The US threat of tariff retribution on France for its Digital Services Tax shows how tax on corporate giants has little to do with fairness and a lot to do with global economic power

ON THURSDAY [11 July], the French Senate passed the Digital Services Tax, a landmark levy on global tech giants. The tax will see digital companies with global revenue over $750 million have to pay 3 per cent of global revenues and sales to the French Government, raising an anticipated 500 million Euros.

Syriza were the great hope of the European left, but surrendering to the Troika meant their election defeat was all but inevitable

Carola Rackete risked her own freedom to save others, and showed Brussels and Rome that it’s their policies towards those fleeing war and persecution – not search & rescue efforts – which are at odds with international law

ON TUESDAY [3 July], an Italian judge faced down the Italian Interior Minister and probably the most powerful man in Italy, Matteo Salvini, and ruled that the German captain of a search and rescue ship, Carola Rackete, had not broken the law in entering the port of Lampedusa on 29 June.

CommonSpace editor Ben Wray analyses the European election results, which have been a predictable disaster for Labour and the Tories

ONE look at Britain’s political map after the EU election results shows how constitutional politics has ripped it up, in a way that won’t easily - if ever - be put back to the way it was before.

With the futures of British Steel and Bifab in doubt, and the need for a Green New Deal ever more urgent, should we have been having a different debate about the EU over the past decade?

AS MILLIONS of people across the UK vote today [23 May] in the European Parliamentary elections, it’s worth taking a step back from the maelstrom of British politics and reflecting on the debate we’ve been having which has brought us to this strange impasse.

AR2000 weighs 150 tonnes, is 25 metres high from the seabed and has rotors 20 metres in diameter

The far right are likely to make significant gains in this week’s European elections

THIS week’s European elections (Thursday 23 May) are being billed as among the most important for the future course of the EU, and the wider politics of the continent, in decades.

The established power brokers are in crisis, the far right is on the rise, but is there much evidence of more progressive developments across the continent?

Bearing in mind the complexities of politics across Europe and the unreliability of polling, we can trace some key developments.

Farage’s attempt to win over Yes-Leave voters may disenchant core Leave-Unionist support, but the move is part of the Brexit Party leader’s strategy to de-toxify his brand north of the border, Ben Wray finds

NIGEL FARAGE’S appearance in Scotland on Friday was a curious event. The former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, which under his leadership had (and still has) a policy of abolishing the Scottish Parliament, sought to tempt Scottish independence supporters over to the Brexit Party. 

CommonSpace editor Ben Wray says that with May on her way out, a furious Tory membership smitten by Farage will now pick the Prime Minister and dictate the Brexit strategy – unless democrats unite and fight for a General Election

THERE is a consensus among the chattering classes (at least the ones on Twitter) that the upshot of Theresa May’s meeting with the Tory backbencher 1922 Committee today is that she will, one way or another, be gone by Summer.