Vladimir Bortun is a political scientist based at the University of Oxford, working on political elites, class representation, and radical-left parties. He is author of Crisis, Austerity and Transnational Party Cooperation in Southern Europe.
Faced with the genocide in Gaza, most Western universities have responded with cowardly silence. Academia’s dependence on political sponsorship and weapons firms has muzzled its critical spirit and created a dismal culture of self-censorship.
The antiestablishment posturing and “pro-worker” claims of the far-right UK Reform party’s agenda make for good PR. They are also blatant lies.
Through years of austerity, Europe’s radical-left parties spoke of a common challenge to EU neoliberalism. But without any real shared strategy, parties focused on domestic politics are rarely able to build collaboration across borders.