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Neal Lawson

Neal Lawson is the executive director of Compass but writes here in a personal capacity. He was editor of The Causes and Cures of Brexit, has helped convene conversations and publications for many years on Europe and the Good Society and was the spokesperson for the Progressive Alliance in the 2017 UK general election.

Neal Lawson

Brexit and the left

Neal Lawson 23rd July 2019

The Labour Party has squandered three years in addressing the challenge posed by the Brexit referendum.

Averting the death of social democracy

Neal Lawson 20th December 2018

Reformist social democracy has just two problems that result in its crisis.  The first is that it’s heading in the wrong direction.  The second is that it’s heading in the wrong direction in the wrong way.  If this crisis is to be averted then we need to understand why the ends and means are wrong […]

People’s Vote On Brexit: Be Careful What You Wish For

Neal Lawson 27th September 2018

When thinking about Brexit and Europe, we should remember the words of Hans Magnus Enzensberger: short term hopes are futile – long term resignation is suicidal. Over two years on from the vote, and now heading fast for the Brexit door, progressives are still in a mess when it comes to Europe and are in danger […]

How Social Democrats Can Bring Real Change

Neal Lawson 13th March 2018

How do social democrats change things? The traditional method has been to win elections, inhabit the state, pull the levers of the state and hey presto – social democracy. Here in the UK this approach is magnified because of our awful first past the post voting system, but most social democrats would rather not share […]

Five Radical Ideas For Beating Inequality

Neal Lawson 15th November 2017 3 Comments

Scratch the skin of any social democrat and s/he bleeds equality. Because of structural weakness we water the concept down into social justice or fairness or we try and dress equality up with more complex ideas like ‘capabilities’. The problem is that we aren’t getting it, indeed we’re moving further away from it. The great […]

Zygmunt Bauman: A Beacon Of Hope In The Darkness

Neal Lawson 11th January 2017 4 Comments

I don’t know what to do. A world that was getting darker suddenly turned pitch black. Zygmunt Bauman is dead. The towering intellectual colossus of our times and yet such a frail, slight and humble human being is gone. He lived an amazing life and was an amazing person. The brilliance of his mind and […]

Social Democracy Without Social Democrats? How Can The Left Recover?

Neal Lawson 13th May 2016

UK Labour has suffered another bad set of election results. But the failure of Labour is not the fault of the Corbynites or the Blairites. Social democracy is in crisis the world over: obliterated in Greece, failing in government in France and in retreat almost everywhere else. Nowhere are social democrats ideologically, programmatically or organisationally […]

Why We Must Fight For A Different Kind Of Europe

Neal Lawson 1st March 2016

The pistol has now been fired for so many debates we are so badly prepared for. The future of Britain, the future of Europe, the future of Britain in Europe and maybe the future of both without each other. For once in over 40 years the people of Britain, all of its people, are being […]

Towards A Social Democracy Based On Facebook Culture

Neal Lawson 15th June 2015 5 Comments

If you were a European social democrat looking to Labour for light at the end of the left’s long and dark electoral tunnel last month then you would have been disappointed. But any cursory glance under Labour’s bonnet and a quick kick of the tyres would have told you this vehicle was never going to […]

Surfers Without Waves – Is Social Democracy Dead In The Water?

Neal Lawson 4th December 2014 7 Comments

Is social democracy already dead and like the proverbial headless chicken are we simply running round the yard on instinct before we topple over for good? If social democracy is still alive, it’s hard to know how or why. Let’s look at the evidence. No social democratic party anywhere in the world is on the […]

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EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


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Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

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Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


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