DiEM25 UK
‘Democracy under fire’: My remarks at the London Press Conference on the Vanishing Right to Protest (11-4-2025) alongside Juliet Stevenson, Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos, Jeremy Corbyn, Chris Nineham and Ben Jamal
, 13/04/2025
We are here today because democracy is on death row, because the treasured right to dissent is at gunpoint, because your capacity to do journalism is under fire. I remember when I came to Britain as a student in 1978 how overjoyed I was to be in a country where I felt safe from the […]
Yanis Varoufakis on Tony Benn’s legacy – 11 APRIL 2025, audio
, 13/04/2025
On 11th April 2025, Melissa Benn, Jeremy Corbyn and Yanis Varoufakis addressed an audience at the University of Westminster dedicated to the memory of Tony Benn – almost 100 years from his birth. This is what Yanis had to say about Tony’s legacy at that event. (Click icon above for audio)
Europe in the Post-Atlanticist Era – The Guardian
, 21/02/2025
JD Vance, the US Vice President, told Europeans that their values are no longer America’s values. Pete Hegseth, the US Defence Secretary, added that Europeans “can’t make an assumption that America’s presence will last forever.” Keith Kellog, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, confirmed that Europe will not have a seat at the table […]
Rachel Reeves’ unbearable acquiescence to the City bankers – UNHERD
, 16/01/2025
The curse of finance ministers whose country’s business model is broken is that they are powerless to transform the economy, yet too powerful not to take the blame. But when the economy is merely stagnating, not yet in free-fall, preventing the descent into a financial crisis should require no more than average competence. Sadly, the […]
Our Present Moment in History: a wide-ranging discussion with Aaron Bastani in a packed EarthH Theatre – 14th FEB 2024
, 02/03/2024
On 14th February 2024, I had the great privilege of a live discussion with Aaron Bastani in front of a marvellous audience at EartH in Hackney, North-East London. We talked about, of course, Israel-Palestine, but also about China and, in particular, the New Cold War being waged for control of what I call cloud capital. […]
Novara interview on almost everything (e.g. Crisis, Democracy, Syria, Israel-Palestine, Journalism at gunpoint)
, 22/02/2024
Ash speaks to Yanis Varoufakis and film director Raoul Martinez about their new film Eye Of The Storm: The Political Odyssey of Yanis Varoufakis, what the left got wrong after 2008 and the West’s complicity in the genocide happening in Gaza. You can buy ‘In The Eye of the Storm: The Political Odyssey of Yanis […]
PoliticsJOE interview on capitalism, technofeudalism, the Labour Party, Western Hegemony and Gaza
, 22/02/2024
Sat down to discuss the downfall of capitalism and Western hegemony, the Labour Party’s shunt to the right, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Also, we discussed Raoul Martinez’s documentary In The Eye of the Storm: The Political Odyssey of Yanis Varoufakis
The Guilty Feminist Culture Club: In the Eye of the Storm with Yanis Varoufakis and Raoul Martinez
, 22/02/2024
Interviewed by by Deborah Frances-White in Brian Eno’s Studio, on the occasion of the launch of Raoul Martinez’s IN THE EYE OF THE STORM: Yanis Varoufakis’ Political Odyssey Recorded 15 February in London. Released 21 February 2024. For THE GUILTY FEMINIST side, click here.
Why is Labour still using the self-defeating, discredited ‘maxed out credit card’ analogy? The GUARDIAN
, 22/02/2024
It is one thing to U-turn on a modest green transition programme. It is another to do so using mendacious Tory economic paradigms. Rarely has a lacklustre policy been abandoned for a reason so bad that it threatens to inflict long-term damage on a society. Independently of whether the £28bn green investment programme was the […]
In celebration of Rosemary Bechler 1951-2021 (text & video)
, 01/02/2024
I met Rosemary in February 2016 in Berlin, where we inaugurated DiEM25. After weeks of frantic emailing, in which she had made clear her determination to be part of our pan-European movement from its beginning to her very last breath (as it turned out), I first held her hand in mine fittingly in the Red […]
How the EU out-trumped Trump, plus what is killing capitalism: My last week’s Diary in The New Statesman
, 18/07/2023
The week started ominously with a French journalist asking me whether the Greeks have turned cold-hearted, alluding to the apparent apathy to the drowning of hundreds of refugees off the coast of the Peloponnese and to the murky role played in this tragedy by our Coastguard. Yes, I replied without a second thought. A population […]
What to do about the Parthenon Marbles – interviewed by Michael Portillo
, 25/04/2023
Following my article in Unherd about the Parthenon Marbles, Michael Portillo interviewed me on the subject for GB News.
