Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 62

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...

Britain will go back into the European club. History proves it | Simon Jenkins

We’ve been in an on/off relationship for centuries. Even if we leave now, it won’t be forever

Sometimes, when politics screams and tears its hair out, history can rush forward with a comfort blanket to wrap round its shoulders. It’s all right, it says, calm down, we have been here before. Britain has left Europe in a huff, and been drawn back in again. It has turned its back on Europe, and turned it back again almost as often. Today is just one of those times.

The ancient province of Britannia...

What May should have said to business: where have all the remainers gone? | Simon Jenkins

Hard Brexit has been making all the running while businesses that were supposed to be united against cutting ties with Europe have been silent

It’s been the silence of the lambs. Theresa May took her case today to the Confederation of British Industry and was unnecessarily polite. Where have all you remainers, you Brexit sceptics, been these two years, she should have cried? We were told the massed ranks of British capital and commerce, of the City, agriculture, the professions and academia, w...

Theresa May’s Brexit deal demands a free vote by MPs | Simon Jenkins

With the parties divided, MPs should be able to vote in the national interest for a deal that avoids chaos

For Theresa May, Brexit does not mean Brexit. It means exit. There is nothing more exhilarating to the House of Commons than a prime minister on the run. There is a smell of blood in the water. Sharks cruise the corridors. British politicians set aside the nation’s interest. They default to raw ambition.

But it is not exit yet. May has nine lives, even if she is on her last one. For two ye...

May’s Brexiter anarchists are deserting her – but they don’t have a plan | Simon Jenkins

The prime minster is trying to find a way through a political nightmare, but party discipline is disintegrating around her

Members of Theresa May’s cabinet apparently have “significant reservations” about her Brexit transition plan. That is hardly news: all policies involve reservations. But to describe a customs union fall-back as vassalage, bondage and enslavement insults both language and history. May’s colleagues are at this critical moment seeking to undermine her attempt to find a way th...

We now know it’s folly to rage against Trump | Simon Jenkins

The president will never be out-ranted. These elections show that his supporters still want to be heard

In the spat between Donald Trump and a CNN reporter on Wednesday, I would bet most Americans sided with the president. Who was this rude man refusing to sit down before his head of state? No leader lost votes insulting the media.

The fact is, being rude to Trump hasn’t worked. Hurling abuse for two solid years was supposed to humiliate him and shame him, or at least turn his supporters agains...

Trump’s sanctions against Iran help the US’s enemies and weaken its friends | Simon Jenkins

Economic sanctions never work – they are a blunt tool that will destabilise the Middle East and embolden hardliners

Economic sanctions are state aggression. As of today, those imposed by the US against Iran are broadened to embrace any country, company or individual dealing with Tehran. A few lucky “friends” of Donald Trump – China, India, Iraq, Turkey, Korea – may escape. The EU has also promised to help companies that resist, but that may not count for much. Almost every international corpor...