Has The Tide Finally Begun To Turn Against The Extremes

Has the tide started to change? Has the negative, extremist populism that has dominated political rhetoric for so long slowly begun to recede? Recent elections in Europe and the UK certainly give some hope to those who reject the hard-line uncompromising positions of either the far left or the far (alt) right.

            In France, recently elected Emmanuel Macron just saw his newly-formed party roar to an overwhelming victory in the crucial first round of parliamentary elections. On current form his party, La République En Marche, should win more than 400 of the 557 seats in parliament. With this victory, he completely overturned the political status quo by burying the traditional parties of the Left and Right. Macron, France’s anti-Trump, showed just how meaningless those traditional alignments have become, and in the process breathed some long-overdue fresh air and vitality into French politics.

He is now firmly in control

             He now has the power to enact the sweeping legislative reforms he promised to get the French economy growing. Among the first items on his ambitious agenda is reform of France’s notorious labor law that makes it very expensive to hire anyone and almost impossible to lay anyone off – regardless of prevailing economic conditions.

            Macron’s desire to introduce much more flexibility into French labor has – predictably -- incurred the wrath of the far left, who traditionally reject any move to relax the current strait jacket of regulations. Jean Luc Melanchon, leader of the far-left La France Insoumise (Unbowed France) has warned Macron that he should not tinker with the employment laws. The fact that his party received only a negligible share of the vote doesn’t seem to have made much impression of Melanchon. Like many people, he severely underestimated the desire of the vast majority of French people for a thorough, pragmatic approach to get their country moving again. Macron’s type of pragmatism now has the chance to do more for the sans culottes of France than anything the traditional Left or Right have to offer.

            As a deeply committed Europhile, another key part of Macron’s agenda is to deepen and strengthen the European Union. He has already moved to re-ignite the Franco-German motor of the EU. It is not all clear just how much Chancellor Angela Merkel shares his views about deeper integration, but with her recent comments about the EU having to act much more independently from the United Kingdom and the United States it is possible see much greater Franco-German cooperation for more integration.

They hold the keys to the European Union

            It is doubtful that anyone could live up to all the expectations that Macron has generated. He may find that using great power effectively is much more difficult than getting such power in the first place. Sooner or later he will stumble and generate a backlash from even his most fervent supporters. But, in the meantime, it will be fun to watch him trying to pull a country as steeped in tradition as France into the 21^st century. Right now, he has the wind in his sails. One only hopes he is a good enough sailor to survive the inevitable storms.

            The reversal of fortune between France and Britain could not be more dramatic. After a startling election last week that saw the ruling Conservatives unexpectedly lose seats, Britain is now drifting rudderless in very dangerous seas. For years the British political and chattering classes have used France as a shining example of why Britain must leave the European Union. “How can we be tied to this failing enterprise called the European Union? Just look at France! What a mess! They will never get out of that hole.”

            Now, it is suddenly Britain that looks old and bungling compared with the youth and vitality across the channel. Macron is only 39, while British Prime Minister Theresa May looks very old and haggard at 60. We are already hearing voices that maybe the so-called Hard Brexit – a complete break from the EU – might not be the smartest thing to push for at this time. These concerns are supported by recent economic data that show Britain at the bottom of the league table. First quarter growth in Britain was only 0.2% while the Eurozone recorded growth in the same period of 0.6%. The much-derided Euro has also picked up strength against Sterling.

Whoops! This wasn't supposed to happen.

            We were recently in Holland, traditionally a strong British ally, and heard almost a sigh of relief at the prospect of Britain leaving the EU. “For years, all they did was say ‘no’ to every initiative for closer European integration. They wanted to opt out from this, opt out from that. In short, they always fought harder for British exceptionalism than for the whole concept of a strong European Union. It will be a relief to have them gone. Now we can get on with things,” said one senior Dutch executive.

            I doubt that Macron will be in a mood to do Britain any favors in the upcoming Brexit negotiations. I expect him to pay much more attention to moving his aggressive EU agenda forward than worrying about Britain’s continued relations – if any – with the union.

