| European stocks surge on Johnson election triumph, US trade deal Posted: 13 Dec 2019 04:25 PM PST  New York (AFP) - London stocks and the British pound jumped Friday after an election triumph for Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson that analysts said will bring clarity to Brexit proceedings and unlock stronger economic growth.
|
| Democrats pick over Labour loss in UK as Biden warns of moving 'so far' left Posted: 13 Dec 2019 04:10 PM PST  Frontrunner Biden says Labour disaster shows Democrats should avoid selecting leftwing nominee – but others disagreeLabour's crushing defeat in the British general election ignited instant debate among Democrats in the US, with 2020 election frontrunner Joe Biden framing it as a warning to the party against moving too far left.While the Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson, is often compared to Donald Trump, some also see parallels between the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a 70-year-old socialist, and left-wing senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, aged 78 and 70 respectively.Speaking at a campaign fundraiser in San Francisco, Biden, the former vice-president, said: "Look what happens when the Labour party moves so, so far to the left. It comes up with ideas that are not able to be contained within a rational basis quickly."You're also going to see people saying, my God, Boris Johnson, who is kind of a physical and emotional clone of the president, is able to win."Others cautioned against over-extrapolation, noting the deep policy and structural differences between US and British politics. Corbyn was wrestling with Brexit's defining role at the ballot and lingering allegations of antisemitism that helped lead to his party's massive defeat. Many US commentators pointed out that even Johnson is to the left of most American politicians on issues such as healthcare and the climate crisis.Waleed Shahid, communications director for the leftist Justice Democrats, wrote on Twitter: "Many of the "radical" policies of Sanders + Warren are already in place in the UK. Boris is basically left of Bernie on health care! I do think leftists (& liberals!) can overestimate tactics like canvassing when there's a rightwing press hellbent on destroying the opposition."But Biden's view was endorsed by Al From, founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, who handpicked Bill Clinton to lead the party's 1990s revival from the centre ground. "It seems to me that the lesson from Great Britain is if you go off the rails to the left too far, people aren't going to be willing to have you go back on the track," he said.Michael Bloomberg, a latecomer to the 2020 race, also chimed in, calling Corbyn's loss a "clear warning" for Democrats hoping to unseat Trump.The defeat of Corbyn, particularly in traditional Labour working-class areas, demonstrates that choosing Sanders or Warren to take on Trump in 2020 would be folly, From added."I think they represent that danger. Jeremy Corbyn has a lot more despicable characteristics than either of them, but I do think that they represent an ideology that is going to be hard for a lot of American swing voters to accept, and that's a danger."It's important for the Democrats to make sure that this election is a referendum on President Trump because if it's a referendum on Trump, he'll go down, and not allow him or circumstances - like our choice of Democratic candidate - to make it a contest where it's basically as much of a referendum on the Democratic candidate as it is on Trump."From was among several US commentators who drew a distinction between Twitter talk and reality, mimicking a debate playing out in Britain."The Twitter world gave a picture that was a lot different from the real political world. That's a big problem in our case. Rank-and-file Democrats are a lot less liberal, a lot more worried about things like political correctness. I gather that a lot of young people in the Labour party thought they were going to really do well because of what they read on Twitter. It turns out that everybody who votes doesn't fly on Twitter."Another centrist Democratic contender, former congressman John Delaney, described Johnson's victory as a "wake-up call" for the party."Johnson proved that mainstream voters will not embrace an extreme economic plan that will cause upheaval, just because they are not fans of the conservative leader," he said.A struggle between the moderate and progressive wings of the party is well under way in the Democratic primary. The latter took away very different lessons from overnight events in Britain.Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a grassroots organization that has endorsed Warren, said: "The biggest lesson from the UK is that when running against someone with a brash personality like Trump, we need someone confident in their worldview to fight strength with strength.""Elizabeth Warren confidently led the field on impeachment and popular ideas like a wealth tax to fund other popular ideas like universal childcare and student debt relief. She has clearly made fighting systemic corruption and putting the government on the side of everyday people instead of powerful corporate interests at the centerpiece of her campaign – a theme that resonates with Democrats, independents and Republicans."Glenn Greenwald, a journalist at the Intercept, tweeted: "How come Corbyn's defeat in Brexit-complicating UK proves the left can't win in US, but the stunning victory by Argentina's leftist Fernandez/Kirchner ticket doesn't show undiluted leftism is necessary to win? Maybe people are manipulating inapplicable results for their own ends?"He added: "If you're going to exploit foreign election outcomes to try to bolster your own ideological preferences in the US, try not to be so glaringly selective in how you do it. The left is winning in many places; you need to grapple with those victories, too."Neil Sroka, spokesman for the progressive group Democracy for America, pointed out that US politicians would probably use the British results to bolster their own argument.He said: "Number one, everybody overnight becomes a comparative politics expert. Number two, anyone who says that there are direct lessons about what's going to happen in the 2020 US election based on what happened in 2019 has an agenda that they're trying to sell you."It makes sense that Joe Biden wants to try to make that argument. I don't think it will be very effective here in the United States writ large. It shouldn't be convincing to anyone who actually knows anything about electoral politics in the United States and electoral politics in the United Kingdom."And Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior adviser to Clinton, observed: "Johnson overwhelmingly won the Commons. Trump cannot win the House back and it is very likely the Democrats will increase their majority and I think very likely the Democrats will pick up Senate seats and possibly win the Senate."If Trump hangs on, it will be nothing like a Boris Johnson Tory triumph that we've just seen and so the Democratic party is not going to suffer the kind of internal and external collapse that the Labour party has."
|
| Icy silence, frayed connections: Impeachment takes a toll Posted: 13 Dec 2019 03:02 PM PST  The most raucous committee in Congress sat stone-faced, barely speaking. The all-business iciness during those eight gavel-to-gavel minutes reflected the gravity of advancing articles of impeachment to the House floor for only the third time in American history. Ever since Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president sparked official proceedings against the president, impeachment has been a force that's bent congressional business around it, with severe strain.
|
| Federal prisoner found guilty on terror charges for 2nd time Posted: 13 Dec 2019 01:57 PM PST ![Federal prisoner found guilty on terror charges for 2nd time]( "Federal prisoner found guilty on terror charges for 2nd time") An East African man imprisoned in Texas for terrorism was convicted Friday of trying to recruit fellow prisoners to join the Islamic State group and plan attacks in the United States, federal prosecutors announced. A jury found Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed, 45, guilty of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and making a false statement to the FBI after a seven-day trial, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of Texas. In 2013, a federal judge in New York sentenced Ahmed, an Ethiopian national born in Eretria, to more than nine years in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to support terrorism.
|
| UN official: Chilean police abused protester's human rights Posted: 13 Dec 2019 01:01 PM PST  A U.N. human rights report released Friday accused Chilean security forces of serious human rights violations against protesters over the past two months, including deaths, torture, sexual abuse and the use of excessive force. The report was released by the U.N. Human Rights Office, which is headed by former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet — a domestic political rival of current President Sebastián Piñera. The high commissioner's report, which drew push-back from Chilean officials, urged the government to allow its citizens to peacefully demonstrate without being physically harmed.
|
| Why the Next North Korea Crisis May Bring Less Fire, Less Fury Posted: 13 Dec 2019 01:00 PM PST  (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Donald Trump is trading insults with Kim Jong-un, North Korea is launching missiles and no one's talking about disarmament. It's beginning to feel like the days of "fire and fury" are here again.Or maybe not. While Kim's nuclear arsenal is believed to have only grown more dangerous in the two years since Trump last threatened to "totally destroy" the country, the geopolitical landscape has shifted in ways that may make the brinkmanship of 2017 less attractive to both men.For starters, a series of dovish moves by Trump -- including canceling a strike on Iran and withdrawing troops from Syria -- have undercut his threats of military action. Kim, meanwhile, must be careful he's not so provocative that he prompts more sanctions or loses the diplomatic profile he gained during his unprecedented detente with Trump.So, despite Kim's warning he'll take a "new path" if Trump doesn't make a better offer in nuclear talks by the end of the year, he faces largely the same dilemma he has for most of 2019. How can he raise enough pressure on Trump to force a concession, without becoming an international pariah again?"It's neither in the U.S.'s nor North Korea's interests to cross each other's red line," said Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. "Trump would have to take measures that aren't necessarily politically beneficial for him, and North Korea knows that it won't be able to tolerate the response measures either."For more than two years, North Korea has refrained from testing nuclear bombs or missiles capable of carrying them to the U.S. mainland -- something Trump touts as a key first-term achievement. The region has been bracing for an end to that lull since the president walked away from his second face-to-face meeting with Kim in February and North Korea kicked off what became a record year of shorter-range rocket tests.In recent days, the rhetoric has turned personal again, with Trump reviving his "Rocket Man" nickname for Kim and a top North Korean official dismissing the U.S. president as a "heedless and erratic old man." North Korea has said it was preparing a choice of "Christmas" gifts for Trump, with Kim expected to announce his judgment at an upcoming meeting of the Workers' Party in Pyongyang.Kelly Craft, the U.S.'s ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council on Wednesday that she saw "deeply troubling indications" that North Korea was poised for a major provocation, including an ICBM test or space launch. Trump's top envoy for nuclear talks, Stephen Biegun, is expected to arrive Sunday in Seoul for what will likely be the U.S.'s last chance to dial back tensions before the new year.Trump has so far played down North Korea's warnings, saying in a tweet that Kim was "too smart and has far too much to lose" to renew hostility with the U.S. A serious provocation would put more strain on the Republican leader during an election year, as Democrats seek to portray him as destabilizing to global security and too accommodating of autocrats like Kim.Still, North Korea has more rungs to climb before conducting its seventh nuclear test or launching its first ICBM since November 2017. First, Kim could simply announce that he was rescinding his moratorium on such tests -- an intermediate step North Korea has taken before scrapping previous freezes."They will up the ante, but will calibrate it just enough so that the talks won't totally break down," said Yasuyo Sakata, a professor at Kanda University of International Studies. "The red line is that they cannot do a real intercontinental ballistic-missile test. But they can do satellite tests, for example."North Korea may have also signaled lesser potential provocations, including by conducting a Dec. 7 engine test at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground. South Korea sees a possibility of North Korea launching a satellite on a ballistic-missile class projectile before Christmas, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said this week, citing an unidentified government source.Kim could also fire an intermediate-range missile over U.S. ally Japan, something he last did in September 2017. Earlier this month, a North Korean diplomat released a statement warning that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may see a ballistic missile "in the not distant future and under his nose."North Korea must take care not to alienate Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin, who both wield Security Council vetoes and advocate sanctions relief for it. Xi in particular doesn't want trouble that may blow back across China's border with North Korea, including the threat of a regional war with the U.S. or American sanctions against Chinese banks."No matter what we do, it should be conducive to reducing tension, to promoting dialogue, and thus prevent from falling back into confrontation," Zhang Jun, China's ambassador to the UN, told reporters after the Security Council meeting last week.There are some advantages for Kim in raising the heat on Trump through 2020, including demonstrating weapons technology that will better deter any U.S. invasion and establish North Korea as a nuclear state. He has likely found enough ways around international sanctions to keep his economy stable for the time being, UN observers have said.In the long run though, Kim probably needs to get out from under the sanctions if he wants to develop the industrial and tourism projects he promotes almost daily in state media. And he's unlikely to find a better U.S. negotiating partner than Trump, who has defied convention by meeting him and showering him with praise."It is possible that North Korea wants to regroup while the U.S. presidential election plays out," said Naoko Aoki, an adjunct political scientist at RAND Corp. "That may mean increasing and improving its nuclear and missile arsenal, and then negotiating from what it may consider a position of increased leverage."To contact the reporters on this story: Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo at ireynolds1@bloomberg.net;Jihye Lee in Seoul at jlee2352@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Shamim AdamFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Pompeo warns Iran of 'decisive response' if harm in Iraq Posted: 13 Dec 2019 12:58 PM PST  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday warned Iran of a "decisive" response if US interests are harmed in Iraq, after a series of rocket attacks on bases. "We must... use this opportunity to remind Iran's leaders that any attacks by them, or their proxies of any identity, that harm Americans, our allies or our interests will be answered with a decisive US response," Pompeo said in a statement. "Iran must respect the sovereignty of its neighbors and immediately cease its provision of lethal aid and support to third parties in Iraq and throughout the region," he said.
