Chris Grey
@chrisgrey.bsky.social
35K followers 730 following 1.3K posts
Emeritus Prof of Organization Studies, Royal Holloway University of London, ex-Prof Warwick & Cambridge. FAcSS, FRHistS. Now mainly analysis of Brexit including Brexit & Beyond Blog. Author Brexit Unfolded (Biteback, 2021, 2023). Elsewhere @chrisgreybrexit
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chrisgrey.bsky.social
So it's now 7 years since the vote to leave the EU. For a detailed account & analysis of what happened from the day after that, see my book, "Brexit Unfolded: How no one got what they wanted (and why they were never going to)" (2nd, updated, edition 2023): www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/brexit...
Reposted by Chris Grey
jdportes.bsky.social
I hope and believe that most of my fellow Jews will join me in saying that it is sickening that anyone should justify this outpouring of execrable racist bile by claiming that it's for our sake.
igmansfield.bsky.social
Outstanding piece by Stephen Daisley.

Ethnicity is no barrier to Britishness - it's culture and integration.

That means 'smaller cohorts and aggressive integration policies' - and tackling the institutions that 'have amplified grievance narratives and radical anti-Western ideologies'.
chrisgrey.bsky.social
Surely we need more not fewer anthropologists if we're going to have a proper culture war? And if it is to be a performative one about social integration into English language and culture, then the other disciplines she mentions will have their uses in the future she envisages, too.
ottoenglish.bsky.social
Badenoch and Co see education only as a means to a massive income in some soul destroying career.

Devoid of imagination and the power of knowledge they view life entirely through the prism of the CV.

My advice always is to study what interests you and the rest will follow
chrisgrey.bsky.social
There's also something disgusting about a qualified solicitor, so it can't have been said from ignorance, suggesting, as Jenrick did today, that barristers' beliefs and values can be deduced from those of their clients.
chrisgrey.bsky.social
It's dangerous and it's also incoherent: I heard Jenrick saying today that when judges don the wig it symbolizes the point they leave personal views & identifications aside. Fine, but this makes his claim (if even true) that some judges have 'links' with immigrants' charities utterly irrelevant.
timbale.bsky.social
If you can't see how this will end, then you're not paying attention (not least to what's going on on the other side of the Atlantic).
chrisgrey.bsky.social
Dubai seems to have become the new Singapore for Brexiters, even as they flog the rest of us to show obeisance to 'British values'.
sundersays.bsky.social
Party donor Nick Candy says "I cherish the values we grew up with here in the West. But today you are more likely to find the values we grew up with in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.’

Via Sam Leith in the Spectator
www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...
chrisgrey.bsky.social
Just listened to report on today's debates about 'integration' on R4 news. Fair enough as a report, but a depressing illustration of how those debates conflate & confuse issues of (undefined) values, culture, colour, religion, nationality, locality & birthplace. So the 'debate' never goes anywhere.
chrisgrey.bsky.social
And, even worse, describes them as a "hidden network", positing not just bias but conspiracy
chrisgrey.bsky.social
This really needs to be said and understood. What makes it worse, if possible, is that it is not coming out of any genuine crisis or emergency. It is a deliberate attempt to whip up anger and grievance in order to capitalise upon it & in Jenrick's case purely to advance his leadership ambitions.
tanjabueltmann.net
I say this with the bluntness it requires: they will get people murdered if this continues. This is not just populism anymore either: it’s completely unhinged and a deliberate choice that does endanger lives. I am not saying this lightly at all.
Screenshot of an Express article; it says: Robert Jenrick lists 30 'activist judges' he vows to axe in war on UK's open border

In a bold move, Robert Jenrick is set to unveil a controversial plan targeting what he calls 'activist' judges, at the Conservative Party conference.
chrisgrey.bsky.social
Well, I think Jenrick is right about that, or certainly right that it is how it should be. My point is that, this being so, his criticism is irrelevant unless he can show bias in judgments made. Which I doubt, since he went on to cite the notoriously false 'chicken nuggets' case claim.
chrisgrey.bsky.social
The point isn't about anonymity, it's about the separation of personality and office, a basic principle of legal-rational authority.
chrisgrey.bsky.social
It's dangerous and it's also incoherent: I heard Jenrick saying today that when judges don the wig it symbolizes the point they leave personal views & identifications aside. Fine, but this makes his claim (if even true) that some judges have 'links' with immigrants' charities utterly irrelevant.
timbale.bsky.social
If you can't see how this will end, then you're not paying attention (not least to what's going on on the other side of the Atlantic).
Reposted by Chris Grey
bestforbritain.org
Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA
Reposted by Chris Grey
jessicaelgot.bsky.social
EXC from @annaisaac.bsky.social

