Atul Singh: Yes, exactly. Let’s talk about Mark Carney Leading Liberals to a Fourth Consecutive Victory. That is huge. So let me paint what’s happened very quickly. Liberals won 169 out of 343 seats, they got 44% of the vote. The Conservatives won 144 seats, 41% of the vote. Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, lost his own seat. Now, for our American viewers and listeners, remember that Canada has a parliamentary system modeled after Westminster in the UK. I have to explain it to a young American tomorrow — so, you don’t just get to be a presidential candidate. You’re the leader of a party, everyone fights their own parliamentary seat and the party that gets the most seats, or the candidate who can command majority support in Parliament, gets to be prime minister. It is somewhat important to get elected into Parliament, otherwise you can’t be the leader of the Parliament if you’re not even in Parliament. So, poor Pierre — a really bad day for him. What makes it worse is that this was a comeback victory. The Liberal Party has enjoyed a historic surge in polls since the start of the year. Under Mark Carney, a former Governor of the Bank of England, former governor of the Bank of Canada, Liberals have beaten the Conservative Party. So he can send a thank-you card to Donald Trump. Now, how did the fault lines break out? And remember, Mark only announced he was running on January 16, and he won all 343 electoral districts to become leader of the Liberal Party. During the leadership campaign, what did he do? He repudiated some of Justin Trudeau’s economic policies. He blamed Trudeau’s profligate spending for Canada’s vulnerability to American tariffs. He pitched himself as the best-placed candidate to negotiate with Donald Trump and deal with Canada’s perilous economic situation. The message, and obviously his impressive résumé, resonated with many voters.

Canada’s anti-Trump vote

Atul Singh: What did Pierre do? Pierre was against immigration and inflation, and he was promising some sort of Canada First—

Glenn Carle: But he was in favor of apple pie and motherhood.

Atul Singh: (Laughs) Yes, exactly. And, shall we say, he came unstuck. So more about Mark from Glenn, because both of us played ice hockey for Harvard. (Laughs)

Glenn Carle: That’s right. His chief qualification for any position is that he was a Harvard hockey player. But he’s a youth. He was ten years after I was there, so I’ve never met him, unfortunately. Well, this may be one of the positive — perhaps the one positive — thing that Donald Trump has achieved in his public life, is that he brought Mark Carney to the premiership of Canada. I think the vote, to the extent that it has significance in a larger sense — it’s certainly important for Canada — is that it’s an anti-Trump vote. The Conservatives and significant parts of the center of Canada — the inland of Canada, Alberta and Manitoba, and so on — are Trumpian in their political outlooks. And this election was a repudiation of that. It was not only anger at Trump and fear of his imperialistic, bombast rhetoric, and so on, but a rejection of the resonance that that has had within elements of Canadian society and politics. So that makes it significant for Canada, but also in a larger sense. Also, Canada is… well, there’s no other superpower-sized state other than the United States or China. The EU is a conglomeration, of course, a union. So Canada has as much influence as most any. I think in the ranking of economic size, it’s sixth or seventh or something like that, which makes it significant and plausible as a standard bearer for how to coalesce and respond to the threats to all of the norms and practices posed by Donald Trump. Now, what concretely that means remains to be seen, but he at least is, for the moment, the apparent champion of how to respond to Donald Trump.

Global response

Glenn Carle: Now, for the world, what does that imply? The issues in Canada are similar to those of France, Germany, England and other industrialized democracies. How do you address overregulation? This is the big argument always of conservatives. How do you address insufficiencies in defense spending? How do you develop a coherent foreign policy with allies that affirms these norms and yet somehow acts independently, if necessary — as it appears it will be — to the United States?

Atul Singh: And immigration.

Glenn Carle: Thank you. And the most important thing of all: All of this is a response. Carney’s election, all the turmoil in Europe politically, the rise of the far rights in nation after nation — fundamentally, is a reaction to, if not a response to, the issue of immigration and social change. That underlays and explains, really, what’s happened in the United States and in all of these other states. So his election shows perhaps a hope for a response, but has the similar underlying causes. Except poor Canada is stuck having this troublesome behemoth on its southern border, and so it’s obviously a response to that. How this will evolve is unknown, but Carney has as many qualifications as anyone — with the possible exception of political skills. But he’s done well for the last four months in that regard.

Carney–Sheinbaum collaboration?

Atul Singh: Canada potentially offers hope for the Liberals that all is not lost. It is a huge boost to Mexico as well. Remember that the US has two major trading partners — Canada and Mexico — one to the north, one to the south. It doesn’t have a Pakistan or China at its border, unlike India, so life is a lot easier. And now Claudia Sheinbaum — who’s in some ways Marxist, but is a canny politician and a tough negotiator — will almost inevitably team up with Mark Carney, who is a technocrat, who is an economist, who’s a savvy character who’s acquitted himself fairly well, actually, when he was heading the Bank of Canada. That was after the global financial recession, the global financial crisis. And then he headed the Bank of England during the Brexit years, at a time when the Bank of England got greater powers to oversee banks’ capital requirements. So he is a bit of a policy wonk, and it remains to be seen now how both Sheinbaum and Carney negotiate with their national… I wouldn’t say enemy, but national and ideological adversary. So hey ho, there we go: The die is cast.

Glenn Carle: Everyone should play hockey, and you’ll have national success.

Atul Singh: Exactly. On that note, we will see you next month. Thank you very much for watching this. Subscribe to our YouTube channel if you’re watching this on YouTube. And if you are reading the summary on our website, then make sure you sign up for our newsletter and follow us on social media if you’re on social media. And remember that should you want advice on political and geopolitical risk and the global economy, you have Glenn Carle, the senior partner of FOI, to turn to — and we will send you good stuff should you contact us. Bye for now.

Glenn Carle: Au revoir.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post FO° Exclusive: Mark Carney Leads Liberals to a Fourth Consecutive Victory appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Labour’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, is now taking action. On October 30, she introduced a post-Brexit budget aimed at tackling Britain’s structural deficits while fostering economic growth. Reeves’s goal is to put the UK back on a steady financial path by raising revenues and directing funds toward essential services and infrastructure. Her budget includes ÂŁ40 billion ($52 billion) in new tax measures alongside targeted investments. 

The budget reflects two competing priorities: increasing growth by stimulating investment and balancing government finances. The UK has been operating with persistent deficits, and the outgoing Conservative government left Labour with a £22 billion ($28 billion) overspend, adding pressure to address the country’s long-standing issues.

Key budget measures

Reeves’s budget introduces a series of tax increases aimed at generating revenue to meet Britain’s immediate fiscal needs. The UK Treasury collects roughly £800 billion ($1 trillion) annually, but economists estimate an additional £20-30 billion ($26-39 billion) is required to achieve a stable economy. Reeves’s budget takes steps to bridge this gap.

Significant tax changes include:

• National insurance contributions: Employers will see increased rates starting in April 2025.
• Capital gains tax: The lower rate will increase from 10% to 18%, while the higher rate moves from 20% to 24%.
• Private school fees: VAT will apply from January 2025, and these schools will lose business rates relief from April 2025.
• Stamp duty land surcharge: The rate on second homes will increase from 2% to 5%.
• Employment allowance: Relief for smaller companies will increase from ÂŁ5,000 ($6,400) to ÂŁ10,500 ($13,500)
• Private equity taxation: Tax on managers’ profit shares will rise from 28% to 32%.
• Corporate tax rate: The main rate will stay at 25% for businesses with profits over ÂŁ250,000 ($320,000) until the next election.

On the spending side, Reeves allocated ÂŁ22.6 billion ($29.1 billion) to the healthcare sector and ÂŁ5 billion ($6.4 billion) to housing investment. She also secured funding to extend the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway to London Euston, enhancing transport connectivity across the country. This investment aims to promote growth by addressing years of underinvestment in essential infrastructure.

Will it work?

Britain’s budget deficit and low investment levels echo the issues faced across Europe, with the EU also struggling to maintain competitiveness. According to Mario Draghi’s recent report to the European Commission, the EU’s investment rate of 22% of GDP is insufficient for sustainable growth. The UK has an even lower investment rate, barely surpassing 20% over the past 50 years, often ranking lowest in the G7.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has responded to this investment gap by prioritizing wealth creation. Speaking at an international summit, Starmer emphasized the need to attract private investment to support industries where the UK has a competitive edge, such as creative services, legal and accounting sectors and luxury manufacturing. Starmer has appointed an entrepreneur as investment minister to ease business relations and streamline regulation. However, some business leaders are wary of the government’s new interventionist policies and increased payroll costs. Executives of listed companies have been selling shares at double the rate seen before Labour took office, reflecting concerns over rising wages, expanded employee rights, and growing administrative burdens.

The UK’s attempts to balance its welfare state with economic growth will serve as a test case for other European economies facing similar post-globalization challenges. While the United States benefits from cheap energy and a flexible labor market, European countries, including the UK, must find ways to compete on the global stage with limited resources. How Britain navigates this delicate balance will be closely watched across Europe. If successful, Reeves’s budget could provide a framework for European governments to address similar structural issues, particularly as the EU faces its own struggles to adapt to global economic shifts.

[Anton Schauble wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing erstwhile Labour leader, is now no longer in the party. Under Starmer, Labour has moved resolutely to the center even as the Tories (as British Conservatives are called) have imploded into post-Brexit fratricidal bloodletting.

Related Reading

Keir Starmer – My Prime Minister, Member of Parliament and Friend

The UK has a parliamentary, first-past-the-post system. The candidate with the most votes becomes the member of parliament (MP) in each constituency. The party leader who commands a majority in the House of Commons becomes prime minister and governs the UK from 10 Downing Street.

The first-past-the-post system can lead to strange results. For instance, the Liberal Democrats won a lower percentage of votes than Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, but the former won far more seats than the latter in these elections. However, the Tories and the Scottish Nationalists were the big losers in 2024 while smaller parties flourished, as the table below demonstrates.

Unusually for any British government, the new Labour government is led by former civil servants rather than professional politicians. Starmer is a centrist who aims to bring back stability to the UK. Before his political career, Starmer was the head of the Crown Prosecution Service. His new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, worked in the Bank of England. Both have a reputation for competence and prudence. Like previous prime ministers Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Teresa May and David Cameron, Starmer and Reeves went to the University of Oxford. However, they did not come from affluent backgrounds or go to elite schools. They beat the odds to rise to the top.

Unlike leaders of the Left in many other parts of the world, Reeves is not promising any increased government spending. Instead, she is advocating supply-side economics to boost growth. In her first major , Reeves promised to make economic growth the number-one priority for her government through increased private investment, labor participation and productivity. Both Starmer and Reeves are fiscally prudent, which should lead the British economy to stabilize after a rocky eight years following the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Fund managers and business leaders in New York and London say that the risk premium for UK assets will go down because of the Labour government’s reputation for responsibility. They believe that Starmer and Reeves will steer a closer relationship with Europe, reduce frictions in UK–EU trade and give a fillip to house-building. In contrast to most other democracies, this party of the Left has won a thumbs-up from markets and business leaders.

Conservative meltdown facilitated Labour victory, now what?

As this author predicted in 2016, Brexit turned out to be “a damn close-run thing,” and what followed was madness. Prime ministers came and went with alarming frequency; Truss enjoyed less than the shelf life of a head of . Post-Brexit Britain could not make up its mind whether to become Singapore-on-Thames or a revived manufacturing power with rejuvenated northern cities. continued to be a problem. migrants to Rwanda did not excite the public. Johnson’s during the COVID-19 pandemic turned public chafing against draconian government restrictions into open anger. Sunak had the charisma of a dead mouse and demonstrated a gift for fatal political gaffes such as D-Day celebrations early for a meaningless television interview. In a nutshell, the Tories screwed up so badly that a Labour victory was obvious long before the elections.

Related Reading

The World This Week: A Troubled Marriage in Europe

Labour’s victory is massive. Yet it is a shallow one. Only one in five Britons voted for the party. Importantly, voter turnout fell from 69% in 2019 to 60% in 2024. In 2017, nearly 12.9 million people voted Labour. In 2019, this figure fell below 10.3 million. This year, a little fewer than 9.7 million voters cast their ballots for Labour. A graph by , a political and geopolitical risk advisory, tells an interesting tale of voting numbers and parliamentary seats over the last two British elections.

British politics have become extremely dynamic. New trends are worth noting. The significant vote shares of the right-wing populist Reform UK Party — second to Labour in 92 constituencies — and the Green Party — second to Labour in 41 constituencies — put pressure on Labour to improve immigration and environmental policies, respectively. Recent all across the UK show that voters are concerned about migrants flooding the UK. The Starmer government will have to restrict arrivals. In fact, immigration was a key reason why voters chose Brexit in 2016.

During the election campaign itself, Labour promised a more effective approach to tackling illegal immigration and a plan to bring net migration down by training British workers. Labour threatened to block non-compliant companies from sponsoring visas for their overseas employees. On his first full day as prime minister, Starmer the outgoing Conservative government’s plan to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda, saying, “I’m not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don’t act as a deterrent.” Instead, his government aims to curb small boats crossing the English Channel by hiring investigators and using counter-terror powers to “smash” criminal people-smuggling gangs.

On the renewable energy front, Starmer’s government has promised to accelerate the development of large projects by assessing them nationally, not locally, and ending an effective ban on onshore wind farms. The of the Green Party, as mentioned earlier, and the resurgence of Liberal Democrats (the party for the nice Tories of the shires) will make Starmer’s Labour more environmentally friendly than Sunak’s Tories. (As an aside, the Liberal Democrats’ in Tory heartlands saw them win seats held by five former Tory prime ministers.)

Most political parties with such a large majority would enact a far more radical agenda. Starmer is determined to do no such thing. Those close to the prime minister reveal that he is playing the long game and aims to be in power for at least two terms. Starmer is determined to win back Labour’s credibility as the party of responsible government after 14 years in opposition and the damage suffered under Corbyn’s leadership.

The country is now led not by alumni of the famous public schools (the curious British name for expensive private schools) but by leaders who hail from the working and middle classes. They are more self-reflective, grounded and rigorous than their Conservative counterparts. To put it in English Civil War parlance, Starmer and Reeves are Roundheads, not Cavaliers. After years of posh public schoolboys from Eton and Winchester ruling the roost, no-nonsense commoners are on top.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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There’s also somewhat of a theme to Rish!’s serial gaffes, a sense that he’s not as clever as he and his advisors think he is — and they are, too. Further, the press and public are far from as stupid as presumed.

It’s hard to have much sympathy for those MPs — the survivors or beneficiaries of the Conservatives’ of those who failed to be enthusiastic Brexshitters. They are broadly incompetent, mendacious or delusional. Most Brits (closer to the story than US enthusiasts) today regard Brexit as an utter fiasco, with as many as thinking it a mistake and only 28% a good idea. As many as are in favor of the UK rejoining the EU and a similar 28% are opposed.

Well before the Brexit referendum, Rish! was a proponent of leaving the EU — or rather, like a fantasy girlfriend, the EU of tabloid (and Boris Johnson) myth, not reality. But the “Get Brexit Done!” election of 2019 was such a massive victory for the Tories that, at the time, there were widespread predictions of unassailable Conservative majorities for a decade or more, two or even three election cycles into the future. They reckoned without the spectacular incompetence and provocative clumsiness of the three successive Tory Prime Ministers. Sunak was supposed to be a safe pair of hands after Liz Truss famously to outlast a lettuce — but will still manage the third-shortest premiership in modern history.

To be fair to Rish!, the prognosticators of 2019 ignored many things. Like that decades of underinvestment in the UK economy had left it in a parlous state. Or that the austerity policies of previous Tory governments had failed to shrink UK deficits, because they shrank growth faster than any reduction in spending. Or that the Brexit referendum result was heavily a protest vote against the social and economic consequences of that austerity, which Sunak as Chancellor mostly continued.

Tory privatization has turned into a long-term fiasco, too. One example is privatized water and water treatment, which has resulted in 83% of British rivers with, well, shit! The National Health Service, as close to a secular religion in Britain was and is similarly afflicted by underfunding and a dearth and of EU citizen healthcare professionals as a result of Brexit. They also ignored what a talentless claque those Conservatives willing to enthuse about Brexit were. Post-2016 cabinets have been largely stuffed with buffoons, ignoramuses and Moreover, Brexit and its predicted adverse consequences (aka “”) have increasingly come true. It is, as many UK commentators note, the central campaign neither Tories nor Labour will mention.

But is Rish! trying to lose?

However, dealt a bad hand, Sunak has played it with a level of incompetence that leaves many wondering if he’s actively trying to lose. Start with the announcement: Despite having a new, large, plush and scandalously expensive press briefing available to him, Sunak strode out to a lectern in the street outside Number 10 to announce the 4th of July election date. Oblivious to the umbrellas the gathered press hacks were huddling under, he was by a near-biblical downpour as his words were drowned out by a protestor with a loudspeaker playing Labour’s 1997 election anthem: “THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER!” Most of his cabinet had only been informed moments before. Though his parliamentary private secretary, Craig Williams MP, appears to have known that date for three days, allegedly using that insider knowledge just in time to place a winning with bookmaker Ladbrokes on it. If he did, it’s a crime under British law.

But the fiasco wasn’t over. He followed it with a fear-mongering speech — he mentioned “security” eight times — at London’s Excel conference center, which was forcibly attended by around 100 drafted Tory political aides and advisors. But not before a reporter from the usually Conservative-leaning Sky News had been unceremoniously from the event!

The next day, at a warehouse rally, he took softball questions from two Tory white-collar councilors posing as manual workers — to be promptly found out by the local press — then traveled on to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. This inevitable comparisons and questions as to whether he was captaining a sinking ship. But in pursuit of what? The Conservatives have no candidates in Northern Ireland!

Rish! then briefly appeared to recover in a TV debate with Labour leader Kier Starmer, where he repeatedly accused Labour of planning a tax rise of £2,000 per family. He smugly insisted on its veracity as independently costed and verified by the UK Civil Service. The glow lasted until the next morning, when a from the head of the Civil Service was released, stating that the number was by no means independent. There’s no kind way to put this: Sunak was caught loudly lying. Compounding the misery, the UK’s independent statistics agency is now investigating the Tory claims.

A perk of competent premiers seeking re-election is the opportunity to pose as a statesman bestriding the world stage. Rish! was afforded a golden opportunity: the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy invasion. This wasn’t foregone by Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, the newly crowned Charles III — even Volodymyr Zelenskyy and many others. Moreover, it offered perhaps the last opportunity to pose with centenarian survivors of one of the most pivotal moments of World War II, to borrow their honor for a moment. Sunak, though, found better things to do: Rish!ng away in a helicopter, he gave a pre-recorded interview to Sky News that he wouldn’t postpone. He his opponent, Starmer, the photo-ops with Presidents Biden and Macron, German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the President of the EU Council and 15 other national leaders, not to mention his new King. The next day, Rish! and the cabinet were forced on an for the disrespectful gaffe.

Rish!’s wealth doesn’t help

Could it get worse? Yes! Although his elders were Asian immigrants, essentially economic refugees from East Africa — rendering Sunak’s enthusiasm for deporting more modern migrants to Rwanda ironic — his parents were well-off. They were a doctor and pharmacy-owner, and his grandfathers were an accountant and a UK tax official awarded the MBE. They sent him to the expensive Public (i.e. private) School Winchester, a more discrete version of Eton, where he was “head-boy.” In the pre-recorded Sky interview that showed a week later, Sunak made efforts to suggest he had a deprived childhood. When an example was sought, the best he could come up with is that his parents denied him a Sky satellite television ! The suffering!

Additionally, the adult Rish!, a former Goldman banker and hedge funder, has a personal north of $100 million. Combine that with the value of his Infosys heiress wife, and his family worth is nearly $1 billion. He regularly uses it to finance expensive commuting by helicopter to the family’s country mansion, supplemented by a large penthouse in Santa Monica with views of the famous pier. (It is widely rumored that the Sunaks plan to decamp here after losing the elections.)

Rish!’s by far the richest member of the UK Parliament. His denials are not helped by widespread rumors that the Sunak daughters are already enrolled for the fall semester in an expensive private school in California, coming from an eye-wateringly expensive school in England. People are suspicious that Sunak chose not to wait until the last possible election date so the family could be safely installed before school started.

In a strange way, though, Rish! may be rescuing the Tories by inviting an even huger defeat. The biggest long-term electoral threat is a less than total Labour victory; the Liberal Democrats’ price for a coalition would be electoral reform and proportional representation, which most political analysts anticipate would doom the Conservatives as currently composed in future elections. Of course, those prognosticators may be ignoring the desperate state of the UK’s finances and economy Labour will likely inherit, or how long they can blame the Tories for that mess.

There is also little room for Labour complacency about its long term electoral prospects. Recent polling shows that though likely to win, both the “Tories and Labour [are] on course for [the] lowest of the vote since 1945.” Labour may win a large majority, but like the Conservatives in recent elections, with a minority of the vote. Proportional representation would be hard on traditional Labour, too, for this reason is opposed by its left wing.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The UK’s political playing field has been in a state of increasing disarray since the Brexit referendum in 2016. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron called this referendum, expecting the Remain campaign to lose. He resigned after voters returned the opposite result. The Conservatives subsequently saw first Theresa May take up the banner, then Boris Johnson, then Liz Truss (who lasted just seven weeks!) and finally Sunak.

From these Tories to Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, the UK has seen quite an assortment of different flavors of spin politicians. The UK has traditionally produced politicians of high caliber from the legendary Winston Churchill to more recent greats like Margaret Thatcher. The latter-day talent pool seems much shallower. So, where is the UK headed this July?

Close up of the candidates: All around depressing

Keeping with trends of the last century, the upcoming election will be a face-off between the Labour Party and the Conservatives. Voters will have two wildly uninspiring candidates to choose between.

While Starmer may indeed appeal to a wider audience through his careful, measured approach to politics, his lack of conviction points to an altogether noncommittal, wishy-washy attitude. Standing in the shadow of Tony Blair, the Labour leader seems content leaving his party and the general public in varying states of confusion and uncertainty as to what he actually hopes to achieve in office and how he plans to go about it. While ambiguity is damaging enough, Starmer makes his own case worse by being, to put it plainly, dull. 

Sunak has a similar Achilles heel. His lack of conviction has lost him favor both within his own party and with the general public in recent months. While Sunak may be an overachiever historically, serving as head boy at Winchester College and quickly climbing the political ladder to the position of prime minister, it seems he had what it took to get into office — but not much more. Sunak’s performance hasn’t been an unmitigated disaster: He has met his inflation target, kept the economy (relatively) stable and made small steps toward reducing illegal immigration. However, he has failed to meet the majority of the promises he made to voters and unfortunately lacks the personality to carry him through the headwinds. 

“King of Brexit” Boris Johnson, on the other hand, excelled in the personality department — ​​if only due to the fact that he at least had one. While Johnson may not have been the most principled or pragmatic prime minister behind the scenes, he certainly knew how to make a statement, galvanize the troops and throw a good party. In politics, that counts for something. 

Shortages in the charisma department could be damaging for both Sunak and Starmer when the votes come in this July, and unfortunately for the both of them, reputation isn’t the only thing these candidates should be worried about as they race toward the finish line.

The shifting status quo

Sunak and Starmer are weak characters who will rely on policy agendas, not personality, to carry their campaigns. The public, though, seems to have grown tired of listening.

Social cohesion in the UK is at a low ebb. The fabric of British society is fraying at the seams as the nation experiences economic difficulties, polarizing social classes and the immigrant/native divide.

A strong leader with clear principles could perhaps rise above this division and draw Brits together. But now is a time of stagnation and uncertainty, not strong leaders. Without a passionate candidate to rally behind, the UK will continue down the slippery slope of dysfunction. Transactional, coalition-type politics may be down the road for Westminster.

Once the ruler of a good portion of the world, this island nation now seems dead in the water. If the UK hopes to regain a position of importance in the global order, it must find a way to overcome its political malaise. Only then will Britain finally make it off the bench and back into the game.

[ wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Should such activists, in that period and now, be termed “fringe Conservatives,” “ultra-Conservatives,” “radical right,” or “hard right”? The authors prefer “radical right,” since it encompasses the gamut of all such rebels.

Origins of the Neo-Right in the Brexit Debate

In those years, shrill advocacy for the Brexit concept quickly emerged. Tory Members of Parliament (MPs) had founded the European Research Group (ERG) in 1993 to counter, if not eliminate, EU influence on Britain. During the coalition years, the ERG, along with its supporters in business, the media and radical-right advocacy bodies, placed intense pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to hold a referendum on Brexit. In 2013, Cameron agreed to offer the electorate a non-binding referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU. Since, out of some 355 Conservative MPs, the ERG’s membership and subscribers in total are never thought to have exceeded 60, the outsize influence demonstrated by their success is evident. The ERG tail has continued to wag the party dog, or try to, ever since.

Campaigning both for and against Brexit was robust. However, the overall pro-Brexit campaign was on the whole better organized, better funded, and used far more advanced digital, online and social media methods to persuade voters. Crucially, it was also far more ruthless, employing blatantly alarmist “.” The official Vote Leave campaign also applied large-scale data mining techniques similar to those later used by Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign in the US. This was done under the direction of Dominic Cummings, whom Cameron once reportedly referred to as “” (see later). The 2016 vote delivered a small but clear majority preference to leave the EU.

While Brexit arguably had lofty objectives, its implementation and subsequent realities have witnessed and major long-term .

Radical-Right takeover of the Conservative Party

Since 2016, the Brexiteer/ERG agenda has morphed into a generalized . The insurgents not only espouse uncontrolled free market economic priorities and harbor a revulsion for the EU, but also gleefully and noisily assert a right-wing authoritarian stance on law-and-order issues. They display an unmistakable animus against the welfare state, benefit claimants, those suffering from social and economic deprivation, immigrants, asylum seekers, ethnic and religious minorities, and victims of human rights abuses and other injustices.

Such proclivities, which pander to populist reactionary sympathies, have more in common with those of far-right parties and groups outside the Conservative Party—such as Reform UK, Reclaim, Far Right For Britain, the British National Party, the English Defence League, Britain First and other fringe groups—than with traditional party values.

Although it is somewhat less extreme, this conversion of the traditional Conservative Party is analogous to the radical-right of the US Republican Party over a similar time frame. The “new” Conservative Party of the 2020s is thus Conservative in name only. Disturbingly, much of the electorate is unlikely to be aware of this radical change from its One Nation heritage.

The authors were both One Nation Conservative supporters for over 30 years until the scale of the Brexit debacle and the increasingly authoritarian nature of the Johnson administration became clear in 2019. There is substantive evidence of a concerted and sustained effort by Britain’s ruling Conservative Party since 2019 to impose permanent, illiberal, radical-right governance on the nation. Some of the top-down subversion and coercion (such as proroguing Parliament in 2019) is done openly, as if were perfectly normal and morally acceptable, while other examples involve long-term stealth against the public interest. Although One Nation Conservative MPs still exist, their numbers and influence have been all but obliterated by the dominance of the ERG, its derivatives and its fellow travelers. 

Case 1: Imposing Costly Private Healthcare

As we reported in detail last year in 51łÔąĎ, deliberate underfunding of the state National Health Service (NHS) and social care system over 13 years has brought these services into not just a state of chronic dysfunctionality but also virtual collapse. While publicly appearing to champion the NHS, in reality the long-term Conservative policy is to have free market private provision become the only viable alternative in the vast majority of cases. Their ideological imperative appears to be to place the delivery of such services under the primary control of private companies and to ensure that, in effect, state provision withers on the vine.

UK’s NHS is Broken: Is Private Medicine the Answer?

The NHS and private provision have had a long and largely successful symbiosis since the 1980s, with the primacy of NHS provision assured by state funding paid for by patients via general taxation and National Insurance. Private provision contracted to the NHS has been a vital contributor. However, with the Health and Care Act , the government appears to be pressing ahead with their new “healthcare salvation” model to replace the current NHS model with a direct pathway for private care companies, many of them foreign-based, to access NHS funds. Far from salvation, the impact is likely to be catastrophic for the level and amount of healthcare the NHS can provide, since NHS post-Covid recovery money and other funds will be diverted to boost the preferential use of private care. 

Until now, the limit has always been that private care providers had to be awarded an NHS subcontract in order to access funds for clinical procedures. However, recent indicate that NHS patients are now being given a direct choice of where to obtain their clinical procedures: either private hospitals (with weeks to wait) or NHS hospitals with months or even years to wait. This choice decision is now taken at the (ICB) level, much lower down the managerial hierarchy than previously and apparently without regard to budgetary limits and fair distribution of funds.

Whilst this sounds like good news for patients, the cost differential between private and NHS is huge, and some ICBs have already spent their annual budget as a result of this new relaxation. The NHS patients budget—worth about ÂŁ200 billion (around $250 billion) per year and funded by tax monies and National Insurance contributions—is now unprotected and vulnerable to profiteering by private corporations. Ultimately, the public will pay the price out of their own pockets via additional taxation and private medical insurance premiums. Speed of provision is likely to improve for those who can access it. However, the new system does that private clinical provision itself will be superior to NHS provision, nor does it guarantee that affluent patients or those with private medical insurance will not be given preferential treatment. 

The Tories have more or less that the high likelihood of electoral defeat in 2024, their long-term rundown of the NHS, their drawn-out reluctance to reach a negotiated pay and conditions settlement with exasperated NHS staff, and an accelerated policy push for private healthcare have all merged into what some argue is a deliberate “scorched earth” mess to hand over to an incoming opposition government.

Case 2: Flagrant Attacks on the Judiciary, Civil Service, and Human Rights

The law is under attack by the radical right, which is trampling over the public interest and human rights. For example, in 2019 the Conservative government tried to prorogue (temporarily close) Parliament for five weeks to facilitate executive processes without scrutiny. The unanimously held that this action was unlawful, as it would have prevented Parliament from supervising the executive. Since then, the Conservative government has vowed to put a stop to what it regards as “judicial interference” in its governing activities.

Determined to push through its political agenda unhindered by judicial scrutiny, the Tories are proceeding in 2023 with legislation to (1) automatically and rapidly deport asylum seekers while denying their access to legal representation or appeal, contrary to international law and UN Convention (more specifically, to deport them —a destination with a highly dubious human rights record—if they cannot be returned rapidly to their country of origin or last known country), and (2) of the Supreme Court and the judiciary to intervene in this or other controversies. The Public Order Act 2023, for example, changes the fundamental right to to one of limited freedom, with police making preemptive arrests on suspicion of a protester’s intent.

In June 2023, the Parliamentary Privileges Committee (with a majority of Conservative MP members) found that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson on several occasions to Parliament—a cardinal sin—and to the Committee. He was disingenuous in his evidence to the Committee by denying that he had many times broken COVID social distancing rules: the so-called Partygate Scandal. The report was scathing in its conclusions. Johnson, adopting a blusteringly Trump-like response, made wild and derogatory allegations about the Committee and individual members, making himself look more like a spoiled, self-absorbed brat than a former prime minister.

The parliamentary on the report resulted in a huge majority in favor of its acceptance (354 to 7), with House Leader the only Cabinet minister attending. With dignity and clarity, she clearly why the report should be accepted. Many now hope that Johnson’s humiliation may signal an end to his style-over-substance brand of politics in Britain. After years of his buffoonery, charm and dishonesty, the public wants grown-ups as political leaders.

The Cabinet also sought to block certain judicial by Baroness Heather Carol Hallett, a retired Court of Appeal judge. Hallett serves as the chair of the Cabinet’s own official Partygate inquiry into Johnson’s possibly unlawful social distancing conduct and subsequent . In addition, the government has sought to impose a Cabinet override on the House of Lords (the upper chamber of Parliament) to prevent objections and protective modifications to its illegal Migration Bill. Subjugation of and contempt for the judiciary, as well as Parliament, has become a cause célèbre for this radical-right regime.

Since 2019, Tory government ministers and MPs have frequently attacked their own civil servants, variously accusing them of disloyalty, laziness and obstruction both of government policies and of the ministers’ determination to reform the Civil Service. For example, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Cabinet Office Minister and unashamed champion of the radical right, referred to Foreign Office officials as “” who “prefer to idle away their hours.” Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab also blamed his enforced resignation for bullying on an alleged by civil servants.

Conservative anger has been directed at what ministers have called “,” whereby they assert that senior civil servants have closed ranks to obstruct the government’s agenda, even accusing them of supporting political opposition parties. What this government wants is to make civil servants its executive subordinates, to be its absolute obedient drones, rather than fulfill their traditional role as “honest brokers” and “devil’s advocates” trying to ensure that draft policies and legislation are lawful, feasible and as low-risk as possible, while steering ministers safely towards implementing their policies.