|
| Trump has told the same story about a Jewish friend 4 times — and always changes their name Posted: 13 Dec 2019 12:55 PM PST ![Trump has told the same story about a Jewish friend 4 times — and always changes their name]( "Trump has told the same story about a Jewish friend 4 times — and always changes their name") President Trump has at least three Jewish friends. He just asks them all the same questions.On at least four occasions over the past few months, Trump has pulled out a story where he's purportedly asking a friend which of his administration's moves have been bigger for the Jewish people. The friend always gives the same answer — but Trump changes the name of who he's talking to each time, The Washington Post reports."Charlie, let me ask you what's bigger for the Jewish people," Trump recalled asking Charles Kushner, the disgraced real estate developer and father of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, at a Hanukkah event on Wednesday. "Giving the embassy to Jerusalem" and recognizing it as Israel's capital or supporting Israel's sovereignty in the disputed Golan Heights. "Neither," Kushner apparently replied. "The biggest thing of all is what you did by ending the Iran nuclear catastrophe."Yet just a few hours earlier, Trump told nearly the same story, this time involving the even shiftier New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. A few days earlier, it was Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson who Trump asked about Israeli accomplishments. And back in September, it was a nondescript "people" who told him they loved his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.Read the full accounts or watch them mashed up side-by-side at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com Trump's pathological obsession with being laughed at The most important day of the impeachment inquiry Jerry Falwell Jr.'s false gospel of memes
|
| UN talks deadlocked, detached from climate emergency Posted: 13 Dec 2019 12:55 PM PST  United Nations climate negotiations were deadlocked deep into overtime Friday with even the best-case outcome likely to fall well short of what science says is needed to avert a future ravaged by global warming. The COP25 summit in Madrid arrives on the heels of climate-related disasters across the planet, including unprecedented cyclones, deadly droughts and record-setting heatwaves. "We must show the world that we are capable of delivering the agreements that are needed to tackle the unprecedented challenge before us," he said.
|
| UN can't confirm weapons used in Saudi attacks were Iranian Posted: 13 Dec 2019 11:43 AM PST ![UN can't confirm weapons used in Saudi attacks were Iranian]( "UN can't confirm weapons used in Saudi attacks were Iranian") The U.N. chief said in a report to the council obtained Friday by The Associated Press that the U.N. also can't confirm that the missiles and drones were transferred from Iran "in a manner inconsistent" with the Security Council resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six key countries. The United States has blamed Iran for the attacks.
|
| Brazilians arrive in waves at the US-Mexico border Posted: 13 Dec 2019 11:28 AM PST  Growing up along the U.S.-Mexico border, hotel clerk Joe Luis Rubio never thought he'd be trying to communicate in Portuguese on a daily basis. The quiet migration of around 17,000 Brazilians through a single U.S. city in the past year reveals a new frontier in the Trump administration's effort to shut down the legal immigration pathway for people claiming fear of persecution. Like hundreds of thousands of families from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, known collectively as the Northern Triangle, Brazilians have been crossing the border here and applying for asylum.
|
| Fox News incandescent after Angela Merkel crowned world's most powerful woman over Ivanka Trump Posted: 13 Dec 2019 11:27 AM PST  Donald Trump's favourite Fox News show has hit out at a listing of the world's most powerful women for placing German chancellor Angela Merkel in first place while the president's daughter Ivanka was ranked 42nd.The Forbes listing of the world's most powerful women placed Germany's fourth-term leader and continental Europe's guiding force at the top of the listing after 14 years in power of one of the world's leading economies.
|
| ‘Marxist, Joke, Disgrace’: How Corbyn United Britain Against Him Posted: 13 Dec 2019 11:23 AM PST  LONDON—Jeremy Corbyn's radical left-wing experiment has been obliterated by the British public.The Labour leader limped to the party's most pathetic defeat since 1935 after publishing arguably the most socialist party platform in British history.Boris Johnson—a party leader widely viewed as elitist, dishonest, and out-of-touch—was swept to power by the very working-class communities that have cherished and sustained the Labour party since its foundation in 1900.Former Labour leader Michael Foot's radical manifesto of 1983 was once labeled "the longest suicide note in history," but his Labour party secured more parliamentary seats against Margaret Thatcher's Conservative party than Corbyn managed this week.Europe to U.K.: Leave if You Must but Do It FastWhat Do the UK Election Results Mean for Democrats? Nothing Very Good.Foot's defeat lead to a brutal battle for the soul of Labour that was eventually won by the moderate wing of the party, who chased out the most hardened left-wing members in a decade-long dispute that culminated in the election of Tony Blair as leader in 1994.Speaking just after 3 a.m. Friday in a North London sports center, Corbyn made the case that his radical proposals were widely popular and his project had been derailed by the animosity and split loyalties riled up by Brexit, not because the party must move back towards the mainstream.He hopes to stay on as party leader long enough to oversee the election of one of his Corbynista protégés. If he truly wanted to advance the cause of Labour's left-wing tradition, he would stand down immediately. The last thing any new Labour leader needs is the endorsement of Jeremy Corbyn.The outgoing Labour leader is the most unpopular British party leader since polling began.One only needed to spend a few hours in Labour's heartlands in North Wales, the Midlands, and the North-East to experience the stunning level of distrust—and even disgust—for the Londoner.Life-long Labour voters opened their doors to The Daily Beast this week and poured scorn on a man they described as "weak," "a Marxist," "a joke," and "a disgrace."It is true that some of this disdain in 'Leave' voting areas flowed from Corbyn's tortuous progress towards making Labour an anti-Brexit party. But that was only one factor cited in a torrent of abuse directed at the hapless leader.Even in Labour target seats in the anti-Brexit London suburbs, former Labour loyalists said they could not bring themselves to vote for a man who has spent his entire adult life campaigning alongside anti-Western activists associated with Hamas, Hezbollah, and opponents of Israel, some of whom have been accused of anti-Semitism.Of the 2017 Labour voters who abandoned the party at this election by far the largest group (46 percent) said it was because they "don't like Jeremy Corbyn," according to a Deltapoll of 12,000 members. Next up was: "Don't believe manifesto promises."Voters in Labour seats like Leigh in the suburbs of Manchester, where the Conservatives were elected for the first time since the district was created in 1885, were simply not willing to allow Corbynism into No. 10.Corbyn says the process to replace him will begin in the new year. If his successor is to achieve power, they must be able to unite the party membership—many of whom joined the party to support Corbyn—while not alienating the rest of the country.That will be incredibly difficult. Corbyn's supporters in the Parliamentary Labour Party and outside sought to defend the left from the election fallout as soon as the devastating exit poll dropped on Thursday night. Hundreds of thousands of party members have bought into the Corbyn narrative and moderate candidates will have to convince them to change direction in order to secure nationwide support if they are to have a chance of preventing a Corbynista from taking up the role. Corbyn's right-hand man John McDonnell—who often refers to himself as a Marxist—has ruled himself out of the running, saying that the party needs to look to a younger generation.One of the Corbynistas' most loyal followers and brightest hopes was Laura Pidcock, but she lost a seat that had been held by Labour since 1950 in Thursday's election.That leaves Corbyn acolytes and avowed left-wingers such as Rebecca Long-Bailey and Richard Burgon to try and fight off the inevitable challenges from more moderate rivals like Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer or, even further towards the right of the party, Jess Philips.The internal spin battle to explain Labour's crushing defeat will only intensify in the coming weeks, but whoever emerges must be able to present a clear break from Corbynism if they are to re-engage with a country that has turned its back.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
| Trump calls impeachment vote 'embarrassment' to nation Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:53 AM PST  President Donald Trump declared Friday's House committee vote to impeach him "an embarrassment to our country" and refused to back away from the charge that first ensnared him in the scandal. Almost simultaneous to the vote, Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, turned up at the White House to discuss Ukraine. With a vote by the full House expected next week, Trump declared in the Oval Office that the Democrats had "made absolute fools of themselves" by moving ahead with impeachment.
|
| The real warning in Labour's crushing defeat Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:50 AM PST ![The real warning in Labour's crushing defeat]( "The real warning in Labour's crushing defeat") Boris Johnson's historic victory on Thursday was his own. He purged the party of die-hard Remain heel-diggers, set the agenda of "get Brexit done," and won, tearing the heartland out of the Labour coalition and earning the largest Tory majority since 1987.But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's loss was also his own. Labour's 202 seats in the newly elected parliament will mark the weakest representation for the party since 1935. Labour hemorrhaged support, shedding over 2.5 million voters and 7.8 percentage points of the popular vote — and those voters fled in all directions, some staying home, some going to the Tories, and some going to the Liberal Democrats, who though they lost seats increased their share of the popular vote by over 4 percentage points.Corbyn has already said that he will not lead his party into the next election, but the future of Corbynism remains up in the air. And American Democrats are already debating the question of whether Corbyn's debacle holds lessons — and warnings — for them.Center-left pundit Jonathan Chait fired an early shot, collecting a variety of left-leaning writers who lionized Corbyn, made analogies to the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, and called on Democrats to embrace a sharp shift to the left. The U.K. election was "a test of a widely articulated political theory ... that Corbyn's populist left-wing platform is both necessary and sufficient in order to defeat the rising nationalist right," Chait said. "Corbyn's crushing defeat is a decisive refutation." Left-wing Sanders voters and their ilk should now abandon this theory, he concluded, and embrace the need for moderation.But American left-wingers glommed on to Corbyn for a reason: Though he fell short of victory, he led a surprisingly successful election campaign in 2017. Corbyn won 262 seats in that election, a gain of 30, and fully 40 percent of the popular vote. That's nearly the percentage that Tony Blair won in his 2001 victory. And he didn't win it by running as Tony Blair; he won it by running as Jeremy Corbyn. Moreover, Americans already tried defeating a right-wing populist-nationalist by running an establishment center-left candidate. Why should we blithely assume Joe Biden would do better than Hillary Clinton?So are there any lessons to be learned from Corbyn's collapse? I believe there are — but they aren't as simple as tacking to the left or the center.What changed from 2017 to 2019? One difference is that in 2017 Corbyn was a fresh face generating new enthusiasm from a previously moribund base. Party membership had swelled and there was a sense of momentum and change. But the larger difference was the context of his contest. Theresa May was an uninspiring leader who carried the baggage of a deeply unpopular Tory austerity program, and who was trying to split the baby on Brexit in a way that was unpopular with everyone. That gave Corbyn an opening. In a way, his surprising strength in 2017 was more akin to Trump's strength in 2016 — the fringe insurgent animating new voters and scaring the establishment — and Theresa May more like Hillary Clinton, trying to appease the backbench Brexiteers as Clinton tried to appease the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, but failing to excite enthusiasm thereby.In 2019, by contrast, Johnson was running on a clear program of getting Brexit done and ending the gridlock of a hung parliament. But he was also running against the austerity of the Cameron/May years. Corbyn, meanwhile, couldn't take a clear position on Brexit because of divisions in his camp on the subject, which opened up space for the Liberal Democrats to be the party of Remain and the vehicle for anxiety about Corbyn's extremism.The Tories moved to the right on the key national question at issue — Brexit — and to the center on economic matters. But they didn't run as Nigel Farage-style "little England" reactionaries, but as "one nation" conservatives. They co-opted a populist issue, but folded it into a much more centrist overall stance. That put them in a significantly more popular place than where they were before. And what did Corbyn's Labour do in response? They moved to the left across the board, not just on core questions of economics and social welfare. Their stance on immigration, for example, was extremely left-wing, effectively abolishing the distinction between citizen and resident and embracing freedom of movement even with non-EU nations. This move was driven not so much by Corbyn but by the views of party activists, who took the party leftward on a host of other issues as well. Even discounting Corbyn's problems with antisemitism, or his past support for the I.R.A., the platform his party ran on cannot be fairly described as a "one nation" campaign document.The consequence wasn't just a historic loss, but a catastrophic reduction of the Labour coalition in geographic terms, which makes it much harder to convert votes to seats. And this reduction was already evident in 2017. In that election, Corbyn won 262 seats with 40 percent of the popular vote. In 2001, Tony Blair won only slightly more votes — 40.7 percent — but won a huge majority of 413 seats. In 2005, Blair won 355 seats with 35.2 percent of the vote, and in 2010 Gordon Brown won 258 seats with 29 percent of the vote. This week, Corbyn was only able to squeeze 202 seats out of his 32.2 percent vote share.There are multiple factors at play in that change — the rise of Scottish nationalism, for example, and the shifting positioning of the Liberal Democrats — but a quick glance at the electoral map reveals the result: Labour is reduced to a few islands of red in a sea of blue. That's a map that should look all too disturbingly familiar to American Democrats.And the lesson to Democrats should be similarly plain. Though the right sometimes can, the left cannot win on the basis of divide and conquer. They cannot move to the left on every issue simultaneously, and they cannot run a campaign that actively alienates voters who live outside the major metropolitan areas. To win a hearing on any issues where they do want to move left, they have to earn the trust that they will stand for, and listen to, the entire nation, not just the portion of it that is culturally congenial.That doesn't rule out moving to the left — even sharply — on specific issues. A left-wing candidate could also be a cultural uniter. A cultural conservative like Ross Douthat can express a higher degree of comfort with Sanders than might be expected, even though Sanders is very liberal on cultural issues, simply because Sanders shows little personal enthusiasm for dividing the country along culture war lines. But Sanders himself has been pulled even further leftward by his party's activist wing on a host of issues — including immigration — that inspire distrust among more culturally conservative but economically receptive voters, much as Corbyn was. If that remains the pattern, Democrats should worry that history might repeat itself.Donald Trump is not going to run as Boris Johnson. He's going to run a relentlessly divisive, base-animating campaign, just as he as governed. That gives the Democrats an opening — if they will take it. The lesson of the U.K. election is that neither left-wing populism nor centrist technocracy is sufficient to defeat right-wing populism. What is needed is a "one-nation" liberalism that aims to heal rather than excite our cultural divisions, a liberal nationalism that stands for the country that actually exists, but as a nation, and promises to move it forward together.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Trump's pathological obsession with being laughed at The most important day of the impeachment inquiry Jerry Falwell Jr.'s false gospel of memes
