Brexit: Britain and EU ‚will rip each other apart‘ in trade talks

Date: 17‑02‑2020

Source: The Guardian

French foreign minister says it will be hard for UK to strike deal by end of year given differences

Britain and the European Union are going to rip each other apart in talks over a future trade deal, the French foreign minister, Jean‑Yves Le Drian, has predicted, while also holding out hope that UK defence co‑operation with Europe will continue. 

Speaking at the Munich security forum, he added it would be tough for Britain to achieve its aim of a free trade deal by the end of the year given the differences between the two sides. 

Le Drian said: “I think on trade issues and the mechanism for future relations, which we are going to start on, we are going to rip each each other apart.”

This revenge reshuffle has a dangerous message: absolute power resides in No 10

Date: 14‑02‑2020

Source: The Guardian by Polly Toynbee

The removal of Sajid Javid – and anyone who ever queried Boris Johnson’s progress – is a demand for craven cabinet obedience

Sajid Javid: ‚Any self‑respecting minister‘ would reject PM’s demands

No self‑respecting chancellor would accept such terms: that was Sajid Javid’s reason for resigning. So in Rishi Sunak we have an alarmingly obedient new chancellor ready to take the job on any terms. His advisers will be fused with those of No 10, his power base diminished, and his office under the control of Dominic Cummings, intimidator‑in‑chief. Sunak will struggle to shake off shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s charge that he is nothing but “a stooge”.

Demanding the heads of Javid’s advisers can have only been a deliberate provocation on Boris Johnson’s part. The prime minister has cut the Treasury down to size in a way unimaginable under any previous government. The historic tension at the top of government between prime minister and chancellor – think Blair and Brown, Thatcher and Howe or Major and Lamont – has been a necessary division of power, a creative pluralism and a democratic safeguard. It can’t be abolished as easily as Johnson may think.

Earth just had hottest January since records began, data shows

Date: 13‑02‑2020

Source: The Guardian

Average global temperature 2.5F above 20th‑century average

Antarctic has begun February with several temperature spikes

Chinstrap penguins in Antarctica, which at the weekend broke 20C for the first time in its history.

Last month was the hottest January on record over the world’s land and ocean surfaces, with average temperatures exceeding anything in the 141 years of data held by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The record temperatures in January follow an exceptionally warm 2019, which has been ranked as the second hottest year for the planet’s surface since reliable measurements started. The past five years and the past decade are the hottest in 150 years of record‑keeping, an indication of the gathering pace of the climate crisis.

Try to stop me’ – the mantra of our leaders who are now ruling with impunity

Date: 05‑02‑2020

Source: The Guardian by George Monbiot

Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi, Johnson. Across the world, flouting the law has become normalised. We have to stop it

‘Like other killer clowns, Trump may now feel he can get away with anything.’ Narendra Modi and Donald Trump embrace at the White House.

It is not a sufficient condition for fascism to take root, but it is a necessary one: the willingness of political leaders not only to break the law but to revel in breaking it is a fatal step towards the replacement of democracy with authoritarian terror.

We see this at work in the United States today, where the Republican party’s blatant disregard for the constitution will allow Donald Trump to escape impeachment.

If Trump is elected for a second term, he will test to the limit the potential for wielding unconstitutional power. But the phenomenon is not confined to the US. Several powerful governments now wear illegality almost as a badge of honour.

It’s happening in the UK too. The Brexit vote was secured with the help of blatant illegality

Trevor Noah on cable news: ‚All they want to do is repeat Trump’s insults‘

Great!

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/feb/04/trevor-noah-late-night-hosts-trump?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail

Let’s abandon climate targets, and do something completely different

Date: 30‑01‑2020

Source: The Guardian: George Monbiot

Setting targets for climate action sounds sensible, but is actually impeding progress. There’s a different approach: maximisation

‘The 2015 Infrastructure Act introduced a legal duty to ‘maximise the economic recovery’ of petroleum in the UK.’ An oil rig in the North Sea.

The crisis is not imminent. The crisis is here. The recent infernos in Australia; the storms and floods in Brazil, Madagascar, Spain and the US; and the economic collapse in Somalia, caused in part by a devastating cycle of droughts and floods, are not, or not only, a vision of the future. They are signs of a current and escalating catastrophe.

This is why several governments and parliaments, the UK’s among them, have declared a climate emergency. But no one in government acts as if it is real. They operate within the old world of incremental planning for a disaster that has yet to arrive.