Unlike in some other countries, British civil servants are not political appointees. They are state employees whose work and posts normally transcend each change of political administration and thereby help to ensure governmental continuity and stability. Their overriding allegiance is to the Crown (i.e., the constitutional head of state) and not to any particular political administration; they are to remain politically neutral in their work for ministers of the day. Authoritarian Tories refuse to acknowledge this inconvenient subtlety and seem determined to remove it permanently.

Case 3: Cancelling of Inconvenient Expert Opinion

The Conservative government’s Cabinet Office has been accused of operating a political blacklist introduced in 2022 against acknowledged subject experts whom the Cabinet Office believes do not share the government’s views.

The government is now vetting such specialists by, among other things, screening their posts over the past 3-5 years on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for “criticism of government officials or policy.” Such selective politicization and removal of inconvenient expert information and advice may result in the failure of decision-makers failing to improve their work. As a Times leader comment noted, these rules “are scandalously vague and flimsy” and “were never debated in Parliament nor publicly announced.”

The former Cabinet Office Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg is credited with introducing the new rules, with the Times headlined “Rees-Mogg’s Blacklist is Positively Soviet.” Others liken it to the US McCarthyist political blacklists of the late 1940s and 1950s: “Are you, or have you ever been, disrespectful to British Conservative Party policy or personnel?”

Case 4: National Impoverishment Caused by Tory Recklessness

Demands for pay raises in the UK public sector have risen on an unprecedented scale since 2022, with workers inflamed by domestic rising by 200% or more and double-digit annual percentage increases. Some basic foodstuff prices too have more than doubled since early 2022.

NHS doctors are fighting for a 30-35% increase just to neutralize the claimed fall in their salary value over the past decade. Nurses, ambulance drivers and ancillary staff, schoolteachers, and many other sectors have similarly high wage demands with similar justifications. The Royal College of Nursing, the UK’s largest nursing union, is on strike for the first time in its 100-year history. Large-scale strikes have escalated in the face of the government’s various offers typically capped at some 5-7%.

Government ministers are accused of demanding that public sector workers should, in effect, personally subsidize government coffers, and learn to budget and manage their meager personal finances better. One radical-right Tory MP (formerly of the Labour Party!) and Deputy Party Chairman, Lee Anderson, has even at the reality of significant numbers of public sector workers now reliant on food banks and charities and suggested that they could easily feed themselves on 30p (or 38¢) per day! Even some armed forces personnel are using food banks.

Another ERG luminary, , the shortest-lived British Prime Minister in history (44 days in 2022), disgraced and forced to resign by her catastrophic “growth by corporate tax cuts” policy that nearly collapsed the British pound, believes that poor people would somehow benefit quickly from the “trickle-down effect” of corporate tax cuts. Neither she nor her successor Rishi Sunak has ever publicly acknowledged that her ignorance of basic national economics and her ideologically driven certitudes recklessly damaged the immediate and long-term wealth and prosperity of the entire population. Emergency alone are estimated to have cost taxpayers over £30 billion ($38 billion).

Reckless endangerment, resulting from ignorance, incompetence, self-interest above national interest, and breathtakingly naĂŻve ideological certitudes, has been the overriding hallmark of the past 13 years of Conservative rule.

A Collapse of Moral Standards in Public Life

There has been widespread evasion by Tory MPs and ministers of ethical standards in public life, established as a formal code by the Committee in 2001. The current government has been beset by a culture of sleaze similar to that which engulfed the Tory government in the 1990s, when the term “Tories-and-sleaze” became a national catchphrase. The following examples illustrate the breadth of the scandals since 2019 alone: 

— , former Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland: improper paid lobbying of government on behalf of a
food company; forced to resign).

— Nadhim Zahawi, former Conservative Party Chairman: evasion of
millions of pounds in tax liabilities; forced to resign
chairmanship and from government.

— Baroness Mone, Conservative Peer: alleged receipt into
offshore accounts of ÂŁ29 million ($37 million) in bribes for
facilitating a contract for major COVID-related supplies with
commercial supplier PPE Medpro; forced to suspend herself
from House of Lords; under investigation by National Crime
Agency.

— Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister: multiple scandals e.g., (1) an
ÂŁ800,000 ($1 million) loan guarantee for himself while Prime
Minister, facilitated by Richard Sharp, shortly before Johnson
recommended him for the BBC Chairman post (Sharp failed to
declare to the BBC a conflict of interest and resigned his BBC
chairmanship); (2) controversy over the scale of costs for internal
redecoration of the 10 Downing Street prime ministerial
residence and the source of funds to pay for it; (3) the Partygate
scandal involving multiple staff parties hosted or attended by
Johnson at Downing Street contrary to strict Covid protection
rules, and then whether he lied to or misled Parliament about
this.

— Scott Benton: accused of paid lobbying of ministers on behalf of
the gambling industry and leaking confidential information.

Other Tory MPs have been accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault or rape, including some convictions and jail sentences: , , Andrew Griffiths, and David Warburton, and .

A catalog of bullying cases has included Tory ministers (e.g., , ) mistreating civil servants, as confirmed by independent inquiries and forced resignations. Such “right of abuse” prerogatives are positively feudal. This bullying trait even extended to particular ministerial advisers, most notably Dominic Cummings, who was appointed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as his Chief of Staff. The rise of Cummings is profiled by . describes Cummings as someone who has undoubted intellectual skills but also presents as “a hyper-authoritarian, driven, fixated, intellectual narcissist … a great believer in himself, his ideas, and his self-certified superior intelligence and … very disparaging of those he considers intellectual weaklings or who might attenuate or interfere with his mission.” It should be noted that Cummings was neither an elected MP nor a civil service employee, but rather a contracted consultant. Nevertheless, Cummings adopted a forceful, and by all accounts overbearing and contemptuous, stance towards Cabinet Office staffers, civil servants in ministries and, indeed, MPs and even Cabinet ministers. 

Cummings clearly held many in terrorem and apparently was not averse to physical violence, such as the in 1999 on a former of the Confederation of British Industry. As the leading adviser to Prime Minister Johnson, he created a major scandal by appearing to flagrantly ignore Covid protection rules that applied to every citizen and to which he himself contributed as Cabinet adviser. The scandal went from bad to worse as Cummings not only refused to apologize but in effect that he had been a paragon of virtue and had done nothing wrong. The court of British public opinion rejected such obvious sophistry. The damage to public trust and confidence was evident via a huge slump for the Conservatives in the polls. Eventually, after further misconduct, Johnson decided that Cummings .

Boris “BoJo” Johnson, who took over as Prime Minister in 2019, was very much a political opportunist rather than a radical-right zealot. Reliant on , photo-op flim-flam and the chutzpah that charmed many people, policy and strategy were never Johnson’s strong points. So, he left to Cummings such matters as “Get Brexit Done,” radical subjugation of the civil service and removal of independent judicial scrutiny of government. To many, it appeared as if Cummings was PM and Johnson was his lapdog.

Cummings did not go quietly in November 2020. True to form, he quickly launched into an ongoing against Johnson via online blogs and social media. Cummings’ powerful position is gone, but he remains an isolated and embittered radical-right fanatic.

Radical-Right Fellow Travellers

Some on the radical right exist within the Conservative Party (e.g., the ERG), while others operate externally in a variety of more hard-line nationalist parties and far-right entities, e.g., Reform UK, Reclaim, Britain First, Patriotic Alternative, and Far Right For Britain. Some radical-right supporters and agitators transcend the distinction between the Conservative Party and far-right nationalist organizations. The (NC) organization, for example, enjoys vocal support from Conservative Party Cabinet Members and MPs, particularly ERG members, as well as supporters of Reform UK and other parties. NC is in revolt against what it regards as a weak Conservative government, its neo-liberal economic and global markets policies, its “soft” immigration policies, and other “liberal” social policies. Three current or former Cabinet Ministers (Braverman, Gove and Rees-Mogg) spoke at the NC’s two-day conference in May 2023.

The NC identifies closely with the US-based , which strongly backs the Republican Party and big business. This foundation exudes authoritarian nationalism, right-wing moralizing certitudes and white Christian supremacy. Its high-profile radical- and far-right nationalist supporters include Giorgia Meloni, the Italian premier, Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian premier, and Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News presenter—all of whom have attained notoriety for their harsh and uncompromising “illiberal democracy” comments. 

A number of senior Tories (e.g., MPs Lee Anderson, Priti Patel, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Marco Longhi) have been variously linked to such far-right organizations as the anti-Islam group UK. Other Tory MPs also alleged to have far-right sympathies Bob Blackman, Nadine Dorries, and . 

The fanatical Lee Anderson, MP, has an abrasive and insulting style, e.g., his conduct towards the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in a parliamentary select committee , and his dismissive let-them-eat-cake rhetoric towards impoverished public sector workers. Home Secretary with her florid rhetoric has led the anti-immigrant, anti-asylum, anti-woke “culture war.” There is some irony in the fact that her jibes about “woke political correctness” are themselves a truth-is-what-we-say-it-is expression of political correctness. By constantly blaming all Britain’s problems on a so-called woke culture (i.e., seemingly anyone who dares disagree with her radical ideas and policies), she is in effect blaming the 56.4% of the electorate who did not vote Tory at the last General Election. Sneering and jeering at voters is a bold tactic indeed!

Populist anxieties about thousands of asylum seekers entering the UK by boat have led to such spine-chilling rhetoric as “let them drown” or “send them to Rwanda”—shades of the infamous plan, perhaps? Few would disagree that there is indeed a control problem and that organized human trafficking criminals continue to challenge and thwart UK authorities’ efforts to stop them. However, the “solution” proposed by and her predecessor Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to the problem of cross-Channel small-boat asylum seekers is : treating them as if they were a priori criminals, locking them up without trial or access to lawyers or the courts, and then swiftly deporting them to Rwanda in Central Africa with no right of appeal and a permanent UK expulsion order against them. These two Home Secretaries have proclaimed loudly that such treatment is inherently humane and compassionate, and that it is compliant with international law and the UN Convention on asylum, despite the bluntly challenging that assertion.

Their grinning faces and glinting eyes when advocating the “Rwanda solution” have betrayed a lack of empathy or remorse and an unmistakable glee, almost as if they actually enjoy inflicting as much harm and distress as possible on unfortunate souls. Understandably, puzzled observers wonder if these particular ministers may be suffering from some form of pathological personality disorder.

Mass Political Brainwashing via Internet and Social Media

Some social media outlets have been criticized as being detrimental to democracy.  According to , “The world of social media is more conducive to extreme, emotionally charged, and divisive types of content than it is to calm, principled considerations of competing or complex narratives.”  points to failures of the  that have allowed outrage to be disguised as news, contributed to citizen apathy in confronting falsehoods and engendered further distrust in democratic institutions.

However, as  notes, social media presents the opportunity to inform more people, amplify voices and allow for an array of diverse voices to speak. Social media has allowed vast new sectors of society, especially young people, to be engaged politically.

Politicians of all persuasions are using social media, whether via written statements or, more commonly, direct-to-camera, talking-heads or controlled interviews. These are infrequently shared by other outlets; while they address a choir of faithful supporters and an echo chamber of fellow travelers, such content and messages avoid refutation by others. Among UK parties, the Conservative Party has become relatively expert in this kind of use of social media to garner electoral support.

All such attempts at mass indoctrination and manipulation, in essence, are merely following the acknowledged father of such principles, the Nazi propaganda minister . His strategy was to propagate false reality and false assertions by engaging the mass German public unwittingly in the process via radio, cinema, newspapers, public meetings, rallies and cultural organizations. He was enthusiastic about the deliberate use of lies for political objectives. The end-justifies-the-means character of the past few years of Tory government is eerily similar. Goebbels would probably have been ecstatic about the way these latter-day disciples put the latest technology to use. Regrettably, opposition parties, notably Labour, are also rapidly moving towards using similar methods.

The Damage is Ongoing

The latest Corruption Perceptions International Index shows that the UK fell to its lowest-ever position in 2022. The report observes that this sharp fall reflects a recent decline in standards in government and insufficient controls on the abuse of public office.

With its sleaze and corruption and its reckless endangerment of the economy and healthcare, the extant radical Conservative government has imposed an increasingly harsh, intolerant and authoritarian regime on the population and on democratic institutions such as the independent judiciary. Unchecked, such conduct is bound to accelerate. Liberal democracy, already becoming illiberal, will drift into authoritarian diktat. Government propaganda and public brainwashing, seeking to normalize its dreadful abuses, grow apace.

The strident dogma and stealthy maneuverings of Conservative leaders, and the overall radical-right caucus demanding permanent radical-right governance, have already laid the groundwork for what would effectively be a coup establishing an elective dictatorship. The plot appears to be underway, whether the Conservative government and party remain intact and under radical-right domination or the party is rent asunder by infighting and joins the motley bunch of radical- and far-right fringe parties that are already vying for supremacy.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Charles Flanagan was the Irish foreign minister at the time of the 2016 Brexit referendum. He reacted to the referendum result with commendable speed and thoroughness. Flanagan briefed his counterparts in all the 26 remaining EU states about Ireland’s concerns. In particular, he argued for keeping the border open between the two parts of the island — Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland — and preserving the former’s position as a full member of the EU Single Market. This laid the foundation for the consistent support Ireland has had for its position from all the EU institutions.

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If Flanagan emerges with credit, Keir Starmer does not. In her final days as prime minister, Theresa May tried to assemble a majority in the House of Commons for a deal that would have kept the entire UK in the EU Customs Union. This would have mitigated or removed the need for customs posts either at ports or land borders. To push this deal through, May needed the support of the opposition Labour Party. Collins observes that “Corbyn was relatively open to the deal, but Starmer, who was in theory strongly pro-EU, raised obstacles at every turn.”

This deal represented the last chance of a soft Brexit. For Starmer, defeating the Tories took a higher priority than preserving good international relations with the EU and Ireland. This episode does not bolster confidence in the potential Labour government in Westminster.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The subject was the stated policy of Liz Truss not only to enact but also to implement the legislation that would unilaterally disregard the Northern Ireland Protocol. This is an international treaty that the  UK freely agreed to, signed off on and then ratified through parliament.

From Brexit to Broken Protocol

Now, the UK government is looking to break this protocol on the grounds that this would be a good thing for the Union, i.e. the union of Britain and Northern Ireland. Indeed it is being pressed forward by a  self-described “Conservative” and supposedly “Unionist” party.

My argument to Times Radio listeners was that this radical , and deeply unconservative, attempt to break a solemn treaty , is actually damaging to the Union, for the following reasons:

1. It is opposed by a majority in Northern Ireland. A majority there would like changes to the protocol alright , but do not favor such a radical course as Truss is insisting upon. Adopting a course , in defiance of a majority view in Northern Ireland,  politically weakens “unionist” sentiment there. That should be fairly obvious.

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2. Northern Ireland has prospered disproportionately under the protocol. Before this treaty, Northern Ireland was one of the worst performing regions of the UK. Now, it has become the second best in the country after London.

Prosperity in Northern Ireland, as part of the UK and under the protocol , is objectively good for the Union. While business in Northern Ireland knows this, the “Conservative and Unionist” party in Britain does not seem to care. Incidentally, the more Northern Ireland prospers under the protocol, the less subsidization it will require from London, which would also strengthen the Union.  

3 . Unilaterally ditching the protocol will initiate a a major trade war between the UK, including Northern Ireland, and the EU. Northern Ireland would suffer most and this would be bad for the Union. Liz Truss, a former trade secretary, is bound to know this well. 

This UK-initiated trade war will also weaken the western alliance’s economic and political capacity to support Ukraine. Those who believe in and support democracy will be concerned.

4 . Ditching the Protocol will not restore the pre-protocol economic status quo ante for Northern Ireland. In this period, this region lagged behind the rest of the UK.

Worse Than Pre-Protocol

In fact, the new situation will be much worse than the pre-protocol era for Northern Ireland. This is because its economy will be engulfed by a new duplicative bureaucracy of a kind never seen before.

Long existing links will be broken.

Supply chains will be destroyed.

Expensive investments will be rendered valueless.

The above three things will happen because the ditching of the protocol will allow the UK to impose increasingly different product regulations in Northern Ireland to the ones the region uses at the moment. The current regulations allow Northern Ireland free access to the EU market, the only market in the world to which the region has  unimpeded road access.

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The damage will be felt especially severely by Northern Ireland’s dairy sector. One-third of Northern Ireland milk is processed in Ireland, a member of the EU.  There are 5,400 dairy businesses in Northern Ireland and the business generates over $1.75 billion (ÂŁ1.5 billion pound sterling) every year. This cross-border processing  of Northern Ireland milk will have to stop if  the milk is longer produced to EU standards. This will be massively disruptive .

To get around this problem,  a special supply chain would have to be developed. Farmers could either supply milk to Northern Ireland and the UK or to Ireland and the EU. Currently, they do not have to choose. They supply both markets at the moment.

Thus, massive duplication and additional expense would be imposed on dairy producers in Northern Ireland. Ironically, most of them probably vote for “unionist” parties,  are enterprising people and vital contributors to their neighborhoods. They do not deserve this disruption.

It turns out that ditching  the protocol will not only be bad for the Union, it will be bad for unionists. For all these reasons, Liz Truss’s policy is not only unConservative, it is also anti Unionist.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Polexit: Is Poland on the Way Out of the EU?

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Freedom of movement in Europe was always something I took for granted. I saw Europe as part of our heritage, despite the grumblings of euroskeptics and sly articles in the British press about the perils of straight  and the metric system. 

I traveled a lot in my youth, but travel was never really the issue. Citizens of many countries from outside the EU can stay in the Schengen zone for up to 90 days without a visa. It wasn’t until 2009 that the  of being an EU citizen became obvious to me. 

Free to Work and Study in Europe 

I signed up for a master’s degree in Brussels, Belgium. The beauty of this was, as an EU citizen, the entire degree cost me only €500 ($560). It was taught in English and full of students from all over the world.

There was no paperwork to deal with, no need to prove income, no need to apply for any student visas. Education in Belgium was as open to me as education in my country of origin. And that would have been the same for education in any country in the EU. 

I stayed in Belgium for two years. During that time, I could work freely without any authorization. I taught English at the European Parliament. I also did a number of freelance jobs on the side. But I could have worked anywhere, from behind a bar, to the top levels of the European institutions. 

As an EU citizen, I had the right to live and work in Belgium, just as I did with any other country in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). No sponsorship needed, no work visa, no permission of any kind. 

I often traveled back and forth between London and Brussels. The Eurostar was, and still is, the best mode of transport. It takes you directly from the center of one capital into the center of the other. With an EU passport, going through immigration was quick and simple. In contrast, passport holders from outside the EU had to wait in a separate queue, all herded together. 

I didn’t use my EU freedom of movement rights again for 10 years. But that would be for the final time, as a big change was coming. 

The Vote That Changed Everything

In 2016, a majority of British voters decided the UK should leave the European Union. Millions of British citizens would soon lose their EU rights. People with Irish or other European relatives were desperately applying for second passports.

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The next few years were chaotic, full of political turmoil and tribalism. The Brexit referendum had the country down the middle, and things would never be the same again.

After the vote, there was a rapidly closing window of opportunity to move to the EU. I knew that was the only option for me. So, in the early weeks of 2020, I moved to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Time was running out by then, with the Brexit transition period in full swing. Within months, UK citizens would be officially relegated to third-country national status. 

There was no time to waste in securing  in Portugal. As an EU citizen, it was easy. I landed in Lisbon, took my passport and showed up at the nearest municipal office. Thirty minutes and €15 later, I had a five-year temporary residency document for Portugal. 

Portugal’s timeline is five years. All being well, that document will allow me to regain my EU rights sometime in 2025, this time as a proud citizen of Portugal — the country I chose.  

The EU project is far from perfect. Like any large-scale collaboration of humans, it’s fraught with issues. Yes, there’s corruption. Yes, there’s waste and inefficiency. Despite that, the EU is an ambitious project that emerged out of the devastation of the Second World War. The resulting economic cooperation has kept Europe peaceful ever since. In that sense, it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Citizen of Another Somewhere

I don’t like nationalism. It’s too easily misused. And I can’t be proud of something that I didn’t achieve: the coincidence of being born on a certain piece of land. Does that mindset make me a “citizen of nowhere”? If so, that’s good. Thanks for the , Theresa. 

As the late John le Carre once said, “If you want to make me a citizen of nowhere, I will become a citizen of another somewhere.” An Englishman all his life, le Carre an Irish citizen, so disappointed was he at the fallout from Brexit. He was fortunate to have that Irish heritage. Not everyone does. And those that don’t have become second-class citizens in Europe.

National pride is artificially constructed to hold the nation-state together. It plays on our natural inclinations toward tribalism, which is merely an evolutionary hangover. Benedict Anderson’s classic book, “Imagined Communities,” explains these ideas better than I ever could.

Perhaps the EU is an “imagined community” too. But countries working together, no matter how flawed the process, is the only route we have to improving the world. It’s a project I’m determined to be part of. And if I can’t do so as a British citizen, then I’ll happily do so as a Portuguese. 

*[Samantha North is the founder of , an EU citizenship consultancy.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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This distrust arose because the of the Ireland and Northern Ireland Protocol of the withdrawal agreement — the treaty that took the UK out of the EU — had been unilaterally by the British government. If a party to an international agreement takes it upon itself to unilaterally alter a deal, the whole basis of international agreements with that party disappears.

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The matters in dispute between the UK and the EU — the protocol and COVID-19 vaccines — remain unresolved. The European Union is taking the United Kingdom to over the protocol, but the court is unlikely to decide anything before the new deadline of April 30.

In the normal course of events, the TCA between the UK and the EU would be discussed in the relevant committee of the European Parliament, before coming to the plenary session of Parliament for ratification. The next meeting of the Committee on International Trade is due to take place on April 14-15, and the agenda for the meeting has been published. It includes a discussion on the enforcement of trade agreements, the general system of preferences and, significantly, trade-related aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. It makes no mention of the TCA with the UK.

Trade-related aspects of the pandemic will inevitably include a discussion on vaccine protectionism, which is a highly contentious issue between the EU and the UK that has poisoned relations and led to bitter commentary in the media. The fact that the committee has not included a discussion of the TCA with the UK on its agenda for what may well be the only meeting it will have before the April deadline is potentially very significant.

Ratifying the Trade Deal

The TCA is a 1,246-page , and its contents, if ratified, will take precedence over EU law. To ratify such an agreement without proper scrutiny in the relevant committees could be seen as a dereliction of the European Parliament’s responsibility of scrutiny. We should not forget the scrutiny that was applied to the much more modest EU trade with Canada. The same goes for the with Mercosur states (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay).

Furthermore, the TCA would, if ratified, set up a network of committees to oversee its implementation. These will meet in private and their work will diminish the ongoing oversight by the European Parliament of a host of issues affecting all 27 EU member states. The TCA also contains a system of dispute-resolution mechanisms that will quickly be overwhelmed by work. The TCA has many items of unfinished business, on which the European Parliament will want to express a view. It is hard to see how any of this can be done before the end of April.

The UK government led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson has adopted a deliberately confrontational style in its negotiations with the European Union. The more rows there are, the happier the support base that Johnson is seeking to rally for his Conservative Party. Johnson’s European strategy has always been about electoral politics, not economic performance. This has led to almost complete confusion between the British government and the EU.

If the European Parliament ratifies the TCA without there having been seen to be a satisfactory outcome to the EU-UK negotiations about the Ireland and Northern Ireland Protocol and over the export of vaccines, it will be a political setback for Parliament and a source of immense satisfaction for Johnson.

Yet one should never underestimate the role emotion can play in politics. The entire Brexit saga is a story of repeated triumphs of emotion over reason — and the European Parliament is not immune to this ailment. Boris Johnson could be pushing his luck a bit far this time.

*[A version of this article was posted on John Bruton’s .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The Risk of a No-Deal Brexit Remains appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The Brexit Deal Presents Opportunities for a New Partnership

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After five years of radical uncertainty, it has become clear that the European Union and the United Kingdom will be taking separate paths on financial regulations — a financial “decoupling” that means a significant loss of business for the City. Whether the EU financial sector can gain much of what London loses will depend on the EU’s willingness to embrace further financial market integration.

Smart Sequencing Ensured an Orderly Brexit

As with the Y2K problem, the Brexit transition could have gone worse. It took more than luck to avoid financial instability along the way.

First, financial firms on both sides of the English Channel (and of the Irish Sea) worked hard and were able to preempt most of the operational challenges.

Second, despite all the recurring high-stakes drama between the UK government and the European Commission, the technical cooperation between the authorities actually in charge of financial stability, primarily the Bank of England and the European Central Bank (ECB), appears to have run smoothly.

Third, the negotiators phased the process in a smart way. The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement of January 2020 helped reduce uncertainty by ensuring that the UK government would meet its financial obligations to the EU, avoiding what would have been akin to selective default. That agreement kept the United Kingdom in the single market during the transition period beyond the country’s formal exit from the European Union on January 31, 2020. It also set a late-June deadline for the British government to extend the transition period beyond December 31, 2020. As London decided not to do so, that left six months of effective preparation.

To be sure, whether an EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) would be concluded remained unknown until late December. But that mattered comparatively little for financial services, since trade agreements typically do not cover them much. By one , the 1,259-page TCA (which is still  by the European Union) contains only six pages relevant for the financial sector.

The resulting legal environment for financial services between the European Union and the United Kingdom is unlikely to change much any time soon. Contrary to  in the United Kingdom, no bilateral negotiations on financial services are going on, except for a  of understanding expected this month that is not expected to bind the parties on substance.

From the EU perspective, the United Kingdom is now a “third country,” in other words an offshore financial center, following decades of onshore status. UK-registered financial firms have lost the right, or “passport,” to offer their services seamlessly anywhere in the EU single market. From a regulatory standpoint, they have no better access to that market than their peers in other third nations such as Japan, Singapore or the United States.

Equivalence Status for UK Financial Market Segments

Some segments of the financial sector in these other third countries actually have better single market access than British ones, because they are covered by a category in EU law allowing direct service provision by firms under a regulatory framework deemed “equivalent” to that in the European Union. The equivalence decision is at the European Commission’s discretion, even though it is based on a technical assessment. As a privilege and not a right, equivalence can be revoked on short notice.

So far, the European Commission has not granted the UK any such segment-specific equivalence, except in a time-limited manner for securities  until mid-2021 and clearing  until mid-2022. For the moment, the commission appears to be leaning  making the latter permanent. In most other market segments, the commission will not likely grant equivalence to the United Kingdom in the foreseeable future. This may appear inconsistent with the fact that almost all current UK regulations stem from the existing EU of law. But the UK authorities ( the Bank of England) have declined to commit to keeping that alignment intact.

The commission’s inclination to reduce EU dependence on the City of London is understandable. No comparable dependence on an offshore financial center has existed anywhere in recent financial history. Such dependence entails financial stability risk. In a crisis, UK authorities would not necessarily respond in a way that preserves vital EU interests. Think of the Icelandic crisis of 2008, when Reykjavik protected the failing banks’ domestic depositors but not  ones. It is hardly absurd for the European Union to try to reduce such a risk, even if — as appears to happen with  — some of the activity migrates from the United Kingdom to the United States or other third countries as a consequence, and not to the European Union.

At the same time, the  that keeping EU liquidity pooled in London is more efficient than any alternative is unpersuasive given the European Union’s own vast size. In addition, the European Commission also follows mercantilist impulses to lure activity away from London, even though these generally do not make economic sense. Added up, these factors provide little incentive for the commission to grant equivalence status to more UK financial market segments, unless some other high-level political motives come into play. None are apparent  now.

The UK Is Unlikely to Regain Lost Advantage

How the European Union and the United Kingdom will decouple will not be uniform across all parts of the financial system. Regulatory competition between them may become a “race to the bottom” or “to the top,” depending on market segments and the circumstances of the moment, without a uniform pattern. In any case, such labels are more a matter of judgment in financial regulation than in, say, tax competition.

In some areas, the European Union will be laxer, while in others, it will be the United Kingdom, as is presently the case between the EU and the US. For example, the European Union is more demanding than the United States on curbing bankers’  but easier when it comes to enforcing securities laws or setting capital  for banks. At least some forthcoming UK financial regulatory decisions may be aimed at keeping or attracting financial institutions in London, but they are still not likely to offset the loss of passport to the EU single market.

All these permutations suggest that the medium-term outlook for the City of London is unpromising, although the COVID-19 situation makes all quantitative observations more difficult to interpret. Once an onshore financial center for the entire EU single market, and a competitive offshore center for the rest of the world, the City has been reduced to an onshore center for the United Kingdom only and has become offshore for the European Union. That implies a different, in all likelihood less powerful, set of synergies across the City of London’s financial activities.

The few relevant quantitative data points available reinforce this bleak view. Job offerings in British finance, as tracked by consultancy Morgan McKinley, have  alarmingly since the 2016 Brexit referendum. The ECB (as bank supervisor) and national securities regulators coordinated by the European Securities and Markets Authority are tightening  for key personnel to reside mainly on EU territory rather than in the United Kingdom.

As by Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper, many financial firms’ Brexit policy until this year had been to “sit tight and do nothing until post-Brexit arrangements for finance forced [their] hand.” That phase has ended. Firms that drag their feet face regulatory disruption, as happened to broker  in late January. Tussles between regulators and regulated entities, rather than between the European Commission and the UK government, are where most of the financial-sector Brexit action is likely to be in 2021. These disputes typically happen behind closed doors, and the regulators typically hold most of the cards.

For all the optimistic in London of “Big Bang 2.0 or whatever,” the United Kingdom’s comparative advantage as the best location for financial business in the European time zone is unlikely to recover to its pre-Brexit level. The macroeconomic losses could be moderated or offset by cheaper currency and less expensive real estate in London, making the city a more attractive place to do nonfinancial business. Even so, a gap will likely remain for the UK government, which has for years depended heavily on financial sector– tax revenue.

The European Union stands to gain financial activity as a consequence of Brexit. How much and where is not clear yet. As some analysts had , Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Paris are the leaders for the relocation of international (non-EU) firms. Dublin and Luxembourg  in asset management, Frankfurt in investment banking and Amsterdam in trading. But EU success in terms of financial services competitiveness and stability will depend on further market integration, the pace of which remains hard to predict.

The European banking union is still only half-built because it lacks a consistent framework for bank crisis and deposit insurance. The grand EU rhetoric on “capital markets union” has yielded little actual reform since its  in 2014. Events like the still-unfolding  saga may force additional steps toward market integration, even though a proactive approach would be preferable.

The one near certainty is that London’s position in the European financial sector will be less than it used to be.

*[This article was originally published by  and the .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post A New European Financial Landscape Is Emerging appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Go to extreme and unreasonable lengths:

An expression that those who habitually go to extreme and unreasonable lengths in everything they do like to apply to those who oppose any of their extremely unreasonable acts

Contextual Note

We live in an era in which extreme and unreasonable discourse and action have become the most reliable tool for those seeking political, economic or social success. It explains how purveyors of extreme and unreasonable discourse have won recent elections in nations as diverse as the US, the UK, India, the Philippines and Brazil, to mention only those countries. 

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Whether their names are Johnson, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Silvio Berlusconi, Rodrigo Duterte, Elon Musk or Kanye West, each in his own patented way has perfected the art of outrageous hyperreality that thrives on projecting a personality that is extreme and unreasonable. The phenomenon goes beyond politics. In fact, it originates in the world of entertainment. West, an American rapper, did as much to inspire President Trump’s approach to politics as Trump did to convince West he could have a future in politics.

The Guardian’s readers may be left wondering what kind of exceptionally outrageous behavior could merit Johnson, the British prime minister, calling European negotiators’ behavior “extreme and unreasonable.” Even during his career as a journalist before moving into politics, Johnson specialized in extreme and unreasonable exaggeration in his reporting of the news.

In 2016, Johnson also went from the extreme of preparing an article for publication in The Telegraph in which he in favor of Britain remaining in Europe and warned that leaving the EU would provoke an “economic shock,” to leading the wing of the Conservative Party in the “leave” campaign for Brexit. That permitted him to identify himself with the cause of Brexit and assume the leadership of that faction of a party officially committed to remaining as a member of the European Union. He sensed that it would be the shortest route to Downing Street as he witnessed the wavering fortunes of David Cameron, the prime minister at the time.

So, what terribly extreme and unreasonable actions are the Europeans guilty of in Johnson’s eyes? Very simply, they disapprove of his “internal market bill,” which calls for unilaterally overturning the withdrawal agreement Johnson signed last year to presumably settle the initial political conditions of the UK leaving the European Union. On Johnson’s own initiative, that agreement drew a border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, which together make up the United Kingdom. 

