realclearworld Newsletters: Europe Memo
Let's hope British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn enjoyed his time in the limelight over the summer.
Indeed, Corbyn was the best show in town for a period of months. The slow political season gave particular salience to the infighting that plagued the Labour Party. With the pace of politics lumbering, the party's public squabble, its eventual appointment of the left-wing firebrand to the leadership post, and the brief period of novelty that followed as Corbyn appointed a shadow Cabinet and took part in his first PMQs, provided by far the best game in town for the London political press.
If he was the leading man during the midsummer drama, Corbyn is a mere prop now -- a handy device the Conservative Party can use to stake out the most blatantly centrist political positions, and sweep up Labour voters in the process. Today's speech by Prime Minister David Cameron showed just how simple the political game is for the Tories, at least for right now. A couple excerpts:
"My friends, we cannot let that man inflict his security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating ideology on the country we love." Cameron here was expanding on Corbyn's reported assertion that the death of Osama bin Laden was a "tragedy." Continuing:
"I love Britain. I love our history and what we've given to the world. I love our get-up-and-go; that whenever we're down, we're never out. I love our character; our decency; our sense of humour. I love every part of our country. England, Scotland, Wales, Northern ireland -- we are one nation and I will defend our Union with everything I have got." An obvious civic statement by any leader, one made politically relevant only by the fact that his counterpart can't be bothered to sing the national anthem in public.
Corbyn's supporters won't be much discouraged by any of this. For the hard left, moving into leadership of one of the country's two core parties is a coup, electoral prospects be damned. The true defeat is for New Labour, which suddenly finds that it is old news. In a recent editorial, former New Labour mouthpiece Progress briefly praised and permanently buried the movement, calling for the establishment of the "Next Left":
"The current reality for anyone involved in or inspired by the last Labour government is pretty bleak. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown -- both heroes to many in the party -- cannot save us now. They have done incredible service to our party and country over three decades. Both will contribute now and then. For good or bad, no well-written or well-intentioned op-eds or speeches can provide an argument to win over the couple of hundred thousand who signed up to vote for Jeremy Corbyn as leader nor provide a future for our politics. Advice is always welcome but the baton must be handed on. It is time for a new generation to step up.
"Indeed we should not be longing for them or even describing ourselves as a follower of either. Being a Blairite or a Brownite under Corbyn is like being a Gaitskellite under Michael Foot; it is tired, dated, and redolent of a time that has been and gone. New Labour had what co-chair of the think tank Policy Network Patrick Diamond called ‘an unbroken line back to the New Liberals' who founded the party, via Ernest Bevin and Hugh Gaitskell. In the same way, the politics that inspired 13 years in government will have a future beyond New Labour. This is what we have to now build."
Around the Continent
Are Europe and China losers? That's the take by Alicia Garcia-Herrero, writing for the Bruegel think tank in the aftermath of the trade agreement reached between 12 Pacific Rim nations, including the United States.
"Europe, which has spent years negotiating with the U.S. on another major trade pact, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), may need to be more accommodating to reach a deal before Obama leaves, as the President's interest has probably waned somewhat after this victory. On the other hand, many of the negotiation benchmarks reached by the U.S. government for TPP will probably not be acceptable for Europe."
PEGIDA Defiant: The longer European leaders struggle to come to grips with the growing refugee crisis, the more it feeds the fringes of political thought. Euractiv has this report from Germany:
"The PEGIDA movement was thought to be dead in the water. But the escalating -- if unclear -- number of refugee arrivals, and Monday night's show of strength by the xenophobic group, show that anti-Islamic backlash is still alive and well in Germany.
...
"In the city's main square, the Neumarkt, demonstrators held aloft German flags and signs with anti-refugee slogans. These included: ‘Stop Asylum Tourism', ‘End Asylum Fraudsters -- Even One Is Too Many', ‘Islam Is Submission, Stop The Invasion Now!'
"‘Other [banners] held aloft stated: ‘Merkel Guilty Of Ethnocide Against Her Own People', as well as ‘Peace With Russia, Get Out Of NATO'."
Could leftist disunity help usher in a Le Pen victory? Front National leader Marine Le Pen is polling strong in her bid for election in the northern Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region. And true to European form, the left may be damaging its own ability to block the rise of the far-right leader. Les Echos:
"The left knows it will struggle to keep the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, enlarged to Picardie, in its pocket. It suffered a number of setbacks in recent departmental and municipal elections. Several major cities and northern departments in the Somme, Oise, and Aisne have already turned to the right, while the FN vote has received a major boost.
"Pierre de Saintignon, the head of the Socialist Party's regional list ... has covered a lot of ground over the months, but has been unable to overcome his notoriety deficit. He is now supported in Pas-de-Calais by Frederic Cuvillier, former transport minister. But he has to face off an ecologist list allied with the Front de Gauche (Left Front). Many PS activists consider this a suicidal approach."
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