Italy’s progressives had lost hope. The Sardines movement is starting to restore it

Date: 29‑01‑2020

Source: The Guardian

Success in Sunday’s regional election in northern Italy showed how Salvini’s far‑right politics can be defeated

‘The independent initiative called on citizens to congregate in their local piazzas.’

Supporters of Italy’s centre‑left Democratic party (PD) breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday evening as their candidate in Emilia‑Romagna saw‑off competition from Matteo Salvini’s far‑right League to win the regional elections. That defeat here was even a prospect, though, shows just how much Italy’s political geography has changed.

Historically Emilia‑Romagna, in the north of the country, is a bedrock of communism and has had an unbroken string of leftist governments since the second world war. But the left has been losing ground since the financial crisis of 2008 – as in so much of the continent – with austerity‑stricken rural communities and provincial towns in particular drifting rightwards. Winning in the region would have been a real coup for Salvini, who took personal control of the local campaign.

His plans may have been thwarted, but there is little to suggest that Salvini is losing momentum. While the League may have failed to win over the region as a whole, it has consolidated support in some of Emilia’s major cities. Similarly, at a national level the polls still suggest Salvini’s party is well‑positioned to form a majority government in coalition with other rightwing parties, including the far‑right Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia when the opportunity arises. Such a scenario was reinforced by the results of another vote on Sunday in the poor southern region of Calabria: while the League won just 12%, it also oversaw collaboration among the other rightwing parties to snatch the territory from the incumbent PD governor.

Farewell Europe: the long road to Brexit

Date: 26‑01‑2020

Source: The Guardian by Toby Helm

The United Kingdom leaves the EU on 31 January 2020.

The Observer’s political editor has reported on Britain’s place in the EU for more than 30 years. Here he charts the key moments in a stormy relationship and the missed chances to save it from destruction

Last week, with the end of the UK’s 47‑year membership of the club of European nations just days away, I looked back at some newspaper cuttings from my time as a Brussels correspondent. A picture of worried‑looking farmers eyeing up their cattle at a market in Banbury stared out alongside banner headlines. “British beef banned in Europe. Cattle prices fall. School meals hit. EU ‘rules’ broken.” Among the many crises in British relations with the EU down the years – from Margaret Thatcher’s bust‑up over the European budget in the early 1980s to the UK’s exit from the ERM in 1992 – the beef war between London and Brussels ranks among the biggest.

Make no mistake: Poland and Hungary aren’t the only EU states abusing the law

Date: 22‑01‑2020

Source: The Guardian by Agata Gostynska‑Jakubowska

Countries from Britain to Greece are guilty of democratic backsliding. And that threatens the integrity of the EU itself

‘It has been 10 months since the European People’s party said it would consider the fate of Hungary’s ruling party, Fidesz’, led by Viktor Orbán.

Mention concerns about the rule of law in certain EU countries, and people, even EU officials, automatically assume you are referring to Hungary and Poland. Without doubt, the state of democracy in both countries is worrying. Buoyed by strong electoral mandates, their populist governing parties are interfering with the independence of the judiciary and increasing state control of other institutions, including the media. But an equally worrying trend is less talked about. The decline in respect for the rule of law is happening elsewhere in the EU – indeed, it is an EU‑wide issue and it has the potential to undermine the functioning of the entire bloc.

The World Bank’s governance indicators show a deterioration in Bulgaria, France, Italy and Greece

Make no mistake, the European commission is justified in responding to developments in Warsaw and Budapest. Efforts there to undermine liberal democracy have been flagrant. The EU has responded by launching the so‑called article 7 procedure, sometimes referred to as the nuclear option, as it can ultimately lead to a country being stripped of its voting rights. It has also pursued legal cases against the two states at the European court of justice.

Trump’s greatest ally in the coming election? Facebook

Date: 21‑01‑2020

Source: The Guardian by John Harris

The internet giant has exempted politics from regulations on falsehood. Good news for a candidacy built on lies

‘The most egregious aspect of the way Facebook treats politics remains untouched.’ An anti‑Facebook protest at the US Capitol Building in 2018.

If you want to know why the worst president in US history currently stands a very good chance of winning again, consider a few facts. Donald Trump’s re‑election campaign is already in full flow, brimming with cash, drenching social media with targeted ads, and reaping oceans of data on voters.

The impeachment drama is, predictably enough, the perfect opportunity to put out material that plays to the idea of Trump as a noble maverick, struggling against the liberal conspiracy implied by his online questionnaires: “Do you agree that President Trump has done nothing wrong? Do you believe the Democrats will try and make up LIES to impeach the president?”