What We Saw This Week in Westminster

It looks like utter chaos in Theresa May's House of Commons. The Conservatives are fractured, Labour is fractured, whipped votes aren't. The Scots want something, the Northern Irish want something else, the Welsh are playing it cool for the moment, at least compared to everyone else. Some are calling for snap elections. Others want another referendum. A small camp wants a hard Brexit, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. Another group wants to settle for the withdrawal agreement May negotiated with the EU. That includes the "backstop" for the Irish border that infuriates the hard Brexit camp.

What the world is witnessing, with a lot of puzzlement, is a nation governed by representative democracy having to deal with the result of direct democracy. It doesn't help that the Brexit referendum was botched. Leave voters were seduced by empty promises that bordered on outright lies, coupled with financing irregularities and, of course, the manipulative prowess of Cambridge Analytica.

After two years of wrangling, there isn't a person today who can accurately define Brexit. What is it? Who knows? Having recently spent hours listening to Brit talk radio (LBC London) or the Guardian live stream coverage of the House of Commons, it's obvious that there is no central factual framework to this. One will eventually emerge, possibly by default. There may be no real managed outcome and that will be a cloud over Parliament for years to come.

The referendum was direct democracy. Brits were asked to choose Leave or Remain and the Leave camp won by a small margin. Team Farage might have spun Leave supporters with sugar plum dreams but they had no accountability once the votes were counted.  Like Jacques Parizeau their only challenge was to get enough "lobsters in the pot."

The referendum outcome then fell to Parliament, representive democracy, to enact in some form or another. That's where the real slogging began. MPs had to represent their constituents and the nation. And doing that meant dealing with other affected parties that had no vote, no say, including the entire European Union, especially the Irish Republic. There were fears of a resumption of "the Troubles" between north and south. It wasn't easy getting the UK into the EU and it wasn't going to be easy to get out either.

What lies ahead in the next few weeks? Nobody knows. Theresa May will keep trying to grind down MPs until she gets enough support for her withdrawal agreement. Third time lucky? Then she needs the support of all 27 other members of the EU for a postponement of the March 29 trigger date.

A lot of mistakes have been made since David Cameron called for the referendum. The United Kingdom, if it can even remain united, will be paying for those mistakes for years to come.

And So It Begins

It's an idea that's been kicked around for quite a while - the use of military force to thwart climate change migration.  To some it's a matter of doing what's necessary to keep the barbarian horde at bay.  Underlying it is this element of self-defence, self-preservation - necessity.

The European Union is now at this point.

The European Union has drawn up plans for military attacks in Libya to try to curb the influx of migrants across the Mediterranean by targeting the trafficking networks. It is to launch a bid on Monday to secure a UN mandate for armed action in Libya’s territorial waters.

Britain is drafting the UN security council resolution that would authorise the mission, said senior officials in Brussels. It would come under Italian command, have the participation of around 10 EU countries, including Britain, France, Spain, and Italy, and could also drag in Nato although there are no plans for initial alliance involvement.

...This would entail having EU vessels in Libyan territorial waters, including the Royal Navy flagship HMS Bulwark – currently in Malta – and deploying helicopter gunships to “neutralise” identified traffickers’ ships used to send tens of thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East on the short but highly risky voyage from the Libyan coast to the shores of southern Italy.

Libyan militias, jihadi groups, and Islamic State affiliates believed to be in cahoots with the trafficking networks are said to have heavy artillery and anti-aircraft batteries deployed close to the coast. Attacks on EU vessels and aircraft could trigger an escalation and force Nato to get involved, said policymakers in Brussels.

Oh great, we can get into another war in Libya.  That'll show those damned Muslims.  We'll kick hell out of them.  They'll start sending zealots over here to retaliate.  Just like ping-pong only with bombs and guns.

Closer to home, the Pentagon is looking at its own options to seal off America's southern borders to climate refugees out of Mexico and Central America.  In his book, "Climate Wars," Gwynne Dyer discusses some of the ideas being considered including the establishment of robotic weapons systems to make the American border an automated killing zone.  That sounds inconceivable except to the people who are conceiving it.

