Timothy Garton Ash's Blog, page 9
September 9, 2019
Britain could lead the fightback against nationalist populism | Timothy Garton Ash
Parliament has stopped the Brexit bullies in their tracks. And pro-Europeans can win the democratic showdown
Britain is fast approaching a democratic showdown. The Brexit saga may yet prove to be among the worst of the current worldwide horde of nationalist populisms, or it could offer the best example of a democracy fighting back. To seize the chance of the latter will require exceptional wisdom from voters who want Britain to be true to itself.
The claim that British populism could be among the worst may seem like another example of Britons arrogantly overestimating their own importance. Worse than Viktor Orbán’s demolition of democracy in Hungary? Worse than what Donald Trump can do to international order? Yet no other populism is likely to dismantle the very country it claims to be saving. The end of the United Kingdom is a probable outcome of the hardline Brexit towards which Boris Johnson is steering the country like a demented racing driver. Brexit would also very significantly weaken both the European Union and the transatlantic alliance.
To win an election will require unprecedented cooperation between opposition parties, constituency by constituency
Related: Six ways Boris Johnson could evade block on no-deal Brexit
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July 22, 2019
The fightback for liberal Britain begins here. Jo Swinson can lead it | Timothy Garton Ash
Brexit gives the new Lib Dem leader a unique opportunity. She must now channel the best of her party’s traditions and make new alliances
While we all obsess about Britain’s new Brexiteer Conservative government, don’t lose sight of this: under Jo Swinson, the new leader they have just elected by a clear majority, the Liberal Democrats have a chance of leading a fightback for liberal Britain. The great unrepresented liberal Britain, that is, that people around the world admire and miss. To achieve this, the Lib Dems must dramatically raise their game, reaching parts of a troubled country that they have not touched for a century.
“The Strange Death of Liberal England” is one of the most memorable book titles in British political history, so I am tempted to conjure up The Strange Rebirth of Liberal England. But liberal England never died, and nor did liberal Scotland – whence Swinson comes – and liberal Wales. Indeed, the British Social Attitudes survey shows that, in attitudes to sexual orientation and ethnicity, British society has become more liberal in recent decades.
Labour and Conservatives have leaders who are both unqualified to be PM and open to radically illiberal positions
Related: Vince Cable: ‘We can do more to get people to unite for Remain’
Continue reading...June 19, 2019
Europe must stop this disgrace: Viktor Orbán is dismantling democracy | Timothy Garton Ash
The Hungarian prime minister is consolidating his illiberal regime – with the help of European Union funding
When European Union leaders gather in Brussels on Thursday they will have a guilty secret: among them will sit the leader of a member state that is no longer a democracy. Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister and de facto supreme leader, will sit there smiling as a democrat among democrats, but in reality he has demolished liberal democracy in his country over the last decade. Adding insult to injury, he has used EU taxpayers’ money to consolidate his illiberal regime. With a new European parliament and fresh institutional leadership in prospect, the EU must show that it will defend democracy in its own member states. Otherwise, all the fine words of article 2 of its basic treaty will be worth nothing.
To say that Hungary is no longer a democracy is a stark claim and I have thought, read and looked hard before making it. Often people apply the term that Orbán has himself used approvingly: “illiberal democracy”. But illiberal democracy is a contradiction in terms. That label may usefully describe a transitional phase in the erosion of a liberal democracy, such as we see in Poland, but Hungary is way beyond that. This year the human rights organisation Freedom House downgraded it to the status of “partly free” country, the only EU member state to earn that dishonour. The most neutral description I can find is that this is a “hybrid regime”, neither democracy nor dictatorship.
The ruling party, Fidesz, has so completely penetrated the state administration that Hungary is again a one-party state
Related: Hungary eyes science research as latest target for state control
Continue reading...May 8, 2019
Why we must not let Europe break apart
The European project is in big trouble – but it’s worth defending. By Timothy Garton Ash
It’s time to sound the alarm. Seven decades after the end of the second world war on European soil, the Europe we have built since then is under attack. As the cathedral of Notre Dame burned, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National was polling neck and neck with Emmanuel Macron’s movement for what he calls a “European renaissance”. In Spain, a far-right party called Vox, promoting the kind of reactionary nationalist ideas against which Spain’s post-Franco democracy was supposedly immunised, has won the favour of one in 10 voters in a national election. Nationalist populists rule Italy, where a great-grandson of Benito Mussolini is running for the European parliament on the list of the so-called Brothers of Italy. A rightwing populist party called The Finns, formerly the True Finns (to distinguish them from “false” Finns of different colour or religion), garnered almost as many votes as Finland’s Social Democrats in last month’s general election. In Britain, the European elections on 23 May can be seen as another referendum on Brexit, but the underlying struggle is the same as that of our fellow Europeans. Nigel Farage is a Le Pen in Wellington boots, a True Finn in a Barbour jacket.