            The anticipated re-election of Chancellor Merkel in Germany and the election results in Holland and France demonstrate that, in Europe at least, the vast majority of voters want nothing to do with political extremes. They want solutions to their problems, not the theoretical rantings of the extreme Left or Right. It remains to be seen if the shock results in Britain will have the same results.

Is This A Tory Party Bun Fight Or A Serious Debate?

What should be a serious debate about Britain’s place in the European Union has descended fairly quickly into nothing more than a food fight in a rather exclusive secondary school. On one side you have Prime Minister David Cameron and the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne lobbing day-old bread rolls across the dining room at other Tory party grandees who respond in kind with volleys of butter pats. Stewards at some of London's finer gentlemen's clubs aren't quite sure which members are no longer on speaking terms.

            Make no mistake. This is a Conservative Party issue. Most of the non-political population of Britain seemed perfectly happy muddling along in the bosom of the European Union with the ease of visa-free holidays overriding nebulous issues of ‘sovereignty’. There were a few dissenting voices, but they were largely relegated to some colorful fringe elements. Most of the rest of us are left with mouths agape at the finest example of British fratricide since the civil war in the 17^th century. The Labour Party can only marvel at this sudden turn of good fortune that has taken attention off its own internal problems. 

            Those Tory party members champing at the bit to leave make a great claim about regaining British sovereignty and ending the rule of faceless, unaccountable EU bureaucrats in Brussels. The problem is they haven’t really defined exactly what they mean by sovereignty and how much that perceived sovereignty has been curtailed by Brussels. They forget the considerable success that British diplomats have achieved in winning substantial concessions for Britain. One of the main British victories allowed London to remain the leading financial center in Europe.

In their more fevered moments some members of the Leave campaign sound as if they would like to re-fight the Battle of Hastings. And this time the good, solid Saxons would send the poncey Frenchmen scuttling back across the English Channel to Normandy. One forgets that it was the Plantagenet heirs of those poncey Frenchmen that won eternal glory for the English at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt.

            The debate has divided the British cabinet with several members taking prominent roles in the Leave campaign. The ever-calculating mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has thrown his lot in with the Leave campaign by trying desperately to sound like his hero Winston Churchill during the Battle of Britain. Unfortunately for him his thundering denunciations of the EU make him sound much more like Basil Fawlty than Winston Churchill.

            The main fault of the Leave campaign is that it only speaks in vague generalities about what Britain would look like outside the EU. Oh, there are brave words about how the economy would flourish, trade would soar, British-made justice would rule the land, and the British lion’s roar would once more be feared. But there are precious few specifics about how all this would be accomplished. No answers to questions about British access to European markets. No answers to questions about Britain’s relationship with the United States. No answers to questions about the likelihood of another referendum for Scottish independence. No answers to questions about the willingness of companies to re-locate or even remain in an EU-less Britain. No answers to questions about how seriously an EU-less Britain would be taken by the rest of the world. We are supposed to take it on faith that all would be good in this best of all possible worlds. Right.

            One of the biggest victims of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU could well be one of the most important parts of the country’s economy – the financial sector. London is without doubt the financial capital of Europe, if not the entire world. This status could be crippled by Britain’s departure from the EU by eliminating the ability of London-based financial firms to ply their trade in the EU. It’s not just the financial firms at risk. Think of the lawyers, the accountants, insurance companies and others that underpin much of the financial world. How long would they stay in a City of London stripped of its ability to operate within the EU? That crunching sound you might hear could well be the price of London office space landing on the suddenly empty streets.

            The best argument the Leave campaign might use has nothing to do with the imagined loss of British sovereignty to a bunch of Eurocrats. The best argument may well be that the European Union itself is crumbling under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Is it a loose federation of sovereign states? Or is it the beginning of the United States of Europe? Rather than deal conclusively with these hard questions the EU leaders preferred to bask in the glow of good feeling – almost as if they were a bunch of campers holding hands around a campfire singing Kumbaya. Meanwhile the real issues like common monetary policy or common foreign policy were left in limbo.

