Back in February I wrote an article Europe will Fight Back. More recently I published an analysis of the “tectonics” of political change. Now we see some evidence that these articles were, perhaps, prescient.
It is not long since many were predicting the demise of the European Union as a surge of populism would sweep through the continent. At that time, when Mr Wilders was ranting in the Netherlands, I predicted that all the main elections in Europe this year would be won by pro-EU parties and candidates.
Things can sometimes come to pass quite quickly. Mrs Merkel now comes away from the recent NATO and G7 meetings with a new perspective. The UK and USA can no longer be wholly depended upon, she says, so Europe must fight for its own destiny. This is surely a watershed moment.
People will, no doubt, be inclined to see this as a function of the character and behaviour of the American president, but this is surely only the trigger. My sense is that the antics of Trump are, as you might say, speeding up history. The things that he offends people by talking about are mostly things they should have been talking about for a while now. He draws attention to things that others have been shy of talking about and as the truth comes to the surface so things start to change. Thus the NATO alliance cannot go on and on with the US paying 70% of the cost.
Why have people feared to talk about it? Because when that changes many other things must follow suit. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Europe will rearm. Japan also. And they will, largely, make their own armaments - they have the technology. The US will no longer be in the position to dictate. We shall be in a multi-polar world.
It is useless Amber Rudd the British home secretary saying that Britain will be a good co-operator with Europe in the future - in fact to be saying so while the UK in in process of tearing up all the most important agreements of the past several decades is crass. In any case, the UK will not have sufficient independence of the USA to deliver even if such an intention existed.
No doubt a facade of good relations will be maintained at least some of the time, but it is apparent in the election of Macron and in the reaction of the crowd listening to Merkel that, unlike even a year ago, it is now vote-winning to campaign in Europe on a stridently pro-EU rhetoric. This alone would put us into a new phase. However, I think this is more than just a phase. Europe, in the form of the EU, has a very good chance of emerging as not merely one pole in a multi-polar world, but as one of the most powerful, perhaps the most powerful. This will depend upon the degree of integration that the continent can achieve. It has the resources, the question is whether the will apparent in “fighting for its own destiny” will rise to a sufficient pitch to bring the necessary changes into effect.
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Lakes & Cakes
Alastair Campbell is not the person I would have immediately thought of as a soul mate, but this CNN article of his is spot on on so many points, sad to say. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/01/opinions/weirdest-election-in-mem...
How is it that Britain has chosen to abdicate and in the general election nobody is even talking about it? The Conservative Party is led by a "strong and table" person who is only leader because she changed her mind about the Brexit issue when doing so gave her a chance to grab the top job - that's really stable, don't you think? The Labour party is led by somebody who has, everybody agrees, campaigned much better than expected yet who also has a strangely ambivalent position in relation to the big issue. The Lib-Dem party leader seems to be by no means the most heavy weight politician in his party - those who might have done a better job having lost their seats in the previous election. UKIP who have achieved their main objective have, by doing so, made themselves seem irrelevant. Only the Nationalist parties seem to have clear identities and (as each only represent their own region) by definition they cannot become the next government. It is, indeed, an odd election, not to say a deeply disappointing one.
It surely is important how social care will be paid for or whether the railways should be nationalised or not, but these are not the most important issues at a time such as this when the fate of the country is quite clearly at stake. Mrs Merkel says Britain is no longer a country to be depended upon. Is that the last word? Does anybody in Britain care?
Perhaps there is something to be said for becoming a backwater, a country that has no immigration problem because nobody thinks of going there except for tourist vacations to see the quaint remnants of a once significant country. Like Austria, also once the centre of a great empire, Britain can become known primarily for its lakes and cakes.
A picture of the future? ...
British election heads in the sand
In America the Republicans are talking about Trumps "successful foreign tour" while in Germany the foreign minister is following up Merkel's "Beer tent speech" with the assertion that Trump has weakened the West, damaged European interests and stoked the fire of war in the Middle East. CNN's headline this morning is "Germany Slams Trump". Meanwhile, in the UK, there is a rather boring election campaign going on in which nobody seems willing to even mention the major geopolitical shift that is happening. At times like this I feel dismayed to be British.