It Sounds Good, Sort of, On Paper

It is an historic deal - if it ever comes to pass.  China and the US have made a pact to cut carbon emissions.  The US has promised to cut emissions by 26-28% from 2005 levels by 2020.  China has said it will peak its emissions by 2030 and begin cutting them thereafter. 

It is a "landmark" deal, if it ever happens.  Whether the envisioned cuts are enough and soon enough will be the subject of discussion for weeks to come.  Remember also, Obama is going to have to lay this out before a Congress now firmly in Republican control. 

Still, it's a deal of sorts and, in one way, the timing couldn't have been better.  The agreement will be the 800-pound gorilla in the room at the G20 summit in Australia where the host, knuckle-dragger Tony Abbott wants to fend off any discussion about climate change.

The China-US deal, atop the European Union's recent initiative for a 40% cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2030 will be awkward for the climate change bad boys, Abbott and his girlfriend, Stephen Harper.  Maybe Harper will find a Tim Horton's to open so he can duck the G20 entirely.  If not he'll probably fall back on his old trick and, when the discussion turns to CO2 emissions, just excuse himself to go to the bathroom for a couple of days.

These emission cuts agreements are important if they're matched by action.  That has to mean slashing fossil fuel consumption and increasing the renewable energy supply.  It's hardly consistent with Obama's "all of the above" energy policy.  His commitment to 2020 means new, very concrete programmes have to be launched almost immediately. 

It will be interesting to see what institutional investors make of the EU, US and Chinese initiatives.  If they're finally forced to acknowledge the "carbon bubble" it could be devastating to high cost/high carbon fossil fuels - such as bitumen, coal and seabed oil.  That would be Harper's Sword of Damocles. 

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the G20 delegations will have a global warming reminder this weekend.  Australia is being hammered by a heat wave.

Update - few of us really follow these agreements enough to make sense of them.  Reuters' John Kemp contends the deal is anything but "landmark".

Sure, the Iron Curtain Fell, But What's Going Up In Its Place?

When the Berlin Wall came down it quickly led to the liberation of eastern Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union.

Western European leaders, egged on by the United States, pulled out all the stops to sign up eastern Europe into the E.U. and NATO.  America sought to drive the North Atlantic alliance right up to Russia's borders.

It was a moment of triumphalism in Washington as Reagan and Bush Sr. were crowned with laurel wreaths for winning the Cold War.  Eastern Europe had been liberated, saved for democracy, or so we were told.  Maybe not.

Now there's a new form of authoritarianism spreading through those former Warsaw Pact states and the democracy was naively assumed would flourish in those countries is in peril.  Spiegel Online has published an insightful interview with Polish dissident Adam Michnik who was, in the Communist era, his country's most important dissident.  Michnik warns that democracy is having trouble putting down roots in the face of rising authoritarianism.

We lack a political culture, a culture of compromise. We in Poland, as well as the Hungarians, have never learned this sort of thing. Although there is a strong desire for freedom in the countries of Eastern Europe, there is no democratic tradition, so that the risk of anarchy and chaos continues to exist. Demagoguery and populism are rampant. We are the illegitimate children, the bastards of communism. It shaped our mentality. 

We still have politicians who strive for a different type of country: Kaczynski as well as Orbán in Hungary. They want a gradual coup. If Orbán stayed in power in Hungary or if Kaczynski were to win an election in our country, it would be dangerous. Both men have an authoritarian idea of government; democracy is merely a façade.  

SPIEGEL: Orbán says that a "centralist majority democracy" is needed so that clear decisions can be made, by decree, if necessary. Otherwise, he says, dangers like the economic crisis cannot be averted.
 
Michnik: Hitler said the same thing when he issued special decrees and emergency regulations. It's the road to hell. To be honest, Hungary is the country where I would have least expected this to happen, but it was the first to cut a hole into the Iron Curtain. In Romania and Bulgaria, perhaps, but not in Hungary. What is happening there now stems from a disappointment in the Social Democrats, who were in power before and drove the country into economic ruin. Fortunately, Poland quickly implemented the most important reforms needed to make the transition to a market economy at the beginning of the 1990s. It was different in Hungary. That's why the population is now disappointed and is calling everything into question, even the things it once dreamed of achieving.

