Today, there is to be a general election in Austria. Thanks to the actions of Angela Merkel two years ago, the conclusion of the election in this neighbouring country to Germany was clear before voting began. The overwhelming majority of Austrians agree that there are now too many Muslims in the country, that the strain they have put on the social assistance and housing and education and health systems is unacceptable; and that no further significant immigration - however desperate the plight of people claiming to be 'refugees' might be - should be permitted. The government that will emerge from the election will be a coalition with a more right-wing structure than any since the re-unification of Austria [after allied occupation] in 1956. The two stand-out policy positions that it is expected to adopt are to seal the frontiers of the EU against immigrants, and to review and restrict access to the social security and related systems.
Neigbouring Hungary has had a government with policies designed to minimise immigration from outside the EU for several years: access to that country is very heavily controlled, with high wire fences and a strong presence of border guards. To the south-west of the Hungarian frontier is Austria's border with Italy, which has already been 'strengthened' to limit the onward passage of any of the tens of thousands of economic migrants who reach Italy by sea every year. No doubt that border will further be toughened: but there will also be sympathy for the Italians in their situation of receiving the migrants, which is resulting in right-wing politicians rising through 'populist' movements there, too.
There will be resistance in Austria to any attempt by Germany to impose any quota of Muslim [or, indeed, any other category of] immigrants on any EU country. It is widely expected that Austria will adhere to, and may even join, the 'Visigrad' group of countries [Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary] that have 'ganged up' to resist pressure from Germany and France. Thus there is already the making of a very powerful subset of the EU that will simply decline to go along with aspects of the settlement that the USA imposed on 'liberated' Europe after 1945. The Liberal Consensus to which Roosevelt and Truman, Churchill and deGaulle subscribed is fading fast.
The right-wing AfD in Germany has gained seats in the Bundestag, sufficient in number to harass whatever coalition government Mrs Merkel may be able to cobble together. France has a completely unproved president; and there are huge questions as to whether his parliamentary majority and constitutional authority will be enough to overcome the inertia of the trade unions, farmers and other vested interests. It has been noted above that Italy has strong and growing right-wing parties, and the legacy of Fascism is ceasing to be seen as an embarrassment. Those countries in north and west Europe that have a couple of centuries of constitutional government [Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Luxembourg; plus non-EU-member Norway] have all seen some emergence of minority anti-migrant movements. The three Baltic States [Estonia Latvia and Lithuania] have no significant problem with Muslim immigrants; they have suffered, to varying degrees, net emigration to the more affluent west of the EU.
The Balkan EU members, and aspirants to membership, want to prove their democratic credentials; but they have limited resources to accommodate immigrants [balanced by limited means of keeping them out]. They will sympathise with [and envy] the countries to the north that have the means and the will to seal their borders to a significant extent.
Thus the European Union that is harassed by the Brexit issue is a very different political and emotional structure than it was at the beginning of 2015: the year in which Cowardy Cameron launched the Referendum as an election pledge. It is quickly becoming an entity about which any true democrat would have serious questions. Britain is so beset by a useless government that it has not yet faced up to the point: but there is a growing doubt as to whether we would wish to join, if that was the issue before us.
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 October 2017
Monday, 9 October 2017
Mrs May Drags Out the Agony
Putting aside the disasters of the recent election and the very recent Tory Conference, as best she may, the Prime Minister will today fantasize in the House of Commons about 'progress' in the talks with the EU about Brexit.
From what has been released in advance, she plans to develop on the charade that she enacted in Florence a couple of weeks ago, when she spoke to much of her Cabinet, the British press and a few bored Italian officials about where she thought the negotiations had got to. She was spectacularly vague on all the relevant points about which EU officials and commentators had already asked repeatedly for clarification and specificity. She apparently intends to say to the Commons that she has now made everything crystal clear, and that the EU must now 'respond' by offering concessions.
The truth is, that David Cameron led to Tories to their surprise victory in the 2015 election by promising the referendum on leaving the EU. He confidently expected that this would produce a massive vote in favour of remaining, which would bury the Tory exiteers who had been a pain to the party since John Major accepted the Maastricht Treaty. The Liberals were removed from the scene, effectively, in 2015 by the kicking that they got for aligning with the Tories in the 2010 coalition that had increased student fees. Labour lost votes in Labour heartlands in that election, partly because they opposed the idea of the referendum. So, against all expectations, the Tories won the 2015 election; but their majority in the Commons was only half the size that would be needed to marginalise the thirty-or-so Conservative nutters who apparently believe - really believe - that Britain can survive as an independent economy in a world characterised by regional trade pacts, point protectionism and chauvinistic policies to protect sectors of the economy that are essential for national defence. These headbangers airily assert - contrary to all the available evidence - that if we boldly go where no sane man or woman would go, we will reap the same sort of rewards as the UK gained when we were both the only industrialised economy in the world and the most dominant imperial power. The sheer silliness of such thinking - or, maybe, absence of the power to think - needs no further comment.
