Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 61

Donald Trump has a point – the world should start solving its own problems | Simon Jenkins

For all his antics on the Mexican border, the US president is right to be withdrawing troops from Syria

For a Briton to spend time in the US just now is a blessed relief. Whole days pass, and no talk of Brexit. It is as if a pall has lifted from the art of conversation. But the US has its own deep divide, slashing through the populist body politic. It is Donald Trump and “America first”.

Trump has become a phenomenon. Like Samson in the temple, he seems able to topple the entire edifice of poli...

How to save our high streets? The answer is in the church | Simon Jenkins

Abandoned churches are slowly being reinvented as secular meeting places as the experience economy continues to grow

I have just had my first Alexa experience. It was in Los Angeles and it was eerie and rather charming. There is no doubt “she” vastly simplifies a range of trivial tasks. To the lonely, she is apparently comforting, like a pet, and with “empathy” increasingly built in, is growing ever more so. But she is clearly driving a nail ever further into the coffin of the classic concept...

Crossrail reveals the depth of Britain’s north-south divide | Simon Jenkins

Billions more have just been announced for the delayed London rail line - yet northern infrastructure projects are killed off

It’s been a great week to bury bad government. Two of the greatest infrastructure projects in the land hit financial grief. Normally it would have been headline news. Instead no one shows the slightest interest. The Department for Transport has long had a simple agenda. A cynic might sum it up as: give London anything it wants, but starve the north of investment until i...

France’s political crises are always played out in riots – unlike Britain’s | Simon Jenkins

It’s the latest alternative ‘project fear’ from hard Brexiters – unrest in the event of a parliamentary impasse. But it’s unlikely

Could France happen here? There seems no desperation to which hard Brexiters will not turn in alternative “project fear”. Yes, feelings are running high. Yes, people on both sides will feel lied to and cheated, whatever the outcome when some deal is finally reached. But rioting down Regent Street, punch-ups in Parliament Square, tanks on the Thames bridges? I think...

Our warring MPs should realise all Brexit roads lead to Norway | Simon Jenkins

It’s increasingly clear there is only one deal that can be done. It may not be ideal, but it is workable

From the moment Britain voted for Brexit in 2016, there was only one way to go. It was back to the European Free Trade Association (Efta), of which the UK was a member before 1973. Nothing else made sense. As a Eurosceptic, I voted to remain only because I thought it wrong for Britain to leave Europe’s one conclave of nations just when it was growing seriously unstable. The vote to leave ha...

The government’s defeat on contempt was humiliating – but avoidable | Simon Jenkins

The Commons’ Brexit vote result shows a major weakness in the Conservative party’s loyalty department

Now it’s the lawyers’ turn. Like picadors, they are entering the ring to soften up Theresa May’s deal, before parliament’s serious matadors get to work. They are poking and stabbing and drawing blood. The Commons has ordered the attorney general’s advice to be published in full, against the prime minister’s wishes, and this will be done immediately. At the same time, the European court of just...

We are lurching towards the Brexit cliff edge. Here’s what May must do | Simon Jenkins

This deal is the best the UK can expect for now. The prime minister must do everything in her power to get it through

For goodness sake, Theresa May, you have nothing to lose. Do whatever the waverers want. Publish the legal advice on backstop. Publish the Home Office white paper (call it green) on immigration post-Brexit. Go to Brussels and say you must have one last attempt at even the tiniest adjustment to the backstop. Otherwise all Brussels’ work on Brexit will have been a waste of time....

A zip wire for the Lake District is nothing short of vandalism | Simon Jenkins

The proposal for the Honister Pass has been approved by the park authorities. But profit cannot triumph over beauty

The Honister Pass, from Borrowdale to Buttermere, links the two loveliest places in England. It is a ravine of exquisite ruggedness, a retreat from the crowds of Windermere and Keswick. In the national gallery of scenery, Honister is the Mona Lisa. To whom does this beauty belong? The answer is supposedly to us all, guarded by the Lake District national park. But it is claimed by...

Forget Brexit, war in Ukraine is the biggest threat to Europe | Simon Jenkins

History may compare the handling of a defeated and depressed Russia in the 1990s to that of Germany after 1918

While parliament fiddles, Europe burns, or at least sputters into flame. History could not be clearer. The diversion of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict into the Sea of Azov is precisely the kind of escalation that has preceded Europe’s past cataclysms. A great power treats a little one with contempt. A little one responds with violence, expecting friends to come to its aid, diplomaticall...

Give the Easter Islanders their statue back – it doesn’t belong in the British Museum | Simon Jenkins

If the spiritual importance of the artefact matters to its owners, why deny them? This is a political issue, not an aesthetic one

Be prepared. The great museums of Europe are about to see an invasion of former colonies demanding the return of their stuff. This week the governor of Easter Island, Tarita Alarcón Rapu, tearfully pleaded with the British Museum to have back her ancestor, immortally embodied in a statue in its possession. “You have our soul,” she said. Her audience must have cringe...