|
| Judge's decision may shine light on secret Trump-Putin meeting notes Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:49 AM PST  A district court judge in Washington, D.C. has ordered administration lawyers to explain why, for more than two years, the White House has refused to turn over to the State Department an interpreter's notes from a meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
|
| Bullets and blackout: inside four days of killing in Iran Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:46 AM PST  Pouya Bakhtiari could barely contain his excitement as he sat in gridlocked traffic on the motorway between Tehran and his home city of Karaj. The 27-year-old Iranian engineer filmed on his mobile as motorists parked their cars in the middle of the busy roadway to protest a sudden hike in petrol prices pushed through by the government. Other drivers may have been frustrated but Pouya was thrilled by the open display of defiance against Iran's rulers. "People, don't miss this opportunity. Once and for all let's destroy this criminal and corrupt regime," he told the camera. As the minutes dragged on and the traffic did not budge, Pouya turned his phone towards the setting sun. "Here is a gorgeous sunset. I wish a better sunrise for the people of Iran," he said happily. Pouya would never see another sunrise. Hours after filming the video on November 16, he joined a protest in the streets of Karaj with his mother and sister. The family was separated in the crowd and as his mother searched for him she saw a group of men lifting a body from the street. Pouya had been struck in the head with a bullet fired by a member of Iran's security forces. He died soon after. Pouya Bakhtiari was killed on November 16 "His mind was filled with love for Iran but this regime is against this type of mind," Pouya's father, Manouchehr Bakhtiari, told The Daily Telegraph. "They do not want these minds to work for our country. They want them destroyed by bullets." Pouya was one of more than 200 people killed in four days of intense violence from November 15-18 as Iran's government brutally suppressed protests in almost every corner of the country. The unrest was the deadliest in the 40-year history of the Islamic Republic and saw security forces move far more aggressively than other recent protests. When protesters took to the streets in 2009 over a rigged election, 72 people were killed over the course of seven months. Approximately two dozen were killed in 2017-2018 during mass demonstrations over the economy. This time Iran's Revolutionary Guard and its allies resorted to far greater bloodshed in far less time. Yet the world knew little of what was going on as Iranian forces opened fire. Beginning on November 16, Iran's government imposed a plan years in the making to cut off the internet. Protesters could no longer use services like WhatsApp to coordinate with each other or share information with the outside world. اینجا جوانرود؛ ماموران امنیتی از بالای ساختمان دادگستری به معترضان شلیک کردند. کاوه رضایی یکی از معترضانی است که با تیر مستقیم این ماموران مقابل دادگستری کشته شده. منابع محلی میگویند دستکم ۷ نفر در اعتراضهای ۲۵ آبان در جوانرود کشته شدهاند. بنزینpic.twitter.com/9SsLz729AV— POOYA JAHANDAR (@POOYAJAHANDAR) November 17, 2019 It was only when the internet restrictions were eased a week later that the scale of the killings started to become apparent. "When the internet came back I was bombarded with videos of shootings and killings in the streets. They're heartbreaking," said Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and opposition activist living in exile. The exact death toll remains unknown but Amnesty International says it has verified the deaths of 208 people and the final tally is likely higher. Iran's government is working hard to obscure the details of what happened. It has released no official death toll and threatened Iranians who speak to international media. Families are told they will only get their loved ones' bodies back if they promise to hold private funerals that cannot escalate into fresh protests. Some families have been forced to pay what is known as "bullet money" - a fee that authorities charge before returning the bodies. Around 7,000 people are believed to have been arrested and remain in detention. The interior ministry has acknowledged protests broke out in all but two of Iran's 31 provinces. The Iranian regime is under intense pressure from US sanctions which have choked off oil sales and severely damaged the economy. Hardliners and relative moderates within the regime appear united behind the crackdown and the belief that the protests were part of a covert American-led effort to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused the protesters of being US-backed agents Credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP, File Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, justified the violence with the familiar accusation that protests were a "dangerous deep conspiracy" by foreign powers. Hassan Rouhani, the president, struck the same note by calling protesters "mercenaries" and "hooligans" backed by the US. "This is a system that perceives itself to be under siege," said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group. "They don't see Trump's maximum pressure strategy as just economic warfare, they believe it also has a covert dimension. At the end of the day they are all in the same boat and preserving the Islamic Republic is a common goal among both the hardliners and the moderates." A spokesman for the Iranian embassy in London sent links to several articles in pro-government media alleging that the protesters had been killed by foreign adversaries and suggested that the internet blackout was the work of the US. Petrol then protest Iran's petrol is among the cheapest in the world. Motorists paid just 10,000 rials (6 pence) per litre at the pump - one-twentieth the price in the UK. The tiny cost encouraged smugglers to buy petrol in Iran and sell it for a handsome profit in neighbouring Turkey or Afghanistan. The government had been weighing whether to raise prices but the issue took on a fresh urgency as tax revenues shrank and US sanctions drove down oil sales. At the stroke of midnight on Friday, November 15 authorities announced a price hike of 50 per cent to 15,000 rials a litre. Fuel price rises have led to demonstrations many times in the past and the government was expecting public anger. But none could have predicted the scale of the backlash. Protests broke out Friday night in several cities including Mashad, Ahvaz and Sirjan. Demonstrators blocked streets and in some cases attempted to set fire to petrol stations. "Petrol prices went up, the poor just got poorer," crowds chanted. By Saturday morning the demonstrations had reached Tehran and protesters had a new tactic. They parked cars in the middle of the road to grind traffic to a halt. The Imam Ali motorway, a major road in eastern Tehran, was paralysed as motorists got out from behind the wheel and chatted in the street. Blocs of traffic were appearing across the country and demonstrators used Waze to find the protest nearest to them. Protesters blocked roads with their parked cars Credit: Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA Police were flummoxed as to how to re-open the roads. One video verified by Amnesty International shows police in riot gear smashing car windows and wing mirrors to try to force the drivers to get moving. It was quickly becoming clear that what started as a protest over fuel was spilling into a general outpouring of anger against the Iranian government. Standing on a bridge overlooking one of the traffic protests, a woman ripped off the white hijab she is forced to wear under Iranian law. "Because of dishonourable Khamenei we have lost everything," she cried, waving the hijab over her head. "We have have suffered for 40 years. Death to Khamenei." Drivers in the road below broke into applause next to their parked cars. On the third day of IranProtests, watch this brave Iranian woman remove her compulsory hijab on a bridge & challenge Iran's dictators. "We've suffered for 40 years" amid a crowd of protesting drivers and their applause. Iranian women are at the forefront of IranProtests. pic.twitter.com/fDPm3LqKLd— Masih Alinejad ��️ (@AlinejadMasih) November 18, 2019 As the sun went down on Saturday, the same sunset that Pouya Bakhtiari watched from a traffic jam west of Tehran, two things changed: the protests became bloodier and the internet was almost entirely shut off. "We know they shut the internet down because they didn't want the world to see what they were doing," said Nassim Papayianni, senior campaigner on Iran at Amnesty International. The crackdown that followed was captured in a collage of horror on mobile phone videos. Pouya's body lying on a slab in a Karaj morgue with part of his skull blown off. A government sniper firing at protesters from the roof of a justice ministry building in the western city of Javanroud. Soldiers shooting out of a helicopter as it flew over a crowd in Shiraz. The youngest person known to have been killed was Nikta Esfandani, a 14-year-old girl shot in the head in Tehran on November 16. Friends said she loved music and joined a theatre club at school. Authorities reportedly waived the "bullet money" for her family because she was so young. Nikta Esfandani, 14, was one of the youngest people killed in the protests While protesters attacked government buildings and hurled rocks at police, there is little evidence they used weapons or posed any serious threat to heavily-armed security forces. "There are conflicting reports about whether or not there were one or more armed people among the protestors," said Michelle Bachelet, the UN human rights chief. "But this does not in any way justify such an indiscriminate, horrifying and deadly reaction by the security forces." Leila Vaseghi, one of Iran's only female governors, said at a press conference that she had ordered security forces to kill anyone who approached her offices, regardless of whether they were armed. "I ordered the guards that if any protester attempted to enter the building they must shoot them," she said. One of the bloodiest incidents took place on November 18 in Mahshahr, a predominantly Arab city near the border with Iraq. According to the New York Times, Revolutionary Guard forces exchanged fire with armed Arab residents and then pushed them back into a marsh area. Up to 100 people may have been killed as the Guardsmen raked the marsh with bullets. Mobile phone footage from the scene shows government forces in pickup trucks with mounted machine guns and captures long bursts of automatic gunfire. Onlookers called out to the soldiers to stop shooting. A national internet For the last ten years Iran has been developing what it calls "a national internet". This meant building digital infrastructure so Iranian websites, messaging services, and banking platforms could be hosted on servers inside Iran rather in the US - giving Tehran far more control over their content. Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher at the Article 19 human rights group, said Iranian authorities have given different explanations of why the national internet was needed. Some said it would help in enforcing Iran's strict morality codes - including a ban on pornography - earning it the nickname "the halal internet". Others said that an internet largely hosted in Iran would be less vulnerable to US sanctions, therefore reducing Washington's economic leverage over the country. The full power of the national internet as a tool of government control became clear on November 16 when Tehran ordered Iranian internet service providers to shut down. Soon the country's internet connectivity was down to just 5 per cent of normal levels, according to Netblocks, a digital freedom group. Most of Iran's 81 million people were cut off from the outside world. Protesters in Tehran Credit: Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images Yet the blackout did not mean no internet at all. Foreign-hosted sites like BBC Persian and Iran International, which were reporting extensively on the protests, were inaccessible. But Iranian-hosted banking sites were still carrying out transactions and national hospitals were sending information. The government was able to block the international sites it found threatening but keep its own critical digital infrastructure up and running. "It meant Iranians couldn't use Whatsapp but they could connect to their bank accounts," said Ms Alimardani. Netblocks and the Internet Society estimate that the internet shutdown cost Iran's economy $370 million a day, a steep price for a country already on its economic knees. But the national internet had served its purpose: it stopped word of the violence getting out; it prevented protesters from coordinating on messaging apps; and it kept the economy from coming to a complete stop. When authorities finally restored access on November 23, the killing was over and the protests had been crushed. Iranians joked darkly that "God freed the internet", a play on a famous phrase from Ayatollah Khomenei who said "God freed Khorramshahr" from Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. More to come In the days that followed the crackdown, families searched for their loved ones in government morgues. Masih Alinjad, the opposition activist, said several families told her that authorities made them sign agreements in return for the corpses. They were ordered not to hold funerals or else to hold small ceremonies at night under the supervision of the security forces. "The Islamic Republic knows that funerals can easily turn into protests and they will do anything to prevent that from happening," Ms Alinejad. As she tracked the dead she realised that at least three of the young people who were killed had followed her on Instagram. While this round of protests has been crushed, none of the underlying sources of public anger have been addressed. "Without the implementation of major economic and political reforms I think there will be more frequent and more violent confrontations between the state and the society in coming months," said Mr Vaez. "In the context of growing tensions between Iran and the US, the Iranian leadership is in no mood to demonstrate any flexibility at home that could be interpreted as a sign of weakness abroad. Pouya Bakhtiari's grieving family have taken over his Instagram page where he once posted song lyrics and pictures of nature. They have turned it into a shrine for their son and a digital rallying point for other protesters. In defiance of the government, Mr Bakhtiari used an Instagram post to announce a traditional memorial service on January 5, 40 days after his son's death. Was Mr Bakhtiari, an army veteran who fought for his country in the Iran-Iraq war, worried that he would face reprisals from his government for speaking out? "What more damage could they do to me? They have killed my son and have left me and my family with nothing left in our lives," he replied. "But I will not remain silent. I am the voice of Pouya and his young Iranian compatriots. I will cry out for justice and freedom on his behalf and on behalf of the young people of Iran, on behalf of all the people of my beloved country, who will eventually bring these people to their defeat."