By losing the election this year, Mrs May found herself left with around thirty MPs who are determined to devastate the economy in pursuit of their delusion. They will support Boris Johnson remaining in high office, and they are apparently demanding that the Chancellor be sacked for making reasoned statements about the probable economic effect of a 'hard Brexit'. Mrs May is evading giving a strong lead, and this will weaken her already-impossible position and contribute to the ultimate demise of the Tory party as we have known it.
The only powerful and patriotic thing that she should do - starting with her Commons statement today - is to say that the UK has been shamefully imprecise in the Brexit talks so far, to give a specific cash offer on the 'divorce bill' [making it quite clear that mediation is available] and make a sensible offer as to what would be the relations of UK courts and the EU Court in the period after March 2019. Then she should outline sensible terms for a post-Brexit relationship with the European Economic Area and defy the headbangers to force a general election that Labour would be likely to win.
The bonkers Brexiteers should be flushed out and forced to say - precisely - where the 'facts' arise that nobody else can see. Then they should fall into line to avert a Corbyn government.
The clock is ticking on Brexit, and Mrs May's attempts to evade the implosion of the Tory Party - though entirely comprehensible - are ruinous.
From what has been released in advance, she plans to develop on the charade that she enacted in Florence a couple of weeks ago, when she spoke to much of her Cabinet, the British press and a few bored Italian officials about where she thought the negotiations had got to. She was spectacularly vague on all the relevant points about which EU officials and commentators had already asked repeatedly for clarification and specificity. She apparently intends to say to the Commons that she has now made everything crystal clear, and that the EU must now 'respond' by offering concessions.
The truth is, that David Cameron led to Tories to their surprise victory in the 2015 election by promising the referendum on leaving the EU. He confidently expected that this would produce a massive vote in favour of remaining, which would bury the Tory exiteers who had been a pain to the party since John Major accepted the Maastricht Treaty. The Liberals were removed from the scene, effectively, in 2015 by the kicking that they got for aligning with the Tories in the 2010 coalition that had increased student fees. Labour lost votes in Labour heartlands in that election, partly because they opposed the idea of the referendum. So, against all expectations, the Tories won the 2015 election; but their majority in the Commons was only half the size that would be needed to marginalise the thirty-or-so Conservative nutters who apparently believe - really believe - that Britain can survive as an independent economy in a world characterised by regional trade pacts, point protectionism and chauvinistic policies to protect sectors of the economy that are essential for national defence. These headbangers airily assert - contrary to all the available evidence - that if we boldly go where no sane man or woman would go, we will reap the same sort of rewards as the UK gained when we were both the only industrialised economy in the world and the most dominant imperial power. The sheer silliness of such thinking - or, maybe, absence of the power to think - needs no further comment.
By losing the election this year, Mrs May found herself left with around thirty MPs who are determined to devastate the economy in pursuit of their delusion. They will support Boris Johnson remaining in high office, and they are apparently demanding that the Chancellor be sacked for making reasoned statements about the probable economic effect of a 'hard Brexit'. Mrs May is evading giving a strong lead, and this will weaken her already-impossible position and contribute to the ultimate demise of the Tory party as we have known it.
The only powerful and patriotic thing that she should do - starting with her Commons statement today - is to say that the UK has been shamefully imprecise in the Brexit talks so far, to give a specific cash offer on the 'divorce bill' [making it quite clear that mediation is available] and make a sensible offer as to what would be the relations of UK courts and the EU Court in the period after March 2019. Then she should outline sensible terms for a post-Brexit relationship with the European Economic Area and defy the headbangers to force a general election that Labour would be likely to win.
The bonkers Brexiteers should be flushed out and forced to say - precisely - where the 'facts' arise that nobody else can see. Then they should fall into line to avert a Corbyn government.
The clock is ticking on Brexit, and Mrs May's attempts to evade the implosion of the Tory Party - though entirely comprehensible - are ruinous.
Tuesday, 8 August 2017
Can Democracy Prevail in Africa?
Kenya has a General election today. Already, before the election, a senior electoral official has been found dead, with irrefutable evidence of torture on his body. Massive preparations have been made to ensure that the voting is properly conducted, but opposition leaders are ready to claim that the presence of security officials at all polling stations is for the intimidation of voters rather than for securing the fairness of the poll. The electronic voting machines will prevent any tampering with paper ballot forms, but can give rise to massive possibilities for malpractice in the processing of the votes. The last election was followed by a period of violence in which at least a thousand people died; and a repeat of that horror is dreaded by the peaceful mass of the population. Much of the voting will be on tribal lines, which gives the Kikuyu the strongest chance of retaining power since they remain the largest tribe.
