Very little on Brexit this week. Anything could happen after Parliament rejected a straight yes/no motion on Johnson’s deal on Saturday, passed it as a Bill on Tuesday but not the Government’s proposed 3 day timetable. This means the UK almost certainly can’t leave the EU by end October as the ‘do or die’ Johnson promised. These are shrewd tactics by key Remainers. They can’t be blamed for blocking the deal but just want more time to scrutinize it. And what is wrong with that since it is apparently the largest piece of legislation to be presented to Parliament in 50 years?
The Government appeared distraught as scrutiny of the Bill over the coming weeks could lead to all sorts of amendments. Another messy period ahead with a Brexit election sometime before 31 January being the most likely outcome. It won’t be pretty.
But over to America where politics is equally poisonous. My trip there last week coincided with a rough time for Trump. The impeachment process over allegations of tying military aid to Ukraine with an investigation by the Ukrainian authorities into the activities of Joe Biden’s son is starting to appear genuinely threatening to Trump. Revelations came thick and fast all week. He is a man who looks under pressure. Good!
Since my return, damaging evidence continues to accumulate. The top US diplomat in Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr., on Tuesday alleged that Trump held up vital security aid for the country until Ukraine’s leader agreed to make a public pronouncement pledging to investigate Trump’s political rivals. This is from an ‘unimpeachable’ source and is perhaps the most dramatic yet.
The Democrats have been clever in pursuing the impeachment process in private but with key parts of testimonies being leaked. It allows for no partisan grandstanding whilst the most damaging revelations become public, enraging Trump who looks impotent. A majority of voters now think Trump should be impeached. Only the Senate will save him.
But the Republicans in the Senate are outraged at Trump’s policy over Syria in abandoning the loyal Kurds to the fate of Turkey’s President Erdogan. As Turkey invaded Syria to create a ‘safe zone’ free of Kurds near their southern border, guess who embraced Erdogan. No other than President Putin, who hosted a six hour summit on how they, and other regional players, will divide control over Syria. In a victory for Putin, Russian and Turkish troops will take control of a vast swathe of Kurdish controlled northern Syria, establishing Putin as the dominant power in the region.
Admittedly, it started with errors by Obama’s administration, but Trump is now overseeing the withering of America’s influence over the Middle East at a faster pace than ever. Combined with retreating from commitments to the UN, his well-known hostility to the EU and NATO, and an embrace of dictators such as Kim Jong Un, America’s foreign policies are a disaster. The US has also ceded ground across Africa to China with the latter pumping $90 billion into the region in 2018 alone. Add that to China’s investment into its new Silk Road and America’s growing capitulation is complete.
In some ways the election of Trump is understandable by a nation which has sunk some $6 trillion into pointless Middle East wars whilst median wages back home have stagnated, and inequality of wealth has soared. But Trump is making things much worse. Pulling back from global commitments and abandoning allies, whilst back at home funnelling tax cuts to the rich, is a sure way of ceding world super-power status quicker than ever to China. Other countries will follow over time. My experience in the US was to witness a country profoundly ill at ease with itself as the consequences of Trump’s actions to those outside his immediate core base become increasingly evident.
They say politics in the UK and US are a mirror image of each other. As the UK eventually leaves the EU and the US abandons the world stage, this is true. Divisiveness rules. In the process it is making America small again and the UK even tinier on its own than it was before.
Inside Right Politics 