|
| Lebanon's Hezbollah insists on a coalition government Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:36 AM PST  The head of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group said Friday the best emergency government to deal with the country's worsening economic crisis is one that includes all political groups. Hassan Nasrallah's comments indicated there was no resolution yet on who should head an emergency government, two months after Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned Oct 29. Nasrallah's comments were also a rejection of a proposition put forward by political ally Gebran Bassil, who called for a government made up of experts and said he won't take part in one headed by Hariri.
|
| UN extends Palestinian refugee mission until 2023 Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:33 AM PST  The United Nations extended the work of its Palestinian refugee agency for another three years on Friday, despite fierce opposition from the United States and Israel. The current mandate was due to run out in June 2020 but 169 countries approved a renewal up to 2023 at the UN General Assembly, with the Americans and Israelis voting against and nine countries abstaining. The resolution approved on Friday "all donors to continue to strengthen their efforts to meet the anticipated needs of the agency" amid deteriorating socio-economic conditions in the Palestinian Territories.
|
| Shinzo Abe cancels Japan-India summit amid citizenship bill violence Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:14 AM PST  Japan's prime minister cancelled a planned summit in India after a second day of violent unrest over the enactment of a controversial new citizenship law. Clashes erupted between police and students in Delhi, a day after two people were shot dead in widespread protests in the north eastern state of Assam. Narendra Modi's government has said its Citizenship Amendment Bill, making it easier for non-Muslim minorities from neighbouring countries to gain India citizenship, will protect those persecuted from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But thousands protested in Assam fearing it would encourage a wave of migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. Elsewhere, the amendment has been criticised for undermining India's secular constitution, and pushing Mr Modi's Hindu first agenda, by not offering protection to Muslims. Two died in the Assam clashes when police fired on mobs torching buildings and attacking railway stations in protest. Shinzo Abe cancelled a trip to Assam scheduled for Sunday to highlight Japan's aid and development work in the state. "Both sides have decided to defer the visit to a mutually convenient date in the near future," Indian foreign ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said. Meanwhile police fired tear gas to disperse students demonstrating at Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia university. Protesters attacked cars in the capital, and several people were injured and taken to hospital. Zakir Riyaz, a PhD student in social work, said the new law made a mockery of India's religious openness. He told Reuters: "It goes against the whole idea of a secular India." Police barricades were knocked down in the clashes and streets were strewn with shoes and broken bricks. An official at the university dispensary said that more than 100 students had been brought in with injuries but all had been discharged. The United Nations human rights office voiced concern that the new law is "fundamentally discriminatory in nature", and called for it to be reviewed. Opposition parliamentarians have threatened to challenge the new law in court.
|
| Battle ahead: Scotland party leader vows independence push Posted: 13 Dec 2019 10:01 AM PST  Prime Minister Boris Johnson has won the majority he needs to push through Brexit, but he faces another big challenge from Scotland, where the independence-minded Scottish National Party and its leader Nicola Sturgeon have surged to a commanding position. WHO IS NICOLA STURGEON AND WHAT IS HER ROLE IN SCOTTISH POLITICS? The dynamic Sturgeon, 49, is leader of the Scottish National Party, which dominates the political scene, and as such she is Scotland's first minister.
|
| Rebecca Walser: British election results – What Boris Johnson, Brexit teach Democrats (and Trump) Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:59 AM PST  What began with the people's Brexit referendum in June 2016 that turned into a three-and-a-half-year quagmire has finally ended the right way – at the ballot box with the people's choice.
|
| Boris Johnson Gets Roars and Hugs While Opponent Faces Despair Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:56 AM PST ![Boris Johnson Gets Roars and Hugs While Opponent Faces Despair]( "Boris Johnson Gets Roars and Hugs While Opponent Faces Despair") (Bloomberg) -- Boris Johnson was momentarily stunned. The official U.K. election exit poll wasn't just predicting he would hold on to power, it put his Conservative Party on course for its biggest win for more than 30 years.As the British prime minister watched the results on television in his Downing Street study at 10 p.m., an elated Johnson leaped from his seat and hugged his partner, Carrie Symonds.The exit poll was accurate. As the votes were confirmed in the hours that followed, Johnson's gamble on a snap election paid off in full. He now stands to complete the Brexit divorce that he began three years ago as leader of the referendum campaign to leave the European Union.After that, Johnson, 55, has pledged to heal the deep divisions that Brexit has carved into British society by moving the toxic public debate onto other priorities, such as improving schools and hospitals, cutting taxes and boosting business. Nationalists in Scotland and Northern Ireland still pose a challenge, but his biggest rival has been crushed.For the 70-year-old Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, election night brought disaster. His four-year project trying to sell a radical socialist agenda to Britain was resoundingly rejected. A wall of working class districts deserted the party that had dominated them for decades, recoiling at Corbyn's leadership and his proposal for another Brexit referendum.In Labour's London headquarters, there was total silence when the exit poll was announced, broken only by a single wail from one young staffer. Officials had laid on pizza and bottles of beer labeled "Corbynista Victory Ale." Few had the desire to drink it.The atmosphere was "harrowing," according to a person who was there.Broken DeadlockJohnson triggered the election after trying and failing to rush his new Brexit deal through a deadlocked parliament. His core message to voters was that if they gave him a working majority he would "get Brexit done" so the country can move on.Yet while Johnson's aides always believed they had a good chance of success, they were haunted by the failure of his predecessor, Theresa May, when she called a snap vote two years ago. A dismal and robotic campaign and a resurgent Labour party under Corbyn cost May the majority she started with, plunging Britain into political chaos and ultimately dooming her premiership.This time, Johnson took no chances. He began eyeing up an election even before he became Tory leader in July. When the contest began in earnest, he hired the 35 year-old Australian election strategist Isaac Levido to be his campaign director. Slim, softly spoken, and bearded, Levido was the famously calm presence at the heart of the Tory election headquarters at No 4 Matthew Parker Street, in Westminster.Levido was a demanding boss, starting every day with a 5:40 a.m. meeting and ending it still in the office, late at night. But he rallied his troops by playing music in the office -- including 1980s hit "The Final Countdown," and in the last day of campaigning, "One Day More" from the musical Les Miserables.He also handed out daily awards to party activists for their efforts on the election campaign. Usually, this involved giving particular Tory staffers a small trophy star.But for the most impressive work, the Aussie handed out a soft toy kiwi bird -- a tribute to his New Zealander colleagues who joined the campaign. These included a young duo, Ben Guerin and Sean Topham, who ran the party's often controversial social media war.Levido is a protege of Lynton Crosby, the veteran political strategist who helped deliver a majority for David Cameron in 2015 and Scott Morrison in Australia earlier this year. Like his former boss, he espoused a safety-first campaign, focused on precise use of electoral data, and insisted on strict message discipline. Johnson did as he was told, rarely veering from his slogan to "get Brexit done," and dodging the most difficult television interviews that risked tripping him up.Labour DismayIt was a message Corbyn's Labour Party struggled to counter. Poll after poll during the six-week contest put Johnson's Tories ahead, while Labour failed to set out a clear position on whether they supported leaving the EU.Instead, Corbyn tried to convince voters Johnson could not be trusted with the future of the much-loved National Health Service, warning he would put it up for sale in a trade deal with Donald Trump.Johnson was ready for that attack, though the wheels almost came off his campaign when he showed a flash of temper instead of compassion after he was confronted by a photograph of a four year-old boy being treated on an overcrowded hospital's floor.On Thursday, the weather for Britain's first December election in almost 100 years was appalling. Rain and wind swept much of the country, leaving some Tories deeply nervous about the impact on voter turnout.After six long weeks of campaigning, the clock ticked down to the exit poll, a usually accurate survey based on how tens of thousands of voters have cast their ballots during the day. Labour MPs were now nervous.World Cup WinInside Conservative headquarters, 100 staffers got ready for a long night. A buffet of bagels, sausage rolls and Spanish tortilla had been prepared.When the numbers flashed up on the screens, projecting the biggest Tory majority since Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1987, the room erupted.Levido turned to embrace his girlfriend as staffers cheered and roared with delight, hugging each other as if they were celebrating at a soccer match. "It was like we'd won the World Cup," one Tory official said.In Conservative HQ, the party continued, with wine, beer and prosecco flowing throughout the night.As the results came in, Corbyn's team knew he would have to go. At 3.24 a.m. a weary Labour leader announced he would resign.In Downing Street, Johnson and Symonds celebrated with close aides including his senior adviser Dominic Cummings, and Lee Cain, the Conservative communications director.Soon after, Johnson made the short trip to Tory HQ, where he gave a speech thanking his team as they bellowed "Boris Boris! Boris!""We must understand now what an earthquake we have created," Johnson told his staffers. The country had chosen to complete Brexit, and the political map of Britain had been redrawn, he said. "You should be incredibly proud of what you have achieved. I hope you will allow yourselves some brief celebration because the work is going to begin."\--With assistance from Alex Morales, Robert Hutton, Joe Mayes and Jessica Shankleman.To contact the reporters on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net;Tim Ross in London at tross54@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Rodney JeffersonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Trump says Boris Johnson win could be 'harbinger' for him Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:47 AM PST  President Donald Trump said Friday that the big election win by his ally Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Britain bodes well for his own fortunes in 2020. Johnson's Conservatives won a landslide, trouncing left-wing Labour after a bitter campaign overshadowed by the Brexit process of taking Britain out of the European Union. Trump is campaigning for reelection next year in what is already shaping up to be the most polarizing contest in the United States for decades.