Kenya, at least, has elections; with are conducted with every appearance of propriety. Most of the people obey the law, and most of the elected opposition MPs take part in civilised debate, most of the time; and the civil service is broadly professional, and corruption is not crippling to normal economic processes. Not many African countries have a similar level of adherence to the sort of constitutional norms that the former colonial powers left them with.
Most African countries' boundaries were set by conventions between the European occupying powers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There is little concession to ethnicity in the allocation of people to states, which were given independence by their former occupiers within the nonsensical frontiers that their colonisers had compromised upon. Thus some parts of some tribes live in reasonably prosperous countries where to some extent the rule of law is respected; while their ethnic cousins are repressed and suppressed in adjacent states.
From the northern tip of the continent to the extreme south, and from east to west, with just a few exceptions like Kenya where a form of democracy prevails, there are two options for the state to operate: strong-man dictatorship with reasonable social stability, or anarchy. Some states, particularly in central Africa, have been in anarchy for decades; with internationally-recognised governments controlling little more than the capital city, the airport and the ultimate pinnacle of corruption in the distribution of the mineral royalties and international aid that comes into the country. China has been willing to exploit such situations where a Chinese corporation has been able to secure a defensible area of land for exploitation for farming or mining, and in some cases that has helped greatly to stabilise the country in which this takes place. But in general, from Libya to South Africa, the tragic abuse of the majority of the population goes on.
The umpteenth attempt to rid South Africa of its demonstrably corrupt president is taking its course, and may at last succeed: shortly before his term is due to come to an end anyway. Many of the formal procedures and processes that were established by the British colonial regime, and retained by the white supremacists during the apartheid era, are still maintained; thus it is curious to see forms of procedure that seem to accord with the European democratic tradition still being used to cover the chaos into which South Africa seems inexorably to be descending.
I was studying politics when the first former colonial territories were granted independence; and was bemused to see tribal politicians wearing western suits and ties as they sat on parliamentary benches modeled on those of their former coloniser, in some cases - briefly - deferring to a 'Mr Speaker' in a black gown and a white full-bottomed wig. Such images quickly disappeared from the world's newsreels. There is now little reportage in the west of the day-to-day politics of any African country: the stories are all too sad and too familiar. Nobody expected the election in a former Belgian colony last week to produce any result other than what happened; just as nobody expects change in Kenya. There is a chance that the logjam will break in South Africa, but the prospect for returning to the 'rainbow nation' image of the first years of Mandela's presidency are slim.
A small part of the tragedy can be ascribed to the colonial frontiers and the colonial legacy: but, after half a century of independence, most of the blame for the chaos is ascribable to Africa: and so the solutions must emerge from African minds and become accepted in African hearts. That is the only way in which true progress in politics and in economic affairs will be achieved.
Kenya, at least, has elections; with are conducted with every appearance of propriety. Most of the people obey the law, and most of the elected opposition MPs take part in civilised debate, most of the time; and the civil service is broadly professional, and corruption is not crippling to normal economic processes. Not many African countries have a similar level of adherence to the sort of constitutional norms that the former colonial powers left them with.
Most African countries' boundaries were set by conventions between the European occupying powers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There is little concession to ethnicity in the allocation of people to states, which were given independence by their former occupiers within the nonsensical frontiers that their colonisers had compromised upon. Thus some parts of some tribes live in reasonably prosperous countries where to some extent the rule of law is respected; while their ethnic cousins are repressed and suppressed in adjacent states.
From the northern tip of the continent to the extreme south, and from east to west, with just a few exceptions like Kenya where a form of democracy prevails, there are two options for the state to operate: strong-man dictatorship with reasonable social stability, or anarchy. Some states, particularly in central Africa, have been in anarchy for decades; with internationally-recognised governments controlling little more than the capital city, the airport and the ultimate pinnacle of corruption in the distribution of the mineral royalties and international aid that comes into the country. China has been willing to exploit such situations where a Chinese corporation has been able to secure a defensible area of land for exploitation for farming or mining, and in some cases that has helped greatly to stabilise the country in which this takes place. But in general, from Libya to South Africa, the tragic abuse of the majority of the population goes on.
The umpteenth attempt to rid South Africa of its demonstrably corrupt president is taking its course, and may at last succeed: shortly before his term is due to come to an end anyway. Many of the formal procedures and processes that were established by the British colonial regime, and retained by the white supremacists during the apartheid era, are still maintained; thus it is curious to see forms of procedure that seem to accord with the European democratic tradition still being used to cover the chaos into which South Africa seems inexorably to be descending.