The law he is now proposing would permit him to effectively erase that border, leading to the necessity of creating a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Keeping that border open as provided by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement — a deal that ended the violence between Catholics and Protestants — was the required condition for reaching any kind of permanent solution to the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.

Now, key members of Johnson’s cabinet have begun to revolt, as this is a clear violation of the terms of the withdrawal agreement that took so long to hammer out. Britain’s former ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, now out that the bill will be “hugely damaging to our international reputation.” He warned that “it could deter other countries from entering into agreements with the UK in the future.” He wasn’t alone. Five former British prime ministers have also expressed concern over the move. Darroch speculated on what might happen “if people think the Brits are just going to say: we didn’t like this on reflection, and we would like to rewrite this part unilaterally.”

Historical Note

During the centuries when the British dominated the world and owned an empire on which the sun never set, as a people they acquired the reputation of being committed to “fair play.” The French, who never had an entente with the British that was deeper than merely cordial, to this day identify the British as a people who want to be respected for maintaining the cultural value of fair play, at least as it applies to sports.

The French have never been naive. They have always recognized that their British neighbors were perfectly capable of perfidy. To this day, the French will ironically trot out the expression “perfide Albion” to explain Britain’s positions concerning other nations. But Albion’s traditional perfidy was always subtle, carrying an air of reasonableness and delivered with what appeared to be a complicit smile. Boris Johnson’s is both extreme and unreasonable.

Empires will always be suspected of perfidy, if only because everyone understands that they can, on a whim, betray treaties and agreements — and even their own stated principles and values — as they rely on their military prowess and financial clout to carry them through. To some extent, this becomes the law of empires, their way of indicating that the countries they deal with have a greater interest in being nice to them than they do in being nice to the others. 

The irony this time — and some see it as a tragedy — lies in the fact that Britain hasn’t been an empire for at least 70 years. Johnson has become little more than Shakespeare’s “poor player who struts and frets his hour upon a stage” and someday soon will be heard no more. The burning question, when it comes to Johnson, Rodrigo Duterte and Donald Trump — whose exit may be announced in November — is this: What will the damaged landscape look like when those leaders specialized in upending their own cultures are gone?

As the world breathlessly awaits the major events that affect every nation in the world — starting with the US presidential election in November and including the unabating drama of the waxing and waning of hopes to see the end of the COVID-19 pandemic — the British have the added angst of speculating about just how irreparably damaging what appears to be an inevitable “hard Brexit” on January 1, 2021, is likely to be. One thing seems to be sure: it will be both extreme and unreasonable. 

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Boris Johnson Pushes Unreason to an Extreme appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

There are only around 50 working days left in which to make a broader agreement for a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU. The consequences of failing to do so for Ireland will be as profound — and perhaps even as long-lasting — as those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A failure to reach a UK-EU agreement would mean a deep rift between the UK and Ireland. It would also mean heightened tensions within Northern Ireland, disruptions to century-old business relations and a succession of high-profile court cases between the EU and the UK dragging on for years.

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Issues on which a deal could have easily been reached in amicable give-and-take negotiations will be used as hostages or leverage on other matters. The economic and political damage would be incalculable. And we must do everything we can to avoid this.

Changing the EU trade commissioner, , under such circumstances would be dangerous. Trying to change horses in midstream is always difficult. But attempting to do so at the height of a flood — in high winds — would be even more so.

The EU would lose an exceptionally competent trade commissioner when he was never more needed. An Irishman would no longer hold the trade portfolio. The independence of the European Commission, a vital ingredient in the EU’s success, would have been compromised — a huge loss for all smaller EU states.

According to the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, talks between the European Union and the UK, which ended last week, seemed at times to be going “backwards rather than forwards.” The impasse has been reached for three reasons.

The Meaning of Sovereignty

First, the two sides have set themselves incompatible objectives. The European Union wants a wide-ranging “economic partnership” between the UK and the EU, with a “level playing field” for “open and fair” competition. The UK agreed to this objective in the joint political declaration made with the EU at the time of the withdrawal agreement, which was reached in October 2019.

Since then, the UK has held a general election with the ruling Conservative Party winning an overall majority in Parliament, and it has changed its mind. It is now insisting, in the uncompromising of it chief negotiator, David Frost, on “sovereign control of our own laws, borders, and waters.”

This formula fails to take account of the fact that any agreement the UK might make with the EU (or with anyone else) on standards for goods, services or food items necessarily involves a diminution of sovereign control. Even being in the World Trade Organization (WTO) involves accepting its rulings, which are a diminution of “sovereign control.” This is why US President Donald Trump does not like the WTO and is trying to undermine it.

The 2019 withdrawal agreement from the EU also involves a diminution of sovereign control by Westminster over the laws that will apply in Northern Ireland and thus within the UK. That agreement obliges the UK to apply EU laws on tariffs and standards to goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain — i.e., going from one part of the UK to another.

This obligation is one of the reasons given by a group of UK parliamentarians — including Iain Duncan Smith, David Trimble, Bill Cash, Owen Paterson and Sammy Wilson — for wanting the UK to pull out from the withdrawal agreement, even though most of them voted for it last year.

Sovereignty is a metaphysical concept, not a practical policy. Attempting to apply it literally would make structured and predictable international cooperation between states impossible. That is not understood by many in the Conservative Party.

The Method of Negotiation

Second, the negotiating method has proved challenging. The legal and political timetables do not gel. The UK wants to discuss the legal texts of a possible free trade agreement first and leave the controversial issues — like competition and fisheries — until the endgame in October. But the EU wants serious engagement to start on these sticking points straight away.

Any resolution of these matters will require complex legal drafting, which cannot be left to the last minute. After all, these texts will have to be approved by the European and British Parliaments before the end of 2020. There can be no ambiguities or late-night sloppy drafting.

The problem is that the UK negotiator cannot yet get instructions on the compromises he can make from Boris Johnson, the British prime minister. Johnson is instead preoccupied with combating the spread of the COVID-19 disease, as well as keeping the likes of Duncan Smith and Co. onside. The prime minister is a last-minute type of guy.

Trade Relations With Other Blocs

Third, there is the matter of making provisions for the trade agreements the UK wants to make in the future with other countries, such as the US, Japan and New Zealand. Freedom to make such deals was presented to UK voters as one of the benefits of Brexit.

The underlying problem here is that the UK government has yet to make up its mind on whether it will continue with the European Union’s strict precautionary policy on food safety or adopt the more permissive approach favored by the US. Similar policy choices will have to be made by the UK on chemicals, energy efficiency displays and geographical indicators.

The more the UK diverges from existing EU standards on these issues, the more intrusive the controls on goods coming into Northern Ireland from Britain will have to be, and the more acute the distress will be for Unionist circles in Northern Ireland. Issues that are uncontroversial in themselves will assume vast symbolic significance and threaten peace on the island of Ireland

The UK is likely to be forced to make side deals with the US on issues like hormone-treated beef, genetically modified organisms and chlorinated chicken. The US questions the scientific basis for the existing EU restrictions and has won a WTO case on beef over this. It would probably win on chlorinated chicken, too.

If Britain conceded to the US on hormones and chlorination, this would create control problems at the border between the UK and the EU, wherever that border is in Ireland. Either UK officials would enforce EU rules on hormones and chlorination on the entry of beef or chicken to this island, or there would be a huge international court case.

All this shows that, in the absence of some sort of partnership agreement between the EU and the UK, relations could spiral out of control. Ireland, as well as the European Union, needs its best team on the pitch to ensure that this does not happen.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Negotiating the End of Brexit appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The Brexit Transition Period Will Be Extended

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Perhaps it was unrealistic for Barnier to have expected the UK to engage seriously with the trade-offs and concessions that are essential to a long-term trade agreement while Johnson was in the hospital. Brexit is Boris’ big thing. He made it. Other Tory ministers have no leeway to make Brexit decisions without his personal imprimatur. He has purged the Conservative Party of all significant figures who might have advocated a different vision of a post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU.

The point of Barnier’s intervention is that now Johnson is back at work, he will need to give clear strategic leadership to the UK negotiating team. If he fails to do so, we will end up on January 1, 2021, with no post-Brexit deal on future relations and an incipient trade war between the UK and the EU — and Ireland will be on the front line.

The scars left by the COVID-19 pandemic will eventually fade, but those left by a willfully bad Brexit —  whether brought on deliberately or by inattention — may never heal. This is because a bad Brexit will be a deliberate political act, whereas COVID-19 is just a reminder of our shared human vulnerability. 

No Draft Proposal on Future Relations

In 2019, Johnson signed up to an EU withdrawal treaty to allow the UK to leave the union. This legally committed the UK to customs, controls between Britain and Northern Ireland, so as to avoid checks of goods between the north and south on the island of Ireland. So far, Barnier says he has detected no evidence that the UK is making serious preparations to do this. An attempt by the UK to back out of these ratified legal commitments would be seen as a sign of profound bad faith.

Barnier said that negotiating by video link due to the pandemic was “surreal,” but that the deadlines to be met are very real. The first deadline is the end of June. This is the last date at which an extension to the transition period beyond December 31 might be agreed upon by both sides. While the EU would almost certainly agree to this, there is no sign that the UK will. Tory politicians repeatedly say they will not extend.

This tight deadline would be fine if the UK was engaging seriously and purposefully in the talks. But, according to Barnier, the Brits have not yet even produced a full version of a draft agreement that would reflect their expectations of future relations between the UK and the European Union. The EU, on the other hand, produced its full draft weeks ago. Without full texts of the proposals, it is hard to begin real negotiations.

So far, the UK has only produced portions of the proposed treaty. The UK insists that Barnier keep these parts of the draft UK text secret and not share them with the 27 member states of the EU. Giving Barnier texts that he cannot share with those on whose behalf he is negotiating is just wasting his time. It seems that UK negotiators are adopting this strange tactic because they have no clear political direction from their own side. They do not know whether these proposals are even acceptable in the UK.

In the political declaration that accompanied the EU withdrawal deal, Prime Minister Johnson agreed that his government would use its best endeavors to reach an agreement on fisheries by the end of July. This would be vital if the UK fishing industry were to be able to continue to export its surplus fish to the EU. Apparently, there has not been serious engagement from the British side on this matter either.

Level Playing Field

The other issue on which Barnier detected a lack of engagement by the UK was the so-called “level-playing-field” question. The EU wants binding guarantees that the UK will not — through state subsidies or via lax environmental or labor rules — give its exporters an artificial advantage over EU (and Irish) competitors.

This issue is becoming a difficult issue within the EU itself. In response to the COVID-19 economic downturn, some wealthier EU states (like Germany) are giving generous cash/liquidity support to the industries in their own countries. On the other hand, EU states with weaker budgetary positions (Italy, Spain and perhaps even Ireland) cannot compete with this.

It is understandable that temporary help may be given to prevent firms from going bust in the wake of the economic disruption. But what is temporary at the beginning can easily become indefinite, and what is indefinite can become permanent. Subsidies are addictive.

The reason we have a common agricultural policy in the EU is that when the common market was created, nobody wanted rich countries to be able to give their farmers an advantage over farmers in countries whose governments could not afford the same level of help. The same consideration applies to industry. Subsidies should be equal or they should not be given at all.

State aid must be regulated inside the EU if a level playing field is to be preserved. To make a convincing case for a level playing field between the European Union and the UK, the EU side will need to show it is doing so internally. This will be a test for President Ursula von der Leyen as a German commissioner.

Will COVID-19 Hide the Pain of Brexit?

Which way will Johnson turn on the terms of a deal with the EU? It is unlikely he will look for an extension to the transition period beyond the end of this year. He wants a hard Brexit, a clean break as he would misleadingly call it, but he knows it will be very painful. He probably thinks the pain of a hard Brexit — or no agreement at all on future relations — at the end of December will be concealed by the even greater and more immediate pain of the economic slump caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Brexit will not be blamed for the pain. But if the transition period is postponed until January 2022, the Brexit pain will be much more visible to voters.

The Conservative Party has become the Brexit Party. It is driven by a narrative around reestablishing British identity and is quite insensitive to economic or trade arguments. It wants Brexit done quickly because it fears the British people might change their minds. That is why there is such a mad rush. It is not rational — it is imperative.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Brexit Is Heading for the Cliff Edge appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

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Yet some asked a serious question: What lies ahead for the post-Brexit trade talks between the UK and the European Union? The 11-month transition period, which ends on December 31, was considered too short by pretty much everyone except the UK government even before the world came to a standstill. During this period, the United Kingdom remains in the EU customs union and single market.

The fact that the EU’s Michel Barnier and the UK’s Boris Johnson came down with COVID-19 was just the cherry on the cake. There have been  and legitimate from UK industries, charities and Welsh and Scottish politicians, calling for talks to be put on hold and for the transition period to be extended. This would allow the UK government and the EU to focus on getting the situation with the coronavirus pandemic under control first. So why, in some sort of 2019 re-run, is Prime Minister Johnson insisting that the UK will end the transition period by December? 

Getting Brexit Done at All Costs

The most incredible thing about Brexit is just how sacrosanct it has become. I cannot help but compare this to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, much as it was based on a deep-rooted and long-standing wariness of one side toward the other. In both cases, the divorce was first and foremost a political move.

What is different about Brexit, however, is that an election promise adhered to a little too religiously has become the grand symbol of the will of the people — the litmus test by which British democracy is measured. If the election promise in 2010 to not raise university tuition fees had been adhered to with at least half the vigor, we would all be literally better off and the Liberal Democrats wouldn’t be wondering if they will ever regain their political influence ever again. But that’s another story.

The point is that the only thing that came to matter was that Brexit was done at all costs. Brexiteers were convinced it was right and just, and most “remainers” — despite the exasperated “it was all nonsense anyway” remarks on social media — resigned themselves to the reality of leaving the EU.  

Johnson is the person who promised the British public that Brexit can and will be done and, what’s more, that it will be beneficial, easy and quick. He is the last in line of politicians around whom a Brexit-anchored cult of personality has developed and which has carried him through to Number 10. I still remember his “independence day”  on a BBC-televised debate in June 2016 as the moment I knew the “vote leave” campaign was going to win the Brexit referendum. He has been there from “take back control” to “get Brexit done,” which won him a resounding electoral victory in December 2019.

By then, Johnson managed to convince most — including myself, despite my best intentions — that he was the only man for the job. Seemingly, nothing was going to stand in his way, domestically or internationally, in finishing the Brexit story and moving onto the process of “healing,” among other priorities. And then, just like that, a global pandemic requiring literal healing has pulled his perfectly placed rug out from under his feet.  

For around half a decade, Brexit has been pretty much the only thing that mattered in the UK. Even now, there are enough Britons out there who see the postponement of trade talks as a ploy to keep the UK aligned with the EU for longer. For some, the European Union’s response to the coronavirus pandemic is further proof that the UK is better off out of the union. (The EU’s failure to communicate properly about what it is doing, why it matters and how it benefits its citizens is once again a subject in itself.)

Facts and Reason

Yet something has finally shifted. Facts and reason were forced back into fashion, leaving behind a sense of perspective — everything the Brexit debate has missed from the start. A global pandemic has turned people’s attention away from the Brexit boogeyman hiding under their bed to a real threat with potentially deadly consequences. Brexit is being exposed for what it is at this stage: a nation pulling out of a series of treaties, not an identity-making moment. This task has now been brushed aside by a monumental challenge for the world. 

This is not to say the task is insignificant. Despite the rhetoric coming out of Number 10 in the run-up to January 31 that the Brexit story was over with the UK leaving the EU, both sides know the hardest part still lies ahead. The idea that Britain could leave the union with no trade agreement would have caused chaos a couple of years ago, never mind now with the inevitable global recession that’s coming. 

Despite the health crisis taking center stage, the EU tabled a full proposal of a draft treaty on March 13. The UK, meanwhile, has only put down a handful of documents covering trade, transport, aviation and nuclear cooperation, all the while insisting on getting a final agreement by the end of the year. Regardless of when and how the talks continue, the days when Brexit commanded the sole attention of the UK and the EU are over. 

Prime Minister Johnson knows this. The fact that he is not yet agreeing to prolong the transition period indicates two things.

First, just like the rest of us, he is adapting to the current situation, trying to hold on to the hope that life will, at some point, go back to normal — at least partially. As prime minister of a country that is outside of the EU with no agreed trade deal during a pandemic that is bound to be followed by a global economic crisis, even Johnson can be cut some slack for being slightly disoriented.

Second, Johnson has been aptly as “a man who waits to see the way the crowd is running and then dashes in front and says: follow me.” He is biding his time to either strike fast should the coronavirus suddenly abate and still just about deliver on his promises, or to wait for a moment when the public mood is just right for him to announce that emotion must give way to reason.

Having watched Boris for the best part of a decade, I believe he can wear the suit of a crisis manager just as well as he wore the habit of a high priest of Brexit, if that is what the situation calls for.  

*[ is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

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Both the United States and the United Kingdom came down with chills and high fever in 2016. In the most optimistic scenario, the passage of the Brexit referendum to leave the European Union and then Donald Trump’s electoral victory some months later would inoculate the general population against an even more serious illness. Surely, once Britons got a foretaste of exiting the EU, they would come to their senses and run back into the embrace of Brussels. Likewise, Americans would experience the horror of a Trump presidency and kick him out of office after his first term (or even before).

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So far, so bad. In the UK general election on December 12, Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party won a decisive victory over both the wavering Labour Party and the more EU-friendly Liberal Democrats. With his commanding parliamentary majority, Prime Minister Johnson will be able to usher the UK out of the EU, and there’s little that anyone can do to stop him.

Meanwhile, across the pond, Congress is impeaching an American president for only the third time in history. That, on the face of it, would seem to be a resolute response to the disease that is Donald Trump. But President Trump isn’t going anywhere. According to a number of indications this week, his chances of reelection in 20202 have even been improved by impeachment — or, at the very least, not adversely affected by it.

Democracy is supposed to be the political system that allows citizens to learn from their mistakes. But what happens when those mistakes are so momentous that they threaten to overwhelm the system and its vaunted self-correction mechanisms? We’ve been suffering from flu symptoms only to learn that just around the corner is the political equivalent of Ebola.

Johnson’s Folly

In the run-up to the recent UK election, Johnson couldn’t seem to stop making mistakes. He threatened to pull the UK out of the EU even without a withdrawal deal, a move so disruptive that members of his own party bolted into opposition. He invoked emergency powers over Parliament to force a vote on his Brexit proposal. He lost vote after vote in the House of Commons.

Through it all, Johnson was his usual buffoonish self, a true English eccentric who has lied and cheated his way to the top. He should have been tossed out of office simply for being an insufferable poser.

But Johnson survived because he knew three things. The Labour Party was a house divided between those who favored staying in the EU and those who wanted out. The leader of the party, Jeremy Corbyn, was deeply unpopular, even in some Labour strongholds. And the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, was eager for new elections, over the objections of her senior associates,  she could climb over two unpopular parties to reach the top of the political heap.

Johnson was thus able to fall back on his only option: call an early election and hope to repopulate Parliament with his own people. True to form, he has pulled off yet another improbable win.

Labour, meanwhile, suffered an epic fail, losing some seats it had continuously occupied . Corbyn, having presided over this disaster, will be out on his ear. The Liberal Democrats lost ground in Parliament, and Swinson herself couldn’t even hold onto her seat.

Up north, the pro-EU Scottish National Party (SNP) has consolidated its control in Scotland and will be pushing as hard as possible for another referendum on independence from the UK. Johnson has a large enough parliamentary majority to prevent that from happening for the time being. But the United Kingdom may well be the first casualty of Brexit.

The EU leadership, meanwhile, is  that Britain will finally follow through on its plan. The UK has always been a pain in the EU’s butt — demanding innumerable exemptions from EU rules, refusing to join the common currency and serving as a European foothold for American-style laissez-faire capitalism. Finally, there’s an end in sight for the seemingly endless Brexit negotiations, which represented yet another example of British intransigence.

Even though the British population didn’t experience a Brexit backlash in this election, there has been a cautionary backlash within the EU itself. No other country is seriously considering to leave the union at this point. But that’s not necessarily good news. The euroskeptics who were so excited by Brexit have begun to embrace a different strategy: take over the EU. If you were lukewarm about European integration before — because of its neoliberalism, its retreat on immigration, its bureaucratic excesses — you’re going to be even less enthusiastic if the likes of Brexiteer Nigel Farage takes over.

The Brits might have second thoughts about Brexit when their economy tanks, the Conservative Party eviscerates what’s left of the British welfare state, and the removal of EU benefits (like retiring on a British pension to a sunny Mediterranean country) hits home. A future backlash is certainly possible. But crawling back into the EU will not be so easy — and that’s if the EU will have them.

Nevertheless, He Persisted

Jeff Van Drew was a Democratic congressman from New Jersey. He entered the US Congress in 2018 by flipping a district that Trump won two years earlier by five points. The New Jersey legislator positioned himself as a moderate Democrat. He was one of only two congressional Democrats to vote against moving forward with the impeachment hearings.

He hasn’t switched his position on impeachment. But he is switching parties. Despite  that he was a lifelong Democrat, Van Drew decided to become a Republican this month. It wasn’t so much the pull factor from Trump’s party as much as the push factor from the Democrats. The New York Times reported on a poll of Democratic primary voters in his New Jersey district that showed 71% of them less likely to vote for Van Drew if he continued to oppose impeachment.

Van Drew is not leading a rush to the exits. The Democrats, with enough votes to impeach in the House, are not cracking down on dissenters. And public opinion continues to favor impeachment, at least among Democratic voters ().

The problem is that a lot of politicians are calculating that impeachment is not a winning issue in heavily-Republican areas or potential swing districts. If you’re a Republican, you face a revolt among your constituents if you consider voting for impeachment. Fewer than 10% of Republican voters support impeaching the president. Plus, you risk a fatwa from Trump.

Consider the  of Elise Stefanik, a moderate congresswoman who was never gung ho about Trump’s presidential aspirations. When the impeachment hearings began, she became Trump’s attack dog on the House Intelligence Committee. In so doing, she has solidified her Republican Party voter base and gotten a big lift from the president himself. Is it disgusting? Yes, absolutely. Is it politically astute? Yes, unfortunately.

Or what about Carly Fiorina, the Republican candidate for president in 2016 whose looks Trump insulted on his way to the nomination? She  that Trump should be impeached. But she still might vote for him in 2020.

She’s not alone. A majority of Americans , but recent polling puts Trump ahead of all Democratic rivals on a head-to-head basis. According to a , Trump leads Joe Biden by 3%, Bernie Sanders by 5%, Elizabeth Warren by 8% and Pete Buttigieg by 10%. In September, in a , the top five Democratic hopefuls were beating Trump, with Biden up by an astounding 16%, Sanders 12%, Warren 11%, Kamala Harris 10% and Buttigieg 6%. That was only a few months ago. So, yes, there’s a backlash. But it seems to be against the Democrats, not Trump. As I wrote back in September:

“Impeachment of Trump, at this point, is both a legal and moral necessity. It’s also very likely a political trap. 

Trump relishes the role of an underdog, persecuted by the powerful. It’s what enables him to connect to a political base that, aside from his deep-pocket funders, feels disempowered by a rigged economy and a sclerotic political system. Impeachment, for this constituency, vindicates the narrative of the â€�deep state.’ 

Indeed, it suggests that the entire state is out to get Trump — which it is and should. But impeachment is the only thing that can turn the most powerful man in the world into a cornered victim and thus, for a significant number of American voters, a sympathetic character.”

It helps, of course, that the president can point to soaring economic indicators, recently announced trade deals with China and our North American neighbors, and a  included in the recent budget bill.

It’s galling that a scofflaw can remain sufficiently popular to win elections. No doubt Trump is eyeing the example of Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines who has presided over the extrajudicial killing of thousands of people and yet maintains nearly .

Trump invited Duterte to the White House and praised his deadly war on drugs. Duterte, after all, is the living proof that you can shoot people indiscriminately and still maintain your popularity. Trump, unleashed in a second term, might just try to test the applicability of that model to the US.

A Dangerous Acclimatization

There’s been more than one mass shooting a day in the United States this year: 396 as of December 16, according to the . Despite all the political handwringing and the  shift in public opinion over the last few years in favor of stricter gun control laws, federal policy has barely shifted. No assault rifle ban. No “red flag” law. No universal background check.

What has happened instead? After the mass shootings this summer, companies with names TuffyPacks reported a  in sales of bullet-proof backpacks. Parents are taking prophylactic measures that are pathetically insufficient. Mass shootings are the new normal. Suck it up and move on.

Americans have similarly adjusted to the criminal actions of the president, his violent policies at the border, his verbal abuse of virtually everyone. We haven’t bought TuffyPacks to protect ourselves from the White House. Our skins have just grown tougher.

And that’s the saddest part of all. It’s just a lot harder to generate a backlash when our backs have become accustomed to the lash.

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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On December 10, this author took the view that the Tories would be back in power because they seemed to have the most loyal flock. That view has been vindicated resoundingly.

The Labour Party is in complete disarray. Corbyn has been weighed, measured and found wanting. While he has promised to step down, he has failed to resign unlike his predecessors. In defeat, a full-scale civil war has broken out in the Labour Party. In the words of , the only Labour MP from Scotland, “This party must listen and this party must respond or this party will die.”

From New Labour to the Left

To be fair, Labour has problems that go beyond Corbyn. The New Labour that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown created lost its sheen with the Iraq War of 2003 and the global financial crisis of 2007-08. Both Blair and Brown were Margaret Thatcher’s political children. One of them emulated her Falklands adventure by taking the UK into intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Iraq. The other followed the Iron Lady’s “Big Bang” reforms with “” regulation of the City of London. Both Iraq and light touch ended up in disasters.

Many in the Labour Party were deeply uncomfortable with Blair’s imperial militarism and Brown’s financial capitalism. They saw both these leaders making a Faustian pact with Mephistopheles for the proverbial kiss with Helen. They were both seduced by power and reneged on principles that Labour once held dear. Once Brown lost in 2010, the old guard mounted a comeback. First, Ed Miliband beat his Blairite brother, David, to become the party leader. Then, Corbyn won the Labour leadership election in 2015, marking a major lurch to the left.

Corbyn was an unlikely leader of the Labour Party. In the Blair and Brown years, Labour had turned staunchly European. Yet it is important to remember that Labour campaigned against joining the European Economic Community (EEC) in the 1975 referendum. Thanks to the Maastricht Treaty, the EEC became the European Union in 1993. Corbyn was a part of that Labour campaign even as Thatcher and the Tories argued to join the EEC. It took to modernize Labour and turn it into a pro-European party.

Yet euroskeptic elements remained. Corbyn was one of them. Suspicions abound that he remains opposed to the EU and is a closet Brexiteer. Corbyn certainly did not campaign to “remain” in the European Union with much energy or enthusiasm in 2016. In the general election on December 12, 2019, his position on Brexit was a fudge that tried to reconcile the tension between Blairites who have sworn an oath of fealty to the EU and working-class supporters who voted for Brexit. Faced with the crystal clarity of Johnson’s message “get Brexit done,” Corbyn’s fudge melted spectacularly.

Corbyn’s authoritarian leadership style, lack of nimbleness and terrible public speaking ensured that he was not seen as prime ministerial material. Accusations of anti-Semitism dogged the Labour Party under his tenure. Corbyn’s front bench lacked both experience and talent. Even traditional Labour voters lost faith in their party’s leadership and switched sides to the once-hated Tories. Unless the Labour Party elects a charismatic leader who unifies warring factions and crafts a modern message, it will spend a decade or more in opposition.

The Rest of the Opposition

The Liberal Democrats cast off with great hopes during the election. Unfortunately, their ship has rammed into the rocks. Young leader Jo Swinson lost her own seat and promptly resigned. She lacked the intellectual ballast or silver tongue to be a match for Johnson, and her claim to be a prime ministerial candidate smacked of hubris. Swinson’s bet on opposing Brexit and reversing the result of the 2016 referendum did not cut ice with voters. The Liberal Democrats did split the vote and helped the Tories achieve victory. This led columnist to argue that the party is “ an anachronistic political spoiler” that “should disband.” On current trends, the Liberal Democrats are destined to stay in the doldrums for the next few years.

This election was also notable for the reduced relevance of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. The Conservatives no longer need the former in the House of Commons and have sucked oxygen from Farage’s mob. The DUP’s loss to unionists and republicans has long-term implications. A majority in Northern Ireland has voted for parties that favor union with Ireland, putting the unity of the UK at risk.

In fact, and numerous pundits are pontificating about the break-up of the UK. The Scottish National Party (SNP) won 48 of the 59 seats in Scotland. If Johnson has the mandate in England, Nicola Sturgeon has the backing of Scotland. During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the UK was part of the EU. During the Brexit referendum, Scots voted to remain in the EU. Sturgeon is making a credible argument that Scotland “” in the UK “against its will.” She has sounded the clarion call for another independence referendum by declaring that “the will of the Scottish people cannot be ignored.” The union of England and Scotland of 1707 vintage is certainly at risk.

And the Tories?

What is not at risk is the future of the Conservative Party. The natural party of power has reinvented itself yet again. Some members of Johnson’s team are bullish about life outside the EU. They are already plotting to attract the insurance market from Hong Kong to London as the Asian metropolis suffers from incessant protests that are making business onerous if not impossible. They want London to be a Singapore-style safe haven for capital from around the world unconstrained by EU rules.

Like Singapore, they want the UK to invest in public infrastructure, state schools and the National Health Service (NHS). Apart from a supply-side boost, there is a demand-side policy too. Brexit will enable Tories to ease pressure on public services and scarce resources by curbing immigration. Dominic Cummings, the Svengali figure in Johnson’s team, is now the dominant intellectual force in British politics. After shifting politics to the right, he plans to shift economic policy to the left and steal Labour’s clothes, leaving the opposition naked for the next election or two.

Andrew Sullivan, a former president of the Oxford Union who knew Johnson in those days, recently wrote an article on the prime minister’s . The Pied Piper has managed to “engage and co-opt rather than dismiss and demonize” the Brexit discontent. In a little-watched , Cummings spoke about the strategy the Tories followed to do so. As per Johnson’s strategist, the EU-project was “driving the growth of extremism” and Brexit will “drain the poison of a lot of political debates.” All four of Cummings’s grandparents served in World War II. For all his faults, this shadowy figure genuinely cares about schools, hospitals and the working class.

Johnson might be a cavalier but, as Sullivan observes, he can connect with people from other backgrounds. He was successful as mayor of London and won a second term in a city with a natural Labour majority. Unlike David Cameron and George Osborne, Johnson never believed in austerity and opposed “” of the poor in London. As prime minister, he is promising higher public spending and lower taxes while acting tough on crime, terrorism and immigration. In fact, Cummings and Johnson might be about to move the Tories and the UK away from its Thatcherite roots. If they do so successfully, the UK might have a good shot at staying united.

What Happens to the EU?

Make no mistake, Johnson’s emphatic victory is terrible news for the European Union. The eurozone is in trouble. It is experiencing anemic growth and high unemployment. Productivity is stubbornly refusing to rise. In fact, the contradictions of a single currency are threatening to derail the entire European project. There is a strong argument to be made that Greece and Germany should not have the same currency. They are far too different from one another. The same monetary policy for the two countries does both of them a disservice, exacerbating existing imbalances.

Even as the euro currency creates new tensions, the sovereign debt crisis is straining common bonds. The Europeans and the International Monetary Fund might have bailed out Greece with its economy a little over $300 billion. Italy with its economy of about $2 trillion and a debt-GDP ratio of is too big for anyone to bail out. German taxpayers are going to balk at the bill.

Instead of honestly tackling its financial crisis, Europe has elected to take the “” approach of prolonging payment timetables and believing in the fiction that countries like Greece or Italy will pay back their debts. Instead, Europe has been practicing “socialism for the financial sector and austerity for everyone else.” Naturally, this is causing resentment. In Italy, Matteo Salvini rose to power on the basis of public anger against Brussels.

Countries such as Poland and Hungary are also rocking the EU boat. Even in France and Germany, euroskeptic parties are on the rise. The democratic deficit in Brussels does not help. Neither does the red tape. While some European officials are outstanding, many are utterly inefficient if not corrupt. Brussels is simply too removed from Marseille or Munich and Europeans still do not feel an emotional connection with it.

