BuzzFeed: Here’s Why A Pro-EU Party Could Be Screwed At The Next General Election

To see how the country’s referendum vote could affect a general election, we’ve translated the referendum results (which in England, Scotland and Wales were counted by council area, not constituency) into results broken down by parliamentary seats.

And when you do that, you get a radically different outcome. Instead of a close result, Leave win in a landslide.

Although the referendum result was close nationally, Remain piled up many of its votes in a relatively small number of constituencies (London and Scotland being prime examples). As a result, the UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system would produce an extremely skewed result. [...]

That’s backed up by the fact that political scientist Chris Hanretty conducted a similar exercise using a more complex methodology, and he came out with a very similar result: looking at just English and Welsh constituencies, he predicted that 421 out of the 574 would have voted Leave. (Our count includes Scotland and Northern Ireland as well.) [...]

Obviously people vote on many issues in a general election, not just one. But it does suggest that a Labour party with a manifesto commitment to reversing Brexit might have a stuggle winning these vital seats. That’s especially true if a snap election is called in the next six months or so – before any likely economic effects of Brexit on jobs, housing and the cost of living have really kicked in.

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Deutsche Welle: Controversial exports in German arms report: newspaper

According to the "Welt am Sonntag" (WamS) newspaper, a 180-page Economy Ministry report to be submitted to the cabinet on Wednesday itemized 7.8 billion euros ($8.7 billion) in German arms exports.

That was almost double the 4 billion euros in German arms exported in 2014 and somewhat more than a 7.5 billion-euro estimate given in February.

Qatar, a Gulf Arab state panned by German opposition parties as an alleged source of funding for the "Islamic State" (IS) terror militia, received combat tanks and heavy artillery, as well as ammunition and accompanying vehicles worth 1.6 billion euros.

Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who heads the Social Democrats, had tried to stop the delivery to Qatar but was outvoted by other ministers on Germany's Federal Security Council. [...]

Germany's sales to Saudi Arabia, which such groups also criticized, was to a large extent funneled through joint delivery programs run with other nations, especially France, according to the report cited by WamS.

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The Guardian: EU tells Swiss no single market access if no free movement of citizens

The European Union is to show its determination to make no concessions to the UK on Brexit terms by telling Switzerland it will lose access to the single market if it goes ahead with plans to impose controls on the free movement of EU citizens.

The Swiss-EU talks, under way for two years but now needing a solution possibly within weeks, throws up the exact same issues that will be raised in the UK’s exit talks – the degree to which the UK must accept free movement of the EU’s citizens as a price for access to the single market. [...]

The Swiss only narrowly voted to restrict immigration in the original 2014 referendum, with 50.3% in favour, and have been in unfruitful talks to implement the measure with the EU ever since. The Swiss are far more dependent on the EU for markets than the EU is on Switzerland, making the Swiss negotiating hand relatively weak. An impasse on the immigration issue threatens hundreds of other EU-Swiss bilateral agreements, as well as the imposition of tariffs. [...]

The EU has previously shown its negotiating muscle by freezing research grants for Swiss universities worth hundreds of millions of euros and suspending the involvement of the Swiss in the Erasmus student exchange programme. The EU acted after the Swiss refused to sign a free labour market access deal signed by the EU in Croatia.

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The Guardian: Brexit brings call for change: has UK ignited battle for new EU?

A cacophony of political voices have been setting out their plans for Europe, and some have called for a European convention to discuss ideas. Germany was strongly opposed and successfully saw off calls for a fresh convention last week. Berlin has, however, been looking at a more informal process in which a leading politician seeks to distil the mood in the capitals of Europe. There is a strong desire not to leave the process in the hands of either the commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and less so the council president, Donald Tusk.

In a sign that Germany wants to be at the helm of the discussions, Sigmar Gabriel, the economics minister and leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), has floated a series of ideas to change Europe, including fewer commissioners and a slimmed down agriculture budget. He said the EU could not afford to give the UK concessions or else “this will be an invitation to all the nationalist egotists in Europe”.

He also joined the German Greens in saying young UK citizens in France, Germany and Italy should be offered dual citizenship, as a way of keeping in touch with young Britons that back Europe. He was certain the UK had not left the EU for ever, saying: “I am sure this is an episode and not an epoch.”

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Quartz: Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge: To slow visitors down, British museums are hanging fake art alongside their masterpieces

The average museum goer spends less than 30 seconds in front of a work of art. Researchers even found that most of that time is spent skimming the wall text instead of looking at the actual piece.

A new British TV show called Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge seeks to allay that attention deficit by planting seven fake paintings in galleries throughout the UK and rewarding keen-eyed museum visitors who correctly identify them. [...]

Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge is a kind of “slow art” intervention, a growing art appreciation movement that encourages visitors to spend more time to experience a work of art instead of the usual drive-by, Instagram-snap-and-share mode of museum visits we know today.

The fake paintings will hang in British galleries from July 2–August 1. Museum goers who report the fakes they spot will be entered in the contest for Britain’s top fake art spotter. Ten finalists will be featured in the show’s finale and the winner will take home a commissioned copy of a British masterpiece valued up to £5,000.

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