Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Adonis, Baron Adonis - Page 2

The only way Brexit might have worked without an economic collapse is the Norway model of close integration with the structure of the European customs union and single market without being part of the formal E.U. institutions.

It is simply not possible to achieve the 'freedom' from E.U. economic institutions that Brexiters want without undermining Britain's economy and security.

Opening up closed markets to competition and protecting consumers from monopoly-style profits is the essence of pro-business politics on the modernising right as much as the left.

London's night economy is huge and it couldn't function without London's night buses.

It is a vital British and European interest to demonstrate to Putin that Trump is on our side, not his.

Resistance to Brexit is the logic of everything Labour stands for.

The BBC is consistently manipulated by Brexiteers into providing them with false parity in arguments where their views add nothing, represent nobody and are demonstrably and factually wrong.

Theresa May is singularly unsuited for high office and lacks political talent.

The SDP's founder, Roy Jenkins, was my hero and later mentor.

The Conservatives have been unusually badly led by David Cameron and Theresa May.

For me, no one aspect of the Brexit debate displays so markedly the monomania of many Brexiteers as does the Irish question.

What we need is fundamental reform to address the deep social and economic problems that are gripping people and communities nationwide, particularly the least advantaged.

Having achieved something so special as peace, it is criminal to throw it away on a whim.

Yes, I have found many people who voted for Brexit and believe it will answer their problems. But they mostly realise that Europe isn't the problem, however much the E.U. could be improved.

England is so dominant within the U.K. that separate English and U.K. parliaments and governments are a recipe for weakness and instability.

The original sin of Brexit - the lies, contradictions, half-truths and omissions on which it was built - have come back to haunt the Thatcherite Tories who started all this with Nigel Farage and Ukip.

In Germany, apprentices undergo a final examination in the vocational school and an oral examination and practical test in the workplace. The same should happen in Britain.

For the Conservative Party to become the mouthpiece of energy monopolists is not only a political error; it is fundamentally at variance with the liberal economics they claim to espouse.

We have moral duties to the dispossessed - and should be taking our fair share of Syrian refugees, particularly parentless children.

Despite my deep misgivings about austerity and the harm it would do, I agreed to chair the national infrastructure commission under a Tory government, because I believed that delivering infrastructure investment could help build a brighter future for businesses and families. I am a pragmatist. I do what works.

No matter the evidence or the experience, the Conservative party has been allergic to direct state involvement in running our railways.

On the left, nationalisation is pursued for its own sake - as a panacea that will somehow fix train travel all by itself.

Labour is the party of the NHS and the environment and fighting for better workplace and civic rights for working men and women.

The people should make the final decision on Brexit when they see the government's Brexit deal.

For decades, British governments - including the Blair-Brown government in which I was an education minister - have done a good job of enhancing higher education but paid too little attention to apprenticeships and technical education.

I have to confess, street politics are not my usual style.

Brexit is not, thankfully, a question of war. But, like Iraq, Brexit is an act of unprovoked self-harm and a massive strategic mistake that threatens Britain's credibility and authority in the world.

When a small number of companies control both the generation and the supply of energy, it's difficult for new players to enter the market.

Systematic social and environmental deregulation, and the economics of austerity while enriching the rich, will be the markers of Farage/Tory politics after Brexit. Singapore-on-Sea for the rich; degradation for the rest.

Theresa May has much to answer for, but it is not her fault that she couldn't square the circle of the Brexiteers' lies: nobody could.

Bruce Liddington, who has died aged 70, was the most exotic creature in the Department for Education in the 2000s. In a land of fairly staid civil servants, Bruce had flair and the panache of a brilliant parakeet.

Austerity and Brexit are two sides of the same coin, like the Brexit party and the Tories.

Brexit is a cliff, not a gradient. The mistake we are in danger of making is to believe that some Brexits are better than others when the fundamental problem is Brexit itself.

I was warned by the private sector that we would fail and would fail badly. 'The state can't run a railway,' I was told. Well, they were wrong.

Night buses serve not only the leisure economy- pubs, bars, clubs, theatres and concerts- but also hundreds of thousands of night workers.

From the ruins of the second world war, Labour rebuilt Britain and set it on course for European co-operation and membership of the E.U.

I have been called many things in public life, but the cap that best fits is that of the centrist dad.

The strength of the British constitution is supposedly its ability, because it is unwritten in key respects like the incapacity of the prime minister, to adapt to crises with flexibility and urgency.

Brexit has always been an impossible project, except at the price of massive self-harm.

Brexit is not a viable path for Britain.