SPIEGEL: Do people suddenly no longer care that someone is removing judges or editors-in-chief who are not toeing the party line? Have they forgotten what it was like under the communists?
 
Michnik: A part of society in our countries would still prefer an authoritarian regime today. These are people with the mentality of Homo sovieticus. But they also exist in France -- just think of Le Pen -- and even in Finland and Sweden.
 
SPIEGEL: Orbán is trying to direct his country into a "system of national cooperation without compromises." What does he mean by that?
 
Michnik: British historian Norman Davies called this form of democracy a "government of cannibals." Democratic elections are held, but then the victorious party devours the losers. The gradual coup consists in getting rid of or taking over democratic institutions. These people believe that they are the only ones in possession of the truth. At some point, parties no longer mean anything, and the system is based, once again, on a monologue of power. The democratic institutions in the West are more deeply embedded in the West than in Eastern Europe. Democracy can defend itself there. Everything is still fragile in our countries, even two decades after the end of communism.

SPIEGEL: Nationalism is flourishing once again under authoritarian, right-wing leaders, such as Kaczynski and Orbán. How can this be happening in a united Europe?
 
Michnik: In times of great turmoil, such as we are experiencing today, people search for something to cling to. In Hungary, it's the Trianon complex. No Hungarian has forgotten that, under the Treaty of Trianon, two-thirds of the kingdom had to be handed over to neighboring countries after World War I, and that many Hungarians now live across those borders. Orbán uses this instrument to his advantage.
 
SPIEGEL: He preaches a new "Hungarianism."
 
Michnik: Back in 1990, I wrote that nationalism is the last stage of communism: a system of thought that gives simple but wrong answers to complex questions. Nationalism is practically the natural ideology of authoritarian regimes.

Having read Michnik's comments through a couple of times I began thinking about the authoritarianism taking hold in Harper's Canada.

"government of cannibals." Democratic elections are held, but then the victorious party devours the losers. The gradual coup consists in getting rid of or taking over democratic institutions. These people believe that they are the only ones in possession of the truth.

A "gradual coup" in which Harper has gotten rid of or taken over our democratic institutions, sequestering the public service and armed forces, transforming them into his partisan political agencies.   The lack of compromise, accountability, honesty and openness.   The shameless resort to rank nationalism.  Government of Cannibals, indeed

English as the Official Language of the European Union?

There's a move afoot to have English declared the common language of the European Union and it's a German who is pushing the idea.   Here The Guardian gives a pretty clear reason why a common language might be helpful when representatives of the constituent nations sit down to parlay.

Money talks, especially in Brussels. A billion euros are usually "mil milhoes de euros" in Portuguese, or a thousand million. In Spanish, likewise, "billón" means a million million, so billion is "mil millones de euros". Confusingly, "billion" translates as "milijarde" into Croatian, or "miljard" into Dutch. When the French talk of "un billion", they are referring to what Britons call a trillion. Oh, and a German "Billiarde" is a French "quadrillion". Of course.

And so the suggestion of a common language to cut out the translation and communications nightmares.  Why English?  Because that's the language younger Euros are increasingly favouring.

In a keynote speech on the future of European integration in February, Joachim Gauck suggested English should become the EU's official language: "It is true to say that young people are growing up with English as the lingua franca. However, I feel that we should not simply let things take their course when it comes to linguistic integration." It was music to the ears of federalists and fiscal hawks: with English spoken in the corridors of Brussels, the EU would become more streamlined and more efficient.

But how realistic is it? To an extent, it would just confirm a trend already taking place. Since the "big bang" of eastern European enlargement in 2004, the use of French has declined in conference meetings – and German is these days an "official language" on paper only. 

It's a sensible proposal, no question, but that doesn't translate into universal acceptance.  The French, for example, are said to fear creeping Anglo-Saxon influence on notions political and economic.

Cyprus, the European Union's Dilemma

Cyprus, it seems, is the Cayman Islands of the Mediterranean.  Russian oligarchs are said to use it to launder their money.   And, for the European Union, the Cypriot-Russian connection complicates efforts to bail out the financially-stricken island.  Der Spiegel reports that German intelligence has warned that bailing out troubled Cypriot banks may effectively amount to bailing out Russia's oligarchs and their under the table money.