Meanwhile, to mark the 30th anniversary of the velvet revolutions of 1989, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party has denounced a charter of LGBT+ rights as an attack on children. In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland successfully deploys a völkisch rhetoric we thought vanquished for good, although now it scapegoats Muslims instead of Jews. Remember Bertolt Brecht’s warning: “The womb is fertile still/ from which that crawled.” Viktor Orbán, the young revolutionary hero of 1989 turned bulldog-jowled neo-authoritarian, has effectively demolished liberal democracy in Hungary, using antisemitic attacks on the billionaire George Soros and generous subsidies from the EU. He has also enjoyed political protection from Manfred Weber, the Bavarian politician whom the European People’s party, Europe’s powerful centre-right grouping, suggests should be the next president of the European commission. Orbán has summed the situation up like this: “Thirty years ago, we thought Europe was our future. Today, we believe we are Europe’s future.”
Related: The paranoid fantasy behind Brexit | Fintan O'Toole
Continue reading...April 17, 2019
Britain will have its second referendum – at the EU elections on 23 May | Timothy Garton Ash
This is a crucial chance to show politicians how we feel now about leaving Europe. The turnout must be huge
In just five weeks’ time, Britain will have a referendum on Brexit. This will take the form of elections to the European parliament, but in reality this will be a pre-referendum, or, if you like your neologisms ugly, a preferendum. So there is now one simple task: to maximise the vote for parties that support a confirmatory referendum on Brexit, giving the British people a democratic choice between accepting the negotiated Brexit deal and remaining in the EU.
Related: Brexit: pro-EU parties to use European elections as 'soft referendum'
If Labour is not clear enough, then turn to the Lib Dems, Change UK, the Green party, the Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru.
Related: Don’t bet against the Brexit party winning the EU elections | Chris Curtis
Continue reading...Britain will have its second referendum - on 23 May. Don’t miss it | Timothy Garton Ash
This is a crucial chance to show politicians how we feel now about leaving Europe. The turnout must be huge
In just five weeks’ time, Britain will have a referendum on Brexit. This will take the form of elections to the European parliament, but in reality this will be a pre-referendum, or, if you like your neologisms ugly, a preferendum. So there is now one simple task: to maximise the vote for parties that support a confirmatory referendum on Brexit, giving the British people a democratic choice between accepting the negotiated Brexit deal and remaining in the EU.
If Labour’s manifesto clearly commits to that confirmatory referendum, then Labour is among those parties. If Labour is not clear enough, then turn to the Liberal Democrats, Change UK, the Green party, the Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru. At the end of the day, what will matter more than the precise allocation of seats is that we can say: “X million people voted for pro-European, pro-referendum parties, while only Y million voted for unambiguously pro-Brexit parties such as Ukip, Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party and the Conservatives.” In this vital, bottom-line reckoning, there is no such thing as a wasted vote. Every single voice will count.
If Labour is not clear enough, then turn to the Lib Dems, Change UK, the Green party, the Scottish National party or Plaid Cymru.
Related: Don’t bet against the Brexit party winning the EU elections | Chris Curtis
Continue reading...April 8, 2019
Brexit is just one front in Europe’s battle for its soul | Timothy Garton Ash
John Bull has been having a breakdown, and he’s getting worse, so now his housemates gather in the kitchen to decide what to do about him. Feisty Emmanuel from France thinks John is messing up all their lives, and they should kick him out of the house. After all, that bull-necked English egotist said he wanted to leave three years ago. Living up to her nickname Mutti, Angela is much more sympathetic. Donald, who hails from Poland, says John should be given “time and space” to sort himself out. Watch the next episode of Brexit, Europe’s most-viewed soap opera, this Wednesday evening.
