Nick Cohen talks to John McTernan - , the political strategist and commentator, and a former senior advisor to the Labour Party. John was Tony Blair's Director of Political Operations from 2005-2007 before acting as special advisor to two cabinet ministers under Blair's Number 10 successor - Gordon Brown. Other roles since then has been as a columnist at The Scotsman and as Director of Communications for Australia's Labor party prime minister Julia Gillard.

The Conservative Party appears to be crumbling before our very eyes: poorly led, tanking in the polls way behind Reform, myopically fixated on failed crank ideologies like Brexit & its preposterous Rwanda migrant scheme - while Nigel Farage surges ahead of them in the polls with his latest political vehicle - Reform. The first step to seeing off the populist right embodied by Farage, argues John, is to understand his appeal , adding "Farage sees the demand for change in the public, names his party Reform, another word for change, and is going quite successfully, just simply stating "The country voted for change. Where's the change?"

John says that Labour has to be aware of the coalition support. - the two wings of different supporters the party needs to balance out on a wide range of issues and win round, saying "they elected us this time around, and that was a coalition of two halves. It was absolutely liberal minded, guardian reading, graduate London and South East voters, as well as, working class, Northern voters... if Labour moves too far in either direction towards the liberal green minded green agenda, or towards, the right wing agenda, it will lose.

"It's got to maintain both of those wings. You know, a plane flies on two wings. This government needs two wings of support. So I would be, my advice into combating Farage us is take him seriously. This is real, you can't ignore it. Understand the dynamics that are working out on the right of politics everywhere in Europe."

Nick Cohen's @NickCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond.

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This week, Nick Cohen discusses the current & disturbing breakdown in international law - in the week indicted alleged war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu was the first overseas guest of convicted felon President Donald Trump with author & campaigner Steve Crawshaw, the author of the just published Prosecuting the powerful: War crimes & the pursuit of justice.

Donald Trump, Vladamir Putin & Xi Jinping - let alone their 'mini mes' in Hungary, Israel & elsewhere - are proving a toxic combo' for the maintenance of a new world order that came into being in the wake of the Nuremberg trials. Slobodan Milošević, Ratko Mladić and 19 other individuals have been jailed by the International Criminal Court at The Hague for crimes ranging from genocide to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Bringing powerful political crooks seemed to usher in a new age of international justice. Yet now indicted personalities such as Putin remain at large, while Benjamin Netanyahu is feted by Donald Trump, himself the first convicted felon to occupy the White House.

Trump has just issued sanction against the ICC and its senior officials, partly in retaliation for their indictment of Netanyahu!

What can we do to stop our world reversing into a new international disorder? Steve Crawshaw argues this is not the time to "hide under the duvet" but to fight back against a tide of authoritarianism and contempt for the international rule of law.

Steve Crawshaw @stevecrawshaw reported extensively for decades from Europe. He was in Poland during the rise of Solidarity in Poland, a pivotal event in the fall of the Berlin Wall, and covered the wars in the early 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. Steve has worked subsequently for NGOs, including Amnesty International and Freedom From Torture. He is now a freelance journalist and writer. His latest book, Prosecuting the powerful: War crimes & the pursuit of justice, has published by Little, Brown Book Group.

Nick Cohen's @NickCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond.

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On the fifth anniversary of Brexit, Nick Cohen @NickCohen4 talks with Naomi Smith, @pimllicat chief executive officer of Best for Britain which is campaigning for a re-building of the important relationship the UK once enjoyed with its closest and biggest trading partners in the European Union.

Poll after poll has shown that public confidence in Brexit has all but collapsed. The July 2024 election returned a strong remainer-friendly parliament and yet the Labour government is trying to work with the badly bungled hard Brexit deal inflicted on the country by Boris Johnson and David Frost.

Naomi argues that the government can be bolder in re-building the relationship with Europe, so recklessly destroyed by Johnson & co. The country should not allow itself to be trapped with a project that has obviously failed. It seems Brexit is being prosecuted by people who don't believe in it to indulge the extremist nationalist fantasies of the political & media grifters & con artists who argued for for it.

"We are not stuck with it and there is a way out," insists Naomi, who cites reliable recent research showing how Brexit is impoverishing the average Brit by at least £2,000 a year, killing growth, ransacking public services, crippling business with red tape and not only killing growth, but is knocking a massive 4% off annual GDP. (The 2008 Great Recession/crash led to a 2% reduction.)

Namoi said the government is beginning to break the taboo on Brexit, adding, "they are now beginning to talk more openly about how bad the deal that Johnson and Frost negotiated was for the country...They are now beginning to talk more openly about how bad the deal that Johnson and Frost negotiated was for the country. They don't do it ad nauseam."

Naomi adds, "People aren't stupid. They've realised that they were sold a load of rubbish, and that their lives weren't going to improve and they can't now see their GP any more easily than they could before we left the EU etc."

Naomi Smith is one of the country's most incisive commentators on politics & the UK-Europe relationship. She can also be found on Bluesky . Naomi is also a seasoned podcaster, co-hosting the Quiet Riot Pod, the politics podcast with more passion, less shouting & lots of laughter.

Nick Cohen's @NickCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond.

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