|
| Pour one out for Jeremy Corbyn Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:37 AM PST ![Pour one out for Jeremy Corbyn]( "Pour one out for Jeremy Corbyn") While America watched Lamar Jackson play Madden 2005 on rookie difficulty Thursday night, Jeremy Corbyn prepared to resign as leader of the Labour party after the Conservatives won their fourth consecutive British general election.No love will be lost between Corbyn and the liberal British media establishment. This is understandable. He was fundamentally unsuited to what they consider the greatest challenge of the era: delaying Britain's departure from the European Union with an endless series of niggling complaints and calls for second and third referendums. For many decades Corbyn himself supported withdrawal. This was in keeping with a long history of anti-E.U. sentiment on the British hard left, one that goes all the way back to the initial vote to join the European Economic Community in 1975. When he was elected to his party's leadership in 2015, he took a more moderate — and some would argue incoherent — position.Europe is almost certainly the only subject about which this could be said. Corbyn did his best to downplay his years of opposition to the E.U. while refusing to rescind his endorsements of the IRA, Hamas, and the dictatorship of the late Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Nor was he willing to compromise his views on a number of issues that put him at odds with his party's leadership in the post-Thatcher era. From unilateral nuclear disarmament and recognition of Palestine as an independent sovereign republic to republicanism and the almost total nationalization of British industry, Corbyn was an unreconstructed socialist in the tradition of Arthur Scargill and Tony Benn, not a Blairite neoliberal.Any doubt about Corbyn's fundamental unsuitability for leadership of a major political party, one premised upon the idea that actually winning elections and forming governments is both possible and desirable, should be put to rest. Brexit was the single issue that could have endeared him and his party to the British electorate in 2019, especially in the north of England, a reliable Labour stronghold that swung almost totally to the Conservatives on Thursday. These voters were not pulling the lever for Tories because they support their economic agenda. But they were willing — perhaps delusionally — to sacrifice their own interests for what they believed to be the cause of the nation. If it is hard to imagine a group of existing voters who are terrifically keen on enjoying cozy relations with a wide assortment of terrorist luminaries and abolishing the monarchy and banks while having middle-of-the-road views on Europe, it might just be because no such constituency exists. To his own party's most reliable supporters, Corbyn had nothing to offer.Moderation on Brexit doomed Labour outside London, but it might have been Corbyn's only saving grace in the eyes of the party's cosmopolitan establishment. It is impossible to overstate the amount of in-fighting, blame-gaming, screeching, whingeing, and gotchaing, that will take place in the pages of The Guardian and other publications in the coming weeks and months. Some will probably suggest that it was a plot all along; Corbyn deliberately flubbed the election because he secretly wanted Boris Johnson's Brexit plan to succeed. (This might even be true.) In the end he will probably go down in history like his predecessor Michael Foot as someone even more reviled among the center-left Labour intelligentsia than his Tory opponent.I think this will be unfair to Corbyn. Many of his views are ludicrous, but others — on housing, for example, and wages — are humane. More important, though, is what he has represented: the possibility than an utterly guileless, quixotic, utopian visionary could accomplish something, indeed anything in the political climate of 2019.Just the idea that a man who lists his chief hobby as taking photographs of storm drains could theoretically have become prime minister fills my heart with joy.More stories from theweek.com Trump's pathological obsession with being laughed at The most important day of the impeachment inquiry Jerry Falwell Jr.'s false gospel of memes
|
| Victorious Johnson Pledges Prosperity, Growth, Hope: U.K. Votes Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:36 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.Boris Johnson's emphatic election victory puts the U.K. on course to leave the European Union next month, after pro-Brexit voters in Labour heartland areas swung behind his party, delivering its biggest majority since Margaret Thatcher's in 1987.The prime minister urged people to heal the divisions over Europe and pledged to repay the trust put in him with an era of "prosperity and growth and hope."Key Developments:With all seats declared, the Conservatives have 365 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, a gain of 48, to Labour's 203 seats, down 59Jeremy Corbyn says he will step down after Labour's worst result since World War IIU.K. Plc Cheers Johnson Election Win, But Brexit Still LoomsPound Surges and Gilts Drop as Tory Landslide Jolts U.K. AssetsJohnson Wins Crushing Majority in Election That Upends BritainThe pound rose by the most in almost three years as the scale of the Tory victory became clearRecord Number of Women Elected (5:30 p.m.)The gender gap in the U.K. parliament is still closing even -- after a spate of female politicians quit this year saying they had been subject to abuse. After Thursday's election, a record 219 women will take up seats at Westminster, up from 208 in 2017 and 143 a decade ago, according to Randall's Monitoring.Read more: Election Sees Record Number of Women Elected to ParliamentMcCluskey Blames Labour Remainers for Loss (5 p.m.)Len McCluskey, leader of Labour's biggest labor union backer Unite, said Jeremy Corbyn's "metropolitan" world view and failure to get to grips with antisemitism contributed to the party's catastrophic election performance, but said Brexit was the key reason behind the defeat.In what will been seen as a warning to contenders to succeed Corbyn -- given Unite has about 1.2 million members -- McCluskey criticized Labour's decision to back a second referendum on Brexit, and slammed key members of the shadow cabinet who pledged to back Remain in that vote. They included leadership front-runners Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry.Labour must be "heard in Stoke as well as Stoke Newington," McCluskey said in an editorial in the Huffington Post on Friday. "It is Labour's slow-motion collapse into the arms of the People's Vote movement and others who have never accepted the democratic decision of June 2016 for a single moment which has caused this defeat."Johnson Pledges to Unite Divided U.K. (3:15 p.m.)Speaking outside his Downing Street office, Johnson thanked voters who have never voted Tory before and promised to "work around the clock" to repay the trust they have put in him. To voters who didn't back him and want to remain in the EU, he promised to "never ignore your good and positive feelings of warmth and sympathy towards the other nations of Europe."Urging people "to find closure and to let the healing begin," Johnson said his staff will now step up their work to "make 2020 a year of prosperity and growth and hope."Anti-Brexit Group Abandons Fight (2:50 p.m.)The main lobby group pushing for a second referendum on Brexit has abandoned the fight.Swinson: No Regrets on Campaign Strategy (2:30 p.m.)Former Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson -- who stepped down after she lost her seat to the SNP -- said she does not regret her party's campaign built around canceling Brexit, despite a poor performance."I'm proud that Liberal Democrats have been the unapologetic voice of Remain in this election," she said. "Obviously it hasn't worked, and I, like you, am devastated about that. But I don't regret trying, trying everything, because the prize was to save our future, save our children's future."Swinson said she was proud to be the first female leader of the party but "even more more proud that I will not be the last." Seven of the 11 Liberal Democrat MPs are women, including Layla Moran, who dramatically increased her majority. As recently as the 2015 general election, their elected MPs were all male.Macron Warns U.K. Over Straying From EU Model (2 p.m.)French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters on Friday that the further the U.K. strays from the European Union model after Brexit, the further the country will be from the bloc's single market."The more ambitious the deal they want, the higher the regulatory alignment should be," Macron said. "Every time they depart from EU regulations, they will stray away from an ambitious accord."EU to Prioritize Most Important Issues (1:25 p.m.)The European Union will prioritize topics to be covered in trade negotiations with the U.K. to make sure the most important issues are taken care of by the time Britain leaves the bloc, Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels."We'll put specific focus on those issues that are an economic cliff edge at the end of 2020 if they would not be done," Von der Leyen said. "These are issues where we have neither an international framework to fall back on nor the possibility to take unilateral contingency measures covering the period after the first of January 2021."Merkel: Disorderly Brexit Now Off Table (1:15 p.m.)German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Boris Johnson's decisive victory will help negotiations on the future EU-U.K. relationship and may help "reunite" Britain."We now have some security that the agreement we worked on will be valid," Merkel told reporters on Friday after a summit in Brussels. "That means a disorderly Brexit is really no longer a reality."Corbyn Blames Brexit for Defeat (1 p.m.)Jeremy Corbyn blamed Brexit for "taking over" the general election campaign and said he will talk to the Labour Party's national executive about the process to replace him as leader, which he expects to begin early next year."I have pride in our manifesto we put forward, and all the policies we put forward which actually have huge public support," Corbyn said in a pooled TV interview. "My whole strategy was to reach out beyond the Brexit divide to try and bring people together."Corbyn said he suffered unprecedented personal abuse from the media during the campaign, and called for a period of "good discussion within the party" to consider the way forward.Many Labour MPs have said Corbyn, who has described himself as a "Marmite" or divisive figure, was the reason for the party's catastrophic performance. Lucy Powell, Labour's MP for Manchester Central and a Corbyn critic, said she wanted to see more "contrition and humility" from the leadership.Chancellor: Business Welcomes Conservative Win (12.49 a.m.)Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid said there will be a "deal dividend" as a result of the election outcome and Johnson passing his Brexit withdrawal agreement."Because of the election result, there are investors who have decided to deploy money in the United Kingdom," Javid said on Sky News. "Business after business wants an end to the uncertainty." Pressed on whether there was still a threat of no-deal at the end of 2020, Javid said: "No one needs to worry about no-deal, because we now have a solid majority."Sturgeon: Independence a Matter for Scotland (12:15 p.m.)Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland's semi-autonomous government will publish the "democratic case for a transfer of power" from Westminster "to enable a referendum to be put beyond legal challenge."Under current law, Westminster must vote to allow Scotland a further independence referendum, a move Johnson has ruled out. Sturgeon argued the SNP election result gives her the mandate to put that decision to Scotland without Westminster approval, saying she'll set out her "detailed" case next week."I have been clear that a referendum must be the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament," she told supporters. "This is not about asking Boris Johnson or any other Westminster politician for permission. It is an assertion of the democratic right of the people of Scotland to determine their own future."Johnson Returns to Downing Street (11.42 a.m.)Almost an hour after he arrived at Buckingham Palace, Johnson returned to Downing Street, walking briskly up to the front door. Why was he with the Queen for so long? She may have had a lot of questions for him, but equally he could have been held up by the Changing of the Guard at the palace, which prevented him from leaving.Cameron Offers his Praise (11.31 a.m.)Former Prime Minister David Cameron, a long-time rival of Johnson who resigned after losing the Brexit referendum in 2016, offered "big congratulations" on the victory."It's an extraordinary result, a powerful result. It marks the end of Corbyn and Corbynism and that's a very good thing for the country," Cameron said in a pooled TV clip. "It gives us a very strong and decisive government, and the opportunity to build the dynamic economy and good public services we need."What Happens to Brexit Now? (11.12 a.m.)MPs return to Parliament on Dec. 17, followed by a Queen's Speech laying out the government's program two days later. Johnson will then look to introduce the Withdrawal Agreement Bill before Christmas, with the aim of passing it in good time before the Brexit deadline of Jan. 31.The 11-month transition period will start from the end of January, during which time Johnson will get down to thrashing out a trade deal with the EU. He'll first need Parliament to sign off his negotiating objectives, and the EU will also need to get approval for its mandate.If Johnson sticks to his campaign promise to not extend the transition period, the U.K. and the EU will have a tight time line to hammer out an accord. If the talks fail, the U.K. will leave the EU without a trade agreement at the end of 2020.Johnson Sees the Queen (10.51 a.m.)The prime minister is leaving Number 10 Downing Street in a gray Jaguar to go to Buckingham Palace, where Queen Elizabeth II will ask him to form a government. Recall that he made a similar visit just five months ago when he replaced Theresa May as Conservative Party leader. This time he's heading back with his own mandate to run the country, finally able to move from campaign mode to governing.Corbyn May Stay for a While (10.18 a.m)Corbyn may remain as leader until April because Labour Party rules dictate a minimum 12-week leadership election. The timetable must be set by the National Executive Committee which isn't meeting until January.Electoral Questions (10:02 a.m.)The Conservatives and the Brexit Party combined got 47% of votes, less than the 52% of support for parties in favor of a second referendum, polling guru John Curtice told the BBC.The result is likely to prompt more debate about the U.K.'s first-past-the-post electoral system, as victory didn't come for those with the most popular idea but rather those with the better organized campaign, said Curtice, who ran the team of psephologists that delivered the exit poll last night.Future Europe Ties (9:57 a.m.)Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the decisive result means the EU and U.K. can move forward on completing the Brexit withdrawal agreement.Varadkar told reporters in Brussels before a meeting with fellow EU leaders that the next steps will be to develop a future economic partnership with the U.K., "one that's going to be mighty and one that's going to be good for all of us."Earlier:Johnson's Victory Gives Him a Free Hand to Get Brexit DoneBrexit Rewrites U.K.'s Political Map: Balance of Power SpecialCorbyn to Stand Down as U.K. Labour Party Faces Record Defeat\--With assistance from Richard Bravo, Tim Ross and Helene Fouquet.To contact the reporters on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net;Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net;Joe Mayes in London at jmayes9@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas PennyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| U.K. Election Sees Record Number of Women Elected to Parliament Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:33 AM PST  (Bloomberg) -- The gender gap in the U.K. parliament is still closing even after a spate of female politicians quit this year saying they had been subject to abuse.After Thursday's election, a record 219 women will take up seats at Westminster, up from 208 at the last election in 2017 and 143 a decade ago, according to Randall's Monitoring. Women will occupy more than a third of the House of Commons, compared with just one seat in 1918.Women's groups had expressed alarm before the election at the number of female MPs standing down because they had been the subject of abuse. Among them were Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan and Labour's Louise Ellman.There has also been concern that a poor work-life balance and lack of maternity pay is turning women away. At the start of this year, Labour MP Tulip Siddiq delayed the cesarean birth of her second child to ensure she could vote in a crucial Brexit debate.Labour will now have more female than male MPs for the first time, but that's down to its crushing defeat, which saw many men lose their seats. Women will occupy 104 out of Labour's 203 seats.The Conservative Party, which has produced Britain's two female prime ministers, increased its tally of women MPs by 20 to 87. The majority of its 365 MPs are still men.To contact the reporter on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Edward Evans, Alex MoralesFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Centrists say this is proof Sanders or Warren can't win. They're wrong Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:29 AM PST  For some, Corbyn's defeat shows that the Democratic party should elect a moderate. But we should be careful about drawing that conclusion The exit polls for the UK general election had barely been published and US pundits were already tweeting out the lessons for next year's US presidential election. It's almost as if their conclusions had been reached before the results were known. "Right populism will always beat left populism," tweeted Yascha Mounk. Perhaps that's the case, but I don't know of many elections in which right and left populism were up against each other. And that's leaving aside whether the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is a left populist in the first place, which even Mounk admitted is "not obvious".Jonathan Chait, a columnist at New York Magazine, published a piece entitled American Leftists Believed Corbyn's Inevitable Victory Would Be Their Model, which mostly challenged the optimism among the US left following Corbyn's surprise performance in the 2017 elections. The point of these interventions was obvious: Corbyn's defeat shows that the Democratic party should not elect a "hard left" candidate, such as Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, and can only win with a "moderate" candidate such as Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg. Joe Biden said as much, arguing "this is what happens" when you move "so, so far to the left".This could well be true, although I remain unconvinced – especially as the UK elections definitely don't provide any specific evidence for this conclusion. In many ways, the results were in line with broader trends in Europe, notably that (radicalized) mainstream rightwing parties are quite successful, as, for instance, in Austria and the Netherlands, while social democratic parties are getting hammered virtually everywhere, irrespective of whether they are "moderate" or "radical".The idea that British elections are most similar to US elections is based on a simplistic understanding of the two political systems. It is true that both share a first-past-the-post system, with single-member districts, leading to a two-party system, but that is about it. The UK has a parliamentary system and the US a presidential one, which puts much more emphasis on one person and makes the undemocratic electoral college the key decider. Also, smaller parties play a much bigger role in UK elections, as was shown in this election by the crucial role of Nigel Farage's Brexit party, which handed Boris Johnson the victory by not fielding candidates in almost half of the districts. In the districts that they did contest, Brexit party candidates divided the pro-Brexit vote and thereby handed Labour some important seats.But most importantly, all elections are still primarily national rather than global. The British election had its own, partly unique, issues and candidates. First and foremost, the election was about Brexit, an issue irrelevant to the US electorate. Also, Corbyn was an extremely controversial candidate. While very popular within the (new) party base, and among millennials, 61% of Brits had a negative opinion of Corbyn, which included particularly older white men, who vote in large numbers. This unpopularity was only partly related to his "hard left" platform; issues such as his weak stance against antisemitism and his non-position on Brexit didn't help either. To be fair, Johnson isn't popular either, but he is much less unpopular than Corbyn.So, which lessons can we draw for next year's presidential elections? Many, although most are general lessons, not specific to this result.First, unpopular candidates can win elections – a lesson we should already have drawn in 2016. It doesn't matter whether a majority of the population dislikes you, but that a majority of the voters likes you. Trump's base might be small, but it is mobilized and united.> It doesn't matter whether a majority of the population dislikes you, but that a majority of the voters likes youSecond, internal divisions, over candidates and policies, will harm both support and turnout. While Corbyn has a pretty strong grip on the party membership, which is why he can probably stay on to oversee his own succession, he has been involved in an ongoing and public conflict with much of his parliamentary party. Moreover, the party was internally divided over key issues, most notably Brexit. This all meant that the Labour party contested the elections with an unclear profile. Given the divisions within the Democratic party, and the open animosity between donors and supporters of both "moderate" and "radical" candidates, there is a serious risk that this could harm the Democrats in 2020, too.Third, the electoral system is key to any successful electoral campaign. Plurality systems are extremely disproportional. In Thursday's election the Tories got one seat for every 38,304 votes, while Labour needed 50,649 votes for each seat – the numbers for the Liberal Democrats and Greens were 331,226 and 857,513, respectively. Moreover, Corbyn's "dramatic" result last night was only 3% lower than the 35.2% that won Tony Blair his third election in 2005. The US system is even less democratic, given that the electoral college trumps the popular vote.Fourth, and most importantly, campaigns matter. Yes, Labour had fantastic short videos, and an incredibly detailed and elaborate election manifesto, but its campaign missed a clear focus and target – obviously, in large part because Corbyn was unwilling to take a clear position on the key issue of the election. In sharp contrast, the Tories had a clear message ("Vote to deliver Brexit; vote to respect the referendum"), however problematic in reality, and spent much of their money on Facebook in the last week of the campaign, when many voters decide whether and who to vote. The Trump campaign has been spending millions of dollars on Facebook for the last year, pushing a very similar message – in the language of its leader, "DEMOCRATS WANT TO STEAL THE ELECTION".What this all means is that Democrats should put much less trust in general polls, as in a highly polarized country like the US average levels of public support do not necessarily tell us much about who will win the presidency. What matters is who shows up. Republican voters know who and what they will show up for. Do Democratic voters? * Cas Mudde is a Guardian US columnist and the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia
|
| Critics say Guatemala commission undermining anti-graft push Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:21 AM PST  One by one, witnesses sat in the elegant wooden chair in Guatemala's Congress in recent weeks to air their grievances against the U.N.-sponsored anti-graft commission that over the course of 12 years helped bring to justice hundreds of politicians, businesspeople, judges and others accused of corruption. Cicig won plaudits at home and abroad for its work, hand-in-hand with Guatemalan prosecutors, to bring corruption cases against hundreds of the country's powerful and privileged, including two ex-presidents and then-sitting President Otto Pérez Molina, who remains behind bars.
|
| Billionaires Pop Champagne, Eye Deals After Corbyn Craters Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:16 AM PST ![Billionaires Pop Champagne, Eye Deals After Corbyn Craters]( "Billionaires Pop Champagne, Eye Deals After Corbyn Craters") (Bloomberg) -- Champagne was flowing in London's Mayfair as the news hit.Boris Johnson's Conservatives weren't just winning, they were trouncing Jeremy Corbyn's Labour across the U.K., including working-class Northern towns far removed from the West End.Michael Spencer, founder of interdealer broker Icap and longtime Tory donor, threw a celebration at Scott's, an upscale seafood restaurant in London, according to a person familiar with the matter. About 200 guests toasted Johnson's triumph.The result was a "crushing national repudiation of the dangerous and divisive neo-Marxist policies" embraced by Labour's leadership, Spencer said in a statement.Spencer and his peers had plenty to celebrate. Corbyn consistently attacked the ultra-wealthy during the campaign, as well as pushing for nationalization of utilities, higher taxes and another referendum on a deal to leave the European Union.Peter Hargreaves, one of the biggest supporters of Britain's decision to leave the European Union, said he was relieved by Johnson's victory. He blamed Labour's dismal showing on Corbyn's lack of appeal even in the northern heartlands."I was in contact with lots of friends in the North and they were quite surprised how many Labour voters weren't going to vote for Corbyn. They were petrified of Corbyn."The Lancashire-born billionaire had another reason to be cheerful. He owns about a third of online investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown Plc, whose shares rose 2.4% on Friday, boosting the value of his fortune by $200 million to $4.5 billion.In total, the 16 Brits on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index -- including Jim Ratcliffe and James Dyson -- added about $2 billion to their combined net worth."I don't need to celebrate -- I'm just very, very happy with the result," said John Caudwell, who founded Phones 4U, the mobile-phone retailer. "If Labour had got a majority or there was a hung parliament, which wasn't impossible, I would have been devastated. Far from celebrating, I would probably have been in a corner somewhere sobbing."That's exactly what some Corbyn fans were doing across town.The mood was grim at the Three Compasses pub in Hackney where Labour supporters, mostly in their 20s and 30s, waited for the results with beer and burgers. There was a collective groan when it came and party veterans were ashen-faced."I'm devastated," said Penny Wrout, a Labour member of Hackney Council. "I'm very fearful because this is the most right-wing Conservative Party that I've known in my lifetime and I lived through Thatcher. It's a catastrophe."That sentiment is rare within financial circles. Many had concluded a Corbyn victory would do more damage to the economy than a hard Brexit with no transition deal."Business in general will really appreciate the clarity," said Jeremy Isaacs, founding partner of private equity firm JRJ Group. "Markets should react positively that the Corbyn risk is gone and we should see foreign direct investment flowing into the country."While Hargreaves had said he would stay in the U.K. no matter the result, many wealthy families based in Britain had made plans to relocate to tax-friendly regimes such as Monaco or Switzerland if Corbyn won. Now those plans are instantly gone, says John Elder, a founding partner of Family Office Advisors LLP, a London-based firm that provides advice to wealthy families. Instead, he expects family offices to look for bargains in U.K. assets from property to stakes in companies."There is political stability and clarity," Elder said. "The U.K. is now an undervalued country to invest in for at least the next five years."Read more: U.K. Plc Cheers Johnson Election Win, But Brexit Still LoomsLondon property in particular could see a boost, according to Liam Bailey, global head of research at Knight Frank."It will release a lot of pent up demand in the market," he said. "One group that may want to move on with things quite quickly are overseas buyers. With the pound rising they'll experience an erosion of their buying power, which may well encourage transactions," although he cautioned that Brexit would still hover above the market.It isn't just foreign capital that might flow back into British real estate. Mark Stephen, founder and managing director of Reditum Capital, a London-based real estate investment firm, said a major domestic pension fund is poised to place 50 million pounds to 100 million pounds ($134 million) to work in his fund now that Johnson and the Tories have won control of Parliament.Reditum plans to invest the fund in land earmarked for new housing developments north of London and in Newcastle. "They premised the investment on the result going the way it did, so hopefully we can wrap that up in the next year," Stephen said.Boris and BrexitOthers money managers were more circumspect.Ever since the Brexit referendum was passed in June 2016, Seven Investment Management LLP, an investment firm in London with 13 billion pounds in assets, had been weaning its portfolios of U.K. stocks and looking abroad to fill the gap. Now its portfolio managers will take a serious look at ramping up British equities, said investment strategist Ben Kumar.But he's telling clients he remains cautious because after Brexit no one knows whether Johnson will succeed in negotiating new free trade agreements with Brussels by December, and another with Washington."The problem with Boris is that he doesn't care what he's promised before, deadlines just go flying by, so will he get it done by December?" Kumar said. "The point is, uncertainty hasn't gone away."As well as Brexit, Johnson has to deliver on his promises to "unleash the potential" of the economy.The government will have to commit significant resources to bolster the National Health Service, schools and other infrastructure, said Amanda Staveley, founder of PCP Capital Partners. These are issues more commonly associated with Labour but that shouldn't stop Johnson from embracing them, she said."The country has entrusted him with this astonishing vote, and you've got to make sure the whole system works," Staveley said.Hargreaves is focusing on how the next stage of Brexit negotiations proceed now that Johnson has the biggest Tory majority since 1987, when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister."It's like a game of poker," he said. "You have a hand that you've got to play well."Still, the prevailing expectation was that the new government's mandate would restore some zip to an economy that's largely been in a holding pattern since the U.K. voted to leave the EU in 2016.Mobile-phone mogul Caudwell said now is the moment to make some big bets on the economy as a whole."There has definitely been a reluctance on my part to press buttons to further investments," he said. "Now I can go full steam ahead."(Updates with Amanda Staveley comment in 27th paragraph)\--With assistance from Ambereen Choudhury, Nishant Kumar and Thomas Buckley.To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Metcalf in London at tmetcalf7@bloomberg.net;Edward Robinson in London at edrobinson@bloomberg.net;Ben Stupples in London at bstupples@bloomberg.net;Viren Vaghela in London at vvaghela1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven CrabillFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Belgian carnival removed from UNESCO list over racism row Posted: 13 Dec 2019 09:03 AM PST  A famous Belgian carnival was removed from the U.N.'s cultural heritage list on Friday following complaints that its most recent edition contained blatant displays of anti-Semitism. The Aalst carnival was taken off UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list during a meeting in Colombia's capital city, becoming the first cultural tradition stricken from the U.N.'s global inventory of cultural practices. A document filed by UNESCO's secretariat said the event goes against the organization's principles, including a clause stating that cultural expressions included in the list should foster respect among communities.