Europe’s latest illiberal democracy: Greece! – New Statesman
, 24/03/2023
“Like lambs to the slaughter” was how an elderly neighbour described the deaths of youngsters travelling on Intercity 62 which, on the night of 28 February, crashed head-on with a freight train in Greece killing 57 people. Many of the dead were students returning after a long weekend from Athens to their universities in Thessaloniki. […]
On the shameful deal Osborne-Mitsotakis are hammering out over the Parthenon antiquities – UNHERD
, 24/03/2023
From the very beginning, Elgin’s removal of the Parthenon’s statues and friezes caused something of a discursive British civil war. On one side were humanists, like Lord Byron; on the other were Empire apologists, who defend Elgin’s actions and support the British Museum’s inalienable property rights to the artefacts it, eventually, purchased from him. Over […]
Rishi Sunak’s ‘grown-up’ austerity is designed to keep zombie capitalism alive
, 10/11/2022
The demise of Trussonomics was a welcome victory for decency and common sense in a minor battle within a broader class war. Sadly, the class that Liz Truss tried to bolster with copious tax and regulatory gifts will win this war by deploying an even nastier, blunter, dirtier weapon: austerity. Britain’s wealthy owe a debt […]
Should electricity markets be reformed or disbanded? My debate with Michael Liebreich on Cleaning Up
, 01/11/2022
The other day, Michael Liebreich and I had a lively discussion on his CleaningUp podcast provoked by my call “to blow up the electricity markets”. It was fun but, of course, fell short of a comprehensive analysis of the complex issues pertaining to the political economy of electricity generation and distribution. Following our debate, Michael […]
Comradely disagreements between progressives over Ukraine & the New Cold War – Reply to Anthony Barnett
, 12/10/2022
Anthony Burnett, a friend, comrade and collaborator, just published an article in openDemocracy, a splendid and much loved source of progressive ideas and material, to which he alerted me in a mail reading: “Dear Yanis, we disagree but in solidarity!” Since Anthony’s article mentions me, along with Jeremy Corbyn, in its subtitle, here I am, […]
Trickle-down Truss is carrying on the dirty work of Thatcher, Blair and Osborne – THE GUARDIAN
, 01/10/2022
If Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget survives the storm it triggered, a banker on a million-pound annual salary stands to receive £50,000 of income tax relief – on top of the extra bonuses the bank can throw in, now that the Liz Truss government has removed the cap on them. Meanwhile, a Deliveroo rider gets a pep […]
Zombie capitalism is unravelling – THE NEW STATESMAN
, 29/09/2022
This is no sterling crisis. It is a crisis of British capitalism caused by 40 years of underinvestment and deindustrialisation, exacerbated by chronic reliance on speculative bubbles and triggered by Liz Truss’s extravagant kindness to Britain’s wealthy. While all eyes are on the fall of the pound, the real drama revolves around the Bank of England’s […]
Europe’s electricity market: the scam of the century? – Video
, 21/09/2022
Every fortnight, DiEM25’s coordinating team livestreams our internal discussions of topics central to Europe’s and the world’s current predicament. On 8th September 2022 we discussed the electricity price hikes that, like a wrecking ball, are destroying what is left of Europe’s sustainability as an economic and social entity. Here is a clip of my analysis […]
Chatting with Owen Jones on Rwanda, Brexit, Keir Starmer, Assange, Melenchon, Ukraine and Paul Mason – video
, 20/06/2022
We had a lot to talk about: Britain’s deporting of refugees to Rwanda, how Boris Johnson’s ‘oven-cooked’ Brexit deal is unravelling, Keir Starmer’s dishonest leadership of the Labour party, the political situation in Spain, the revival of the French left, how the horror of the Ukraine war can end, the extradition of Julian Assange, and […]
Here is what Central Banks could do to stem inflation without crushing the poor or killing off the Green Transition – The Guardian
, 16/04/2022
Inflation is a disease that disproportionately afflicts the poor. Even before Vladimir Putin unleashed his brutal war on Ukraine, whose byproducts include soaring energy and food prices, inflation was already over 7.5% in the US and above 5% in Europe and the UK. Calls for its taming are, therefore, fully justified – and the interest rate rise in the US, […]
How the euro divided Europe, and why countries like Bulgaria should not join – Project Syndicate, Oxford Union video & Keynote audio
, 26/01/2022
This January marked the 20th anniversary of euro notes and coins circulating. In an op-ed published by Project Syndicate I argue that the euro was an unmitigated failure even by the criteria of its architects. This is an updated analysis of a keynote I delivered a few years ago at the Oxford Union – see […]
On Brexit and the task of confronting technofeudalism – Interview in The Morning Star
, 03/01/2022
ONE YEAR since the final deal for Brexit was announced, it remains one of the most divisive political subjects for a generation. Perhaps unknown to most, the incendiary B-word had its genesis in the term “Grexit” — coined during tumultuous years after the 2008 credit crunch when a Greek exit from the EU was speculated, […]