Last Friday, the sun was shining in this paradise for Russians. The sky was a deep blue and the palms along the beach promenade swayed in a light breeze as the the temperature climbed to 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit) before noon. No doubt Limassol offered a welcome relief from the cold and wet autumn weather of Moscow. Russians appreciate this spot on the southern coast of Cyprus.

The boutiques sell sable coats even in summer, the restaurants serve salted herring and vodka, apartments near the pier cost upwards of €300,000 ($383,000) and there's no shortage of luxurious villas priced at millions of euros.

The city park has a bust of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, there's a Russian radio station, Russian newspapers, a Russian Orthodox church, private schools offering Russian diplomas and signposts in Cyrillic writing. The mayor of Limassol himself speaks fluent Russian and studied in Moscow during the Soviet era.

[Now these wealthy Russians] are at risk of losing their paradise because Cyprus is virtually bankrupt. The island's economy has been dragged down by the recession ravaging Greece, with which it has close business ties. In addition, Cypriot banks bought billions of euros in Greek government bonds that are practically worthless now. The banks have already had to write off large portions of their investments, and are in trouble as a result.

...Now the euro countries, and especially Germany, will have to step in with a €10 billion aid injection to prop up the island's banks. That will confront German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and their European colleagues with a major dilemma because a secret report written by the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), outlines who would be the main beneficiaries of the billions of euros of European taxpayers' money: Russian oligarchs, businessmen and mafiosi who have invested their illegal money in Cyprus.

The Russians don't just love Cyprus for its great climate. The shell companies here are conveniently anonymous, the banks discreet and the taxes are low. Dirty money bestowed a lasting boom on Cyprus and the inhabitants of "Limmasolgrad" are still doing well.

So there is the European Union's conundrum.   Cyprus has, in some respects, become a sort of criminal enterprise yet the E.U. may still have to step in to prop it up.  Yikes.

Italy's Mason-Dixon Line

Their leaders have names such as Durnwalder, Klotz, Widmann, and Mair.   Their neighbours include Swiss, Germans and Austrians.  And at the moment a good many of them are wondering why they should be saddled with the financial burden of remaining within cash-strapped Italy.

There has long been a secessionist movement in the northern Italian province of South Tyrol.   The southern border with the rest of Italy is called, by der Spiegel, Italy's Mason-Dixon line.  The Tyroleans are the south's rich cousins and they're less than happy about having to pick up their share of Rome's budget mess.

Now work is underway to prepare a draft constitution for the Free State of South Tyrol.

Pollsters have noticed that separatist arguments are gaining traction, especially among young South Tyroleans. Their share of the membership of the Libertarian Party and South Tyrolean Freedom is growing significantly. The province is experiencing a general shift to the right, says political scientist Günther Pallaver.

While 90 percent of South Tyroleans identified with a limited autonomy status in the 1970s, this share has dropped to about 60 percent today, says Pallaver. "We are dealing with conflicts that could become even more severe in the future." According to Pallaver, South Tyrol's German-speaking voters are moving more and more to the right, and it's conceivable that lawmakers with the relatively tame South Tyrol People's Party (SVP) in the Italian parliament could be joined by representatives of parties less interested in compromise.

After having served 22 years as governor, Luis Durnwalder, known as "State Luis" and "the eternal Durni," finds this notion horrifying. "South Tyrol also has to do its part to overcome the crisis," he says, after a meeting with Prime Minister Monti in Rome. "We are still traveling on the same ship as Italy. The only difference is that we South Tyroleans are first-class passengers."

Could Italy fracture along a north-south divide?  It's an interesting question in the context of a European Union that is experiencing a similar dynamic over the Euro crisis with Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal in trouble.   There has been some speculation that the impacts of climate change, already hard felt in the Mediterranean EU countries,  could also trigger a north-south split.

Could Irish Voters Scuttle Europe's Austerity Madness?

The Irish public may be charting the next round in the battle over European austerity politics.   The coalition government in Dublin reluctantly yielded to overwhelming public pressure demanding a referendum on the latest Eurozone fiscal treaty.