If Johnson and Cummings pull off a successful Brexit, centrifugal tendencies in Europe will increase. Italy might join the UK in opting to leave the EU and so might other countries. If that happens, Johnson would be a modern-day Henry VIII. He would have taken back control from Brussels just as the portly 16-century king threw off the yoke of Rome. Brexit might seem like yet another case of British pluck, foresight and cunning.

Of course, Europeans could come together to form a closer union. A fiscal union might emerge to complement its monetary union. Structural reforms might resolve its contradictions. Yet that seems unlikely. In the short run at least, the EU will suffer.

What Happens to the US?

In the US, commentators often compare Johnson to President Donald Trump. Johnson’s victory has sent shivers down liberals and enthused conservatives. Both are drawing their own lessons.

Roger Cohen sounded the bugle in and warned that Trump could win in 2020. In a rambling piece, he called Brexit “a national tragedy” and asserted that the triumph of emotion over reason in the age of Facebook queers the pitch for the likes of Johnson and Trump. Cohen’s comparison is superficial and does Johnson a disservice. Johnson may be a lying scoundrel, but he is no Trump.

Jon Sopel of the also got in on the act. He warned Democrats against choosing Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren who might be American counterparts of Corbyn. He pointed out that Blair won a third term despite voters seeing him as “smarmy, George W. Bush’s poodle, in the pocket of big business – and a war criminal.”

Corbyn lost despite promising more money for NHS, nationalization of key industries and free broadband for everyone. The fact that working-class workers turned their backs on Labour in a class-divided society is a key lesson for Democrats. The Green New Deal and the Medicare for All plan might smack of socialism. Bigger government and higher taxes are not easy sells in Anglo-Saxon lands. In the US, socialism is a dirty word and Democrats could gift the election to Trump by flirting with it.

On , Cal Thomas argued that Johnson’s victory is similar to Thatcher’s triumph in 1979. It presages a second term for Trump just as the “Iron Lady” paved the path for Ronald Reagan. The news headlines, social media chatter and liberal outrage will be trumped by a booming economy, soaring stock markets and healthy job numbers. In 2016, the vote for Brexit was followed by a mandate for Trump.

The 2020 presidential election is some way off and these commentators might be premature in their predictions. The immediate item on the agenda for both countries is a US-UK trade deal. Johnson and Cummings plan to wrap up trade deals around the world and strengthen their hand against the EU. They will be bending their backs to get a trade deal done by next year.

They might have an ally in the White House. Trump is embroiled in impeachment proceedings. He has been a vocal supporter of Brexit and an opponent of the European project. A trade deal with the UK will take away attention from the proceedings and spite EU bigwigs. In an election year, it would make for good political theater. Waving a “great trade deal” around might bolster Trump’s image in the eyes of his supporters. Anglo-Saxon democracies have much in common and Johnson’s victory will inevitably affect politics across the pond.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Johnson’s time in 10 Downing Street has been tumultuous. The House of Commons defied him a staggering 12 times, the Supreme Court voted unanimously against his decision to suspend Parliament and his own brother resigned from the cabinet. Johnson kicked out 21 rebel MPs from his own party. They included big beast Ken Clarke, rising star Rory Stewart and Winston Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames. Despite the odds, Johnson has still managed to get a new Brexit deal with the EU. It is this deal that he wants voters to back.

There is method in Johnson’s madness. Both Tory insiders and journalists speak of a Svengali who has cast a spell on the prime minister and masterminded his strategy. Johnson plays the good cop, turning on his legendary charisma, charm, wit, banter and humor. Svengali Dominic Cummings, the founder of “leave” campaign, plays bad cop, marking out victims, putting the knife in and then twisting it. Despised by former Prime Minister , Cummings has been called a Tory Bolshevik. While Johnson with his oratory and energy plays Vladimir Lenin, Cummings with his plotting and cunning plays Joseph Stalin.

The Civil War Is Back

As Stewart has observed in a candid , Cummings is a Machiavellian operator with a gift for communication in the modern age. “Take back control,” a slogan Cummings created, became a mantra that resonated deeply in an island with a sacrosanct tradition of parliamentary sovereignty and memory of global empire. The calling to spend the £350 million ($461 million) per week the UK sends to the EU on the National Health Service (NHS) instead was political theater of the very highest order.

Johnson and Cummings have been itching for an election from the very day they entered 10 Downing Street. They have pitched themselves as the keepers of the democratic flame who regard the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum as inviolable. They see the “remain” camp as hopelessly fragmented. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats cannot work together. They will inevitably split the vote, giving the Conservatives a clear path to power.

In this worldview, the Liberal Democrats are now a single-issue pressure group. They are obsessed only with Europe. Led by a “shouty hockey mom,” they lack intellectual ballast of yore when Paddy Ashdown led them with splendid gravitas if not spectacular electoral success. More importantly, the Lib Dems are now an anti-democratic party because they have rejected the result of the Brexit referendum to leave the European Union.

In this worldview, Corbyn’s Labour Party is unelectable. The threatening New Labour project of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown is dead. A Marxist anti-Semite with dodgy friends from Palestine and Northern Ireland is now in charge. Labour has returned to the days of Michael Foot under whom it lurched to the left, allowing Margaret Thatcher to ride her victory chariot to Number 10.

Johnson and Cummings have bet that the Brexit faithful will deliver a Tory majority in the House of Commons on December 12. Therefore, the party had to be purged of “namby-pambies and fuddy-duddies” to win a majority. Learning from Theresa May’s lackluster performance in the 2017 election, Johnson and Cummings are going to the public with a new deal and asking for a majority to “get Brexit done.”

This strategy to swing right to win the election and then move back to the center sounds eminently sensible. However, there is a fly in the ointment. The country is deeply divided. The Conservative Party has morphed into a party of Brexit. It is not quite the broad church it was until recently. A victory on December 12 might well be Pyrrhic because a potential Tory cabinet will inevitably lack some of the party’s best minds.

In fact, the UK has never been so divided since the English Civil War of 1642-51. Labour has emulated the Tories in purging the party of its own heretics. The Corbynistas now control the commanding heights of the party and dream of doing the same with the economy. They want Scandinavian-style socialism and have no time for New Labour apostates. Like the Conservative Party, Labour is now thin on talent and of dissent.

Along with the two main parties, the rest of the country is divided too. The (SNP) led by Nicola Sturgeon is campaigning on a simple question: “[W]ho will decide Scotland’s future — Westminster leaders like Boris Johnson or the people who live here?” After a similar vote in 2014, the SNP wants another referendum on the question of Scottish independence because the UK will no longer be in the EU and most Scots voted for “remain.” Johnson, Corbyn and Swinson have all rejected the call for a second Scottish referendum, but this seismic fault line could end the much-vaunted unity of the United Kingdom.

Even as dour Presbyterian Scots may bring future peril, Northern Ireland is already simmering. May’s Brexit deal collapsed in part because of the . This was a special provision of the EU withdrawal agreement that prevented a hard border on the island of Ireland. That question has not gone away. Johnson’s deal is not making the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the strident Protestant party of Northern Ireland, terribly happy. Since 2017, the Tories have been in power thanks to DUP support, and a hung parliament might make matters for Johnson’s Brexit deal tricky.

In any case, the peace in Northern Ireland is far more fragile than it seems. The DUP and Sinn FĂ©in, the Catholic party that wants reunification with Ireland, have fallen out. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 brought peace to this troubled land and envisaged a power-sharing agreement. After the Brexit referendum, the DUP and Sinn FĂ©in have bickered bitterly. Since early 2017, Northern Ireland has had no government because the two parties have been unable to share power. Consequently, major decisions involving millions of pounds and affecting the lives of the people are simply not being made. Nurses are striking, people are restive and the return of violence is a distinct possibility.

The Cavalier Leads the Roundhead

On July 24, this author observed that the history of the UK has long been “a ding-dong battle between cavaliers and roundheads.” Old Etonian Cameron is clearly a cavalier while the vicar’s daughter May is a roundhead. This divide exists even within the Labour Party. Blair was a cavalier while Brown a roundhead. Today, the contrast could not be sharper.

Johnson, the 20th-Old Etonian prime minister, a scholar of classics at Balliol College, Oxford and a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, is the classic cavalier. Corbyn, a self-proclaimed democratic , a student who left school with the lowest-possible passing grades and a supporter of underdogs from Latin America to Africa, is a redoubtable roundhead.

Like Thatcher, another roundhead, Corbyn is a conviction politician. The Labour leader opposed selective education and, therefore, did not want his son to attend a grammar school. A frugal vegetarian, an avid gardener and a supporter of unilateral disarmament, Corbyn is a cardholding member of the old guard of the Labour Party. Corbyn’s unlikely rise to power stems from public resentment against George Osborne’s austerity measures that inflicted pain and hardship on the most vulnerable sections of society. In 2017, he did unexpectedly well against May. Now, Corbyn is against a completely different political animal and evidence suggests that he is struggling.

Corbyn’s Achilles’ heel is his lack of clarity on Brexit. There is reason to suspect that Corbyn is a closet Brexiteer. His claim to be “” on Brexit might be forced because his party members lie largely in the “remain” camp. Corbyn is promising to negotiate a third Brexit deal with the EU if he enters Number 10 that will protect trade, jobs and the peace process in Northern Ireland. The trouble for Corbyn is that the country is suffering from Brexit fatigue and wants the protracted political soap opera to end. On Brexit, the issue voters care most about according to opinion polls, the Labour leader has not been able to put daylight between Johnson and himself.

As pointed out earlier, Johnson could not be more different to Corbyn. His own sister him as “charming, ruthless, single-minded, determined” and disciplined. Conrad Black, who hired him as editor of The Spectator, has called him “a scoundrel” who is “very clever and very likable” but is really “a sly fox disguised as a teddy bear.” Ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye, has the philandering Johnson “our [Silvio] Berlusconi but somehow it’s funnier.”

Like Berlusconi, Johnson is a populist Pied Piper. Like the , he is also “a politician with no convictions.” Clarke, Soames and others who know him well have come to a similar conclusion. Johnson does have preternatural confidence and extraordinary swagger that comes from a deep belief that he was born to rule. Johnson’s sister remarks that the Tory leader knows that “life is a competition and he always wants to be top.” At university, Johnson became president of the prestigious Oxford Union after losing out the first time around. At Eton, he competed so ferociously that he broke his nose four times on the rugby pitch. Even as a young boy, Johnson wanted to be world king. He may be short of conviction but certainly not of ambition.

As Labour’s Ken Livingstone observed after losing to Johnson twice in the London mayoral race, the Old Etonian knows how to make people feel good about themselves. In this election, Johnson’s high energy, cheery, witty style of campaigning seems to be working even with some minorities. With his , the prime minister has cannily wooed British Indians. To be fair, most British Indians swapped sympathies from Labour to the Conservatives in 2015 after Cameron’s with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. By showing up in a  with his partner clad in a sari, Johnson has British Indians singing Bollywood-style  in Hindi.

Apart the “Boris effect,” Tories have a structural advantage that Cummings understands only too well. They have more money than other parties. They are the natural party of power in a class-divided society where people may resent but ultimately defer to their social superiors. Besides, the “leave” camp is less fragmented than the “remain.” Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party not contesting the 317 seats won by the Conservative Party in the 2017 election, and many members of Farage’s party are gravitating toward the Tories. This gives Johnson’s party a huge advantage in the UK’s first-past-the-post system.

In this electoral system, if there are five candidates who win 36%, 30%, 18%, 10% and 6% of the vote in any constituency, the one who wins the most votes — i.e., 36% in this example — becomes MP. Unlike proportional representation, the seats in Parliament are not divided among different parties in accordance with the national percentage of the votes they receive. The party that wins the most seats governs and the Tories are in poll position. The wily cavalier fox seems set to beat the naive roundhead hedgehog, “get Brexit done” and inaugurate a new era in British politics.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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That narrative might be changing. It began on September 17 when Israel went to polls and ended on September 24 when, in the UK, the Supreme Court declared the proroguing of Parliament to be illegal and, in the US, the Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. The developments in Israel, Britain and the US hold important lessons for India.

Israel Shows Netanyahu the Door

Modern republics are a delicate dance among the three branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — and the fourth estate of the media. In the case of Israel, although it defines itself as a “Jewish and democratic state” and the “nation-state of Jewish people,” the constitution does not discriminate among its citizens based on religion. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has exploited ethnoreligious fault lines among Jews and Arabs for more than a decade. His fear-mongering and race-baiting have been so successful that he has managed to ride out a wave of credible while in office.

When the Israeli law enforcement agencies and Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit refused to toe Netanyahu’s line, his supporters introduced a bill in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, to grant the prime minister immunity against prosecution. After the elections in April delivered a split verdict, preventing Netanyahu from garnering a majority in the Knesset, he refused to give opposing parties a chance to form a government and brazenly called for another election instead. In the run-up to the second election in September, he openly the idea of annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which the Palestinians see as part of a future state.

The second-place finish of Netanyahu’s Likud party in the unprecedented second election in a year demonstrates the resilience of Israeli democracy. While Netanyahu wanted an outright majority and another term to protect himself from indictment, voters ushered him to the door. On November 21, he was on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Since 2009, Netanyahu has carefully manipulated the media, controlled public opinion with incendiary rhetoric and ruled the executive branch with a tight fist. But fearless law enforcement agencies, an attorney general with a sense of duty and an independent judiciary eventually caught up with him. Even President Trump, who has been one of Netanyahu’s staunchest allies, has belatedly distanced himself from Netanyahu by announcing that the US relationship is with Israel and not with its prime minister.

Boris Is Forced to Hit the Brakes

Less than a week after the Israeli elections, the verdict by the UK Supreme Court calling British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament illegal was a pleasant surprise.

Ever since the ill-fated 2016 Brexit referendum held by then-Prime Minister David Cameron, British politics has resembled a circus. The birthplace of the Westminster system of government, widely adopted around the world, has been lurching from one quandary to another for the past three years. While the government of Theresa May repeatedly failed to pass a Brexit deal to allow the UK to leave the European Union, none of her decisions resembled a constitutional crisis like the one Johnson precipitated when, on August 28, he recommended a five-week suspension of Parliament to the queen.

The attempted power-grab by Johnson, a populist prime minister, was unprecedented and intended to prevent Parliament from deliberating over various Brexit options before the October 31 deadline. As the ceremonial head of state, the queen had to remain above the fray. Legal analysts had predicted that the judicial branch might not be able to reverse Johnson’s recommendation. Bitter divisions among rival political parties, which were on display during then-Prime Minister May’s attempts to pass her EU withdrawal deal through Parliament, inspired little hope that the legislative branch would push back against Johnson.

In a remarkable display of individual and institutional fortitude, both the legislative and judicial branches rose to the occasion. Before Parliament was suspended, 21 of Johnson’s own Conservative Party members sided with the united opposition to force him to request an extension to the Brexit deadline and prevent the UK from crashing out of the EU, which is commonly referred to as a no-deal Brexit.

By the time Parliament was suspended on September 10, the populist executive’s hands were effectively tied when MPs voted against Johnson’s proposal to call an early general election, which would have still allowed him to execute a no-deal Brexit on October 31. Despite the nature of the executive branch as subordinate to the legislative branch, Johnson tried bypassing it. When Parliament reasserted its supremacy, he tried to play the martyr card. After another month of wrangling, a slim majority of Parliament seemed to have agreed on a potential withdrawal deal, but Johnson was forced to ask the EU to extend the Brexit deadline, which is now set to January 31, 2020.

The Supreme Court verdict on September 24 went a step further. In a ruling seeped in symbolism, the first female chief justice of the UK declared Johnson’s recommendation to prorogue Parliament to be illegal.

The Westminster system was born in the UK, but it lacks a codified constitution in its home. A judicially conservative Supreme Court could have easily stayed neutral without attracting public wrath, but the flipside of an uncodified constitution is the power it gives to the judiciary to set legal precedents. It is a double-edged sword that can give activist judges the power to bring the entire system down.

Yet in this case, the unanimous verdict created an important legal precedent. The fact that the British system has survived since its inception through Magna Carta of 1215, and that 11 Supreme Court judges unanimously ruled against Johnson in one of its gravest constitutional crises, reaffirmed the faith of the global liberal community in self-government.

Trump Faces Impeachment

On the same day as the UK Supreme Court’s ruling, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. The move could potentially end the disdain the president has displayed for constitutional norms in running the American executive branch.

Unlike Israel and Britain, the American system prides itself on the well-designed checks and balances among the three co-equal branches of government. Over the past few decades, the executive branch has arguably become more equal than the others. Yet no American leader has ever shattered presidential norms as ruthlessly as Trump has since his inauguration in January 2017.

So far, the judicial branch has held its own in its battles against the Trump administration regarding the Muslim travel ban, funding for a border wall, immigration policies, the Mueller investigations and more. While the administration managed to overcome judicial scrutiny with the Muslim ban by repeatedly tweaking executive orders, Trump has been effective in using the inherent sluggishness of the judiciary to his advantage by delaying all legitimate oversight and investigative powers of the legislative branch in other cases.

Trump’s media machine has flooded airwaves with so many lies that voters are bitterly divided on the issue of whether the president’s behavior is normal, let alone impeachable. After the Democratic Party took control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections, it found it difficult to sway public opinion in favor of impeachment in spite of launching multiple investigations and gathering credible evidence of obstruction of justice.

It was freedom of the press that came to the legislative branch’s rescue. While the House had been doggedly pursuing the withholding of military aid to Ukraine since July — albeit behind closed doors — two explosive reports, first in and then in , forced Speaker Pelosi’s hand in ordering an impeachment inquiry.

It is difficult to predict whether the Republican-controlled Senate will vote to remove Trump from office, but based on all the evidence that has already come out, it is likely that the House will impeach Trump. The delicate dance among the various branches of the US system of government has, at least temporarily, strengthened the legislative branch’s hand. Unless Trump resigns, he may go down as only the third US president to be impeached by the House regardless of whether he is removed from office by the Senate.

And in India…

The contrast with the situation in India couldn’t be more jarring. Ever since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s election win in 2014 with a majority in the Lok Sabha — the lower house of Parliament — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has systematically whatever little freedom Indian media enjoyed. It has meticulously the process of political fundraising to practically hold the entire democratic system hostage. In its lust for power, the government has brushed aside warnings that the new electoral bond scheme of political funding is susceptible to direct foreign influence and counterfeiting by enemy countries. The scheme was rushed through Parliament without much scrutiny, despite the objections of the Reserve Bank of India that it undercuts its authority as the sole issuer of currency — a fundamental change in the country’s monetary policy with potentially far-reaching consequences.

After its resounding reelection in May 2019 with a stronger majority, the executive branch has practically made the Lok Sabha a rubber stamp for its right-wing social agenda. Seemingly unconstitutional bills like the abrogation of Article 370 of the constitution in relation to the special status of Kashmir, selectively criminalizing the use of triple talaq (instant divorce) among Indian Muslims, and amending the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) have received Parliament’s approval with little legislative scrutiny.

While several legal challenges are listed for hearing in the Indian Supreme Court over the coming weeks, the court has mostly been a bystander until now. It has deferred to the executive branch even in cases related to habeas corpus and denial of fundamental rights to Jammu and Kashmir residents since the abrogation of Article 370, bolstering that the government is eroding the independence of the judiciary.

The Indian economy is currently in shambles with the highest rate in almost five decades and manufacturing plants are announcing staff layoffs and halting of production every month. Despite this, 50,000 adoring Indian and Indian-American fans of the populist prime minister — enjoying the freedom of expression and individual liberty guaranteed in the US — filled a football stadium in Houston, Texas, to hail the dismantling of democratic institutions in India.

The delicate dance of democracy in Israel, Britain and the US may be forcing a day of reckoning on their democratically-elected populist leaders, but the majority of Indians at home and overseas are still cheerleading as the government erodes the separation of powers.

*[Updated: November 25, 2019]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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But hell hath no fury, as a Brexiteer scorned. And with pro-EU “remainers” accused of “hijacking” the Proms — an eight-week summer festival of classical music concerts organized and broadcast by the BBC — musicians and campaigners supporting the EU Flags Team behind the action have hit back at the Brexiteer backlash.

Campaign organizer Paulo Tirago said that, on the contrary, they were “outraged” at Brexiteers for “hijacking the media with their negative diatribe, diluting the underlying message of the campaign.” Campaign coordinator Katy Roberts also said it was a clear case of “Brexiteers in the media hijacking the message of the campaign.”

The Proms became a target for campaigners who said freedom of movement in the European Union is crucial to orchestras and musicians, and that the impact of Brexit was pertinent to this. Lengthy and complex visa applications and border controls threaten livelihoods, they said. Young musicians will be bereft of the opportunity to learn. Standards in musicianship were under the threat of dwindling without the injection of such creative energy. The music industry, with its musicians, songwriters and composers, worth ÂŁ1.6 billion ($1.99 billion) to the UK, will consequently feel threatened by the impact.

But this was not just in the case of classical music but in every genre. Other artists, including Fat Boy Slim, A Guy Called Gerald and Horse Meat Disco, have also expressed concern at the impact of Brexit. These acts performed for the so-called Stop Brexit Sound System during London’s 1-million-strong People’s Vote demonstration in March.

“There’s a lot at stake. Plus we didn’t want it becoming a jingoistic celebration of Brexit in the wake of the referendum,” added Tirago.

Flying the Flag

The EU Flags Team began distributing flags at the Proms in the wake of the Brexit referendum of June 2016. The campaign grew exponentially from just 2,600 flags in 2016 to 10,000 in 2017 and 20,000 in 2018. In London this year, 23,000 EU flags were handed out in Hyde Park and at the entrance of the Royal Albert Hall, where a flash-mob orchestra of classical musicians played EU-themed popular songs, such as “Thank EU for the Music” and “Ode to Joy.”

“It was about musicians supporting musicians to make the point to a wider audience,” added Tirago.” But efforts of the campaign and such underlying intentions led to accusations of hijacking the Proms. Up and down the land, news editors smacked their lips at the pending saga that the action promised to bring. It was a case of Punch and Judy live and direct. Except the only voices captured by much of the British mainstream media was that of the Brexiteers bemoaning the audacity.

But the fizz had gone before the week was even done. No one was hijacked and no Brexiteers were injured in the execution of this campaign. But what had been hijacked, according to one campaigner, “was our democracy, our British sense of humor, our decency, our empathy and our open and tolerant society.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, Brexiteers were offended by the so-called “takeover.” One Twitter user : “Pushing the EU flag on everyone on the way in, it was an EU rally. Shameful.” Another : “It’s just a pity @bbc decided to politicise it by having so many identical EU Forth Reich flags handed out to prommers.” 

So the BBC, as it appears, was also on the receiving end of criticism. But campaigners have hit back. Tirago was one of the first to speak out: “These are unfair accusations of bias leveled at the BBC. What could they do? Not film any member of the audience at all? There were thousands of people waving EU flags, it was not something camera operators could physically avoid.”

While campaigners handed out EU flags, inside the Royal Albert Hall musicians preparing to perform were conscious of the action taking place outside. In a show of emotion, one violinist emerged to thank in person the campaigners and to tell them that performing musicians appreciated their support.

As the flash-mob orchestra played “Ode to Joy” once again, the performance was observed by another spectator. Sakari Oramo, the Finnish chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, was spotted by Arrigo. “I explained the reasons behind what we were doing. He completely agreed and said he would pass on our best wishes to musicians performing at the Proms.” 

One orchestral pianist who did not want to be named said musicians had several “important questions” for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson regarding the consequences of living in a no-deal Brexit world.

Questions were raised about the criteria for the issuance of a work permit, including the process cost and time this will take to generate. They asked whether separate permits are required for every EU country an artist is scheduled to tour in; if reentries are allowed or whole visa applications will need to restart; about the number of days an artist will be allowed to work in an EU country before a new permit is required or if there will be a cap on the number of days a musician can work in the EU; and whether this will be counted as days spent in the country or as days when performances take place.

Differing Opinions

Not all Brexiteers awaiting to enter the Proms agreed with the message behind the campaign. Ruth Smith, a Christian science practitioner, called it a “form of propaganda,” while other Brexiteers such as Fiona and John Truswell, despite their differing opinion, said they supported freedom of speech.

The campaign has led to unavoidable dialogue. As thousands milled about waiting to enter the venue, Brexiteers and “remainers” bantered. Campaigner Rhiannon Taylor spoke of an “engaging conversation” with a Brexiteer who said he “didn’t realize how Brexit could affect his brother’s music career.” She added: “He literally said, â€�My God, what have I done?’ And [he] took an EU flag.”  

As one Brexiteer accepted an EU flag, another “remainer” refused one. Donning a Union Jack turban, risk analyst Jaz Sidhu said he “refused” a flag because “the UK needs to stay together and, of course, it needs to stay in the EU as well.”

But the flags “were not forced onto anyone who didn’t want one,” according to campaigner Aratxu Blanco. This, she added, also included Prime Minister Johnson’s brother, Jo Johnson. Blanco, a gutsy Spanish campaigner from Bilbao who has lived in the UK for 29 years, was seemingly far from shy about making her approach. “He didn’t take a flag. He just looked visibly shocked by the fact I had asked if he would like one.”

Outside the Royal Albert Hall, security guards warned attendees to remove their “Bollocks to Brexit” badges before they joined the line to enter the venue. Inside, guards were also on full alert after a scuffle that ensued when they intercepted activists with a â€śBrexit Now” banner.

Polarization

Brexit has polarized UK society more so than ever. If there is a litmus test to prove it, then the Proms was the place to witness it. The event became a global stage for disclosing the true depth of division seemingly caused in the UK by Brexit to date.

The plan for EU campaigners was to “promote diversity,” though. There was red, blue and probably purple too. There was also shock, horror, disbelief, anger, amusement, wonder, elation and awe.

Brexit had become the proverbial big elephant in the room. And no one could get away from the conversation, as it politely sat there waiting for someone to make small-talk at the very least. But this was no time to blow one’s own trumpet. The response was viciously engaging enough. It was definitely diverse and it had the dynamics of a very British affair.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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When the ever-earnest Theresa May was leading the troupe (but never the troops), she sought to share the stage with other actors, united in their respect of what they believed to be the text of the play. The fact that there were two rather contradictory texts made for some confusion but didn’t faze the actors.

Under Prime Minister Johnson, the play has become a comic monologue accompanied by a song and dance routine whose text could have been written by , except that the music and the rhymes are simply not up to their standard. Neither tragedy nor comedy but rather a pitiful melodrama not quite as engaging in its substance as an afternoon TV soap opera and not as entertaining as pantomime itself, Johnson’s Brexit does have the capacity to provide some hilarious moments, mainly ones that were not scripted by the author.

The latest accident occurred in Luxembourg, where, scheduled to debate with Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel with the intention of clarifying the issues, Johnson bowed out at the last minute, allowing Bettel to put on a show of debating — in Clint Eastwood — with an empty chair or podium. Business Insider explained that “Johnson later told the BBC that he pulled out because �there was clearly going to be a lot of noise, and I think our points might have been drowned out.’”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Drowned out:

Prevented from dominating the conversation by voices that have been systematically excluded from expressing themselves on public platforms

Contextual Note

Johnson has repeatedly made it clear that his political thinking is influenced more by popular fiction and entertainment than by any form of deep political reasoning. Following his victory in July’s restricted Conservative Party leadership election that elevated him to the position of prime minister, to express his vision of the significance of Brexit, Johnson evoked Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver stranded on the beach of Lilliput, held down by the tiny Lilliputians’ guy ropes, which for Gulliver were no more constraining than simple threads. Johnson has now replaced that far too literary allusion with a similar metaphor easier for his younger public to understand: Marvel comics and movie superhero the , breaking out of the “manacles” that constrain him.

To explain the success of what otherwise appeared to be a humiliating visit to Luxembourg, Johnson claimed that everything was progressing smoothly toward the fatal October 31 day of reckoning. CNN reports: “Johnson admitted Brexit negotiations would have to be accelerated, and that the EU must make �movement’ over the Irish backstop but added that there was �just the right amount of time’ to do a deal.”

After Jonathan Swift (adult reading) to Marvel comics (teenage entertainment), Johnson reassures his nation with an implicit reference to the children’s fairy tale, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” “Just the right amount of time” is the Goldilocks solution to everything. Now we simply have to wait for the happy end. Some, of course, may be skeptical that there will be one. Despite Johnson’s sunny optimism, “the British proposals remain unclear and [European Commission President Jean-Claude] Juncker said the EU was still waiting to hear of a workable alternative to the backstop.”

To borrow another allusion from European mythology and fiction, will Johnson show the strength of Alexander the Great that permitted him not to undo the Gordian knot, which no one was capable of doing, but by slicing through it with his sword. Does Johnson even have a sword?

The incident illustrates one of the rarely mentioned features of the current Brexit trauma. CNN points out that many in the audience whose decibel level of shouting discouraged Johnson from speaking in public “were British nationals living in Luxembourg.” The disenfranchisement of Britons living abroad (for 15 years or more) meant that the citizens who best understood the nature of the relationship of the nation with the continent and the rest of the world were excluded from the vote. Whether allowing them to vote would have given “remain” a victory in the 2016 Brexit referendum remains unknown, but the frustration of those citizens who have built a cultural and economic bridge with the rest of humanity is obviously real.

Multiple features of the Brexit referendum, including how the “leave” campaign was funded and how the campaign propaganda was designed, to say nothing of the Cambridge Analytica-style manipulations, have created doubt about the democratic legitimacy of the whole process. The entire experience raises a further question: How does democracy work in nations where the concentration of economic and technological power has reached an inhuman scale? When a controversial, arrogant and visibly unstable prime minister is raised to the highest office in a nation that didn’t even have the opportunity to vote for him, can we reasonably talk about the workings of democracy?

Historical Note

Even more than US President Donald Trump, Johnson represents the fulfillment — in a form of parody — of a what has become in the past two decades a political trend: the aggravation of non-democratic leadership. The trend has been developing discreetly in the background for the past six or seven decades as a largely invisible, oligarchic elite across the globe has effectively maneuvered to control the reins of the economy and the power structures of governments in nations that claim to be democracies. The publicity-shy elite has succeeded in its campaign to define the narrow framework for elected leaders — from all “legitimate” parties — to elaborate their policies and make decisions, all the while claiming to represent the interests of the public who elected them.

The first bold hint that representative democracy might be a mere façade came in the year 2000, with the non-election (i.e., the designation by the Republican majority of the US Supreme Court) of George W. Bush as president of the US. The Democratic candidate who won the popular vote, Albert Gore, would have been perfectly acceptable to the governing elite, but the political preferences of the justices gave the prize to Bush.

President Bush immediately promised to stimulate an otherwise healthy economy by offering tax breaks to the rich. Polls at the time showed that a clear majority of Americans preferred allocating the existing surpluses to the needs of repairing and improving public infrastructure, even to the point of accepting to pay higher taxes. As , a “poll conducted before the Tax Policy went into effect, in 2001, revealed that 67 percent of Americans favored domestic spending over tax cuts.” In other words, Bush, elected by a minority of the popular vote, imposed a fiscal policy in direct opposition to the will of the majority. 

That appeared to be the best illustration one could imagine of the undermining of representative democracy. The best, that is, until Bush launched his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They were highly unpopular with a large percentage of the population, conducted under false pretenses, and predictably (for those who understood) would produce the opposite of their intended goal: i.e., making the world even more dangerous for Americans, while at the same time helping to undermine the economy, a fact that became real in the financial crisis of 2007-08.

Bush, Trump and Johnson stand out as the kinds of leaders (unlike Barack Obama) who seek to demonstrate â€” thanks to their embrace of ignorance or their outrageously narcissistic personalities — what was otherwise meant to be invisible: the flagrant abuse of democratic institutions with a sense of royal impunity. Their acts and discourse — from the “axis of evil” to the Hulk — reduce democratic processes to a parody, a simulation of popular entertainment, a game of unthinking slogans, platitudes and tendentiously crafted opinions. 

Their effort has been relentless, literally “drowning out” any kind of intelligible political discourse.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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It is a sad reflection of the state of British democracy — one so fundamentally misaligned with the expectations of so many who have looked at the mother of Parliaments as a beacon for others to emulate. But that vision descended into anarchy and chaos in the early hours of September 10 as walked into the Commons issuing the instructions for prorogation and thereby ending all hope of any further meaningful engagement on the Brexit question.

Britain will now be in the hands of a minority elite who will present the Brexit deal as a people versus Parliament dichotomy, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Co. will use this opportunity to drive home a deal of some sort — however lopsided, distorted or disingenuous it might well be in the long run.