|
| Brexit is going to happen. What is a young ‘remainer’ to do? Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:44 AM PST ![Brexit is going to happen. What is a young 'remainer' to do?]( "Brexit is going to happen. What is a young 'remainer' to do?") "Remain"-minded youth may be ready to pivot toward shaping a future after Brexit and bridging divisions at home and with the rest of Europe.
|
| UK Election: Johnson Promises Brexit, Trump Renews Trade Deal Calls Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:42 AM PST ![UK Election: Johnson Promises Brexit, Trump Renews Trade Deal Calls]( "UK Election: Johnson Promises Brexit, Trump Renews Trade Deal Calls") The U.K.'s departure from the European Union (EU) moved a decisive step closer in the early hours of Friday morning when the Conservative Party headed by Boris Johnson won a decisive general election victory. In the buildup to the election, Johnson had consistently promised to "Get Brexit Done." And, after winning a huge parliamentary majority of at least 78 seats — 364 out of 650 seats, with one still to declare at this writing — he doubled down on his pledge, vowing to push his EU withdrawal agreement through Parliament in time for Brexit on Jan. 31.
|
| Brexit Bulletin: Taking Back Control Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:26 AM PST  Days to Brexit: 49(Bloomberg) -- Sign up here to get the Brexit Bulletin in your inbox every weekday.What's Happening? After winning a stunning majority, Prime Minister Boris Johnson can free himself from almost four years of gridlock.Johnson urged Britons to "take back control" during the 2016 referendum on European Union membership. In 2019, he told weary voters that only he could "get Brexit done" — and they handed him a resounding general election win. Thursday's result makes Johnson the most powerful Conservative prime minister since Margaret Thatcher.So what happens now? The size of Johnson's parliamentary majority clears the way for him to take Britain out of the EU in January. The decisive win means he can also define Britain's future relationship with the bloc. The key question is: What will that future look like? If Johnson wants access to the EU single market he will have to give up control in some areas — in particular taxation, labor and environmental standards. A big majority back home could marginalize hard-liners who dogged his predecessor, Theresa May, and allow him cut a deal that keeps the U.K. more closely aligned with the EU. (Whether he could do this and seal a "massive new trade deal" with Donald Trump's U.S. is another matter.)The EU is eyeing closer ties. French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters on Friday that the further the U.K. strays from the EU model, the more limited any trade agreement will be. "The more ambitious the deal they want, the higher the regulatory alignment should be," Macron said. "Every time they depart from EU regulations, they will stray away from an ambitious accord."We don't truly know what Johnson wants. A bare-bones free-trade deal? A more comprehensive pact along the lines the EU is suggesting? Once the U.K. formally leaves on Jan. 31 there will be just 11 months to conclude a full deal. As we have reported before, and as trade experts attest, this is a major hurdle; complex free-trade agreements take years to conclude, not months. Is Johnson truly prepared to risk a new "cliff-edge" at the end of 2020? Or would he grant EU nations access to U.K. fishing waters, for example, in order to meet the deadline — contradicting a promise he made to win votes in pro-Leave areas?Armed with a bulletproof parliamentary majority, though, Johnson may have the options and authority to adapt and change his plans. It wouldn't be the first time. His bet is that the logistics of negotiating a trade deal prove far less controversial than the act of leaving itself.Today's Must-ReadsWant to explore the full election results? Dive into our interactive map for comprehensive coverage of every seat. Jeremy Corbyn is finished, but his radicalism changed British politics. Bloomberg's Tim Ross charts the unexpected rise and downfall of the initially reluctant socialist Labour leader. The Britain built by Tony Blair is gone, Tom McTague writes for the Atlantic, swept away in a provincial tide of support for Brexit and Johnson's Conservatives.Brexit in BriefRed Wall Falls | Johnson's electoral triumph saw Conservative candidates crash through Labour's "red wall" across northern England and change the shape of British politics. Voters in many places that backed Brexit in 2016, such as Workington, Bishop Auckland, Bassetlaw and Blythe, rejected Labour, with many seats electing Conservatives for the first time in generations.Stick With Us | Standing outside Downing Street this afternoon, Johnson spoke directly to those new Tory voters, pledging that his "One Nation" Conservative government would represent all their interests. He told those watching that it is time for "closure" on Brexit, and to "let the healing begin" as his government seeks a "new partnership" with the EU.Markets Rejoice | The pound, stocks and corporate bonds all rose on news of the Tory landslide. Sterling broke past $1.35 before paring gains as the day progressed. The FTSE 250 share index soared to its highest point on record, and a gauge of regional credit risk fell to its lowest in more than a decade. "A lot of money has been waiting on the sidelines in the U.K.," said Mark Nash of Merian Global Investors. "This result should see much of it deployed."Business Relieved | British business also breathed a sign of relief, pledging renewed investment as concerns dissipated about Corbyn's plans to nationalize swathes of industry. Corporate leaders also expressed hope that Johnson's strong position would allow him leeway in EU negotiations. "The content and shape of any new deal are much more important than simply the speed in getting there," said Jonathan Geldart, director general of the Institute of Directors.More Than Brexit | Clarity on Brexit is welcome, but the eventual direction of sterling assets will depend on the global and British economy and Johnson's spending plans, Marcus Ashworth writes for Bloomberg Opinion.Champagne in Mayfair | The 16 Brits on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index added $2.8 billion to their net worth on Friday amid a stock rally fueled by relief at Corbyn's defeat. There were also celebrations at a champagne-fueled Mayfair dinner.What About the Others? | Corbyn said he would stand down as leader, but made no apologies for his party's manifesto, instead blaming Brexit for Labour's defeat. Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson lost her Scottish seat overnight, but said she had no regrets over her party's campaign. And Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon — winner of the best election reaction prize, 2019 — said she'll push ahead with plans for a new referendum on independence. Want to keep up with Brexit?You can follow us @Brexit on Twitter, and listen to Bloomberg Westminster every weekday. It's live at midday on Bloomberg Radio and is available as a podcast too. Share the Brexit Bulletin: Colleagues, friends and family can sign up here. For full EU coverage, try the Brussels Edition.For even more: Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access for our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. To contact the authors of this story: Adam Blenford in London at ablenford@bloomberg.netJoe Mayes in London at jmayes9@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net, Chris KayFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| Iraq's top Shiite cleric condemns gruesome hanging of teen Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:25 AM PST  Iraq's top Shiite cleric on Friday denounced the killing of a teenager whose body was strung up by his feet from a traffic pole in a Baghdad square, as conflicting versions emerged about what led to the 16-year-old's death. Security officials initially told The Associated Press that he had been beaten to death by an angry mob after he killed four anti-government protesters and two shopkeepers in a shooting spree. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the nation's top Shiite cleric, called the teen's killing a "horrific crime" that must not be repeated and urged Iraqi authorities to hold the perpetrators accountable.
|
| Corbyn is Finished But His Radicalism Changed U.K. Politics Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:16 AM PST ![Corbyn is Finished But His Radicalism Changed U.K. Politics]( "Corbyn is Finished But His Radicalism Changed U.K. Politics") (Bloomberg) -- "You had better make f****** sure I don't win." It was June 2015 and Jeremy Corbyn did not want to run for the leadership of the Labour Party.But someone had to carry the flag for a dwindling band of socialist politicians in the contest that followed Ed Miliband's demoralizing election defeat at the hands of David Cameron's Conservatives. It was Corbyn's turn to have a go.He took some comfort in his status as the rank outsider in the leadership race, but it wasn't long before the radical leftward transformation in Labour's membership -- swelled by an influx of like-minded socialists -- made itself felt. With a message of tackling social injustice and poverty, Corbyn shocked the party establishment by winning -- and by a landslide.Even then, the 70-year-old vegetarian, teetotal, anti-war protester never fancied leading. He preferred gardening, or making jam, to devising political strategies or hankering after power.At 3:24 a.m. on Friday, Corbyn's luck deserted him. He had taken Labour to its worst election result for 84 years, in which his party was routed in its key heartlands, losing to the Tories in some cases for the first time in history. As Boris Johnson's Conservatives headed for victory, Corbyn announced he would step down."I will not lead the party in any future general election campaign," Corbyn said, though he added there needed to be "a process of reflection" about Labour's direction. "I will lead the party during that period to ensure that discussion takes place, and we can move on into the future."Yet while perhaps a reluctant leader, Corbyn also struggled to see his own role in his failed campaign. On Friday he was blaming Brexit for "taking over" the election narrative, drowning out discussion of key issues like health care. Lucy Powell, a Labour member of parliament and critic of Corbyn, said she wanted to see more "contrition and humility" from the leadership.Corbyn's brand of politics had always been about campaigning and protest from the sidelines. He came of age politically in the 1980s as a disciple of left wing euro skeptic Tony Benn, who was famous for his speech making. He rebelled countless times against Tony Blair's centrist "New Labour" government. He vehemently opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq and spent years leading the anti-war campaign in Britain.Corbyn's image as an outsider played to his advantage. The party campaign in 2015 spawned a personality cult, which some have likened to Bernie Sanders' grassroots success in the U.S, with an army of supporters and activists in a Corbynite group known as Momentum.He needed their help to survive a leadership challenge in 2016. Labour members of parliament were distraught at the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union in a referendum in June of that year and many blamed a half-hearted effort to back "remain" from Corbyn -- who has long been a euro skeptic. But while lawmakers tried to oust him, Momentum's activism and online campaigning ensured Labour's left-wing membership refused to let Corbyn go.Corbyn was plunged into a fresh crisis when then-Prime Minister Theresa May triggered a snap election in 2017. His party was poorly prepared and his MPs had no desire to campaign for him to become prime minister. He was ridiculed as weak and unpopular, and few gave him much chance of success against a Tory party 25 points ahead in the polls.Then apparent disaster struck. Labour's entire manifesto -- with its radical plans to nationalize railways and abolish university tuition fees -- was leaked to newspapers. It was ripped apart by commentators in the press.And yet it somehow caught fire with the public. The cult of Corbyn gained millions of new followers. As he toured the country, thousands packed football stadiums and chanted his name, "Oh Jeremy Corbyn," at every rally. When he showed up at the Glastonbury music festival, he was treated like a rock star.Even then, few believed Corbyn's appeal translated beyond a left-wing niche. When the election results came in, Corbyn -- who was cooking eggs in his apartment with close aides and his wife -- was as surprised as anyone to find he had taken Labour to within striking distance of power.His platform, combined with an incompetent campaign from May, robbed the Conservatives of their small majority, and gave Labour 40% of the popular vote.Magic fadesTwo years later, Corbyn and his team tried to repeat the magic. But he was no longer the unknown breath of fresh air and the crowds were not quite the same. Crucially, in Boris Johnson, Corbyn faced a far more ruthless and effective campaigner.Labour's answer was to propose an even more dramatic set of socialist policies than 2017. Free broadband for all. Higher taxes for businesses and the rich. Wild pledges to spend billions on schools and hospitals. Renationalizing mail, railways, and key utilities.It didn't work. While voters liked many of the ideas, the evidence suggests they did not believe Labour could deliver.Two other factors weighed on Corbyn's campaign. The first was Brexit. Labour's supporters were split on the issue and Corbyn could not decide whether to back leaving the EU or staying in. Instead, he pledged to put a deal he would negotiate with the EU to the country in yet another referendum, in which he would remain "neutral." For Britons weary of voting, and tired of political paralysis, Johnson's repeated promise to "get Brexit done" won the day.The second problem for Corbyn was Corbyn himself. Labour candidates, including many who were loyal, said Corbyn was now simply too unpopular among voters who recoiled at the prospect of putting him in Number 10. Persistent allegations that he failed to stamp out anti-Semitism in the party and was weak on national security issues also damaged his chances.Corbyn Can't Find Antidote to Anti-Semitic 'Poison' in Labour"Corbyn was a disaster on the doorstep. Everyone knew that he couldn't lead the working class out of a paper bag," former cabinet minister Alan Johnson told ITV.The question for Labour now is not whether Corbyn can survive, or even precisely when he stands down, although many want him to go immediately. It is what happens to Corbyn's wider socialist movement, and whether the party can recover from such a rout.Yet these existential issues do not tell the whole story. Corbyn failed, and Corbynism may still prove too strong a medicine for British voters in future. But his 2017 campaign achieved one thing above all: it permanently changed the debate on post-financial crisis austerity in the U.K.Corbyn's unexpected success two years ago forced Johnson to act to neutralize the argument from the left, by effectively matching it. Johnson's manifesto promised to protect the National Health Service, hire 50,000 extra nurses, spend almost 12 billion pounds ($16 billion) in extra borrowing and cancel a tax cut for businesses.The biggest tribute to Corbyn is not what happens to a devastated Labour Party now, it's the fact that Johnson's Tories have stolen his clothes.To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Ross in London at tross54@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Alan CrawfordFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
|
| EU warns of post-Brexit rival Britain after Johnson win Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:08 AM PST  European leaders warned Friday that Britain could become a formidable rival, just hours after a big victory by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's conservatives all but sealed the UK's Brexit divorce. Led by France and Germany, EU member states said they would pursue a swift trade deal with a tight deadline of end 2020, but insisted that any new arrangement must uphold European values and norms. "There is no question of concluding a deal at any price," EU Council President Charles Michel told a news conference after the talks.