The finances of one of Nigel Farage’s key confidants are being examined by the UK’s tax and revenue authorities amid questions over his income from wealth and business activities, the Guardian understands.

www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Tax authorities examine finances of key Nigel Farage ally
Exclusive: HMRC conducts scoping exercise into Reform UK backer ‘Posh George’ Cottrell’s income from business and wealth
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Chris Grey
bearlypolitics.co.uk
When I first heard about Project 2025, I thought it was conspiracy nonsense - too brazen, too cartoonishly evil to be real.

Then Trump called it “severe right”… and started enacting it.

Part One of my two-part deep dive into the authoritarian playbook now shaping the United States.
Project 2025: The Manual for Making America Obey Again (Part 1)
Heritage Foundation’s playbook for Trump 2.0 shows what happens when authoritarian ambition meets bureaucratic precision.
www.bearlypolitics.co.uk
Reposted by Chris Grey
georgeperetzkc.bsky.social
Chris Philp on R4 yesterday making 3 false statements about the ECHR and the GFA.
1. “The ECHR is mentioned only in the Multi-Party Agreement not the UK/Ireland Agreement.”. Wrong: the latter agreement requires the UK to support the former: they can’t be pulled apart like that.
Reposted by Chris Grey
iandunt.bsky.social
It breaks my mind that two British political parties have seen scenes like this and decided to try and replicate it in Britain. Thuggary, lawlessness, state brutality. Farage and Badenoch decided they liked the look of it.
cristianfarias.com
This video of Chicagoans intervening to save a man from being abducted off the streets by ICE is making the rounds on Instagram.

Community action works.

Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DPZL2AL...
chrisgrey.bsky.social
Good example of how the claims are false but how unpicking them is fiddly & doing all of them would be time-consuming. One test of whether it's worthwhile will be how the author responds to Alan's expert commentary: retract, refute, double-down, insult, or ignore?
bsky.app/profile/alan...
alanbeattie.bsky.social
OK, let's take this seriously. I had an odd half an hour and via Apple Books had a quick look at the three claims I knew most about - two re the post-Brexit bilateral preferential trade agreements replicated from the EU versions and one about cheaper bananas. All are wrong or wildly implausible. 1/n
chrisgrey.bsky.social
I received several death threats around that time and I imagine many people who wrote about Brexit did. So I know it's scary and I don't underestimate that. But unless there is an ongoing & credible threat I don't think that's a justification for permanent pseudonymity (& no reflexivity on priors)
chrisgrey.bsky.social
Badenoch: "I make sure that when I announce something I think about how it is going to impact people."

Badenoch is asked where the 750,000 people she proposes to deport will go.

Badenoch: "I'm tired of us asking all of these irrelevant questions ..."

Oh.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
My approach will pay off eventually, says Kemi Badenoch
The Conservative leader defends her leadership as the party's conference begins in Manchester
www.bbc.co.uk
chrisgrey.bsky.social
Latest post from by far the best analyst of global economic issues
nixonsimon.bsky.social
Europe's future in a world of weaponised interdependence, counting the cost of Chinese involution and how the coming robot revolution will allow us all to live like Kings - my latest
Brave New World
Thoughts on Europe's future in a world of weaponised interdependence, counting the cost of Chinese involution, and how the coming robot revolution will allow us all to live like kings
open.substack.com
chrisgrey.bsky.social
Unless 'shutdowns' is a euphemism
chrisgrey.bsky.social
It's really just a microcosm of the much bigger problem we're facing of whether to debunk or ignore, which ofc was vividly highlighted by the £350M a week for the NHS thing.
chrisgrey.bsky.social
There can be for an internet poster. Less so for a book author, unless there are exceptional circumstances which, if they exist, should be explained. And it is certainly reasonable to ask what an author's credentials and commitments are, if they are withheld.