The Not-So United Kingdom

So much time and energy, words on paper, discussions in the lecture halls, panel debates, fire and fury online, and conversations between people on the streets expended in relation to Brexit will have been for nothing. Brexit has divided the United Kingdom for over three years, in what began as an attempt to quell party political factionalism among the Tories — one that could not be contained any further by then-Prime Minister David Cameron, who was desperately worried about the rise of UK Independence Party.

Not expecting to lose the 2016 referendum, although making little by way of effective plans to do so, the people voted to leave the EU despite dubious means instrumentalized to pick out wayward voters and bombard them with loaded political sentiment in order to alter their behavior. The fact that the Electoral Commission has twice found that the “leave” campaign exceeded funding limits seems to have been forgotten in this desire to move forward, do or die, or by any means necessary.

The factionalism and inward-looking politicization of this issue have grave consequences for what has been hijacked by a very right-wing Conservative administration whose disregard of the truth creates new political lows in relation to probity, accountability and common decency. The world watches the machinations of the British Parliament and is aghast at what is happening to a country that was once considered so highly among Europeans and elsewhere.

Democracy has been shattered in the name of executing the will of the people that was the referendum result, but so many have changed their minds now that they know what they did not know at the time of the vote. So many in business, academia, civil society, criminal justice and security would wish for Brexit to disappear altogether. Yet the current government has no other option but to deliver it to the fullest and in spite of all the costs that it will invariably create.

Article 50

Although there is still time for Parliament to sit before the October 31 cut-off date, when it may well become clear that no options are workable and the only real solution is to revoke Article 50 altogether and remain in the EU. The Liberal Democrats are about to go this policy for the expected general election. It is not only in the realm of the imagination that Prime Minister Johnson and the Conservative government might just use this idea to argue that it is better than a no-deal Brexit or any kind of deal, and put it to the people, ensuring that the Tories remain in power.

The net result is quite likely to be a combination of matters that very much remain the same with respect to the politicians in charge and the policies they wish to implement. However, Brexit would potentially be firmly off the table, possibly forever. In this process, the Labour Party is likely to be encouraged to shift centrally as there are concerns around its current image, especially its leadership, with much of it determined by a hostile media campaign to discredit Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk.

*[This article was cross-posted on the author’s .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are two of the most powerful political leaders on the planet, but they are also two people who could not be more alike, sharing not just personality profiles but also how they are so apart from the needs and wants from the rest of the societies they seek to represent. Both are mendacious, hypocritical and have a terrible record in delivering any meaningful results.

Johnson vs Trump

Let us start with the physical and psychological. Both are fake blonds, have an inflated ego and sense of ability that is rarely if ever proven. Their prolific womanizing suggests a sense of prowess from which they draw their appeal among fellow members of the alpha male species who regard such behavior as perfectly normal. Such men occupy a narrow band of organizations and institutions, but they do so expectantly and in anticipation of “some richly-deserved prize” for their “natural abilities.” They regard such activities as “sport.” It suggests a degree of empty-headedness served by narcissism.

This perspective on exclusivism of a particular kind elides directly into racism, with comments from Johnson referring to “watermelon smiles on piccaninnies” to Trump’s glowing to the chants of “send her back.” Both men have a history of erecting huge architectural edifices, signaling their greatness in failed experiments that only leave the smell of over-ambition in the air, with the public footing the bill in the case of Johnson as mayor of London.

Concerning the economy, there are other parallels to draw upon. Both are protectionist, isolationist and inward-looking in relation to tradeĚýandĚýinvestment. This line of thinking is meant to appease a voting base that has increasingly been disenfranchised by the political and economic realities of the last few decades. Chiefly since the further advance of neoliberal globalization, which accelerated after the end of the Cold War but precipitated the emergence of polarized economies and societies.

Populism acts to misdirect the fury of the populous away from the failures of centrally-determined policy and toward “the other” at home and abroad. In both settings, there is no sense of history — or rather deeply selective readings of history. It is the complete antithesis of what the world needs.

Leadership within two of the most influential countries in the world just went rogue. In Johnson and Trump, the world sees two peas from the same pod — populist, replete with bluster, narcissism and nepotism, and while vain they are vacuous too. Neither inspires any degree of confidence, only despair and dissent. They are both the symptoms of course as they reflect all that is wrong with the two-party system. They mirror the influence of media and corporate powers dictating politics and policy. They reveal the lack of imagination for what comes after late capitalism.

Words uttered and intentions presented suggest that this populist authoritarianism is post-truth and post-normal. It is also beyond reproach — forget fake news, this is fake power in the interests of the people for it is the projection of power for the sake of power alone. It is the allusion of politics within a system broken from within.

Britain Under Boris

On July 24, Boris was finally ordained as prime minister.  So, what does this mean for Britain? First, it is likely to be a short stint at the top. He has put together a Tory cabinet that is the most right-wing since the early 1980s.

Second, the Liberal Democrats have witnessed a tremendous surge based on their no-Brexit position, one that that is clear and determined — whereas the Labour Party’s inability to take a firm stance on Brexit — largely because of the diverse positions of its constituents up and down the country — is costing the party severely.

Third, with the European Union firm in its resolve, and with no time for another withdrawal deal before the October 31 deadline, it is either no deal or no Brexit. If asked, most British people would probably prefer the latter over the former, but the Johnson cabinet is replete with ideologically-blinded demagogues hell-bent on serving the inward-looking interests of the very few. While keen to play tough so as to extract a stronger Brexit deal, it is pure folly.

The prospect of Jeremy Corbyn vs Boris Johnson at prime minister’s questions in Parliament could be political theater at its most intriguing — a Punch and Judy show with the fate of the union at stake but with no clear mandate for either party, both of which are arguably far more divided within than without. However, too many on the liberal-left satisfy themselves with the view that things cannot get any worse,  but more often than not they do.

General Election

My own feeling is that a general election is on the way,  and it is make or further break for the United Kingdom. The consequence of even more fissure in politics and society is a prospect too unbearable to fathom. A massive correction must follow, including the possibility of the Liberal Democrats and Labour forming a meaningful coalition — one that should have happened in 2010 — ultimately saving the day and the country after burying Brexit and all those who stand for it for good.

Nevertheless, this will not happen without a willingness to accept that we have reached a tipping point — and this where openings are already emerging beyond the present rose-tinted intellects of certain media and political pundits.

As the old adage goes,  it is people who make history, not politicians. In the end, on both sides of the Atlantic, the people are speaking loudly and they will be heard.

*[An earlier version of this article was cross-posted on the author’s .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Boris reminds us, for example, that he has read the classics of English literature when he deploys a metaphor borrowed from Jonathan Swift as he that “we are once again going to believe in ourselves and what we can do and like some slumbering giant we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self-doubt and negativity.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:Ěý

Slumbering:

Sleeping and, therefore, unaware of what is going on in the world, but totally focused on one’s dreams that distort reality

Contextual Note

Johnson compares Britain and implicitly himself to Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. The comparison is apt in ways that Johnson didn’t intend. Swift paints Gulliver as a comic character, drifting through worlds that he cannot understand and, in the end, influenced to the point of a mad obsession by what he believes to be the master race: the Houyhnhnms, who have the morphology of horses but the language and thought processes of humans. These hyper-rational horses, who are incapable of telling a lie, also understand that Gulliver is nothing more than a clothed Yahoo, the other race on the island, who are brutish, aggressive, unthinking and unclothed animals with human morphology.

Johnson is known for identifying with the nation’s elite, even if he doesn’t specifically follow Gulliver in identifying with the master race of rational, articulate horses. It’s possible Johnson may not have read past the first of the four books of “Gulliver’s Travels,” since the story of the Yahoos and Houyhnhnms appears only in the final book. It is followed by Gulliver’s definitive lapse into paranoia, the sad, even despairing end of the comic tale. Something similar may await Johnson after his stay — however long or short — at 10 Downing Street.

In the first book, the shipwrecked Gulliver finds himself sleeping on a beach in the land of the Lilliputians, a tiny race of people who profit from the exhausted sailor’s slumber to tie him down with guy ropes. Gulliver has no trouble breaking free and becomes the powerful leader of the Lilliputians, who bow to his superior size and strength.

Though his conscious metaphorical intention may have been to see the slumbering giant as Britain as needing to wake up from a bad shipwreck of a dream to display its dominating force to the tiny, powerless Europeans, the real significance of the metaphor may be what it reveals about how Johnson thinks of himself and his role in society. He is the giant capable of putting out a catastrophic fire in Lilliput by simply peeing on the flames between now and October 31.

For Jonathan Swift, Gulliver — whose name evokes the adjective “gullible” — is a clownish avatar of British culture. His surreal interactions with a series of strange worlds allow Swift to explore the multiple follies and meaningless trends of both English society in the early 18th century, from heartless colonialism to abstruse scientific speculation and trivial theological debates. That Johnson portrays both Britain and his own person as a powerful giant who landed on an uncharted island and proves capable of restoring order to a society of little people tells a tale concerning his own psyche that would undoubtedly amuse Gulliver’s author to the point of hilarity.

In real life, Johnson sometimes does have the physical demeanor of a horse. He wears his hair like an ungroomed mane, and though preferring the two wheels of a bicycle to the four hoofs he could never manage to grow at the extremity of his limbs, Boris may believe himself to be not just a giant awaking on the beach to find himself strapped down by Lilliputian guy ropes, but also a Houyhnhnm, the master race whose members have no word for “lying.” Like Johnson, their discourse consists only of facts.

Historical Note

Noticing that Johnson’s “slumbering giant” was an allusion to “Gulliver’s Travels,” The Independent highlights a: “The truth is the Gordian knot in which the UK finds itself entangled was of its own making.” Instead of an alien diminutive race, the frightened Lilliputians that have subdued the giant are none other than the British politicians and voters who, first, allowed the 2016 Brexit referendum to happen, then voted in favor of leaving the European Union and finally fell into endless Lilliputian-style bickering and warring. In the case of the Lilliputians, it was the “Little-Endians” versus the “Big-Endians,” as they disputed the primordial question of which end of the boiled egg one should break to eat its contents.

Johnson is of course a Big-Endian, meaning that he favors a big, clean break of the shell that held the UK inside Europe. Boris himself, always seeking a pun, might say that he objects to the yolk being held in a yoke. He promises to do what Theresa May failed to do: “deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat (opposition Labour leader) Jeremy Corbyn.” With her mere Lilliputian strength, May failed to break free of the “guy ropes of self-doubt,” an affliction that Johnson has never been in danger of succumbing to.

Boris sees himself not only as a giant amongst dwarves but also — thanks possibly to a cinematic allusion — as the Big Lebowski, the Coen brothers’ iconic character, “the Dude.” Johnson delights his partisan audience when he tells them to add an “e” for “energize” to complete “deliver, unite, defeat” (DUD), producing the American word “dude.” (Could this be an appeal to President Donald Trump, who recognizes Johnson as a soul brother, “the UK version of himself”?)

Analyzing the problem of politicians in a democracy where self-promotion is required for electoral success, the spoke of the case where the “striving for power ceases to be objective and becomes purely personal self-intoxication, instead of exclusively entering the service of �the cause.’” He added, “The mere �power politician’ may get strong effects, but actually his work leads nowhere and is senseless.” Was Weber anticipating Trump, Johnson or both?

What would the 18th-century wit, Jonathan Swift, have thought of Johnson’sĚýcontrived attempt at a joke that literally comes across like a dud? According to Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper, Johnson’s “embrace of a court jester role has won over many Britons,” but Johnson would do better to study his Monty Python or, better still, seek to hire one of its surviving members to write his jokes.

That might be difficult, though, since John Cleese, who spoke out in , recently complained that he is so disgusted by the entire Brexit debate — specifically citing Johnson’s promise of diverting the money for Europe to the National Health Service — that he will. Another Python, Michael Palin, didn’t support Brexit, precisely because it . “[T]here’s not a single joke in Brexit,” he complained. He is unlikely to have been convinced by Johnson’s dude joke. As for Eric Idle, he: “Brexit.Ěý Having shot ourselves in the foot we now go on to aim at our ankles…..I hope our knees surrender.”

Palin is right. Brexit appears not just to be humorless, but may have killed the possibility of British humor ever again emerging. It would be the death of a rich tradition that includes Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift, Laurence Sterne, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, the Beatles, the Monty Python and many, many more, in all the arts.

No one knows how long the Brexit drama will last, despite Boris Johnson’s promise to produce its glorious outcome on October 31. And no one can predict how long the current slumber of British wit and humour (sic) will last.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]Ěý

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The Favorable View

To those who support him, Johnson is witty, funny, charming, clever, insouciant, energetic and eloquent. At worst, they find this Old Etonian is a lovable Falstaffian rogue. Like , Johnson takes risks, flies high and admirably secures a decent of “notches on [his] phallocratic phallus.” Some love-crazed supporters even find him reminiscent of Henry VIII. Like the portly 16th-century king, he will lead the blessed green isle of England to freedom from Brussels, the Rome of our times.

It is indubitably true that Johnson is one of the most charismatic politicians worldwide. He brings extraordinary energy to the table, connects exquisitely with people and carries himself with the confidence of the “” that he once wanted to be. Many Tories tell this author that Johnson could be a better bet than micromanager May because he can delegate. The say nimble-footed Johnson was a terrific mayor of London, ran the 2012 Olympics splendidly well and will do a smashing job as prime minister.

Johnson thinks so too. He compares himself to Winston Churchill. In fact, he has written a biography of the great man — another journalist-turned-politician who came to power during dark times. called Johnson’s biography of Churchill “self-serving but spirited.” Even though Kampfner opposes Brexit and writes for The Guardian, he could not help but be seduced by Johnson’s writing. This raises the question: Why?

Perhaps Johnson appeals to something subliminal in the British psyche. The new Tory leader’s braggadocio is redolent of an era when Britannia did rule the waves, when a mere 6,000 British colonizers lorded it over 200 million Indians and when the pound was the undisputed currency of the world. If only the British could recover some of their mojo à la Johnson, then they would yet again saunter to the broad, sunlit uplands of their past.

The Not-So-Favorable View

To those who are appalled by him, Johnson has never had a fling, leave aside a relationship with the truth. He has repeatedly to his bosses, colleagues and the public. His housemaster that Johnson “honestly believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception – one who should be free of the network of obligations which binds everyone else. Boris is pretty impressive when success can be achieved by pure intelligence, unaccompanied by hard work.” It is therefore no surprise that many regard Johnson as an insufferable toff with a sense of entitlement that he was born to rule.

Tory grandees such as John Major, Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke find Johnson a touch . Former colleagues such as Sir Alan Duncan, Philip Hammond, Anne Milton, David Gauke and Rory Stewart have refused to serve under the new Conservative Party leader. They will be hitting the backbenches in Parliament. Historian Lord Hennessy is anxious about Johnson because he seems to be a politician “who’s inhaled his own legend before he’s created it.” The noted historian worries about Johnson’s “personal and political narcissism.” , another Old Etonian, a friend of Johnson’s and Churchill’s grandson, fears the new prime minister “could bugger it up.”

Soames is right to fear Johnson’s premiership. This scholar boy from Eton and Balliol first made a name for himself as a prurient purveyor of salacious headlines from Brussels. Apparently, the bloody Europeans had nothing to do but interfere with British sausages, manure and even condoms. Needless to say, some of Johnson’s fellow journalists found him to be “fundamentally intellectually dishonest.”

Furthermore, Johnson’s affairs, offensive remarks and erratic behavior have earned him a reputation of a bumbling buffoon who skates through life by only doing the bare minimum. It is for this reason that Michael Howard packed him off to Liverpool to offer a groveling apology and sacked him for lying about an affair.

Not Really a Brexiteer

The biggest cloud that hangs over Boris Johnson is the fact that he is not really a Brexiteer. Before the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership to the European Union, Johnson told Soames that he was not an outer. Therefore, people rightly suspect him of leading the “leave” campaign out of shameless opportunism. Johnson calculated that he would lead a robust campaign, lose gallantly, win the support of Tory euroskeptics and emerge as Prime Minister David Cameron’s successor. When the British unexpectedly voted for Brexit, Johnson’s plan backfired. He suffered a meltdown and failed to seize the reins of power.

Now, three years later, a reenergized Johnson promises to deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat the Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn. This Pied Piper of London has thundered, “Dude, we are going to get Brexit done on October 31.” No one yet quite knows how.

Like his hero, Winston Churchill, Johnson is taking charge at a perilous time. Yet there is one striking difference. A former military man, Churchill was a conviction politician who had railed against appeasement during his long, dark years in the wilderness. So far, Johnson has been a politician with no convictions except the unshakable belief that he was born for Number 10.ĚýWith the Pied Piper of Brexit in charge, Great Britain may not be as great as before.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The Johnson family has never been averse to publicity. To clarify their status for Americans, the journalist places them in the “large, amorphous space between the Kennedys and the Kardashians.”

Lyall documents the unexpected but suddenly unconditional loyalty to Boris of his family members, who had in the past radically differed with him on political issues. “Whether because of sibling loyalty, or because they have been warned to behave, or because they just want to burnish their personal brands in preparation for Boris’s ascent, the Johnsons appear to be taking the approach that blood is thicker than political conviction,” she writes.

Here is today’s 3D definition:Ěý

Conviction:

For politicians, at the beginning or middle of their career, a belief about the world and moral bearings that they must learn not to allow to influence their decision-making. For some politicians, marking the end of their career, the verdict of a court that takes into account the effects of their decision-making.Ěý

Contextual NoteĚý

The article highlights a recent Boris Johnson quote designed to reinforce his appeal as a populist leader. He has proposed a policy of restricting immigration by requiring that candidates for immigration learn English. He gave as a justification that “there are too many parts of the country where it is not the first language.” This enabled him to hint at something like a theme dear to Fox News: that there are no-go zones in some British cities where only Asian languages are spoken and Islam is the only religion practiced.

What he failed to realize — Boris is known to be occasionally forgetful — is that the United Kingdom whose monarch is in England claims to have united three other countries (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), the first two of which are proud of having their own language, which isn’t English. Some might even include Yorkshire in the list.

Boris has already claimed that his election is all about giving him the means of “achieving what I want to achieve.” It’s all about what Boris wants, even if he insists that it’s about what the people want. And thus Boris informs the public, “I want everybody who comes here and makes their lives here to be and to feel British.” Borrowing a page from Donald Trump, Johnson once accused Barack Obama of feeling — anti-British and not enough pure American (Boris was born in New York)Ěý— to appreciate the “leave” option for Brexit. Taken literally, it amounted to an admission that the colonized had good reason to despise the arrogance of their British masters. But arrogance is, of course, a major component of the Johnson brand.

Historical Note

The New York Times article focuses on the Johnson family. Lyall expresses her astonishment that an entire family — formerly committed to defending in public its carefully elaborated pro-European political convictions that happened to be at odds with those suddenly endorsed by Boris —Ěý should close ranks behind him once he was about to take over the reins of power.

Lyall only briefly mentions another glaring contradiction: the fact that career politicians with no family ties to Johnson, impressed by his successful self-marketing, are equally capable of betraying their convictions and turning on a dime (or a six-pence… though this probably wouldn’t have been the case for Conservative politicians in the days when six-pence coins still existed, before branding had taken over politics). Lyall mentions the “many Conservative politicians who were once in the Never-Boris camp but who in recent weeks have come around to something like an �Only Boris’ philosophy.”

The entire Boris Johnson saga is a study in historical trends. Boris himself was a “remainer” — those who wanted the UK to stay in the European Union — until he saw the advantage, in terms of his political career, of profiting from then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s risky gamble with the 2016 Brexit referendum. Johnson understood that politics is the only sport in which the goal you score against your own team may count in your favor.

Donald ĚýTrump did it in the US when we waged war against the respectable Republicans (Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio). Emmanuel Macron followed suit in France, having been ushered into politics by a Socialist president whose party he succeeded in humiliating and practically annihilating in the 2017 election.

Trump and Macron were alike in never having been elected to any political office before becoming president. In contrast, Johnson — a career hack journalist and publicity-seeker with Oxford credentials — had been elected to Parliament before being winning the race in 2008 for mayor of London. He later served as Prime Minister Theresa May’s foreign secretary. All those accomplishments were attributable less to his competence in politics (most still deem it a history of incompetence) than to his genius for Kardashian-style branding.

Johnson had no scruples about not only betraying his family’s values, all of whom were committed “remainers,” but also undermined Cameron’s middle-of-the-road, play it safe strategy for the Conservative Party that depended on the support of the unambiguously pro-European Liberal Democrats, with whom Cameron was forced to form a in 2010.

At the time, all “sensible” Conservatives were reasonably happy with Britain’s role in Europe. Only those who sensed that the undercurrent of visceral and ancestral hatred of all outsiders — including dark-skinned Commonwealth invaders and even pale Polish workers — might be an effective electoral strategy dared to use that potential for personal electoral purposes. Most Conservatives aligned with the attitude of the City bankers and traders they tended to be friendly with, who delighted in London’s privileged position at the heart of the European economy.

The Boris Johnson story tells us that populism has nothing to do either with the reading and interpretation of history or the logic of institutions, and even less to do with rational political convictions. Populism is about the power of clans and the clans in power. Why else would the Johnson tribe rally not just behind their illustrious, opportunistic family member, but also behind his “ideas” and policies, which some of his closest collaborators from the past have deemed irresponsible and mad? Why else would so many members of his party who opposed him on principle suddenly join his ranks?

Americans have been asking themselves similar questions: Why did so many anti-Trump Republicans end up supporting a politician who turned out to be more extreme than they initially feared and now embrace or defend every one of Donald’s follies, however racist they may be or however contradictory with their cherished constitutional principles?

The simple answer is this: Most politicians, anywhere in the world, are addicted to the idea of electoral success and, facing the temptation of having their own seat in the halls of power, will turn as many coats as they are permitted to put on their backs throughout their political careers. Convictions can be bought and sold just like any other merchandise in today’s consumer society.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Like a 14th-century monk troubled by the arrival of the plague that had suddenly thrown Europe into a panic, the former journalist and current politician, preacher and occasional snake-oil salesman offered us the macabre , not just on Britain’s fate, but also on the cruel inevitability of death that looms over politicians who sin against the logic of history — a logic that he, the seer and visionary, alone understands.

A growing faction of Tory remainers — those who voted to stay inside the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum — appears to be plotting to thwart Johnson’s grand plan. This consists of emulating the current US president by fomenting chaos and exploiting it as his trump card (pun intended). This should serve to neutralize all other outcomes and secure the power that Johnson needs to be free to act in the only way he knows how: with no sense of accountability.

Referring to the impending initiative of the Tory dissidents who seek to mobilize Parliament to ban a no-deal Brexit — in which the UK would crash out of the EU — the prophet Boris on a Biblical metaphor to illustrate his personal reading of one of the great principles of democracy: “I think if we now block it as parliamentarians we will reap the whirlwind and face mortal retribution from the electorate.”Ěý

Boris Johnson’s Political Theology

Despite his nod to the Bible (), Johnson defines himself as a secular democrat ever attentive to vox populi (the voice of the people). The whirlwind of mortality he mentions is simply a future election, not an act of God. This contrasts refreshingly with the theocratic George W. Bush, the former US president, who claimed to follow vox dei (the voice of God) in his acts of retribution against real and imaginary evildoers. It also contrasts with Bush’s ever accommodating and perennially moralizing sidekick, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who, guided by his , never believed in the outdated nonsense of turning the other cheek (). Johnson steers clear of explicit theology, preferring to let the (whirl)wind of popular opinion guide his political thinking.

As a populist (i.e., narcissistic) leader, Johnson has committed himself to a unique cause: using his declared service to his voters to serve himself. This means his whole philosophy is founded on what is increasingly emerging as the central principle for modern Western democracies, the key to getting elected and holding onto power: understanding and exploiting the undifferentiated mob’s spiteful thirst for vengeance and retribution, even when there is nothing in particular to avenge. Vengeance, after all, is the kind of emotion that motivates people to come out and vote without being troubled by nuance.

Like Donald Trump, Rodrigo Duterte, Jair Bolsonaro, Victor Orban and Matteo Salvini, Johnson sees the anger of the people (ira populi or democratic retribution) as the safer and reassuringly secular equivalent of divine justice. It conveniently removes direct responsibility from the politicians who know how to respect (and then hide behind) the clamor of the mob. Instead of judging them for the destruction they inevitably perpetrate, the god of history can put the blame on the people whose sovereign will they have democratically agreed to serve.

When challenged on his abusive, racist-tinged, culturally patronizing language, such as his remark that Muslim women wearing burkas “look like letterboxes,” Johnson summoned the deepest resources of his natural humility to : “I’m sorry for the offence I’ve caused but I will continue to speak as directly as I can because that’s what I think the British public want.” That was days before that his remarks consisted of “a strong liberal defense of women’s right to wear the burka,” while affirming it’s all about the fact that “we love each other in a Christian spirit … or a non-Christian spirit … whatever.”

This last remark, despite — or rather thanks to — his deliberately confused and confusing hesitations, drew peals of what some might interpret as cynical and complicit laughter from his partisan audience. Only Boris could affirm in public that an obvious racist insult was an act of cross-cultural love. (US President Donald Trump might be tempted to try the same thing, but he hasn’t learned the art of getting people to laugh in complicity, only to cheer at his impudence).

Boris the penitent will not change his ways. He responds to a higher calling, the voice of the people, the ultimate arbiter of morality, as he in return provides the people — Christians and non-Christians alike — with the message they so desperately want to hear. Although he may never have visited the state of Alabama, he has clearly integrated into his moral code and mindset the motto of that American state’s Army National Guard: populi voluntati subsumus (“to the will of the people we subordinate ourselves”). Like the good soldiers of the American South, Boris Johnson is all about obedience and personal sacrifice.

Johnson cites another reason for us to believe that, despite his reluctance and sincere sorrow for offending people (especially those less likely to vote), he must not forsake his sacred responsibilities. He has been called upon to fulfill his democratic duty and never fail to produce the kind of provocative, injurious language that he believes “the British public want.” To refuse would be to betray his democratic vocation. As he , people are unhappy with politicians because “we are muffling and veiling our language.” Boris prefers to muffle and veil his ideas.

Paradoxically — and this is something Friar Boris might want to meditate on — show that “just 14% of the public believe he is honest and has a �good moral character.’” For someone who believes in vox populi, this could be a problem. Even if elected by his Conservative Party and confirmed by Parliament (which itself is ), he will take office as the least trusted and most unpopular British prime minister ever. If you thought Brexit was a picture of chaos, wait till you see Boris at 10 Downing Street.

Following in Julius Caesar’s Footsteps

Boris Johnson has a sense of his historical mission. Interviewed on talkRadio, Johnson confirmed his preoccupations with mortality as he cited the of the latest of a series of ever prolonged Brexit deadlines, this one scheduled appropriately for the night of Halloween: “We are getting ready to come out on 31 October.” Asked to confirm this, he added: “Do or die. Come what may.”

Could the author of “” be thinking or even dreaming about Julius Caesar in 49 BC? Didn’t Caesar say something along the lines ofĚý“the do or die is cast” (, to be literal, since we’re in the mood for quoting in Latin)? Caesar’s defiant, come-what-may act in 49 BC launched a civil war, which could become the case for Britain if a no-deal Brexit under Johnson’s watch takes place. The Rubicon might then be the Northern Irish border (or even the ).

“Do or die” — an expression originally penned by in his ode to Scottish hero Robert Bruce, battling the English — expresses an attitude of political and military defiance. It also conveys a belief in fatality. Boris may even be anticipating his own Ides of March. In one of his radio interviews, Johnson of the injustice he is subjected to: “People are trying to stop me achieving what I want to achieve.” He also insisted: “The longer we spend on things extraneous to what I want to do, the bigger the waste of time.” He hasn’t quite attained Caesar’s level of hubris, who famously defied the dire warnings of the soothsayers, though that could change once he has reached his goal. He does make it clear that it’s all about “what I want to do” and anything else can only be a distraction.

The media unanimously expect Johnson to emerge victorious on July 23 as his lead over his opponent, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, among the Tory electorate is unlikely to fade. A former boss of Johnson’s, when he was still a journalist, that his election to lead the Conservative Party “will signal Britain’s abandonment of any claim to be a serious country.”

Despite a high level of dissatisfaction, if not dread, across the political spectrum at the prospect of seeing Johnson in Downing Street, Hunt, who could have profited from the various controversies and scandals around Johnson’s behavior, has led an inept campaign in his futile attempt to discredit the Boris brand. Instead of opposing his rival’s controversial policies designed to seduce Tory voters while running the risk of upsetting the rest of Britain, Hunt has followed the strategy of affirming that if it works for Boris, it will work for Jeremy.

Hunt has promised to do exactly the same thing as Johnson, but more seriously. He failed to realize that simply affirming that he, Jeremy Hunt, isn’t a public clown whereas Johnson obviously will convince no one. Imitating a clown but not knowing how to draw laughs makes one not just a clown, but an unfunny one. The one thing that works for Johnson is the fact that, being such an oafish comedian, people (erroneously) attribute to him the innocence of a clown. That alone explains why he refuses to comb his ragged blond mop.

After Jeremy Hunt publicly announced his intention to follow Boris Johnson’s lead and accept a no-deal Brexit at the next deadline on October 31 if no new EU withdrawal treaty could be negotiated, his asked him “if he would be willing to look the owners of family businesses in the eye and say they should be prepared to see their companies go bust.” Hunt replied: “I would do so but I’d do it with a heavy heart precisely because of the risks.” When the journalist asked him to explain his reasoning concerning the risks, Hunt explained “that a no-deal Brexit was necessary to maintain the UK’s image abroad as �a country where politicians do what the people tell them to do.’”

Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, it’s difficult to know from reading it on the page which one is speaking, especially since, on their own admission, they have no thoughts of their own but only know how to apply what the people have told them to do. The two Tory candidates to succeed Prime Minister May see themselves — as May herself insisted she also did — as slaves of the people, robots programmed to apply a decision the people made in June of 2016.

Following Johnson’s expected election, one major question will remain (since remaining in the EU is no longer an option). What mortal retribution is awaiting not just the Conservative Party but also the nation that, a little over three years ago, bought into Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage’s comedy act built on what they later admitted were lies? As Jeremy Hunt has rather realistically pointed out, that retribution will most likely come not from a democratic whirlwind, but from the economy itself as businesses falter, Scotland revolts, chaos reigns on the Northern Irish border and the vaunted trade deals fail to materialize. What message will the people then have for their new leader, if any? And will it be in a language they can understand? (Presumably they only understand binary choices: yes or no, leave or remain).

Of course, in the great British political tradition, Parliament itself has been the institution called upon to play the role of not just expressing, but especially of interpreting the will of the people. The first battle Boris Johnson will face will be with Parliament itself. And the real suspense for the nation and the outside world will be about seeing and feeling the shift of forces that will inevitably take place, leaving everyone guessing about where it may lead.

Three years of guessing obviously wasn’t enough.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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US President Donald Trump, like the pussycat in the , has “been to London to visit the queen.” He even visited another female leader who, under normal circumstances, has more political power than the queen: Prime Minister Theresa May. Trump may have been unaware that, having announced her resignation, May has only a few weeks to ensure a shaky transition before being replaced by her yet-to-be-identified successor, who will have to find a way of bringing the melodrama to some form of resolution before the end of October or cede power to another unknown future prime minister after a general election.

Whether it was ignorance, awkwardness or an attempt at black humor, Trump made May an she literally couldn’t accept: “It’s an honor to have worked with you, and I don’t know exactly what your timing is but stick around, let’s do this deal.” According to Politico, this elicited “chuckles around the room.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Timing:

The art of managing events to obtain an optimal outcome, which depends on accurately reading the dynamics of a complex situation. Not to be confused with setting an arbitrary date for the sake of one’s own convenience.Ěý

Contextual note

In a sea of uncertainty about Brexit and the fate of the British union, the one thing Trump should know for certain is the timing of May’s departure and the fact that her decision is irreversible. The prime minister’s resignation is official as of June 7, after which a new Conservative prime minister must take office at some point in July.ĚýThe “chuckles” appeared to be a generous gesture by the others in the room to acknowledge an attempt at levity on Trump’s part, but the embarrassment behind the chuckles at the inappropriateness of the comment was palpable.

Politico summed up the this week: “Theresa May’s authority has been draining away for weeks, but the U.K. prime minister only officially becomes a lame duck on Friday.” The article’s detailed description of the complex procedure to replace May also reveals the exceptionally high degree of uncertainty about the political consequences of the process. “If the winner looks like they do not have the support of MPs (some Tories have said they would leave the party if a hard Brexiteer were elected, for example) then opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is very likely to call a no-confidence vote. That could bring down the new government and precipitate a general election.”

