English
The Economics of Europe’s Descent into Warmongering – and our duty now!
, 13/06/2025
On Tuesday, June 10 2025, I addressed a meeting at the European Parliament, an event organised by The Left and M5S Europa, on the theme of “The Economic Conditions for Peace”, alongside Jeffrey Sachs and Giuseppe Conte. My talk can be watched and read here. [INTRODUCTION] A year ago, I would have started this speech with a lament […]
A Chinese New Bretton Woods? – Quancha op-ed
, 08/06/2025
Donald Trump has made it impossible for any sensible person to persevere in the delusion that global business can continue as usual. We should all welcome this, even if we are livid with Trump’s shocking behaviour, decisions and narratives. The global economy will either be rebalanced or it will crash in ways that may make […]
Trump Wants Big Tech to Own the Dollar – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 05/06/2025
The IMF-World Bank Spring meetings are usually placid affairs that participating central bankers wish to forget soon after they are over. Not this Spring. This April the feeling several central bankers brought back home with them was not the usual relief but something far more visceral: dread, terror even. The reason? The spectre of the […]
Exposing Keir Starmer’s military spending scam – interview with Declassified UK
, 05/06/2025
Just days into his premiership, Keir Starmer announced the commissioning of a “root and branch” Strategic Defence Review (SDR), writes Kate Hudson. Under the leadership of Lord Robertson, former defence secretary and NATO secretary general, the review panel claims to have broken with tradition, by including a much wider range of participants than usual – […]
In the EU nothing succeeds like gross failure: The astonishing case of Ursula von der Leyen – Der Freitag 29 MAY 2025
, 05/06/2025
Failure, corruption and warmongering: Ursula von der Leyen is awarded the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen for her contribution to the EU – because in Europe utter failure is not only tolerated, but celebrated! It is one of life’s guilty pleasures when one’s cynical prejudices are confirmed. One such moment, when I allowed myself a […]
How Europe’s sheer stupidity combined with its ethical downfall to underwrite Israel’s genocide of Palestinians – Middle East Eye
, 20/05/2025
“A mixture of stupidity and nastiness… The liberal establishment is primarily responsible for the genocide of the Palestinians.” In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, Yanis Varoufakis unleashes a fierce critique of Western liberalism, and tells us why he feels that the global system is in crisis. This episode explores the facade of Western moral superiority, the […]
Our New Economic World Order & Europe’s Suicide: In discussion with Glenn Diesen
, 13/05/2025
The hitherto US-centric economic model has exhausted itself, and Trump’s government is pushing to restructure the international economic architecture to maintain US hegemony. China is the main rival in this new reality, while the Europeans are becoming an impoverished appendage to the US. The Europeans could chart a more favourable path forward, except that they […]
UNHERD’s Freddie Sayers interviews Y. Varoufakis & W. Munchau on Europe’s prospects in the era of Trump
, 11/05/2025
UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers interviews renowned economist and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and Eurointelligence founder Wolfgang Münchau as they dissect the escalating trade war between Europe and the United States. With the US recently striking a so-called trade deal with the UK, and news of India signing a comprehensive agreement with the UK, tensions […]
Some thoughts on the 80th Anniversary of Victory over Fascism
, 08/05/2025
Eighty years ago today, the monstrous machinery of the Third Reich was finally ground to dust. The swastika was torn from the Reichstag, the death camps liberated, and Europe—bloodied, traumatised, but unbowed—emerged from history’s darkest night. It was not merely a military victory; it was the triumph of solidarity over fascism, of internationalism over racial […]
Discussing Trump’s Economic Masterplan with David Marr, on ABC Late Night Live
, 16/04/2025
Economist Yanis Varoufakis says we shouldn’t underestimate Trump – he has a plan to shock the global economy, force foreign countries to buy crypto-currency in return for a deal on tariffs, and ultimately pay down debt and keep the US dollar at the centre of the global financial system. But it’s a high risk strategy […]
NEOLIBERALISM IS DEAD. SAY HELLO TO TECHLORDISM – Project Syndicate op-ed & video
, 15/04/2025
Neoliberalism was neither new nor particularly liberal when it prevailed 50 years ago. Its great advantage was its sharp deviation from classical liberalism. Even though it paid tribute to liberal thinkers, neoliberalism shared neither their method nor their concept of the market. Today, we are on the cusp of another, equally profound, ideological innovation. Unlike […]
‘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)
On the political economics and the history behind Donald Trump’s tariff war – Politics JOE
, 09/04/2025
In this interview with Oli Dugmore, for Politics JOE, I had a chance to lay out – in around 30 minutes – the political economics and economic history behind Donald Trump’s tariff war. As I said to Oli, those of us who oppose Trump have a duty to understand what his team are up to […]
Forget shares, bonds and tariffs. Here is what you should really worry about
, 09/04/2025
While waiting for the EU’s response to the Trump Shock (don’t hold your breath for evidence of intelligent life from Brussels…), those of you who really want to worry about something big, turn your attentions to perhaps the largest threat for the status quo – greater than tariffs, equities, bond prices etc. What is that? […]
Should Le Pen be barred? What is the Left’s right answer on this conundrum?
, 09/04/2025
This is a crucial conversation to have in general, not particularly about Marine Le Pen. It is about the principled position that the democratic Left must take on the question of who has the right to remove the political rights (the right to vote and to seek votes) of whom. We know what can happen […]
How will Europe, Britain & China react to the Trump shock: On TIMES Radio & Unherd’s Undercurrents
, 03/04/2025
In this interview, I argue that how Trump’s Shock pans out will largely depend on whether Europe and China will act in concert or turn against one another. As for the UK, Trump has given Brexit a major boost. And here is another interview with Emily Jeshinsky of Unherd’s Undercurrents on the same subject: Trump’s […]
Will the Trump Shock prove as momentous as the Nixon Shock? UNHERD op-ed & on BBC tv
, 03/04/2025
“My philosophy, Mr President, is that all foreigners are out to screw us and it’s our job to screw them first.” With these words, the US Treasury Secretary convinced the President to deliver a colossal shock to the global economy. In the words of one of the President’s men, the objective was to trigger “a […]
The Case Against European Rearmament – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 25/03/2025
If we truly want to strengthen Europe, the first step is not to rearm. It is to forge the democratic union without which stagnation will continue to erode Europe’s capacities, rendering it unable to rebuild what is left of Ukraine once Vladimir Putin is finished with it. ATHENS – Inducting Ukraine into NATO after forcing […]
Goodbye, LINKE!
, 22/03/2025
In its quest to become a ‘normal’, ‘acceptable’ party, Die Linke has joined the warmongering radical centrists in their rearmament folly This past week was one for the history books. The German parliament amended the constitutional debt brake so as to enable unlimited military spending, irrespectively of how deeply into the red it will push […]
Crypto’s role in Trump’s economic masterplan (with special emphasis on stablecoins) – UNHERD
, 19/03/2025
After dismissing Bitcoin as a scam during his first White House stint, Trump warmed to cryptocurrencies during his re-election campaign. To complete his conversion, on the 6th of March the 47th President signed an executive order to set up a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a US Digital Asset Stockpile”. The United States government sensibly stockpiles […]
Stand with South Africa against Trump’s wrath – Globe&Mail op-ed
, 18/03/2025
When the powerful punish the principled, we glimpse the unmasked face of empire. Donald Trump’s vindictive executive order denying aid to South Africa — punishment for its support of Palestine and pursuit of land reform — offers precisely such a moment of clarity. The contours of our new global struggle are now etched with brutal […]