernable by a mania for direct democracy.

September 22, 2015|Break-up of Yugoslavia, European refugee crisis, European Union, Soccer hooligans

Epicenter of Craziness

by Charlie Laderman|1 Comment

Hungarian authorities clash with migrants along a stretch of recently constructed border fence.

Surrounded by commando-clad riot police, the Belgrade skyline tinged smoky red and the air filled with battle cries punctured by exploding firecrackers, I was reminded of Rebecca West’s confession that “violence was all I knew of the Balkans, all I knew of the South Slavs.”

January 16, 2015|Anti-Semitism, Charlie Hebdo, Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, Hamas, Manuel Valls, Tim Wilcox

“If 100,000 Jews Leave, France Will No Longer Be France.”

by Charlie Laderman, Brendan Simms|3 Comments

Interior of the Grand Synagogue of Paris

In France and around the world, the fight can only be won by challenging the ideology that justifies the deliberate killing of innocent civilians.

September 18, 2014|Abraham Lincoln, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Scottish National Party

Will the Secret Weapon Be Enough?: Brown’s Barnstorming to Make “No” as Inspiring as “Yes”

by Charlie Laderman|Leave a Comment

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visits a polling station at North Queensferry Community Center in North Queensferry, Scotland.

Three hundred and seven years ago, Englishmen and Scotsmen brought forth, upon the British Isles, a new Union, conceived in English insecurity and Scottish impecuniosity, and dedicated to the proposition that the two peoples, if not equal, at least had more in common than either did with the French.

The original Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707 was a “political necessity for England, a commercial necessity for Scotland,” as one historian put it. For contemporary champions of Union, the necessities that were the mother of its invention are as pressing as ever.