The fateful day has come; on the night of 31st January, the United Kingdom officially left the European Union. Since the 2016 referendum, many political experts have speculated about the possible consequences of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and the measures which should be adopted in response to it. However, the majority of the actual outcomes won’t become visible in the short run; in particular, the effective implementation of post-Brexit policies both on the side of the UK and of the EU will require some time. In the meantime, there are other ways to obtain valuable knowledge from the world around us. Nowadays, social networks are the epicentre of the exchange of information. For this

On January 23th, 2020, Christine Lagarde, Mario Draghi’s successor as President of the European Central Bank, announced that the ECB Governing Council is going to launch a review of its monetary policy strategy. A similar measure has been taken in the past; in 2003 the annual inflation target was raised from a range between zero and 2 percent to the current “below, but close to, 2 percent”. The reasons why this review has been announced are that, since 2003, the euro area, and the world economy in general, has seen structural changes that make it more difficult for the central bank’s tools to successfully pursue its price stability mandate. In particular, slowing productivity and the ageing

“We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company [Cambridge Analytica] was built on.” Cambridge Analytica and US elections I can say with absolute certainty that we have all heard the name Cambridge Analytica at least once or twice in the past year. After all, when Mark Zuckerberg testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee about Cambridge Analytica a little more than a year ago, a wide array of memes making fun of his alien-like disposition popped up on the internet. Before we delve any deeper, though, what is Cambridge Analytica’s history and how d

Watford - Situated just outside Greater London, from an administrative point of view, but still within the M26 boundaries, from a socio-demographical one, Watford would be a totally unknown city if weren’t for its football team and for the Harry Potter studios. By looking at the results of the 2016 Referendum, it was one of the most divided constituencies: Leave won with less than 1% margin over Remain. An unexpected result if we consider that the city has been ruled for seventeen years by the Liberal Democrats, the most pro-European party among those sitting in the British parliament. Indeed, Lib Dems have suffered a crisis along these past years; since they entered government thanks to the

My trip through the post-Brexit London on this day, 1st February 2020, continues, reaching its third and final chapter. 3.00 pm – At Vicarage Road, the Premier League match Watford vs Everton is about to start. Football is surely one of British excellencies, but its market will be affected by Brexit, too. Watford FC is owned by the Pozzo family, who alsoowns Udinese (in Italy) and Granada (in Spain). The success of their business consisted in the possibility to freely transfer players between the three teams thanks to EU’s single market; such practice is surely going to be more difficult to implement after Brexit. 6.00 pm – Travelling back to central London after the match in Watford, I look

Angel, Islington South and Finsbury - Two days ago, waiting for 11pm, when UK would be finally out of the EU, thousands of people gathered in Parliament Square, few yards away from PM Boris Johnson’s residence in Downing Street. If this was the place of partying for Brexit, Islington is the place for protesting against it, for supporting EU citizens’ rights, for being inclusive. Islington is not in fact just a borough of the capital, it’s a community. Islington, from a demographic point of view, is composed for the majority of non-British people, creating a multicultural environment, but at the same time, poverty and deprivation affect this area. When it comes to this latter problem of econo

My trip through the post-Brexit London on this day, 1st February 2020, continues… 11.00 am – I leave the hotel and I walk along Caledonian Road, towards Islington. I’m going to join a community event at Islington Green organised by the local association “Islington In Europe”. They are a voluntary non-political group which has been campaigning over the last three years to keep their country inside the EU, from which their borough has greatly benefited. They are now mainly committed to offering legal support to non-British citizens. The event, unfortunately, is not so crowded, maybe because of a post-31st January disillusionment, which I hope won’t paralyse London’s European core. 12.00 pm – G

Gatwick, Crawley – Gatwick where I have landed is London’s second busiest airport. From a small airfield in the countryside outside the capital, it has been growing steadily over the years, becoming an important hub especially for intercontinental leisure flights. This growth has required an increase in the employed staff. By looking at them in the airport hall, it is easy to see that the majority of the workers are from Eastern Europe: they came to England in search of opportunity thanks to EU’s free circulation of labor, and due to their lower salary expectations, they beat English competition. This is one the reasons why the Crawley constituency, to which Gatwick Airport belongs, voted Le

Follow a European Generation member Gioele Giussani as he travels to London in the first days after the United Kingdom exited the European Union. What are his impressions of post-Brexit London? How do Londoners and other Europeans feel about entering this new era? Read below to find out. 5.00 am – While I’m driving towards the airport, the sun is rising again; this will be the dawn of a new day, and, according to PM Boris Johnson, the dawn of a renewed Britain, which will be now free to unleash its full potential. Today is in-fact UK’s first day out of the EU after a 40-year-long membership and after a long, contradictory and exhausting almost-three-year-long exiting process. Today is a day