|
| What a Boris Johnson government means for foreign policy and defence Posted: 13 Dec 2019 08:06 AM PST  Jeremy Corbyn was closer than Boris Johnson to Donald Trump on some foreign and defence issues. Both the US president and the Labour leader were opposed to wars of intervention by the west, both dislike Nato and the EU, and both find it difficult to criticise Russia.There were, of course, many other fields in which the two men differed – from Palestinian rights, to trade deals between the two countries, to relations with states like Venezuela and Iran.
|
| Merkel faces backbench rebellion over Huawei Posted: 13 Dec 2019 07:53 AM PST  Huawei could be excluded from Germany's 5G network following a backbench rebellion against Angela Merkel. In a blow to the German chancellor's authority, backbenchers from her own party and her main coalition partners have united to block the controversial Chinese telecommunications company from the project. Mrs Merkel has so far defied US pressure to exclude Huawei from the project. The Trump administration accuses the Chinese government of using the company's technology to spy on the US and its allies. But Mrs Merkel says Germany's intelligence services can secure the network and has insisted companies be considered on their technical expertise alone. She was already facing opposition from her Christian Democrat party (CDU), which voted at its party conference to exclude any company that might be a security risk. Now CDU backbenchers have gone further, uniting with colleagues from the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD) to draft a parliamentary motion calling on the government to exclude all companies from countries that pose a risk. Angela Merkel insists German intelligence can protect its 5G network Credit: JULIEN WARNAND/EPA-EFE/REX "The question of trust in the integrity of the manufacturer and the legal system of the country of manufacture is central," a text of the motion leaked to Handelsblatt newspaper reads. The motion calls on Mrs Merkel's government to "safeguard European security interests by a statutory approval requirement, which takes into consideration the political and legal conditions in the country of origin". It specifies that companies based in countries where they might be subject to state interference should be excluded. MPs plan to introduce the motion next month. The move is a rare instance of backbench cooperation between the two coalition partners, and will be difficult for Mrs Merkel to ignore. She is said to be keen to avoid damaging trade relations with China by excluding Huawei. But she has come under intense pressure from Mr Trump over the issue and the backbench move may provide her with cover for a change of course.
|
| AP Interview: New Cuban ballet head pledges renovation Posted: 13 Dec 2019 07:10 AM PST  The new head of Cuba's legendary National Ballet says she hopes to renew the institution after the death of long-time director Alicia Alonso by introducing new choreography and appearances by dancers who have emigrated to other companies. In an interview with The Associated Press, Viengsay Valdés, 43, said Alonso's insistence on classical technique and repertory served the company well for decades, but modernization is imperative. Valdés said she is looking to perform new works and bring in dancers from other countries to help instruct the company's dancers.
|
| A tale of 2 migrations: Before and after new Trump policies Posted: 13 Dec 2019 07:04 AM PST  María Teresa Carballo was worried. The silence was unexpected: Seventeen other members of Carballo's family had undertaken the same journey between last December and May, and all had made it safely after paying the smuggler $3,000 per person. "For the ones I'd sent it was easy," the 59-year-old Salvadoran woman said of the relatives who migrated to the U.S. earlier in the year.
|
| The EU just agreed to its own 'Green Deal' Posted: 13 Dec 2019 07:03 AM PST ![The EU just agreed to its own 'Green Deal']( "The EU just agreed to its own 'Green Deal'") The EU is headed for carbon neutrality. Well, most of it.European Union leaders agreed Thursday on a pledge to make the trading bloc carbon neutral by 2050. But the so-called "Green Deal" comes after several eastern European countries resisted the climate-conscious move, and makes an exception for coal-reliant Poland that activists aren't happy about, BBC reports.World leaders -- save for President Trump -- met over the last two weeks for the United Nations' COP25 climate conference in Madrid. And at the tail end of it, EU leaders meeting in Brussels all agreed to embark on "on to an irreversible path to climate neutrality" by 2050, dedicating a 100 billion euro "Just Transition Mechanism" to help fossil-fuel-reliant countries make the switch. But even after previous holdouts Hungary and the Czech Republic agreed to the deal once addendums for nuclear power were added, Poland still wouldn't get onboard.Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Thursday that he'd gotten an exemption from the Green Deal because the country relies on coal for 80 percent of its energy needs, per The Guardian. While Morawiecki said he'd suggested the country could get to climate neutrality by 2070, the EU decided to press on without him and revisit the decision in June 2020. And to Neil Makaroff, European Policy Adviser for the international Climate Action Network, that's a "traumatic signal" that might leave less developed countries wondering why they should bother with climate action if the world's leading trading bloc can't come to an agreement, he tells The Verge.More stories from theweek.com Trump's pathological obsession with being laughed at The most important day of the impeachment inquiry Jerry Falwell Jr.'s false gospel of memes
|
| Boy, 13, arrested in killing of Barnard College freshman Posted: 13 Dec 2019 06:49 AM PST  A 13-year-old boy was arrested Friday in the stabbing death of a Barnard College freshman who was approached in a park by as many as three youths as she ventured from her New York City campus on the eve of final exams. The arrest of such a young suspect added another tragic element to the slaying of 18-year-old Tessa Majors, a case that has troubled city and campus leaders. The president of Barnard College said Majors was stabbed during an armed robbery.
|
| Positive Wall Street Momentum Continues On Trade Deal Hopes, UK Election Results Posted: 13 Dec 2019 06:23 AM PST ![Positive Wall Street Momentum Continues On Trade Deal Hopes, UK Election Results]( "Positive Wall Street Momentum Continues On Trade Deal Hopes, UK Election Results") A day after stocks set fresh record highs on excitement about a possible U.S.-China trade deal, investors still seem to be sailing along on momentum from those trade winds. President Trump said Johnson's win paves the way for the United States and Britain to strike a new trade deal after the Brexit. In U.S. economic news, November retail sales increased less than expected, casting some doubt on a segment of the economy that has been a source of optimism for investors.
|
| UN: Greece still in violation of some norms for detention Posted: 13 Dec 2019 06:09 AM PST  A group of United Nations experts on arbitrary detention said Friday that despite some improvements, Greece was still in violation of certain international obligations in how and where people are imprisoned. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention presented a preliminary report following a visit to 20 detention facilities across the country between Dec. 2 and Dec. 13. It noted several areas of concern involving both the criminal justice system and migration.
|
| The UK Election Should Serve as a Warning to Democrats Posted: 13 Dec 2019 06:08 AM PST  The Brits can envision a post-Brexit future; they cannot envision a post-capitalist one.
|
| Turkey protests US Senate vote recognizing Armenian genocide Posted: 13 Dec 2019 05:47 AM PST  Turkey summoned the ambassador from the United States on Friday to protest the U.S. Senate's approval of a resolution that recognizes as genocide the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago, an official said. U.S. Ambassador David Satterfield was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, where Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Oney conveyed Turkey's "strong reaction" to the Senate action, a ministry official said.
|
| Europe to U.K.: Leave if You Must but Do It Fast Posted: 13 Dec 2019 05:36 AM PST  Leaders from the European Union's 27 member states did not waste time getting down to the business of preparing for Brexit just hours after Boris Johnson's landslide victory. And with it, the economic bloc seemed to be saying, "Sorry you are going, but now that you've decided, hurry up and get out."Boris Johnson Secures Historic Blowout Election WinOn Friday morning in Brussels, Charles Michel, the European Council president, said he anticipated that Johnson would make good on his promise to use his majority to pass the exit deal they forged that will pave the way for a full Brexit on Jan. 31, 2020–just 49 days away. And he said he hoped that now that Johnson has a firm majority government, they could forge a deal that included a mutually beneficial economic pact going forward."We expect as soon as possible a vote by the British Parliament on the withdrawal agreement," Michel told reporters. "It is important to have the clarity as soon as possible. We are ready. The EU will negotiate to ensure to have a close cooperation in the future with the U.K."The mood across the rest of the euro zone was one of reluctant acceptance mixed with a healthy dose of relief. Since the Brexit referendum victory in 2016, the EU has been an unwilling partner to a party that didn't seem to want to leave, even as it was walking away. Much of the delay has cost European businesses millions and sewn uncertainty across the bloc.In Italy, several newspapers waxed nostalgic about the end of the "old world" and the fear of the unknown. Hard questions about what it means for the thousands of Italians who have left the country for higher paying jobs in the U.K. remains a top priority. In France, the focus was instead on the British population who have relocated there and what it means for them, implying that any deal needed to be reciprocal or both populations would surely suffer.Germany's Die Welt focused on the financial fallout, asking "Which Boris Johnson is Europe going to get?" referring to the hardliner who promised a swift Brexit on the campaign trail or the one who has been far more light-footed when he is in Brussels. But it was Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte who said what everyone is thinking, urging the U.K. to now hurry up, telling reporters "on the British side they can speed up the process."Now that the fate seems certain that Brexit will happen, everyone is just ready to get on with it. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
|