The question of timing around everything to do with Brexit has become a sad and horribly stale joke, on a par with Jared Kushner’s Middle East peace plan, aka the “deal of the century.” The world watched as the absolute legal deadline for Brexit passed at the end of March this year. That date marked a period of two full years after the triggering of Article 50 to leave the European Union.

The confusion in the British Parliament was so profound that the EU extended the debate, announcing a series of other provisional deadlines that have now culminated in a new theoretical cutoff date: October 31. The UK has until Halloween to work things out, five days before “bonfire night” or Guy Fawkes Night (November 5), a commemoration that celebrates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 that aimed at blowing up the Houses of Parliament. Could 2019 be the year Parliament effectively dissolves into thin air?

Already one of the to replace May, Michael Gove, has called the October date “arbitrary” and claims that the UK is not “wedded to it.” In other words, Lewis Carroll may have been the first to understand how Brexit works. It turns out to be very similar to that most English of British institutions, teatime:

“It’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash things between whiles.”

“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice.

“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.”

“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured to ask.

“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. “I’m getting tired of this.”

Whether it’s Boris Johnson, Michael Gove or one of the other candidates for prime minister, they may all be hoping that people will get so tired of Brexit that they’ll allow their new leader to do anything they please just to change the subject.

Historical note

Clearly, President Trump has defined himself as a “learner” in the traditional sense of education: the student who knows nothing before coming to class and takes away whatever he’s capable of understanding thanks to his teacher’s instruction. His meetings in London allowed him to begin to understand the rudimentaries of how to replace a prime minister who has resigned.

He showed his progress in his subsequent visit to Ireland, where he gave an exposé demonstrating the of his understanding of the play of events and the consequences for both the UK and Ireland. “Decision number one: who is going to be prime minister? And once that happens, that person will get in and try and make a deal and maybe if they don’t make a deal they do it a different way. But I know one thing, Ireland’s going to be in great shape,” he said. In a real classroom, his teacher might judge that not only had he missed the most important details, but he was rushing to an unjustified conclusion. Still, he clearly deserved encouragement for his effort.

Following Trump’s lesson in contemporary political institutions in the UK, ĚýTaoiseach Leo Varadkar — whom Trump preferred to refer to as prime minister to avoid mispronouncing the Irish title — conducted a crash for the president: “Addressing the media after Trump’s departure, Varadkar said he explained the history of the border and the Troubles in their private meeting.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Trump Attempts to Get a Handle on Brexit’s Timing appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

British Prime Minister Theresa May appears mystified. But at least, after so many attempts, she is now in a position to why everyone else is wrong and how pitiful the outcome will be.Ěý“Look around the world,” she commands us, “and consider the health of liberal democratic politics, and look across the United Kingdom and consider the impact of failing to deliver on the clear instruction of the British people in a lawful [Brexit] referendum.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:Ěý

Instruction:

1) The transmission of knowledge acquired through study and experience from those who know for the benefit of those who need to learn

2) In UK politics: A one-word command issued by a group of people who, before expressing the command, had no means of studying or understanding the issue or its consequences

Contextual note

May’s sentence, in itself, is a “clear instruction” or command. She tells her listeners to “look” at things, first “around the world” and then “across the United Kingdom.” Her eyes have long been open, theirs closed. At this point — nearly two months since the official but unrespected cutoff date for leaving the European Union on March 29 — her critics might counter: It is indeed time to take a good look around, but why did no one have the time to do that three years ago?

The traditional proverb instructs people to “look before you leap,” but May’s colleague and predecessor, David Cameron, foolishly asked the nation to leap before it looked. As the Brits approach the cliff, Prime Minister May keeps reminding them that they are legally committed to leaping.

In the nearly three years since the referendum on leaving the EU, people have been looking, and more particularly observing, what May herself has done… or not done. Those who have looked will have noticed by now that the fateful Brexit was indeed a game-changer, though in ways no one expected. It may have been “a lawful referendum” insofar as it didn’t violate any law, yet in terms of defining a course of action, it was anything but a “clear instruction.”

By looking around, May correctly perceives symptoms of the failing health of “liberal democratic politics,” but the pathology took root long before the 2016 referendum, not because of it. Nor is it the result of the hopelessly confused attempt, by the prime minister and the entire political class, to manage its consequences.

She also correctly identifies it as a global rather than just a British problem. Though no two people at random are likely to agree on the definition of “liberal democracy,” and many might even wonder if it is worth defending, most observers realize that wherever you look today, especially in the traditional bastions of Western democracy, something seems to be going wrong — though not necessarily quite on the same scale as in the UK, where “going awry” might be a more appropriate choice of vocabulary.

Historical note

May’s political conscience — her Freudian superego — appears to be telling her she and the nation have failed “to deliver.” As if her government was Amazon and had just registered an online order from a consumer for immediate shipping. The package appears to have been lost in the post. That tells us more about her own definition of “liberal democracy” than her protests about respecting a lawful referendum. May perhaps envisions her own historic role as little more than a glorified delivery service.

The prime minister regrets having to propose a second referendum on Brexit because she believes “we should be implementing the result of the first referendum.” She attributes the necessity to allow for a second referendum as part of her new offer to the “strength of feeling across” the House of Commons.

This implies that she sees herself as the rational, pragmatic leader (Freud’s ego) trying to manage the impulses or feelings of the devils in Parliament (Britain’s id): the unrepentant remainers who voted to stay in the EU. After all, May herself is a reformed remainer, who for over two years has desperately wanted to show her willingness to magnanimously sacrifice her own initial inclinations to please “the people.”

But May has discovered devils in her own party, ready to turn up the heat of their hellfire as soon as she even hints at making any concession to the remainers. One of the current devils is Harlow MP Robert Halfon, a fellow Tory who, manifestly upset at her suggestion that a second referendum may be necessary, sees his prime minister and party leader as a traitor to the sacred cause she herself continues to defend verbally: “This is a betrayal of the 2016 referendum and a betrayal of everything she has been saying since she became prime minister.”

And so it goes in the hyperreal drama called Brexit. The BBC calls May’s “a last roll of the dice.” Trying to please all the unhappy groups that had previously opposed her deal, in the “strange complex process” she has cobbled together, Theresa May hopes, in the words of the BBC, “to dangle a bauble to each of Parliament’s different Brexit tribes.” Their various reactions show that all they saw were the baubles offered to their own opponents as well as the obvious contradictions among the baubles.

Few, however, complained when she reminded them that she had “offered to give up the job I love earlier than I would like.” If she really does love her job, the Freudians might take it for the confession of a masochist. The Times : “[I]n truth the job gave up on her long ago.” Apparently, she hadn’t noticed. She must have been looking “around the world” or “across the United Kingdom” instead of focusing on what was happening in front of her very eyes in Westminster.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Is Theresa May about to Cry “Mayday”? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

With most of the talk surrounding the future of EU states, the Middle East remains a largely overlooked yet vital region for post-Brexit developments. A few days before the referendum in 2016, Global Risk Insights (GRI) published a of four effects of Brexit on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). These included a weaker, more inward-looking Europe; a more interventionist, self-interested UK foreign policy in the region; more volatility in MENA markets, with an increase in trade and investment; and, finally, a rise in various alliance systems and regional organizations. It is worth taking a look at each of the implications posed by GRI.

A weakened European UnionĚý

Often considered the backbone of the EU, the United Kingdom has played a vital role in the European Union’s economic development, foreign policies, trade activities and soft power expansion over the years. That said, since the Brexit referendum, there have been various right-wing discussions across the union.

In , there have been disagreements between the government and the EU over contentious judiciary reforms. At one point, European Council President Donald Tusk — Poland’s former prime minister — said: “The matter is dramatically serious. The risk is deadly serious. Polexit is possible.” Similarly, Hungary, spearheaded by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing government, is at odds with the EU. In 2018, lawmakers to label Orban’s government as a “systemic threat to the rule of law.” Though currently unlikely, departures from the EU remain possible.

As a result of cracks within the union itself, the EU is no longer the visionary behemoth of civil rights and order it once was. Its economic and political resilience was already once tested in 2015 during the height of the . A weaker and more inward-looking EU will affect the financial scope and longevity of its various initiatives across the MENA region, be it sustainability projects, infrastructure-building, governance guidance or women’s health programs — many of which are currently operating via the European External Action Service.

Additionally, a weakened EU with increasingly right-wing states will only worsen the refugee crisis. Although much less than in 2015, the incoming refugees from war-torn countries such as Syria and Iraq will, as GRI states, “fall victim to realpolitik (as has been demonstrated recently with the EU-Turkey deal).” This agreement meant refugees were essentially transferred to and from Turkey and the EU as political pawns. It is important to note that nearby countries such as Turkey and Jordan are already heavily bloated as they continue to take in the largest number of refugees from Syria and Iraq.

A fragile EU in a post-Brexit future will likely encounter difficulty in talks with the MENA region’s rulers surrounding stability and border security. Hence, the refugee crisis will likely worsen as the EU loses its capacity to alleviate the region’s burdens. In addition, leaders such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will likely exploit the crisis for their own political gains.

Increased interventionist UK foreign policies

Even though the UK has historically exercised its own set of foreign policies in the MENA region, dating back to the colonial era, a post-Brexit future will enable the country to break free from the EU’s regional agenda and pursue a more interventionist policy. As the EU remains involved in the Middle East peace processes in both the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Syrian War, an independent UK will likely prioritize more short-term agendas, as GRI predicts.

One of these will likely be an increased presence in the global coalition’s fight against terrorism. Though the threat of the Islamic State (IS) group has been largely subdued, its remaining enclaves and networks across the region (as well as the recent of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) prove that the fight is far from over. As such, the UK’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee has recommended a doubling of the Foreign Office’s budget, “if not triple,” to committee chairman Crispin Blunt.

That said, it is unlikely that the UK will simply put the Middle East peace process on the back burner, as GRI predicts, especially if the country wants to maintain its relevance and influence in the region. If anything, a post-Brexit future may actually be the most ideal time for Britain to assert itself in the MENA region, especially as the EU could be further weakened by Britain’s departure and its own internal problems.

However, what does seem to be a likely prediction from GRI is Britain’s increased promotion of UK businesses across the region, especially in the Gulf, as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates remain one of the UK’s largest trading partners. Speaking to , Tim Fox, chief economist and head of research at Emirates NBD, a Dubai-listed bank that is the by assets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) bloc, states: “Extracting itself out of the EU-GCC stalled FTA process may actually breathe new life into the UK’s trading relationships with the Gulf.”

Increased volatility in markets

GRI predicts that oil prices across the region will continue to be affected, so long as there remains political uncertainty surrounding a lack of leadership in a post-Brexit future. GRI provides the example of Turkey, which it says will feel the biggest impact of rising oil prices, given the plummeting lira that has been in for months. While this may be true for Turkey, a post-Brexit future may mean something quite different for the Gulf countries.

As of November 2018, foreign investment in the UK by 19% since the Brexit referendum. However, the impact in the Gulf will likely be less stark, at least in the short run. For some , industries such as real estate will see a boon in business as “investors buying in dollar-pegged currencies such as the [UAE] dirham can pick up discounted deals.” According to UK Trade Commissioner Simon Penney, “While currency fluctuations may have an impact on some imports, sterling’s fluctuations have boosted the competitiveness of many UK exports and the trade flows between the UK and the Middle East remain very healthy.”

Nevertheless, the long-term post-Brexit landscape in the GCC remains to be seen. A depreciated pound will likely lead to a decrease in investments and tourists coming from Britain; in 2018, the UK ranked third in regards to the number of tourists visiting Dubai. Speaking to in January 2019, Jeremy Parrish, former CEO of Standard Chartered UAE, stated: “In the event of a no deal Brexit … foreign investment will drop, inflation will rise and supply chains will be badly disrupted.” Additionally, in the event of a no-deal, which would see Britain crash out of the European Union, GCC investors may likely avoid UK stocks and linkage to an unsteady pound and will likely “seek shelter in other safe havens,” according to Wes Schwalje, COO of Dubai-based research firm Tahseen Consulting.

Rise in alliance systems and regional blocsĚý

Last but not least, GRI predicts that because of a self-serving UK and an inward-looking EU, there will likely be the rise of other regional blocs and global powers such as China. This seems somewhat unlikely, given that Beijing has long established its foothold in the MENA region via business ties and investments. Perhaps its most notable example is President Xi Jinping’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative. Since 2013, China has its OBOR camp in the region, establishing container terminals at vital ports and investing in aerospace research, amongst many other projects. Hence, it is unlikely there will be a sudden spike in Chinese activities in the post-Brexit MENA region, given that it has been working ambitiously to establish a foothold long before the 2016 referendum.

GRI also predicts that blocs such as the GCC will step in and develop stronger security and economic frameworks to address the MENA region’s issues. This is too idealistic, given the current political obstacles in the system — the blockade of , for instance — and the splintering of various member states into their own network groups, such as the Saudi-Emirati Coordination Council. That said, it is unlikely that MENA will witness the unionization of the GCC in a post-Brexit future that will help address the region’s problems, especially as each member state possesses its own political motivations.

Ultimately, it is inevitable that a post-Brexit future will shape the Middle East and North Africa landscape. The question that remains is just how much will change and whether it will be for the better or the worse.

*[ is a partner institution of 51łÔąĎ.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post How Will Brexit Affect the Middle East and North Africa? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Like the classic silent film serial , Brexit has turned into a never-ending series of cliff-hanging news cycle episodes authored and produced by the British Parliament. It might be called the “Trials of Theresa” or even the “Traumas of Theresa,” as its heroine keeps fending off fatality, weathering storms and escaping the various villainies increasingly initiated by her own party.

Andrew Bridgen, a Conservative Brexiteer who opposes Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, is concerned that the purity of Brexit may be violated. He wants to join other members of his party clamoring for a vote of no confidence to prevent May from reaching a compromise deal with Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn that might include something other than total liberation. They are afraid that the new deal cooked up by the two conspirators, once submitted to the European Council, would be accepted, providing a final episode with the wrong ending to a melodrama that has provided spectators with endless thrills.

Because May survived a vote of no-confidence in December 2018, parliamentary rules state that the prime minister will retain the confidence of her party for a minimum of 12 months. In other words, the Tories would have to wait till December to push her out the door, whereas they need to scotch her deal with Corbyn before this Wednesday evening.

Bridgen realized that the only means of making his point would be an “indicative vote” in place of the now forbidden formal vote of non-confidence. He succinctly his reasoning: “It seems to be all the rage, so why not?”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

All the rage:

An idiom referring to what people — including politicians — should do just because other people are doing it, even if the outcome it will produce implies undermining the economy of one’s nation

Contextual noteĚý

The remaining choices concerning Brexit seem to focus on the question: What do you want to see split? Apart from a possible majority that is so fed up with the hesitations, obstacles, contradictory suggestions and refusals of accountability it would vote for “remain” in a second referendum, everyone else is weighing what they want to see split, if not shivered into tiny slivers.

The Tory Brexiteers just want to see the split with Europe so they can then focus on how to reorganize their power to run the show without external interference. They see this as the only way of avoiding seeing their own party — and the key to their ability to exercise power — being split down the middle. They don’t mind seeing the island of Ireland physically split into two, even if it sparks a renewal of “,” mainly because they have never had any interest in the Irish, north or south.

May and whoever in her party who is still willing to follow her lead wants to split from Europe but with numerous strings attached, and she doesn’t seem to mind the fact that that would split her party. Perhaps she has had enough of exercising power and now sees it a losing proposition all the way around.

Historical note

This is not the first time a monumental historical decision has been suggested because it was “all the rage.” But in fairness to Bridgen, his remark was both ironic and pertinent, as it recognized and even highlighted the melodramatic futility of the exercise of an “indicative vote.” One of the most obvious cases was the obsession of European nations preceding World War I to build up their armed forces. They thought they were merely competing for prestige and recognition. As the website describes it: “[E]ach country wanted to be �better’ than the others. The terms of power during this time began transitioning from having more land to having better means of fighting.” They didn’t intend to fight, but they created so much capability that a local incident in Sarajevo set off a continental conflagration.

But the clearest historical parallel with Brexit, with far-reaching consequences, occurred in the early 16th century when Henry VIII decided he needed to change wives and ended up having to change religions, or at least supplant the pope, to achieve his goal. It happened to coincide with the Protestant revolt in northern Europe, which the English may have perceived at the time as “all the rage” on the continent. Henry VIII himself remained in the theological camp of the Catholic Church but, possibly inspired by the example of some of the princes in Martin Luther’s Germany, declared his independence. History Today : “The easiest explanation is that Protestantism was the fashion of the time and that England was catching up on the latest developments.”

Luther’s early success with Prince Philip of Hesse and Philip’s initiative in creating the of Protestant princes may have convinced Henry VIII that it would be politically safe to break away from Rome, even if he didn’t consider himself a reformer.

The result proved disastrous for both English society and Europe, as the wars of religion lasted for 130 years, the final Europe-wide episode being the Thirty Years’ War that was finally resolved by the in 1648. During that period, persecution and wholesale massacres occurred on both the Protestant side under Henry’s resolutely Protestant son, Edward VI (1537-53), and his daughter, the Catholic Mary (1553-58), who was also the wife of Spain’s Philip II.

Elizabethan England (1558-1603), thought of even today as a Golden Age, became permanently divided into principally three religious groups: Anglicans, anyone who accepted the authority of the national church; Puritans, a diverse group of fundamentalists — indeed the ancestors of the Christian fundamentalism that has played such a strong role in politics in the US to this day; and Catholics, who were banned from religious practice and systematically persecuted (a group that included cultural luminaries such as Shakespeare, William Byrd and Thomas Campion). This created three largely incompatible cultures that required the creation of a brutal overseen by Sir Francis Walsingham to maintain at least superficial order.

The tension between these communities eventually led to the internecine conflict known as the , the beheading of King Charles I in 1649 and a decade of Puritan “” under Oliver Cromwell. It ended with the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, a process that led to the establishment of two major trends that defined the future of the nation. It reinserted England into the new nation-state logic of post-Westphalian Europe, and it triggered Britain’s voracious quest for empire.

It took more than a century for England to achieve some kind of internal peace after Henry VIII’s Brexit. This doesn’t bode very well for the UK’s immediate future today.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Is Brexit Just an Example of Politicians Following the Fads? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

In an article on April 3, highlights (in an earlier edition) not only the quandary of British Prime Minister , but also a parallel problem for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who “will face a dilemma over whether to push for any deal to be put to a public vote through a second referendum — a key demand of many senior figures in his party and many of its members.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Dilemma:

A situation in contemporary British politics created when one politician — looking for a shortcut to solve a problem and failing to weigh the consequences of the choice for both the nation and the politician’s own party — is subsequently put on the spot to choose between the general interest of the nation and his interest in keeping his party intact and his career secure

Contextual note

A political dilemma consists of having to make a choice on an issue that concerns the public. Politicians understand democracy as a process by which the people choose the politicians, who will subsequently make decisions based on what they (the politicians) judge to be advantageous, without having to define who will receive the advantage. So long as issues are quietly and routinely debated between politicians, with minimal coverage by the media, dilemmas will be avoided.

But when an issue is perceived as “existential” and draws the attention of the media, politicians realize that the people may begin judging the choices they make. For British politicians, used to the innocent pleasures of rhetorical jousting in Parliament, this is not only intolerable, it is inconvenient.

In 2016, Prime Minister launched the Brexit in the wild hope of clarifying the long-term interests of the nation, curiously not realizing that it would immediately emerge as a deeply emotional issue. When it became clear that the radically binary choice put forward did not neatly align with the standard ideology of either of the major parties, things began to go awry.

Not only did every politician in Britain suddenly face a dilemma, but the dilemma threatened the established ideal of party unity that traditionally provided a largely stable framework and comfort zone for individual politicians, allowing them to manage their careers and go about their business. The electoral system depended on the predictable rivalry of at least two semi-coherent parties whose respective unity were seen as the pillars of representative democracy. Those pillars began to show worrying cracks.

Prime Minister May of the Conservative Party continued to believe that the instinct for party unity would eventually save the day, but when it failed to appear after repeated attempts, she reached out to Labour in a gesture hinting at national rather than party unity. That had the predictable effect of further splitting her own party. But as Steve Barclay, the Brexit secretary, realistically points out, there is a “�remorseless logic’ to reaching out for Labour votes when 35 Conservatives had refused to back the prime minister’s withdrawal agreement three times.” But logic — remorseless or otherwise — has not yet been a feature of the Brexit melodrama.

But the Conservatives are not the only ones likely to suffer from gestures across the aisle. At the same time, The Guardian points out (in an earlier edition) to the “caution on the Labour side, with some internally warning against falling for a Tory trap that ties them into voting for a damaging Brexit.”

The dilemma now boils down to two questions: Can a sufficient number of politicians feel comfortable enough to acquiesce to a proposedĚýsolution that clearly no majority will spontaneously embrace? And if they did, would they commit to the solution, aware that it might have the effect of ruining the unity of their party and, consequently, their own chances in case of a new election?

Historical note

For May, everything took an unforeseen dramatic in early 2017 when she made the “rational” decision to secure a more comfortable majority by calling a snap election. While everyone expected her to win thanks to the Conservative Party’s 20% lead in the polls at the time, she not only failed to expand her majority, but she lost it altogether. Consequently, to avoid being outnumbered in Parliament or having to compose with Labour, she decided to ally with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland to ensure a numerical majority for a fragile coalition.

Western democracies appear to have stumbled into what we are tempted to call the “Age of Democratic Dilemma.” Traditionally, nations and their politicians faced important choices, such as going to war or negotiating peace, colonizing other nations, building a navy to dominate global commerce, developing nuclear capacity for war or peace, establishing a presence in space, providing a social safety net for all citizens or building walls of separation. All of these were monumental decisions on which the entire population of any nation could never fully agree, but once decided, even in the face of criticism, they would be followed through. The , for example.

Until now, those decisions could produce controversy, but rarely did they produce a dilemma. Instead, in most cases, the choices, even when judged wrong with hindsight, succeeded in accomplishing two political goals: They created a sense of purpose for the nation (whether ethically justified or not), and they unified the overall policy orientations shared by a majority of members of the major political parties.

In most cases, the parties would seek to define a position more or less in harmony with the national majority, critiquing but supporting the powers that be. In other cases, a party might build its internal unity around a platform directly opposed to government policy. Inside their parties, politicians felt free from the worries associated with a dilemma.

Brexit has turned out to be one vast dilemma for the nation, for its components (e.g., England vs. Scotland and Northern Ireland, but also London), its social classes and its political parties. But the UK is not alone and Brexit is not unique. In the US, Donald Trump’s nomination in 2016 split his own Republican Party, which he has managed to keep intact only because he holds the reins of executive power. Even more dramatically, his victory may have irremediably split the Democratic Party into the sclerotic establishment and the energetic young progressives, now engaged in an open power struggle.

Then there is French President , who was elected after deftly profiting from the simultaneous implosion of the two historically dominant camps on the left and the right. The established parties are still in disarray, even though Macron has failed to show the organization or skill required to impose his own authority.

These are the kind of things that increasingly occur in the “Age of the Democratic Dilemma.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The Sharp Horns of the Brexit Dilemma Keep Getting Sharper appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

As the situation in Algeria continues to evolve and accelerate, that “Algeria’s army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah has called for President to be declared unfit to rule the country, following weeks of protests against the ailing head of state’s decision to seek a fifth term. ”

In the US, Hayley Miller in the the fallout from the conclusion of the Mueller report that has delighted the White House but dashed establishment Democrats’ hopes by failing to find President Donald Trump guilty of collusion with Russia in the manipulation of the 2016 election. Miller posts an indignant tweet by Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy calling for Democratic Representative Adam Schiff’s public humiliation: “It’s also time for @RepAdamSchiff to apologize for deceiving the American people. He has proven himself unfit to chair the House Intelligence Committee.”

At the same time, satirical late night , who has built his brand around making jokes based on the idea that Trump is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s puppet, swallowed his embarrassed disappointment and “brought out a large whiteboard full of reasons why Trump is “unfit” to be president.”

In the UK, the number of people in recent days to affirm that British Prime Minister Theresa May is unfit to manage includes any number of and , as well as Brexiteer , some Ěýministers and a for the BBC’s Question Time.

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Unfit:

In Darwinian terms, unable to compete in the race with other individuals to reproduce and generate a population in one’s image; lacking in fecundity. In political terms, unable to credibly play the role of a leader who can shape the public’s values in the leader’s own image and perpetuate that image as an ideal.

Contextual note

All these examples show the variety of ways in which a leader can be judged unfit. One clear fact emerges: There will never be a lack of judges.

The case of Bouteflika in Algeria is the most extreme. Since “fit” is a synonym of healthy, some seem surprised it has taken six years for the Algerian body politic to notice and make a point of the obvious and radical failure of health in their president’s body and mind. But, of course, a regime controlled by the military gave its people few opportunities to exercise their skills of medical diagnosis, and fewer again to express them. Now that at least one military leader has chimed in with the people, the political transformation — if not impending revolution — they have been calling for has begun looking like a real possibility.

All the other cases appear to be far more ambiguous, but they share with the Algerian situation an atmosphere of existential crisis. Trump has been an ongoing psychodrama for the American people since well before his election. That his own party and his opponents have been drawn into the psychodrama without knowing how to respond tells us a lot about US political culture today and even more about US culture in general.

Many forget that it was David Cameron who created the situation for Theresa May being unfit to manage Brexit. They find it harder to forgive her persistent belief that she is managing it and can bring it to a positive outcome.

Historical note

At the end of the day (if that hour ever actually comes), all three nations — Algeria, the US and the UK — are undergoing a historical drama of major importance that will have repercussions beyond their own borders.

That would surprise no one in the case of the US, which decades ago established itself (at least in its own mind) as what it believed was a kind and loving empire. It needed Trump’s narcissism to help the “exceptional” nation to begin to understand that that very belief was a symptom of its own narcissism. Trump has insisted on “America First” as a slogan to guide foreign policy. But that is precisely what almost all Americans, whatever their political allegiance, believed without having to shout it in unison at aggressive political rallies. Hearing the shouts and seeing the result of Trump’s application of the principle have made people — though certainly not his base — aware of the tragic absurdity of the well-established meme of America’s benevolent leadership of a world hankering to be just like the US.

Is Trump “fit” to be president? He proved himself fit, in the social Darwinian sense of the word, to win elections and to get people, including the liberal media, to kowtow to him where it counted. For it is the media that continues to promote the idea of America First, though they believe that their version is more human than Trump’s. And the profoundly disappointing denouement of the Mueller report, contradicting what the Democrats thought was proof that Trump was committed to “Russia first,” has opened a new path to the re-election of a president deemed to be deeply unworthy as well as unfit.

As for May, as the seconds tick off toward the closing bell of the final round of the Brexit bout, most of her own party as well as the entire opposition, to say nothing of the negotiators from the European Union, are “fit to be tied.” Whatever happens, it is likely, at best, to be a split decision; at worst, a double knockout. But even with a split decision, the future looks grim, not just because the economic forecasts have for the first time made it clear to the British people that it will cost them dearly at a very personal level, but because any vestige of trust in the political system and the people who populate it appears to have vanished beyond any hope for redemption.

So these three stories — of Algeria, the US and the UK — though completely independent of each other, according to an internal logic particular to each one, “fit” together in an odd way during what will certainly be seen in the future as an odd moment of history. Similar phenomena are coming to the fore in Emmanuel Macron’s France, in Matteo Salvini’s (or perhaps Giuseppe Conte’s) Italy, Narendra Modi’s India and Nursultan Nazarbayev’s , to say nothing of Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia, which in many ways is the most extreme example but paradoxically the most stable over time.

None of them have worked out what “fitness to govern” might actually look like.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post History Is Having a Fit over National Leadership across the Globe appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Anyone who has studied the grammar of any language in a classroom at any point in their life may remember the classification of verbs in three moods: indicative, subjunctive and imperative. The idea behind the grammatical notion of “mood” hints at the perceived truth value associated with each form of the verb. The subjunctive expresses doubt or uncertainty; the indicative points toward what is true in the present; and the imperative expresses an ambition or need for future action.

After a long period dominated by the subjunctive — doubt and uncertainty about Brexit, apparently British Prime Minister ’s preferred “mood” — the UK Parliament has decided to switch to the indicative with the implicit hope that it may turn into an imperative commanding some form of coherent future action. On March 27, two days before what was initially designated as the date for the UK’s departure from the European Union, Parliament has resolved to cast what terms “so-called indicative votes on finding a consensus Brexit solution.”

Will this be enough to end the suspense, worthy of Agatha Christie, that May has entertained right up to and, in fact, beyond the decisive moment, now grudgingly Ěýtill April 12? More pertinently, will there actually be a decisive moment after which the nation passes from the indicative to the imperative?

As in this grammatical example: “Get the bleeding job done and over with, Goddammit!

Here is today’s 3D definition:Ěý

Indicative vote:

A poll taken to understand what decision should be taken by people unwilling or incapable of taking a decision

Contextual note

The mood of the nation has never been more prone to doubt and even despair. The need to become “indicative” and then “imperative” has never been more pressing. On March 23, days before the indicative votes, a massive, “” demonstration by hundreds of thousands of opponents of Brexit occupied the streets of London. The crowd was clamoring for what is being called the “people’s vote,” the possibility of changing the result of the initial Brexit referendum on the basis of what the voters have learned in the interim.

But most politicians, starting with Prime Minister May, have been vehemently opposed to the idea of a new referendum, not because it doesn’t make sense, but because they sense that it would be perceived as a humiliating admission of the political class’s incompetence in calling for the initial referendum and its startlingly consistent ineptness in following it up.

The indicative votes to be cast on Wednesday are termed “indicative” not because they are meant to describe (or indicate) what exists, but because they point in the direction of possible and even desired action. The verb “” derives from the Latin word “index,” the finger that points in a direction. It thus literally means “to point out with one’s finger.”

The political meaning of the indicative vote will be more pointing in glaringly contradictory directions, as The Guardian’s partial list indicates: “leaving with May’s deal; leaving with membership of a customs union and/or single market; a no-deal departure; a second referendum.” The Guardian also informs us that the “various possible options and the form of voting are yet to be confirmed.”

In the end someone will be saddled with using the imperative, but no one seems to be sure who will ever have the authority to do so. Until then, it will be just a question of Parliament, the factions of May’s majority and the people in the streets (but not in the voting booth) indicating their moods.

Historical note

Several hundred years ago, the English language, for , set the subjunctive mood adrift, effectively banishing it from its shores except in very rare reminiscences of how English was spoken once upon a time. “Long live the queen” is a true subjunctive that may still be heard today, but speakers are hardly aware that its form is effectively that of the subjunctive. Otherwise, English has preferred to construct sentences beginning with “let” or (significantly in the UK today) “may” to represent ideas corresponding to the subjunctive mood in other languages. “Let there be light” and “may she reign forever” express the mood without having to transform the verb.

The language and its cultures (English, American, Australian, Canadian, etc.) appear to be content with the all-purpose indicative. This may reflect the pragmatic, active, business-oriented rather than reflective culture that prefers to see things getting done instead of wasting time deliberating about them.

It was this concern with getting things done and pushing a “deliberative” question aside to get on with business that led then-Prime Minister David Cameron to call for the initial referendum in 2016, which produced a result neither he nor the voters themselves were expecting. It opened the door for the opportunism of ambitious characters and provocateurs such as and to step up and occupy front stage in an improvised comedy that no one had prepared or rehearsed. Both were surprised and embarrassed when, at the end of their Act I, the curtain instantly sprung open up again before they could leave the stage, as the public was expecting them to continue with an Act II that nobody had written.

Today, the entire political class is hoping to indicate “a consensus Brexit solution,” presumably without having to appeal to the people for a new imperative.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]Ěý

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The Mood of Brexit Is More than a Grammatical Problem appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Avoiding a no-deal Brexit will require radical change in the way Parliament makes decisions. Now that the withdrawal agreement negotiated with the European Union has been rejected twice by the House of Commons, MPs must now turn to discovering what alternative approach might find actual support. Only then can the UK engage meaningfully with the EU.

This process must be completed by April 10, the date of a possible special meeting of the European Council on Brexit. Otherwise, the UK will simply crash out of the EU with no deal on April 12, with dire consequences for all.

So, how might the House of Commons organize itself to make the key decisions, and will the British government facilitate — or deliberately hinder — the process? There have been suggestions that Prime Minister might call a general election if support is gathering for a solution she does not like or which might split the Conservative Party irrevocably.

What Can Be Done?