I was studying politics when the first former colonial territories were granted independence; and was bemused to see tribal politicians wearing western suits and ties as they sat on parliamentary benches modeled on those of their former coloniser, in some cases - briefly - deferring to a 'Mr Speaker' in a black gown and a white full-bottomed wig. Such images quickly disappeared from the world's newsreels. There is now little reportage in the west of the day-to-day politics of any African country: the stories are all too sad and too familiar. Nobody expected the election in a former Belgian colony last week to produce any result other than what happened; just as nobody expects change in Kenya. There is a chance that the logjam will break in South Africa, but the prospect for returning to the 'rainbow nation' image of the first years of Mandela's presidency are slim.
A small part of the tragedy can be ascribed to the colonial frontiers and the colonial legacy: but, after half a century of independence, most of the blame for the chaos is ascribable to Africa: and so the solutions must emerge from African minds and become accepted in African hearts. That is the only way in which true progress in politics and in economic affairs will be achieved.
Saturday, 5 August 2017
A Bad Week for Democracy
For anybody who retains a belief that democracy, though a very unsatisfactory way of structuring politics, is better than any known alternative, this has been another depressing week.
Rwanda has been through the form of holding an election. The only question at issue was whether the dictator would claim a 97% or a 98% majority: beyond that, the answer was unquestionable.
Venezuela was pushed further along the path towards consolidating the dictator's power, through the charade of a Constituent Assembly.
The President of Turkey demanded the right to appear in the show trials of the people who were allegedly involved in last year's coup, as an aggrieved party. No doubt, he will have his way.
Nick Timothy, formerly head of Mrs May's kitchen cabinet, has told the Torygraph that the Conservatives' disastrous election result was due to control of the campaign being seized by the party's electoral machine, leaving the original campaign [that would have been centred on Mrs May's reforming zeal] high and dry. Be that as it may, the Tories are in a terrible mess. This situation was highlighted by the Irish Prime Minister's speech in Queen's University, Belfast, yesterday in which - quite politely - he pointed out that the government of the UK has not shown a clear hand on any major matter of policy since the electoral disaster. This drift towards departure from the European Economic Area is accelerating, even though its calamitous effect on the economy is beyond doubt.
The egomaniac rhetoric emerging from the President of the United States continues unabated, as the problems confronting his government become more clear and the impotence of the world's strongest democracy is demonstrated.
In the face of that weakness, the boldness of the North Korean dictatorship in unabated. The regime has developed considerable capacity to disable computer systems anywhere in the world, as a second string to their strategy of global blackmail. As the first string, they will soon have nuclear-armed missiles capable of inflicting damage anywhere in China, in Japan, in Asiatic Russia and on the US West Coast. The unwillingness of China to put a stop to this [despite their country's front-line vulnerability] is incomprehensible to western democrats, but it could end up in massive ransom demands from Pyongyang. The ordinary people of North Korea have been starved and enslaved to enable to country to develop its extraordinary aggressive power: they could now be rewarded by the bounty that the American people have enjoyed being handed over at gunpoint to the North Koreans. Trump trumpets that it could not happen: I am not sure!
Rwanda has been through the form of holding an election. The only question at issue was whether the dictator would claim a 97% or a 98% majority: beyond that, the answer was unquestionable.
Venezuela was pushed further along the path towards consolidating the dictator's power, through the charade of a Constituent Assembly.
The President of Turkey demanded the right to appear in the show trials of the people who were allegedly involved in last year's coup, as an aggrieved party. No doubt, he will have his way.
Nick Timothy, formerly head of Mrs May's kitchen cabinet, has told the Torygraph that the Conservatives' disastrous election result was due to control of the campaign being seized by the party's electoral machine, leaving the original campaign [that would have been centred on Mrs May's reforming zeal] high and dry. Be that as it may, the Tories are in a terrible mess. This situation was highlighted by the Irish Prime Minister's speech in Queen's University, Belfast, yesterday in which - quite politely - he pointed out that the government of the UK has not shown a clear hand on any major matter of policy since the electoral disaster. This drift towards departure from the European Economic Area is accelerating, even though its calamitous effect on the economy is beyond doubt.
The egomaniac rhetoric emerging from the President of the United States continues unabated, as the problems confronting his government become more clear and the impotence of the world's strongest democracy is demonstrated.
In the face of that weakness, the boldness of the North Korean dictatorship in unabated. The regime has developed considerable capacity to disable computer systems anywhere in the world, as a second string to their strategy of global blackmail. As the first string, they will soon have nuclear-armed missiles capable of inflicting damage anywhere in China, in Japan, in Asiatic Russia and on the US West Coast. The unwillingness of China to put a stop to this [despite their country's front-line vulnerability] is incomprehensible to western democrats, but it could end up in massive ransom demands from Pyongyang. The ordinary people of North Korea have been starved and enslaved to enable to country to develop its extraordinary aggressive power: they could now be rewarded by the bounty that the American people have enjoyed being handed over at gunpoint to the North Koreans. Trump trumpets that it could not happen: I am not sure!
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