They have never followed UK politics more closely. ‘It's better than anything on Netflix,' says Aleksander Kwaśniewski
If a long extension leaves us stuck in the EU we should be as difficult as possible. We could veto any increase in the budget, obstruct the putative EU army and block Mr Macron’s integrationist schemes.
Continue reading...March 20, 2019
Britain is in a hole – Europe, we need you to dig us out | Timothy Garton Ash
Brexit just got serious. If parliament can somehow take control, EU leaders must take pity and offer a long delay
When European leaders discuss Brexit on Thursday, they should have in mind a fundamental question: is the EU just a union of governments, or is it also a Europe of citizens, peoples, democracy and destiny? If it’s just the former, they should continue the current mainstream Brussels line of trying to help Theresa May to get her deal over the line, and the UK out of the European Union as soon as possible. If Europe is also the latter, as French president Emmanuel Macron has eloquently argued, then they must recognise that May’s government is the problem, not the solution, and give time for the citizens, peoples and democracy of Britain to work their way to a better place.
More than 16 million British citizens voted for Britain to remain in the EU in 2016. Were European citizenship personal and direct, rather than contingent upon being a citizen of a member state, the EU would have a clear responsibility towards us, the British Europeans. If we were a country, we would be the ninth largest in the EU, after the Netherlands and before Belgium. We are joined by some 3 million citizens of other EU countries who live in Britain. That makes 19 million.
Related: Brexit: EU to allow short article 50 extension only if MPs vote for deal, says Tusk – Politics live
Related: May’s latest screeching U-turn makes her utterly unfit to lead | Jonathan Freedland
Continue reading...February 21, 2019
The EU must resist impatience with Britain – for its own sake | Timothy Garton Ash
“I will celebrate,” said an emphatic German voice behind me, while some dignitary on stage mouthed the conventional polite platitudes of regret about Britain’s departure from the EU. “I will celebrate when it’s over at last.” A week spent talking to politicians, officials and opinion-makers on the continent tells me that this captures the prevailing mood among Britain’s frustrated and increasingly contemptuous European partners: just get the negotiated withdrawal agreement across the line and Britain out of the door – then we can go back to fighting the real battles for Europe, starting with the European elections.
While I understand all the feelings and calculations behind this view, it is profoundly shortsighted. It abandons those of us still fighting for Europe in Britain and underestimates the EU’s role in deciding Britain’s future. A divided country in the midst of a collective nervous breakdown is painfully dependent on the reaction of its now much stronger EU negotiating partner. This explains why every tweet from Donald Tusk, every hint from Jean-Claude Juncker, every nuance from Michel Barnier, is pored over in the British media with almost Sovietological attention. The EU is a major actor in the British debate, not merely a reactor to it. The conclusion is clear: it’s not just Britain that faces a big choice over Brexit, it’s also Europe.
Related: No breakthrough for May after ‘constructive’ Brexit talks in Brussels
Related: We cannot allow Liam Fox’s post-Brexit trade plans to go unscrutinised | Caroline Lucas
Continue reading...January 24, 2019
If Brexit Britain wants Europe to listen, it must learn to speak European | Timothy Garton Ash
An old New Yorker cartoon shows a middle-aged man at a drinks party saying to another: “But that’s enough about you, let’s talk about me!” This is Brexit Britain talking to the rest of Europe. To be sure, all nations are obsessed with their own affairs. A Polish joke has it that the entry for elephant in the encyclopedia reads “the elephant and the Polish question”. But most European countries have at least some accompanying sensitivity to what is going on around them.
I wonder how many people in Westminster this week even knew that the leaders of France and Germany were signing a new treaty of cooperation in Aachen; that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, deeply shaken by the level of support for the gilets jaunes protests, had launched a “national debate”, much like the one being called for in Britain; that Poland had been shaken by the senseless murder of the liberal, pro-European mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, in an atmosphere of partisan conflict so bitter that the nation could not even unite in the face of such tragedy. Reflecting all this turmoil, the whole continent is gearing up for European elections in May which will be a battle royal between two fundamentally different visions of the European future – a conservative, nationalist one spearheaded by the Hungarian Viktor Orbán and the Italian Matteo Salvini, and a more liberal, internationalist one represented by the much weakened Aachen duo of Macron and Angela Merkel. Orbán and Salvini don’t intend to leave the EU, they intend to run it. So it’s not just the future of the UK that will be decided this year, it’s also the future of Europe.
Will the proposal solve anything?
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