            If the British referendum on EU membership does nothing else, it should sharply focus the minds of everyone in the EU about the future of the entire project.

Memo To The English: Winter Exists. Deal With It.

For the most part the English are an eminently practical race of people with their feet planted firmly on the ground in sensible shoes. No less than Napoleon thought he was insulting them when he borrowed Adam Smith’s phrase and sneeringly called them a ‘nation of shop keepers.’ Rather than be insulted the English took pride in the name, and smiled brightly as they packed Napoleon off to a rock in the South Atlantic to spend his sunset years.

Their national passion seems to be standing in line patiently for whatever reason, even sometimes no reason at all. Serious criminals may get off with a warning, but queue jumpers quickly become social pariahs. English drivers stop at red lights and actually let pedestrians cross the street safely at designated pedestrian crossing zones. “Keep Calm And Carry On” is more than a memorable World War II slogan. It has become ingrained in the English DNA.

For all that, they suffer from one serious blind spot. They refuse to believe that winter, more particularly snowy winter, usually comes every year. Temperatures drop. Snow falls. Yet the general attitude – especially in official circles – seems to be that this phenomenon is somehow unreasonable and really shouldn’t happen. Therefore, according to them, it doesn’t really happen. But winter does happen – every year. We have been back in London for several years now and every year it has snowed sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. But regardless of the amount the result is complete chaos.

London traffic snarled in 2 cm of snow

Every snowfall is preceded by dire weather announcements making it sound like a giant tsunami is rolling up the Thames or an errant asteroid is about to obliterate much of Scotland. Meteorologists react with wide-eyed wonder that such a thing could happen, as if this is the first time in recorded history snow has fallen on Britain. Every year the drama caused by as little as 2 cm of snow is the same. Britain’s largest airport Heathrow cancels flights, schools close, train service is disrupted, and the tube inevitably goes haywire. I’m not sure London even has a snow plough. I have never seen one. In any event, side streets remain snow covered, and no one even thinks about clearing the sidewalks. The attitude seems to be ‘God put it there. God can take it away.’ Maybe I’m a little prejudiced having recently returned from Canada where even a great deal of snow and freezing temperatures don’t cause a complete breakdown in daily life. But, really, one would think that official Britain would begin to get a grip and admit that winter comes around every year, and perhaps, just perhaps, they could learn from the Russians and Canadians and take some precautions.

Mariella on a snowy day in London

But you don’t really experience (endure?) a British winter until you have been invited to friend’s old country home that has been designated as architecturally significant. Forewarned is forearmed. The zealots of British architectural heritage have dictated that no amount of cold air sweeping through loose 18th century windows and thin, un-insulated walls should serve as an excuse to install useful things like double-glazing (Heaven forbid!) or modern insulation.

The Horse Guard braving a winter day

“Just put on another jumper and snuggle up to the fire,” they proclaim in their hearty, horsey tones, dripping with scorn that anyone would prefer warmth to architectural purity. This might be good advice if you weren’t already wearing two large sweaters and the fire actually generated some heat. Usually these homes come with enormous fireplaces better equipped for roasting an entire pig than heating a room. Any heat from the fire goes straight up into the huge chimney while acrid smoke from unseasoned logs soon fills the room. It is very bad form, of course, to notice any of this even as your eyes water and you start to lose sight of your hostess through the icy smog as she attempts to pass you a glass of champagne.

Planning commissions, in charge of guarding this dubious heritage, ignore completely that these houses are environmental disasters in wasting enormous amounts of heating oil and natural gas in a futile effort to heat them. Some brave soul even tried to put up, gasp, solar panels on a shed behind the main house. These were invisible to all except the planning authorities who quickly ruled that saving energy and limiting carbon emissions were far less important than maintaining the rather dubious architectural heritage of a 19th century barn.

Meanwhile, grab an extra hot water bottle as these two visions of ‘what’s good for us’ battle it out.