Former Citibank senior international economist Michael Burke writes that angry Europeans are turning on their austerity-minded governments and with good reason.

It is hardly surprising that "austerity" is unpopular. It is nothing other than a transfer of incomes from labour and the poor to capital and the rich. One of the greatest fallacies of the current crisis is that "there is no money left". This is wholly untrue. Companies are sitting on cash mountains all across Europe. And the profit share of national income has risen. This is why stock markets are rising – corporate incomes (profits) are rising.

In some cases, such as Ireland, the total level of profits is rising, even while household incomes are declining and the slump in business investment actually exceeds the total contraction in GDP.

 All recent history suggests that Irish voters will come under intense pressure to vote yes. They will be accused of wrecking the euro if they vote no, and that all sorts of calamities will follow.

But those wrecking the European economy and potentially the euro are the politicians who allow capital to flow freely within the eurozone when it is allocated by bondholders, and refuse to allow the state to reallocate capital on the basis of what is economically rational.

...in return for bailing out Greece's creditors, the troika of EU, ECB and IMF insist only on more austerity, that is, more transfer of incomes from labour to capital. The treaty provides a clampdown on "structural deficits" whose nebulous existence allows unelected technocrats to impose any cuts they can get away with. Of course this will apply to all countries adopting the treaty. In this way, "austerity" will become the norm in the core as well as the periphery.

Yet these policies clearly aren't working and now the talk is of setting Greece loose, having imposed a policy of reparations that harks back to Versailles.

If Irish voters do reject the treaty, they will be performing a great service to the population of Europe. It could mark a turning point in the EU and beyond, pulling the brake on the austerity express before it hits the buffers.

...In Ireland, political circumstances mean there is a possibility of a real political blow against the disastrous and undemocratic policies that have been pursued since the crisis began. A yes vote means the continuation of the nightmare. A no vote would be a blow in favour of all the victims of austerity and for all democrats across Europe.

European Disunion. Is the EU Experiment Failing?

Can the European Union survive or is it doomed to become another failed experiment?


Europe increasingly appears to be fracturing along a north-south line. In an item called "PIIGS to the Slaughter, Asia Times' Spengler says northern Europeans have about had it with the south:


"To paraphrase a Wall Street adage: bulls make money, bears make money, and PIIGS get slaughtered. Of course I'm referring to Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain. Germany won't bail them out again.

Germans work. The country's unemployment rate stands at 7.5%, against an average of 13% for Europe's so-called PIIGS. Those are heavily massaged estimates from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). More revealing is a comparison of youth unemployment, now at 10% in Germany. By contrast, as Doug Saunders observed in the July 16 Globe and Mail, "The under-30 unemployment rate in Spain has just hit 44 per cent, twice the adult rate. Italy also has passed the 40 per cent mark, and Greece has gone even further. If you count all the people who've given up looking, it means the number of people between 20 and 30 who have any form of employment in these countries is something like one in five."


...Thrifty, hard-working Germans in May bailed out dissolute, corrupt, feckless, spendthrift and lazy Greeks, Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese. That, at least, is how it appears to the German public. The German term welsch refers to anyone from lands to the east or south of Germany. Martin Luther quoted the proverb Deutsche Treue, welsche Tucke, or "German honesty, welsche perfidy". The German word for "gibberish" is Kauderwelsch, that is, trader's pidgin from France or Italy.


... Failing demographics underlying an expensive welfare state make the European Union (EU) a failing proposition. It is a loser's game in which the most benefits accrue to the weakest, and that is a game that Germany simply cannot afford to play. Politically, the EU is the child of the Cold War, bringing the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into a free-trade zone and eventually a currency union. America's strategic mistakes under the George W Bush administration and strategic withdrawal under the Barack Obama administration have left Germany with less political reason to adhere to Europe.


Another voice predicting hard times ahead for the European Union is Gwynne Dyer. He sees global warming as driving the wedge between the temperate north and Europe's increasingly distressed Mediterranean south. In Dyer's view, the northern countries may have little appetite for the burden of helping the south, sharing water, and absorbing masses of climate migrants from Greece, Italy, Spain and southern France.