The options for decision-making in the House of Commons have been analyzed in an excellent last week by The Constitution Unit of University College London. One proposed way — for example, byĚý — of organizing the question is to offer preferential voting, which is a proportional representation system of choosing between options. This method is already used for choosing the chairs of committees in the House. It would avoid the problems of the yes/no voting system and encourage more sincere voting.

But the choices to be made are complex and contingent on other choices by other people. MPs may find themselves needing to know how their colleagues will vote on other questions before they can decide how to vote on the question that is actually in front of them. To address this problem, The Constitution Unit suggests that two separate ballots might be held. The first ballot would ask MPs to rank preferences (1, 2, 3) between:

i) Moving straight to Brexit on the existing deal without a referendum

ii) Accepting a Brexit deal, but on condition that it is put to the people for approval in a referendum

iii) Ending the Brexit process by revoking Article 50 and staying in the EU on existing terms as a full-voting member (an option that still exists up to April 12)

These options are incompatible with one another, so the result of the ballot would clarify matters. The option that receives the most support would then be the basis for a second ballot. If MPs do not vote in the first ballot to revoke Article 50 and stay in the EU, a second ballot might then ask them to rank different options for a Brexit deal on a preference basis. They would have to mention their order of preference between four options:

a) The prime minister’s current deal, including the Irish backstop and proposed customs arrangements

b) The current withdrawal agreement, including the backstop, with significantly looser customs arrangements (the Canada-style model), which in practice would make the backstop more likely to be brought into effect

c) The current withdrawal agreement alongside significantly closer arrangements (the Norway model or ), which would in practice make use of the backstop unnecessary

d) A no-deal Brexit

The result of this ballot would establish the wishes of the House of Commons. Obviously, the process would have to be public, so each MP’s ballot paper would need to be published. However, the whole initiative could be completed in a day.

Would May Accept Such a Process?

It would be necessary to have a government in place that would intend to fulfill the preferences of the House in a sincere and constructive way. Only a government can negotiate with the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, not 650 MPs.

Paving the way for a PR-type ballot will be very difficult. The Conservative Party has a deep dislike of the whole idea of PR. Yet PR may be the only way out of its present dilemma.

It is also important that the issue be decided on the basis of free votes, although it has to be recognized that an MP, who is threatened with possible deselection by his/her constituency association, is not entirely free. If Prime Minister May refuses to allow some such system of discerning the will of Parliament, or if she declines to accept the result in a sincere spirit, the question would arise as to whether she should continue in office.

Ultimately, the House of Commons holds the power — and hence the threat — of removing the government from office. Under theĚý,Ěýa vote of no-confidence does not immediately result in a general election, but triggers a 14-day period during which a new government can be formed.

There is no necessity that a new prime minister be one of the party leaders; any MP could become prime minister. Instead, it would be crucial for any new prime minister toĚýcommand the confidence of the House of Commons — beyond the confines of the Conservative Party — to deliver the next stage of the Brexit process.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Can the UK Avoid a No-Deal Brexit? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Though in a very deep sense we are a civilization governed by statistics, most people show little interest in a mathematical discipline that many consider to be a dry, inhuman science. Statistics, as a professional activity, has made its way into the core of our scientific, economic, political and even philosophical culture. In the world of serious decision making — whether in the corporate world, sciences or political marketing — ideas and initiatives not supported by statistics tend to be dismissed in favor of those that are, even if no one (including statisticians) really understands how statistics can be expected to produce meaning.

The American Statistical Association (ASA) has come forward with an act of public humility that few people among the public will pay attention to. It has now admitted that over-reliance on statistics may be dangerous for our health. In an interview , “Time to say goodbye to â€�statistically significant’ and embrace uncertainty, say statisticians,” we learn, for example, that “relying on statistical significance alone often results in weak science” and that, contrary to the illusion many have maintained about statistical evidence, “pureĚýobjectivity can never be achieved.”

In a world that is preparing to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into every level of institutional decision-making, this could indicate a methodological breakthrough with far-reaching effects. AI both uses and produces statistics to make the decisions we so willingly accept to delegate to it. By acknowledging that uncertainty is more certain than supposed statistical truth, we may begin to situate our own decision-making responsibilities, based on factors other than numbers alone.

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Statistically significant:

Indicating that a certain representation of quantitative data may serve to justify ideas or initiatives that we fail to understand or, in some cases, refuse to understand ĚýĚý

Contextual note

At the center of statistical reasoning is something called “p-value,” a calculation embodied in a mathematical formula that has no intrinsic meaning — or “significance” — because it attributes a numerical value to the immaterial notion of comparative probability. The ASA’s intention of dislodging p-value from its place at the center of the world of statistics represents a Copernican change of perspective for statisticians. It has the potential to become the cause of an identity crisis in the field. But it also has significance for the world we live in, especially when considering the drama — if not trauma — building around the perspective of AI taking over so much critical decision-making.

Among the problems that have led to the replacement of the notion of “statistically significant” by the acceptance of uncertainty are practices that have been used and abused extensively in the pharmaceutical sector. The article cites “p-hacking (manipulating the data until statistical significance can be achieved)” and “perverse incentives especially in the academy that encourage �sexy’ headline-grabbing results.”

But the issue strikes even deeper into our civilizational values as statistician Nicole Lazar, the interviewee of the article, acknowledges this fact containing vast cultural significance: “Categorization and categorical thinking are the fundamental problems, not the p-value in and of itself.” When we apply mathematical reasoning to human problems, our dependence on both language and the pragmatics of human activity force us to call things and ideas by names we invent and to relate them to each other by grouping them in categories, or what psychologists call “.” This has never been truer than in the digital civilization that we now depend on.Ěý

Historical note

Although the debate about the reliability of statistics and the dominant methodologies has been going on for decades, the article makes an important point: “The tone now is different, perhaps because of the more pervasive sense that what we’ve always done isn’t working.”

In the sciences, it can take decades or even centuries to notice “that what we’ve always done isn’t working.” During that time, we have a tendency to think that because it is the accepted science of the day, it can be assumed to be true and that its truth is established by the fact that everything we do with it works. Or seems to work — until we realize it doesn’t.

This is what , tracing the history of science, called a “paradigm shift.” When Copernicus found flaws in the elaborate of the functioning of a universe in which the sun was deemed to revolve around the Earth, he could initiate a shift in the understanding of astronomy and the forces that govern our material existence.

Why might change in the status of what is “statistically significant” seem important today? The world should welcome any moment when experts and authorities engage in what Lazar describes as making “an attempt to start a deeper conversation about the best ways forward for science and statistics.” If science becomes more reliable, we all benefit. Accepting uncertainty seems to be as necessary today as it was for Copernicus, who had become uncertain about the otherwise reliable description of the movement of celestial bodies around what we all perceive to be the stable Earth.

But the consequences of this revolution in statistics may go further and help us to understand something about the paradigm shift we are currently experiencing, without necessarily realizing it. Democracy has become, in many people’s eyes and especially for political decision-makers, government by and through statistical significance. Elections have become essentially statistical competitions. And between elections, the media interpret “significance” through polling that produces statistics to predict statistics. Consequently, national elections have turned into the equivalent of global sporting contests, with the media claiming that each one will be the “fight of the century,” a fight that produces “moral significance” telling us how we will be governed. In the aftermath of those elections, the pundits analyze them as if the resulting statistics told us what we, the electors, were thinking, often representing it as a simple choice of a type of society.

That is where we are today, with the certainty that the British people the European Union in 2016, whatever the consequences, or that the American people had decided to make America great again through blind nationalism. We trust the statistical results, at least for the duration between two elections. And we accept to live, work and socialize within the cognitive boundaries of the categories established by the parties and their marketers.

In this final week of March 2019, we might ask British Prime Minister Theresa May whether she, for one, is ready to “embrace uncertainty.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Statisticians Embracing Uncertainty and Paradigm Shift appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Democracy theoretically gives voice to all people, and the decisions it reaches will always disappoint some. Increasingly, the decisions it doesn’t reach provoke even more disappointment, to the point of intolerance and worse. Events over the past few days capture a phenomenon that is constant and goes beyond politics, affecting many people’s personal lives.

In an article for the , we learn that Democratic Representative “blamed right-wing media [last] week for the death threats she said she receives on a daily basis.”

On the other side of the Atlantic, the troubling case of UK citizen Margaret Georgiadou. The British newspaper reports: “The woman behind the petition to revoke article 50 has said she is scared and has been forced to close her Facebook account after receiving multiple death threats for launching the challenge to Brexit.” And then there’s the case of MP Anna Soubry, who left the Conservative Party over . ITVĚý “that a death threat had been sent to her home with the author stating that they were on her â€�doorstep.’”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Death threats:

A modern form of political expression deemed by an increasing number of people to be more effective and efficient than traditional means of expression, such as voting, engaging in dialogue and debate, street demonstrations, writing letters to the editor, community organizing, sit-ins, philosophizing, heckling and bumper stickers

Contextual note

Democratic Representative — who has been in the news recently for the heresy of criticizing Israel, thereby undermining a recent tradition in Congress of showing “” for every decision taken by a foreign government — has become an of death threats. Whereas is capable of analyzing the issue Omar has raised from multiple points of view before reaching the conclusion that she “is simply representing the progressive view of the pro-Israel movement and being unfairly criticized for it,” the entire Republican Party and have assumed a position of categorical intolerance. Transmitted by the media — with Fox News in the lead — a good has come to believe that criticizing the Israel government is the equivalent of a capital crime, for which vigilante justice would be justified.

These two examples of the Brexit kerfuffle and the problem of Omar’s purported “anti-Semitic tropes” have produced a tragic irony that goes beyond the personal anguish caused by death threats. The policies and political gymnastics of both Theresa May with Brexit and the various US administrations who have felt obliged to proclaim fealty to Israel have produced, in both cases, unmitigated and interminable catastrophe for everyone concerned. Britain has descended into what appears to be suicidal chaos and the “Middle East problem” has grown more intractable over time as the Israeli government has defied both the United Nations and the “official” policy of US presidents by increasing the number of settlements in occupied Palestinian territories while repeatedly and brutally attacking a captive population.

The targets of death threats cited above are deemed guilty, not of engaging in an aggressive or dangerous course of action, but of taking a stand that, however controversial, aims at resolving these persistent problems.

Historical note

Death threats in the political world are hardly a modern phenomenon. Assassination of political leaders has occurred throughout history, though the most politically effective assassinations were rarely preceded by threats. purportedly received 12 death threats a day. The belief that eliminating the leader who opposes one’s vision of the world will magically bring about utopia will always cross the minds of fanatical followers of any extreme political cause. More often than not, the attempt, even when successful, backfires. But occasionally it works. When the extreme right assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, they effectively that Rabin had committed to. Instead of backfiring, this led to the surprising election of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has continued to undermine the peace process for over 20 years.

But the current trend in death threats no longer targets national leaders and power brokers. It has defined a new type of target: personalities who have a voice in the world or an echo in the media. And to complicate things, as , “the media” have now become the message, although he later added a modified version of his initial insight when he “the medium is the massage.”

In McLuhan’s time (mid-20th century), “media” meant broadcast media, which thrived on massaging the interests and tastes of the widest public possible. It assumed the patriotic task of leading the masses camped in front of their TV sets to rejoice in the benefits of the consumer society. This helped to install shared values based on a culture that valued stable work (at a time when employment was plentiful and well paid) and dutiful consumption. Massaged by the media, people could disagree and remain polite, believing there would always be more to consume. Even anti-war hippies in the 1960s had the consumer’s choice of drifting off to their communes to indulge in their own preferred activities.

Today, when we speak of media, we include both broadcast and social media, which have combined to promote and spread a new culture of outrage and indignation on issues that are increasingly framed as “life or death,” with death being an obvious solution. To the ever-growing number of military operations in the age of “terror,” we can add the “culture wars” that promise killing and elimination as an outcome. Social media have given a public voice to those with the strongest feelings. Massaging the public would now risk putting them to sleep. In the “attention economy,” extreme emotion draws eyeballs to content supported by advertising revenue. Reasoned debate and empathetic dialogue are for “losers.”

Death threats have thus become one of the standard means of expression for aggravated outrage. Although the trend has been more pronounced on the right than on the left — especially in the messages conveyed by popular broadcast media such as Fox News or Rush Limbaugh in the US — the use of the death threat as a form of political expression tempts certain people on the left.

In 2017, Andrew Anglin, the founder of a white supremacist website, rejoiced after receiving death threats from critics of his right-wing extremism. After mocking the death of anti-Nazi protester Heather Heyer, who was run over when a neo-Nazi at the infamous white nationalist rally in Charlottesville drove his car into a crowd, he had received death threats. His capital crime was to suggest that Heyer “was a â€�drain on society’ because she was unmarried and childless.” Anglin tellingly added: “I’m not feeling hate. I’m feeling amused.”

That doesn’t seem to be the case for Margaret Georgiadou and Anna Soubry. Provocateurs like Anglin identify with the culture of outrage and death threats. Reformers apparently don’t.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post A Death-Threat Culture that Presages the Death of Democracy appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

As this week begins, the UK and Europe find themselves less than two weeks away from the official cutoff date for Brexit. In the nearly three years since the referendum of June 2016, the terms of Brexit are still awaiting their definition.

Now, for a third time in the space of two months, we learn that British Prime Minister Theresa May has been planning a on the withdrawal agreement she has spent over two years negotiating with the . Late last week, the BBC : “If MPs support Mrs May’s deal next week – before a summit of EU leaders in Brussels on 21 March – then she will ask the EU for an extension of no later than 30 June.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Next week:

The moment in time — never in the past or present, always in a shifting future — at which May expects to be able to announce the ratification of her deal to withdraw from the European Union

Contextual noteĚý

The prime minister may have been unconsciously influenced by the in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in which Alice wonders about the White Queen’s promise to recruit her as a maid and pay her “Twopence a week and jam every other day.” Alice withdraws her candidacy, objecting that she doesn’t want to be hired (was Alice a proto-Brexiteer?) and furthermore that she doesn’t want any jam “today.”

“You couldn’t have it if you did want it,” the queen said. “The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday—but never jam today.”

“It must come sometimes to �jam today,’” Alice objected.

“No, it can’t,” said the queen. “It’s jam every other day: today isn’t any other day, you know.”

Unlike Alice, who can’t pin down the specific day for action, May actually does manage to identify the day of her votes on withdrawal week after week. Generally it’s Tuesday. But, like Alice, she has no hope of getting a positive result. And now things have become critical. There are only two Tuesdays left in the month. If it fails this week, will she try again next week, the last Tuesday before doomsday? May’s hopes may once again be dashed tomorrow, but it never dents her resolve to succeed the next time.

Last week, after Parliament resoundingly rejected her plan, May nevertheless had the pleasure of organizing two other votes related to the Brexit fiasco. Rather than clarifying the UK’s position, they simply added to the ever deepening confusion about what path Britain may end up taking. Since the second of those votes formally granted her the right to demand an extension for negotiations beyond the official Brexit deadline — most likely till the end of June — this could provide her with the opportunity to prepare a whole series of new Tuesday votes, since it would free up as many as 12 more. After that, Parliament might simply decide to change the name of Tuesday to “Groundhog Day.”

Historical note

Theresa May has already made political and media history and, to the amazement of seasoned pundits, is still residing at 10 Downing Street with a view to adding to it. Some are calling it the longest stretch of great and memorable British comedy since the two seasons of Monty Python that hit the airwaves exactly 50 years ago. May’s performance may also remind us of a remark made by another British wit, Peter Ustinov. Speaking about the Academy Award-winning part he played as the character Arthur Simpson (“the Shmo”) in the film , he : “I love the idea of a man who aims low and misses.”

On January 15, the first vote on May’s Brexit deal constituted the for a prime minister in British history. In normal times, after such a humiliation, the prime minister would have resigned, but post-Brexit Britain has turned time into something that can no longer be measured or described in “normal” terms. The margin of defeat in January was greater than the total number of votes in favor of the agreement: 432 to 202. The margin of her second defeat, on March 12, was “only” 149. Thanks to a slightly improved score but especially to the growing anguish among the entire population as the fatal date approaches, she has maintained hope that her third attempt will be successful.

In American baseball, if a batter fails a third time to hit a pitch, it’s a strikeout and the batter must return to the dugout. In cricket, the batter keeps playing no matter how many swings they take and no matter how many times the bowler throws the ball without managing to topple the wicket.

Or, as the White Queen explained to Alice, who refused to take serious affirmations that appeared to her impossible: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Theresa May is on her third attempt to believe “impossible things before Brexit.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Theresa May’s Surreal Game: Playing with Time appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

In the UK, a no-deal Brexit has become increasingly likely. This is because Prime Minister Theresa May has decided her priority is to avoid a split in the Conservative Party.

She has calculated that if she tries to get her withdrawal deal through Parliament with Labour Party support — in return for modifications, such as staying in a customs union or softening her stance on EU immigration — the Conservative Party would break up. May would lose around 50 to 100 MPs and cease to be prime minister. Instead, she is trying to win over individual Labour MPs by promising spending in their constituencies — a desperate tactic that corrupts the political system.

Should, or could, the make concessions that would help out the prime minister? Even if Brussels wanted to make changes to the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, it has no way of knowing if May would have the political authority to get any such modified deal through the House of Commons.

When one contrasts what leading Brexiteers, such as former UK Brexit Secretary David Davis, were saying a few years ago about what might be acceptable with what they are insisting now, it appears that nothing will satisfy them and that every concession will be met by a new demand. It is catharsis they are after, not compromise. This is the point that needs to be addressed by those who are already laying the groundwork for blaming “brinkmanship” by the EU — particularly Ireland — if the UK crashes out of the European Union on March 29.

What guarantee can these critics offer that any conceivable “alternative” to the Irish backstop — an insurance policy to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic — would pass in the House of Commons? These bar-stool critics, and the UK government itself, have so far been shy in coming forward with practical ideas that would get a majority in Westminster and also respect the integrity of the EU single market.

How to Break the Deadlock

One person who has come forward with ideas to break the deadlock is , a professor of economics at University College Dublin. He says that one of the reasons advanced by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) for rejecting the backstop — namely that it would place a barrier in the way of Northern Irish exports to Britain — is without foundation.

He says that under the backstop, exports originating in Northern Ireland would go through a green channel at Belfast port with no checks or controls. Only goods originating in the Republic of Ireland, or further afield in the EU, would have to go through a red channel, where there might be checks. And, at the same time, Northern Irish exporters would have free access to the EU across the open land border in Ireland. They would have the best of both worlds.

Whelan goes on to suggest that, to get the withdrawal deal approved by the House of Commons, the EU might consider two extra concessions.

First, at some future point after the end of the 21-month transition period, Britain could leave the joint customs union with the EU, on condition that Northern Ireland remained in it and aligned with EU goods regulations. This would deal with the Brexiteer fear that the EU is trying to “trap” Britain in the customs union, which is not the case.

Second, voters in Northern Ireland could test the backstop, but after around five or more years there could be a referendum in which Northern Irish voters could decide to opt out of it. Whelan thinks they would opt to stay in it because they would, over the five years, have experienced the best of both worlds that the backstop gives to the Northern Irish economy.

There are two problems with this idea. The suggested referendum could further deepen the orange/green split, and the very possibility of a referendum would introduce a new element of uncertainty for business in both parts of Ireland. Referendums are risky and influenced by extraneous issues. But the delay inherent in his proposal would allow time for the supposed technological fixes for a hard border on the island of Ireland to be road tested.

That said, his referendum would be far less divisive than an outright border poll on leaving the UK altogether, which could be the case in a no-deal Brexit situation. Opinion in Northern Ireland suggest that a majority would opt to stay in the United Kingdom if the country were to remain in the EU. Public opinion there would also be equally split under the backstop, but polls show that the people would spring dramatically against staying in the UK if there is a no-deal Brexit.

Under those circumstances, a border poll on Northern Ireland leaving the UK altogether would be hard to resist under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. According to that agreement, such a poll must take place if a majority in Northern Ireland want it. Brexiteer Unionists in Britain are foolishly playing with fire by their brinkmanship and flirtation with a no deal.

European Customs Association

Another idea for breaking the Brexit deadlock in the UK Parliament has come from the German Ifo Institute in a paper published in . The proposal would involve dumping the entire EU negotiating approach so far, and instead offering the UK membership of a newly-constituted European customs association, through which the British would have influence on EU trade policy and vice versa. It suggests that Turkey might also be invited to join the association.

This idea might mitigate the “vassal state” objection to the UK joining the EU customs union as a simple rule-taker. But I would question the wisdom, and perhaps the motivation, of bringing forward such a proposal at this very late stage as a possible solution to the crisis. The timing is wrong. It might have been helpful if it had been published in 2017 when Theresa May wrote her indicating the UK’s intention to withdraw from the EU, but it has little value as a way of averting a no-deal Brexit now.

If the British Parliament eventually accepts the withdrawal treaty, or if it decides to withdraw its Article 50 letter, the Ifo proposal might be considered then. To have any traction, though, it is an idea that would have to come from the UK, not a German think tank.

But the Whelan and Ifo proposals are designed to help the United Kingdom clarify what it wants. The problem is that UK opinion on Brexit has become so polarized that it is hard to see the House of Commons assembling political will to deliver anything except slipping into a chaotic no deal.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Brexiteers Are Not After Compromise appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Whereas nearly every commentator has been emphasizing the likely negative and disastrous consequences of — including penuries of food and medicine, the devaluation of the pound and massive unemployment — Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson has reassured the British public and the world at large, insisting there will also be positive outcomes.

The minister has already : “Brexit has brought us to a great moment in our history. A moment when we must strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality and increase our mass.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:Ěý

Lethality:

The ability to kill and destroy, an attribute usually applied to unscrupulous enemies and cited in the interest of improving one’s own security, but in the minds of some politicians, the key to governing other people through submission and thus enforcing their own particular notion of justice

Contextual note

Williamson calls this “a great moment in our history” and speaks of “our global presence.” Does this confirm that the driving force behind Brexit was nothing more than the nostalgia of a lost empire?

In his words, “�[G]lobal Britain’ needs to be much more than a pithy phrase. It is about action.” Then he defines what he means by action: “[A]ction to oppose those who flout international law; and action, on occasion, that may lead to us intervene ourselves.” In other words, no longer policed by Europe, the UK will be free to rival or partner with the US as the world’s policeman. Some may find it reassuring that the two cops responsible for the new world order speak English and will have no trouble coordinating their policies and “actions.” Others may worry.

This may reveal two possible ways that hard Brexiteers see the world. The first evokes the vision of a tight and globally dominant military alliance with the US aimed at restructuring the defunct British Empire as a division of the still existing — but declining — American empire. The second sounds more far-fetched: Aware that the US empire is breaking apart, the UK, with its centuries of experience dominating vast regions across the globe, would be in a position to step up to take the leadership that the Americans are about to lose. Williamson as “the nation that people turn to when the world needs leadership.”

If ever proof was needed that the dominant form of capitalism that now prevails in the West — from the US to Europe and in the Middle East — is what should be called “military-industrial socialism,” Williamson’s discourse not only provides it, but seals the case.

Though he reveals nothing more of his true intentions than his belief in a speculative “swarm squadron of drones,” Williamson speaks not from a sense of nostalgia, but with cynical economic realism. Today’s economy, for any elite nation capable of managing it, not only rewards but requires the production of weaponry and military technology on an ever-expanding scale.ĚýIt’s no coincidence that the permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as Germany lead the .

Arms production serves no less than six purposes: it reinforces the power of the government over its own population; creates industrial employment in nations that have lost most of their traditional manufacturing; funds research in technology that can be conveniently transferred to private industry; invisibly socializes a broad sector of the economy, since it’s the public who pay through taxes while under the impression that it’s for their security; enables the exporting nation to wield diplomatic power over the regimes that purchase the weapons; and improves the balance of trade.

Politicians find all these factors not only seductive, but important for their own electoral purposes. They receive funding from the military-industrial sector, and this gives them the opportunity to lobby for military-linked industry activity in their districts, pleasing their electorate by creating jobs.

But there is a flip side. The nation itself becomes not just dependent on, but addicted to a military economy. If it doesn’t have enemies, it will need to create them. That not only distorts the economy and weakens democracy itself, but also makes the world a more dangerous place. It even renders economic activity not related to the military more fragile and precarious. But for people in government and numerous industries, it works.

Historical note

The year 2016 Ěýgave us Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. These events appear to have sparked a return to the mentality of the Cold War, an era that saw the growth of a military-industrial complex that expanded in response to the ominous threats — real or imaginary — of the nuclear age.

Williamson now tells us that NATO, a Cold War creation, must “develop its ability to handle the kind of provocations that Russia is throwing at us.” The metaphor of “throwing” evokes the launching of nuclear missiles, though he merely mentions “provocations.” The Guardian seems to adopt the same logic, evoking “the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, which Moscow is widely suspected of orchestrating.” Does a nation deploy its “lethality” and “mass” against another nation for attempting to assassinate one of its dissidents abroad? If that is true, The Guardian should consider Saudi Arabia as a priority before Russia. But, of course, as newspaper itself has pointed out elsewhere, the to Saudi Arabia, notably to pursue Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s very lethal war in Yemen.

English culture has traditionally embraced the value of “fair play.” The history of the British Empire shows us that this ideal was “more honor’d in the breach than the observance,” though the British genius in devising the rules of sports proves that the culture retains a certain abstract predilection for “level playing fields.” There’s little doubt that with the right degree of “lethality,” a Britain free of the constraints of Europe might once again have the means of flattening the landscape in certain places of its choice.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The British Empire Strikes Back appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

In June 2016, a majority of Britons decided in a that the United Kingdom should leave the European Union in what has become known as Brexit. The UK is the first EU member to have triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which initiates a procedure for the withdrawal from the union. The country is scheduled to leave on March 29.

Brexit has been an area of debate for the past three years. The biggest impact has perhaps been the polarization of British society and the decline of tolerance in a country where immigrants constitute the backbone of the national economy.

Although leaving the European Union will render the UK more independent in establishing trade agreements with other countries, many of the 51.9% of Brits who voted Leave now believe their choice would be different if a second referendum were held today. A recent by YouGov found that 46% of British people would vote to remain, 39% would vote to leave and the “rest either did not know, would not vote, or refused to respond to the question.”

The EU has agreed with the British government a 585-page , highlighting the terms of the UK’s departure from the union. It includes how much the UK owes to the EU, details of a transition period and citizens’ rights. But the UK House of Commons the Brexit deal in January by a vote of 432 to 202 — the biggest defeat in British history for a sitting government.

As things stand, the UK will crash out of the European Union at the end of March. This has come to be as a “no-deal Brexit.” If this happens, the UK would immediately leave the union overnight, cutting its ties with the world’s biggest trading bloc. This would mean a number of things such as border checks on goods being reinstated, transport and trade being affected and “” ensuing, according to Bank of England Governor Mark Carney.

In this edition of , 51łÔąĎ talks to Malcolm Sawyer, professor emeritus of economics at Leeds University’s Business School, about Brexit and its implications for the UK.

The transcript has been edited for clarity.

Kourosh Ziabari: What would you say if you were asked to weigh the pros and cons of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union against each other? In what ways will leaving the EU affect the United Kingdom, and where is the impact mostly negative?

Malcolm Sawyer: The European Union has promoted the economic and social integration between European nations. The central importance of its “four freedoms” — free movement of labor, capital and goods and services — illustrate that. These have been important developments, which have been generally beneficial, though the economic gains from the free movements of goods and services tend, in my view, to be overstated. The benefits of the free movement of labor could be enhanced through developments in employment and industrial relations law and moves to develop EU-wide unemployment insurance.

Many of the cons of withdrawal stem from the reversals of economic and social integration. The UK has been a member of the European Union for over 45 years, where there have been a considerable amount of integration between the peoples of member countries. Over those 45 years, many decisions have been made and actions taken on the basis of the UK’s continuing membership of the EU — ranging from the formulation of the Good Friday Agreement on the peace process in Ireland through decisions on residence in other countries within the EU and location of production and trade arrangements.

For many of us, there will be what amount to minor irritants — a visa may be required for a stay over three months in an EU country, the European Health Insurance card providing a degree of health cover in EU countries no longer operates, etc. For others, the effects will be much more substantial, with EU citizens living in the UK with considerable insecurity on their position and on UK citizens living in the EU; for example, through loss of social benefits.

Many advocates of Brexit would view the reversal of integration as a benefit, particularly where that integration has involved the free movement of labor — not a view I would share. There are, however, a range of economic and social policies that are effectively determined at the EU level and where UK withdrawal could lead to significant changes in policies. These include agricultural, regulatory, industrial and labor market policies as well as state aid. These aspects can be a pro or con. Policy decisions are shifted to the national level, but with the loss of gains from cooperation, the policies adopted at the UK level may — depending on one’s political perspectives — be better or worse than the current policies.

The economic effects of departure would depend on the closeness of the trade relationships between UK and the EU post-Brexit, how well the adjustments to a new trade regime are handled, and the economic policies subsequently pursued by the UK government. At present, there is continuing ambiguity over the trade relationship between the UK and the EU, but it is likely to be toward the more distant and more disruptive end of the scale with, at most, an eventual free trade agreement.

My view has long been that a close customs union and regulatory alignment relationship with policies to ease the transition through regional and industrial policies — for example, the shifts in the composition of trade — could mean small negative effects on the UK economy. A major difficulty has been that many Leave voters, particularly on the right of the Conservative Party, have interpreted the Leave vote as being minimal links with the EU in the name of “taking back control” and to avoid anything that could be labeled “Brino” — Brexit in name only.

The UK has been a net contributor to the EU budget, and claims by the Leave side on its scale during the referendum campaign were clearly overblown. There are likely to be substantial payments made by the UK as part of the withdrawal process, amounting to as much as €39 billion [$44.2 billion]. But, at some stage, the UK government could divert the net contributions toward domestic spending. Indeed, I would go further and advocate fiscal reflation, through borrowing, in the event of a downturn following Brexit. Brexit would enable a recasting of agricultural policies and of boosting funds for regional and industrial development.

Ziabari: The Brexit referendum resulted in a majority of 51.9% of voters being in favor of leaving the European Union. It wasn’t a landslide victory for the Leave campaign and many critics have claimed that had people been provided with more information about the consequences of leaving the EU, the outcome would have been different. What’s your view on that? Would a second referendum produce different results?

Sawyer: The referendum was relatively unusual in that the government and most political parties supported the status quo (remain in the EU) and the proponents of the change option (leave the EU) did not have to set out what the leave option would involve, particularly in terms of the future relationship between the UK and the EU. There was an inevitable lack of information on what the future relationship would be, which enabled the campaigners for Leave to make different claims. For example, some claimed that the UK would remain in a customs union, some advocated for free trade relationships and others the abolition of all tariffs on trade.

There were many aspects of the UK leaving the EU that were largely ignored in the debates over BrexitĚý— the most notable being the implications for the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and for the Good Friday Agreement. This has become a crucial issue in the formulation of the withdrawal agreement. Another concerned the implications for EU citizens resident in the UK and British citizens living in other EU countries. In many ways, it was not so much a lack of information — though implications for, say, UK citizens living in other EU countries would have to be a matter for subsequent negotiations — as a lack of any focus on those issues, and for most people a lack of concern on these matters.

Another factor that has to be weighed in balance is the extent of electoral malpractice. The Vote Leave campaign was penalized by the Electoral Commission for overspending and the harvesting of UK voters’ personal data. How far these malpractices influenced the outcome is a major unknown. My guess would be that the targeted messaging by the Leave campaign playing on fears of migration and promoting the slogan of “take back control” was a significant factor in raising voter turnout.

I do not expect there to be a referendum in 2019 for a number of reasons. One is the logistics: The UK is scheduled to leave EU on March 29 when the two-year period of negotiations under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon expires, and a referendum with time for the necessary legislation, preparation and campaign would take around six months. Another is the clear absence in Parliament of a majority in favor of a referendum. In the event of a deal having been agreed by Parliament, how likely is it that the government and MPs would back a referendum? And there would have to be agreement on what is on the ballot paper — if it is a leave/remain vote, leave on what terms? If, as some have suggested, a number of leave options as well as remain, then how many options? And should the remain also be split as remain on present terms and remain with intention of pushing for reforms?

The opinion polls do not indicate much of a shift in view — Remain tends to be a little ahead of Leave, as the Remain vote was prior to the referendum in 2016. There is evidence that there has been movement when it comes to those who would be eligible to vote in 2019 but who were too young in 2016, as well as some people who lean toward Remain with the intention to vote but who did not in 2016.

The outcome of a new referendum could well depend on what is on the ballot paper. In the initial referendum, as indicated, the Leave option was not well specified in terms of post-exit trade and other relationships between EU and the UK. There are a various trade relationships that could potentially be on the ballot paper — including trade between the UK and EU without specific trade agreements, construction of a free trade arrangement, and a type of customs union relationship without or with the UK’s membership of the EU single market.

In the unlikely event of a referendum, the result may well depend on the level of voter turnout. The initial referendum was characterized by relatively high turnout, especially in areas where general election turnout had been relatively low and from those enthused by the prospect of leaving the EU. It is difficult to say whether that enthusiasm would carry over. Though evidence suggests that Ěýpeople have stronger attachments to Remain or Leave, as the case may be, than they do to their preferred political party.

Ziabari: Do you think 16- and 17-year-olds, expats living abroad and EU citizens working in the UK should have been given a vote in the referendum? Would this have significantly influenced the outcome?

Sawyer: I would argue for the voting age to be lowered to 16 more generally. Expats who had been living abroad were allowed to vote in referendum, except those living abroad for more than 15 years. There would have been a strong case for allowing EU citizens in the UK a vote in the referendum on the same basis as they have voted in a range of UK local and devolved authority elections, though not the general election. The majority for Leave was around 1.3 million. Given the number of 16- to 17-year-olds and EU citizens resident in the UK — around 4.5 million in total — it is clearly possible that the result would have been for Remain, assuming a strong Remain vote amongst those two groups.

Ziabari: Do you think the Brexit vote and the actual withdrawal of the UK from the EU will polarize British society and lead to greater social and racial gaps? Will Brexit make Britain an intolerant society?

Sawyer: Britain has long been a polarized society, and it has become increasingly so on measures such as income inequality. Brexit and recent voting patterns have highlighted a rift — not dissimilar to the US — between the socially liberal, the relatively young, the socially conservative and relatively old. There is a strong relationship between the position on the conservative/liberal dimension and their likelihood to vote Leave/Remain.

The referendum campaign and the ongoing debates on the withdrawal arrangements have exposed the divisions within the UK and the degrees of intolerance and hostility toward foreigners and foreign governments and institutions that were already there. On social media and in the mainstream media, anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant and racist comments are frequently expressed.

There has also been a growing intolerance between Leavers and Remainers. There are considerable possibilities of civil unrest. An exit on March 29 under a no-deal situation with the disruptions to, for example, imports of medicines and food would likely be involved. Any moves toward Remain, even in the form of a referendum, would likely spark mass demonstrations.

Ziabari: How will Brexit affect Britain’s economy? Will the economy suffer a setback, with Britain losing its standing as one of the world’s largest economic powers?

Sawyer: The UK’s exit from the EU will inevitably have some disruptive effects on the UK economy, as any significant changes in trading arrangements would do. Some areas of activity will be harmed, notably those that benefit from the customs union and single market arrangements of the EU, as tariffs and customs checks would make exporting to the EU less attractive. Companies involved in supply chains crossing national borders, particularly those using just-in-time production techniques would find some disruption. Other areas of activity may well benefit — those sectors that produce goods that face competition from imports from the EU, which would become more expensive.

The extent of the disruption will depend on the future trading relationship between the EU and the UK. At one end of the spectrum, a customs union and regulatory alignment may have limited effects on trade and economic activity, whereas on the other end of the spectrum — no trade deal — the effects may be more substantial.

The macroeconomic forecasts on output, growth and employment over a 15-year period not surprisingly found the effects would depend on the nature of post-Brexit trade relations. The general consensus has been for lower output than would have been the case and much lower trade volumes. The scale, however, does not mean that the UK would not be one of the largest economic powers.

Ziabari: How will Britain’s absence from the EU empower Germany? There will be no UK contribution to the EU budget, as well as no UK conflict on issues such as larger trade deals with developing countries and the further enlargement of the EU. Are we going to see a more influential and powerful Germany, along with a Britain that is less interventionist in European politics and global affairs?

Sawyer: The UK has been a net contributor to the EU budget —minus payments to the UK in respect of the Common Agricultural Policy [CAP] and regional and structural fund — of less than €10 billion, in comparison with a total EU annual budget of around €150 billion. So, there will likely be some scaling back of EU activities, since the bulk of expenditures are on CAP and regional structural funds in those areas.

Leaving the EU does mean that the UK loses out in terms of the trade arrangements negotiated by the EU with third countries — the EU-Japan and EU-Canada free trade agreements being the two recent examples. A significant issue for the UK is the need to replace such arrangements with UK-Japan, UK-Canada ones. Many advocates of Brexit have made overblown claims on possibilities of trade deals between the UK and other non-EU countries, but it would seem more likely that the UK will lose out from non-participation via the EU in trade arrangements with other countries.

Germany’s position within the European Union is already a strong one, and it is only slightly strengthened by a UK exit. A more powerful Germany in the world is, in my view, unaffected by Brexit.

Ziabari: How do you think the withdrawal of Britain from the EU will impact immigration to the United Kingdom?

Sawyer: Much of the impetus behind the Leave vote appears to have been a drive to control and reduce immigration — control meaning the end of free movement of labor within the EU. This has gone alongside policies promoted by Prime Minister Theresa May when she was home secretary to create a “hostile environment” for immigration into the UK. The alternative policies on immigration that are being taken through Parliament at present would mean that those from EU countries would be subject to the same rulings as non-EU citizens, and the likely outcome would be a significant reduction in the number of migrants.

There will be major changes in respect of immigration as the free movement of labor within the EU is replaced by new immigration rules. Proposals for new immigration laws are currently under discussion, but may well aim to restrict those earning under ÂŁ30,000 ($38,700). This would be proposed to sharply reduce immigration and to do so in ways that are particularly harmful. Many sectors such as the caring professions are particularly reliant on immigrant labor. I would expect that the volume of immigration will fall substantially, particularly if the Conservative government continues in power with the apparent hostility toward immigrants, and the ways in which the UK has become a much less welcoming place, which will also include effects on British higher education being able to attract students.

Ziabari: According to an Institute of Directors survey, 29% of UK businesses and enterprises are considering moving abroad because of Brexit. This is mostly blamed on the uncertain climate as a result of the government’s inability to agree a Brexit deal with the European Union that is passed in the UK Parliament. What does this mean to you?

Sawyer: It has long been thought that an atmosphere of uncertainty will lead to decisions being delayed until the situation becomes clearer, and to avoid making long-term commitments. Investment in productive capacity is an area where uncertainty leads to delays in decision and avoidance of long-term investments. The uncertainty generated at present, so far as firms are concerned, covers variables such as what tariffs would be charged on exports to the EU, what effects there will be on customs arrangements and so on.

It could be expected that uncertainty delays investment and other long-term decisions until there is some clarification. The companies that would seriously consider relocating their production would be those whose exports to the EU would be particularly affected by tariffs and customs checks, though some of the additional costs may be offset by depreciation of the British pound. Companies that are involved in extensive supply chains, especially those operating on a just-in-time basis, will have incentives to relocate their production. The strength of these incentives will rather depend on the trade relationships put in place and the efficiency of the customs arrangements.

I would interpret responses such as reported here as being more along the lines that trade between the UK and the EU will not be any easier or less costly after Brexit than it is now. So, for many firms, consideration has to be given to relocation of production in order to avoid tariffs and other impediments to selling in the EU. Added to that, there continues to be confusion over what the scale of tariffs and customs checks that will operate for trade between the UK and the EU. Even if the UK is able to agree a withdrawal agreement with the EU, there would be at least a 21-month transition period, during which there would be negotiations on the specific trade relationships.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The Pros and Cons of Brexit appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Published simultaneously on February 7, following a meeting in Brussels between British Prime Minister Theresa May and EU leaders, here are two contrasting versions of the same story.

In an earlier edition, The Guardian’s read, “May clashes with Tusk and Juncker but EU agrees to fresh talks” and as, “The European Union says it will not reopen talks on the Brexit deal.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:Ěý

Talks:

Meetings in which either important or unimportant issues can be discussed and acted upon, discussed and not acted upon, or mentioned just for the record

Contextual note

The Guardian article puts a consistently positive spin on the fact that “talks” are planned, leaving the reader with the impression that a renegotiation of the Brexit withdrawal deal is a possibility. Business Insider makes it clear that this simply isn’t the case. There will be “talks” — how could there not be? — but not on the subject that has divided the British political class.

The Guardian concluded its article (earlier edition) with this upbeat quote: “Despite the challenges, the two leaders agreed that their teams should hold talks as to whether a way through can be found that would gain the broadest possible support in the UK parliament and respect the guidelines agreed by the European council.”

Toward the end of Business Insider’s article, the ambiguity entertained by The Guardian entirely disappears. It quotes the EU’s Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstad: “Mrs May today in the meeting assured us that there will be a backstop.” This is the issue that sank the prime minister’s hopes of success by making any kind of political consensus impossible within her theoretical majority in Parliament, which includes Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party and a bevy of hardline Brexiteers in her Conservative Party.

We should ask ourselves: What are these two publications trying to do?

The Guardian’s audience is generally more sympathetic to the Labour Party, essentially its centrist elements. Since 2016, the newspaper and its chief editorialists have been visibly and vocally opposed to Brexit and critical of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of Labour. Could it be that this article is skewing its presentation of facts in the hope that, thanks to the promised talks, enough centrist Labour MPs will rally to May and provide her with the majority she needs to overcome the opposition in her own majority, thereby reinforcing a bipartisan centrist consensus? No one can answer this question but, as an exercise in critical thinking, it’s worth asking.

Business Insider is an American publication with an international outlook focused on the economy. It follows British politics very closely but has less skin in the British political game and, therefore, less reason to hide its motives.

Then there’s The Daily Mirror. Historically loyal to Labour, it played an important role influencing the public in the Brexit drama, thanks to its taste for the occasional example of outrageously alarmist fake news. Vociferously committed to Brexit and influential among Labour voters, the paper has forced Corbyn to defend Brexit despite the likely disastrous consequences of a hard Brexit for the working class.

Reporting on May’s visit to Brussels, the newspaper an important facet of the event that both The Guardian and Business Insider chose to neglect: “The European Council President urged the Prime Minister to grasp an olive branch from Labour for a permanent customs arrangement that could finally get her deal through.” It then presented in dry factual detail the complex (i.e., hopelessly confused) debate within Labour.

Historical note

In the era of fake news, the case could be made that all news is in some sense fake because no story can be reduced to its mere facts. There will always be a point of view. And as the comparison of the three journals shows, there are enough facts to justify both true and false readings of any story.

Citizens of democracies should understand that the current debate about egregious examples of fake news doesn’t imply that designated “respectable” newspapers can be trusted to publish the “truth.” In 2002-03, The New York Times, whose integrity nobody dares to call into question, published the purported “facts” transmitted by the White House to about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. In doing so, it consolidated the case in the minds of a lot of “serious” citizens that the invasion of Iraq was justified.

As 51łÔąĎ documented yesterday, an NYT columnist has just confessed that the newspaper and the entire media culture in the US has remained silent for decades about a very real and very visible issue in the Middle East.

In other word, all news, whatever the source, contains not facts, but someone’s perception of facts, as well as a necessarily distorted interpretation of the facts. Fact-checking alone doesn’t guarantee integrity. And two of the examples cited above — The NYT on Iraq’s WMDs and The Daily Mirror on Brexit — demonstrate that the consequences of the reporting of even respectable journals may contribute to unmitigated historical disasters.

The system we live in has made meddling not just with elections, but with our understanding of the world a profitable enterprise. For that reason, it will continue in all its forms. Governments across the globe continue to neglect the only effective way to counter it: the kind of education that stimulates and rewards critical thinking and appreciation of perspective.

That is at the heart of the vocation of 51łÔąĎ, where we encourage and publish authentic perspective (not to be confused with the “truth”). We’re still hoping that governments and educational systems will one day get the message.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Theresa May Promises More Talks But No Walks appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

In a January 30 headline, The Daily Mail can’t contain its excitement at what it sees as a : “Sweeping victory for May as she wins all but one vote in Commons showdown, crushing Remainer rebel bid to delay Brexit and winning mandate to return to Brussels and renegotiate backstop.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May has indeed won a mandate… to go forth and lose a negotiation that the has will never take place.

Here is today’s 3D definition:Ěý

Sweeping:

When describing a victory in the political arena, decisive and unambiguous even when applied to situations devoid of meaning in which the victory is guaranteed to produce no resultĚý

Contextual note

The utter, perhaps voluntary blindness and naive presumptuousness of a portion of the British elite — its politicians but especially its media — has never been more on display than in this episode. Not only have EU leaders made it clear that the one item Prime Minister May has staked her own reputation and survival on by promising to renegotiate is no longer open to negotiations, but anyone who understands what the European Union is and how it works knows that this unambiguous stance cannot be just a bluff in a friendly poker game.

But the British will always be convinced that they and their problems are so important, so others will make the sacrifice to save them from suicide.

It’s difficult to believe that Britain’s leaders, in both of the major parties, could be that dense. They appear to have no choice. The explanation comes not from the politicians themselves, but, as happens so often today, from the media. The entire fiasco has, from the beginning, developed into a media game. The media thrive on issues that contain stark contrasts and provoke strong emotions.

David Cameron, the incorrigibly elitist and ever so rational former prime minister, casually provided the population with a glaringly simplistic referendum in 2016. This was a pretext for Brits to express their extreme emotions once and for all, making it possible — when it was all over — to acknowledge the irrelevance of the exercise before getting back to business. The media jumped on a rare opportunity. They saw it as the perfect pretext for fomenting a pitched battle of wills, personalities and emotions.

The media spectacle provoked the inevitable. The population voted with its emotions, not according to some reasoned political, philosophical, economic or even ideological thought. Both of the majors parties ended up split down the middle, meaning they could no longer frame future policy along the lines of their traditional political focus — on business for the Conservatives and on the needs of the working class for Labour.

So, should we feel more surprised by the fact that, less than two months before the Brexit deadline, no viable solution is in view, or by the fact that the politicians continue to propose last-minute solutions that are rejected even before being clearly formulated?

Historical note

John Donne, the great metaphysical poet and dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, in a on the theme of the theme of death, provided the English language with one of its most memorable aphorisms: “no man is an island.” In the same sermon, he gave Ernest Hemingway the title of one of his novels when he wrote, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls.” Just as memorably, Donne wrote in the same sermon, “if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were.”

Britain’s Tory politicians seem to have retained only one small idea from that sermon: If a hard Brexit is concluded, they want their colleagues on the continent to realize that Europe will be “the less,” hoping the EU will realize its folly and invite them back. Translated into modern discourse that would be: You could have kept us, but you foolishly let us go. In accordance with Donne’s analogy, Britain sees itself as an invaluable promontory and can’t conceive of the idea that Europe sees it as a clod.

Despite England’s recurrent wars with the continent in the 16th and 17th centuries, Donne clearly saw what ShakespeareĚý Britain’s “scepter’d isle” as part of Europe. The imaginary clod and promontory he mentioned could equally have been in France, Spain, Italy, Holland or England.

Just as Donne felt no man is an island, he would have agreed that, in political and cultural terms, no nation is an island.

We had to wait till the 21st century for some British politicians — aided and abetted by the eager media — to start believing that and turning it into a public issue, presumably to their own personal advantage. The ultimate irony is that it most likely will turn against all of them. In which case, they would be wise to turn again to Donne’s sermon for their : “[F]or affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Theresa May’s international trade secretary, Liam Fox, appealed to imaginary legal principles clearly at odds with political reality as he attempted to explain the : “You’ve got a leave population and a remain parliament. Parliament has not got the right to hijack the Brexit process, because parliament said to the people of this country, we make a contract with you, you will make the decision and we will honour it.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Contract:

A formally defined and carefully detailed engagement by two or more consenting parties, committing them to mutually respect the usually carefully defined technical terms and conditions of a transaction, which in partisan politics can be an utterly imprecise formulation of an emotionally charged course of action regardless of consent, which even when proven dangerous, destructive and nonviable must be carried out for honor, lucre or expedience

Contextual noteĚý

The first part of Fox’s statement is patently false: There is no “leave population” because the population is clearly divided into two camps on the issue of Brexit. Even if he means a majority of the population wants to leave the European Union, based on the result of the 2016 referendum, he should be using either the past tense or the conditional to make a valid statement.

It would be accurate to make the historical statement: In the 2016 referendum a majority of those who voted — despite their very incomplete understanding of the conditions of the question — expressed a preference for leaving. If he had wished accurately to address the present, he should have formulated his assessment as a conditional: If we suppose that a majority still wish to leave after all that they have learned about the complexity of the issues, I believe they would reveal that they were still committed to leaving the European Union. This would make it clear that his position relies on supposition and belief.

But it is far from certain and to say that the British population today, having learned in considerable detail what the consequences of leaving the EU are likely to be, would vote the same way. To support his contention, Fox should be advocating “the people’s vote” to find out what an informed electorate might express. But instead, he is excluding that option.

Fox wants us to believe that the referendum was a legal contract, which effectively denies what it actually was: an inept and poorly designed attempt by a Tory prime minister, David Cameron, to neutralize a segment of his own party that seriously annoyed him. But contracts are typically seriously detailed and binding only when all concerned parties agree and sign on. Perhaps he doesn’t understand the difference between the law and political opportunism. This is a subject that would be worth introducing in school curricula.

Historical note

Elsewhere Fox : “Failure to deliver Brexit would produce a yawning gap between Parliament and the people, a schism in our political system with unknowable consequences.” Perhaps he’s thinking of the most serious schism in Britain’s history, the 17th-century civil war, when the people tended to be Royalist, but the Parliament had a Puritan majority that eventually overturned the government and beheaded the king. But that kind of historical reflection on his part is highly unlikely.

The “unknowable consequences” that worry Fox can be better explained by the ongoing and accelerating chaos in his own party, starting with Cameron’s disastrous initiative, whose effects were compounded by Prime Minister May’s inept negotiations and misreading of practically everyone’s intentions over a period of two and a half years. This has created a deep schism within the Conservative Party itself.

Liam Fox is right to affirm that the incredible polarization created by the Brexit issue itself means that the Conservative Party is in shambles. But so is Labour, as can be seen by leader Jeremy Corbyn’s hesitation to do what a party of the people would naturally want to do: Make an appeal to democracy and vote seriously, in contrast to what should be seen as the absurd opinion poll of 2016.

Speaking in the conditional, Brexit would have a future if a majority wanted it today. There actually should be three choices: May’s Brexit deal, which has already been roundly rejected by both the Parliament and popular opinion, a hard Brexit or remaining in the European Union. Most likely, there will be a suspension of the application of Article 50, which might give time for the “population” to decide.

But what choice will they be given? And will it be contractual?

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Liam Fox Has Got Brexit Wrong appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

These are days of high drama. William Shakespeare, the prince of playwrights, could not have penned it better. On January 15, British Prime Minister Theresa May suffered a in the House of Commons. Never before had a sitting government suffered such a beating.

Members of Parliament voted by 432 to 202, a margin of 230, to reject May’s deal with the European Union. A striking 118 MPs from both the Leave and Remain wings of the Conservative Party voted against their own leader. For some, it did not go far enough. For others, it went too far.

Emotions ran high. So high that Jacob Rees-Mogg, the doctrinaire Brexiteer from the ruling Conservatives, hosted a to celebrate May’s Brexit defeat. Yet even Rees-Mogg was not willing to drown May in the Thames. He declared he would “even if she stands on her head at the dispatch box” because he “would not put a Marxist in 10 Downing Street.”

The Marxist in question, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, had tabled a vote of against May’s government. On January 16, a day after losing a historic vote, Prime Minister May narrowly won the vote of confidence by 325 to 306. Yet the deal she spent two years negotiating is now dead and buried six feet under. What happens next?

A CONSERVATIVE COUP?

In October 2018, political commentator Richard Coward published a classic on 51łÔąĎ in which he laid out the “relentless logic about the whole Brexit saga.” For Coward, the UK faces a “miserable choice.” Either it can become a vassal state following EU rules with none of the privileges of membership, or it can set sail for splendid isolation on a wing and prayer.

Naturally, May’s Brexit deal steered away from the second option. Despite tough bargaining and a 585-page withdrawal agreement, this deal failed to please ardent Brexiteers. It ensured that the UK would abide by EU rules despite losing membership of its institutions. Even after Brexit became a fait accompli, EU rules would still apply to a range of issues, such as nuclear material to Parma ham.

Even as Brexiteers are celebrating, pro-European MPs are working to thwart what they see as an unmitigated disaster. The air is thick with rumors, plotting and suspicion. , the notable Tory newspaper, has published Alistair Heath who argues that Tory Remainers have a duty not to destroy their party. , the sacred keeper of the great British liberal tradition, is talking about “the great rescrambling of Britain’s parties.”

Yet the surest guide to what might unfold is none other than Coward. The pro-European Conservatives are certainly turning against the idea of Brexit. As ever, , the longest serving MP known affectionately as the father of the House, captures the zeitgeist best. Unlike Tony Blair, the forgotten fossil of British politics, Clarke admits to complacency during his time in power during the 1990s. He is talking about regulating “capitalism to prevent excess.” And he believes that this can best be done by staying in the European Union.

Clarke makes the argument that many, including this author, have made. The elites who have made hay when the sun has shined have forgotten those left behind. They did not benefit from boom time, but were left the bill for the crash. This daylight robbery, this capitalism on the upside and socialism on the downside for the financial class is fueling the rage of many who support Donald Trump or Brexit. Clarke holds that fighting them requires international cooperation, not national isolation. Now, his Europhile Tory disciples led by Oliver Letwin have picked up the gauntlet to fight for this cause. They are horrified by the thought of a no-deal Brexit, the probability of which has increased over the last few days.

Just as Coward predicted, a powerful of MPs is emerging to fight against a no-deal Brexit that will most certainly ravage the fragile British economy. May herself is pushing for after winning the no-confidence vote, but Corbyn is ruling out talks until she rules out a no-deal Brexit. This means that May is vulnerable on far too many flanks and Letwin’s Tory rebels are in a better position for a potential coup than much-reviled ardent Brexiteers like Rees-Mogg.

WILL THE UK STAY OR WILL IT GO?

The Economist talked about how parties are dividing into factions and factions into alliances. Just as the 1850s saw the emergence of the Conservatives and the Liberals, supporting and opposing Corn Laws respectively, the new divide in British politics is Remain and Leave. The former prefer order, structure and compromise. The latter prefer chaos, fluidity and intransigence. Furthermore, there is more talent on the backbenches in Parliament instead of the frontbench. The UK might have voted for Brexit in 2016, but no two people agree upon what that Brexit should look like.

The mothership of empire that played divide and rule has turned into a House of Babel. People still speak the English language in tongues unintelligible to others. At such a moment, European Council President asked, “If a deal is impossible, and no-one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?”

Like Coward, Tusk suggests the only positive solution might be to stay in the European Union. That is most unpalatable to Brexiteers and their constituents. They do not want sovereignty to take the Eurostar to Brussels. Both May and Corbyn have promised to deliver Brexit, but neither is in any position to get it through the House of Commons. Like Trishanku, or the lost souls of Hades of ancient mythologies, the UK is caught between the promise of Brexit and an inability to attain it because no one really knows that that means.

Given the political paralysis in the UK, many are clamoring for another referendum to break the deadlock. Chuka Umunna of Labour, Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats and, most importantly, Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish Nationalist Party are among them. In fact, Sturgeon has ominously that “the interests of Scotland” have not even been “an afterthought for the UK Government and the Conservative Party” during “the entire disastrous Brexit process.”

It is important to remember that of Scots voted to remain in the EU, while only of them opted to stay in the UK. Hence, Sturgeon does not want the interests of Scotland to be at the mercy of a dysfunctional Westminster. Instead, she declares, “it is time to put the question of EU membership to the people again.”

As this author wrote in February 2016, the UK always had a troubled marriage with the EU. Since the days of Henry VIII, its center of gravity lay in its colonies. Europe was a cultural education for the upper-class boys who went on the Grand Tour. It turns out that Europe now exerts a stronger pull than most people estimated as during the Roman or Christian times.

The bitter wrangling over the Irish backstop clearly demonstrates Europe’s gravitational force. Therefore, the UK is finding divorce much more painful than marriage and, as a result, might turn against it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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On January 15, the Tory government faced the biggest defeat in British political history, when Prime Minister Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement from the European Union was categorically dismissed by more than 230 MPs.

Many have suggested that May is demonstrating a high level of determination that should be admired. While I have some sympathy for this sentiment, the real issue is that May has been the chief architect of her own demise.

The prime minister would not shift beyond her own entrenched red lines, largely to appease the hard Brexiteers on the backbenches of her own party. She did not want to work with opposition parties and is only now partially opening the door. She created the hostile environment as home secretary, which led to the , 20,000 now missing from the streets, and the anti-immigration sentiment that was a powerful force in driving people to vote for Brexit in 2016 remains a potent litmus test of intolerance today.

She will be safe as prime minister this evening after a no-confidence vote tabled by the opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, but her own party is deeply divided. It is May’s persistence to keep to her false mantra of respecting the “will of the people” — based on a hugely problematic referendum, which included issues of as well as dodgy interests driving it all — that has made Britain the laughing stock of the world.

While some of these discussions on the nature of the relationship between the UK and the EU are important in themselves, they do not reveal the extent of the structural and cultural dilemmas facing the country. Brexit is a symptom of the problems, not the starting point. The austerity program that was initiated in light of the events of the 2008 global financial crisis hit Britain far more severely than other countries within the EU. As has been reported by the , this austerity policy was ideological in nature and not based on sound economic thinking.

The poor, marginalized and unemployed felt the brunt of these policies. The groups left behind were a significant demographic in the Brexit vote, largely concentrated in the Midlands and in North England. The other voting bloc was the richer and far more affluent groups found in the south who felt their wealth status could be compromised by immigration.

Immigration, therefore, became the tipping point for so many voters who, at the behest of political elites, were able to instrumentalize the negative sentiment they all felt. This was created by those very elites seeking to leave the EU in order to take advantage of the looser legislation they hoped it would bring.

These underlying structural and cultural problems are not going to change by leaving the European Union. In fact, they are likely to deepen due to the significant impact of leaving the most successful trading bloc in the world. The search for ever greater profits on the part of the established elite and the fear of “the other” stoked by sections of the media have led to rising intolerance, bigotry and issues of hate crime, anti-Muslim sentiment and distrust in the political process. Brexit will not fix these problem; it will exacerbate them.

Brexit Will Go On and On…

Unless article 50 is revoked, Britain is leaving the EU without a deal on March 29. A new withdrawal agreement is unlikely to be pieced together in time due to the fractious nature of this entire debate.

For me, it all starts with not accepting the 2016 referendum result because it was based on false promises at the very least and at the very worst. And this entire facade is all about the hard euroskeptics within the Conservative Party government who saw Brexit as an opportunity to get what they had wanted for 40 years.

Ultimately, Brexit has been pure folly. And the ill-informed electorate in Britain was forced into a corner by political elites who had no interest in questions of genuine issues of EU policy or domestic concerns about poverty, equality or diversity in an age of rampant, unfettered and unchecked free-market economics.

Having said all of this, I am miffed as to what can work now. Is there any solution that works for all? It’s possible that article 50 will be extended to July and the softest of Brexits will be negotiated, which will allow a general election in 2022 and the winning party, which may well be Labour, to seek to re-enter the EU in some meaningful way. For now, a second referendum is unlikely, as is the no deal option.

In many ways, last night was only the end of the beginning. To paraphrase the words of another (in)famous Tory prime minister, this will go on and on.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Brexit Is Far from Over appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

It puzzles many people in Britain that something known as an “Irish backstop” should be at the heart of an increasingly bitter dispute. This is over the deal the UK government has made with the European Union on the terms for Brexit.

Most people understand that when the UK leaves the EU on March 29, the only land boundary between the United Kingdom and the European Union will be the 300-mile-long border in Ireland. Some do understand that if the UK leaves the EU, there will have to be border controls. After all, leaving the union was supposed to be about taking back “control,” and given that countries can only exercise control in their own territory, there is a logical necessity to have controls at the border of a country’s territory.

This is not something made up by the EU to annoy Brits, but is a logical consequence of Brexit, which is, as we all know, something Britons have chosen for themselves and not something imposed on them by the European Union.

The proposed backstop in British Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal with the EUĚýinvolves the whole of the UK staying in a close customs arrangement with the union. The original idea was that the backstop would be confined to Northern Ireland, but the British government preferred a backstop arrangement that would cover the whole UK, so as to minimize the controls that would otherwise have to be imposed between Britain and Northern Ireland. The object of the entire exercise is to avoid having controls at the 300 crossing points between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Some in Britain think the UK should be free to leave the EU, and that the British and Irish governments should then just decide, between themselves, that they were simply not going to have controls on the Irish border. That would not work because Ireland would still be in the European Union and would be breaking EU rules if it failed to control its portion of the EU land border.

Apart from being illegal, it would be impractical. The UK, once outside the European Union, would immediately go off and try to make trade deals with non-EU countries. These would inevitably involve agreeing to different standards and tariffs on goods coming from these non-EU countries to the ones that the European Union (including Ireland) would be applying to these nations. So, if there were no controls on the Irish border, goods from these non-EU states with which the UK had made its own trade deals could enter the European Union via Northern Ireland, without complying with EU standards or paying EU tariffs.

That would destroy the single market, which is based on common rules and tariffs, made, enforced and interpreted in the same way for all 27 EU members, including the Republic of Ireland.

Outside of the EU, under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, the United Kingdom would also have to impose tariffs on its side of the Irish border — unless it wanted to collect no tariffs at all — on goods coming into the UK from any country in the world. This is because of a WTO rule that says in the absence of a broad trade agreement, a country cannot discriminate between WTO member countries in the rate of tariffs it charges on goods coming from those countries (the most favored nation rule).

So, in the absence of a trade deal with the EU, the UK must charge the same tariffs on Irish goods as it wouldĚýcharge on goods coming from any WTO members, with whom it has no trade deal — which, if the UK leaves the EU without a deal, would be every WTO country. If it attempted to discriminate unilaterally, the UK would be taken to the WTO court by some or all of the WTO countries who would not be getting the same concessions.

The UK is a trading nation. As such, it benefits from a rules-based world trading system. So, it would not be in the UK’s interest to start breaking WTO rules on the day it left the EU, just to solve a problem that is of its own making.

THE TWO ALLEGIANCES IN IRELAND

The other big reason for having an Irish backstop and for avoiding a hard border is about human beings, rather than just about commerce. For the past four centuries, two communities with different allegiances have lived together, geographically intermingled, in the Irish province of Ulster.

One community feels a sense of allegiance to Britain, its monarch, its historic narrative and its flag. The other feels an allegiance to Ireland and identifies itself with different historic narrative and different symbols. The two communities have different religious allegiances too, but the disagreements between them are not primarily about religious matters — they are all about national identity.

For centuries, the contest between these two identities was a zero-sum game. Either the British identity had to win or the Irish identity had to win. That zero-sum approach led to wars, threats of wars or uprisings from the 17^th century all the way up until the late 20^th century. These conflicts caused many casualties in Ireland and in Britain, too.

British and Irish political leaders have, for the last 40 years, been trying to find a different way forward. Rather than a zero-sum game where if one identity won, the other had to lose, these leaders sought to create conditions in which both identities could coexist comfortably together within Northern Ireland, without either of them winning or losing. The aim was to ensure that neither would feel cut off from the focus of their emotional allegiance. The nationalists would not feel cut off from Dublin, and Unionists would not feel cut off from London or the “mainland” as they would call it.

The Belfast Agreement of 1998 achieved this. Crafted between Ireland and the United Kingdom, when both were members of the barrier-free EU, it created structures to have a comfort zone for both communities.ĚýThis was done through establishing three interlocking structures of cooperation, incorporated in an overarching international treaty, namely: power sharing within Northern Ireland; cooperation between north and south; and cooperation between Dublin and London. On the strength of this agreement, Ireland changed its constitution to remove aĚýterritorial claim it had on Northern Ireland.

Now, 20 years later, the UK’s decision to leave the European Union puts these structures at risk because Brexit requires barriers to go up between the UK and Ireland, where previously there was free exchange. This is why, at a meeting in London, long before the referendum in 2016, I described Brexit as an “unfriendly act”Ěýby the UK vis-Ă -vis my country.

The backstop is simply an effort to mitigate the damage. It is a second-best option — and a bad second best at that. The only option that will not damage the structure of peace we have so painstakingly built between Ireland and Britain, and within the island of Ireland, would be for the UK to decide to stay in the EU after all.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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