In “The race to make Europe great again” (TNE #412), Marion van Renterghem is right to warn of the dangers for Europe of “failing to become more autonomous in terms of defence”. It is quite obvious that 27 countries with their own armed forces, plus the UK, do not make a coherent defence organisation.
This disparate collection of militaries has happily existed under the American umbrella. This seems likely to be folded up, leaving Europe (I include Britain in this) to the elements.
A proposal for combined European forces was put forward after the second world war, but was rejected by France. I suggest that the logic of the present situation requires the proposal to be resumed. This, in turn, requires a coordinated or centralised administration, which needs political supervision. As such, it implies the need for a government, perhaps of a federal nature, hence a United States of Europe.
When the USA was the world superpower, some general spoke of “full spectrum dominance”, and America was happy to see Europe expand and remain disunited. Now is a different time.
As Marion rightly says, “Make Europe great again” (MEGA?) requires the UK not just cooperating but being inside the structure.
Daniel Beck
Huntingdon, Cambs
A move into overdrive by the EU, as recommended by Marion Van Renterghem, will also require a new, revised, and tiered EU membership and associated voting structure.
Member states that are prepared to fully commit to an integrated Europe need more internal EU powers and voting rights compared with those states that are just there “for the ride”. The EU tail should not be allowed to wag (and control) the dog.
Peter Ridman
Look east for trade
Re: “MAGA’s useful idiots” (TNE #412). Anyone who thinks a trade deal with Trump’s USA will be good for the UK is seriously deluded or dangerously unhinged. Britain’s special trading relationship needs to be with the EU, which Trump hates, partly because it’s a bigger market than the US. Meanwhile our “special relationship” with the US will only persist – or exist – if we dutifully comply with Trump’s requirements.
Apart from TNE readers, how many people in the UK know that we only do 15% of our trade with the US but 50% with the EU? A local straw poll suggests most think it’s the other way around.
So thanks Jonty Bloom for confirming the figures. Not something you will see reported in the Mail, Express or Telegraph, but other media could make more of it. Mind you, the 50% is at risk of further decline thanks to Brexit.
Phil Green
“Sovereignty” and “independence” – the central themes of Brexit – now appear to be euphemisms for getting ever closer to the US.
It may be true that Britain has to align with one of the world’s great economic blocs, but why choose to be America’s poodle when we could be at Europe’s top table?
RS Prior
As to what Labour should do after Donald Trump, his rout of the Democrats came because progressives in the US, and indeed Europe, have no coherent response to voters’ desire for economic security for their families and their communities.
All need not be gloom, however. Labour is a lucky government compared with its counterparts in Europe, such as Germany and France. It has a huge parliamentary majority and a five-year mandate. However, to ensure any hope of re-election it must focus on policies that address such insecurities.
To achieve this, Labour’s “growth” mantra needs to be redefined as an increase in economic activity directed predominantly towards rebuilding public services and turbocharging a green transition. If successful, such a truly “Social and Green New Deal” approach could become a beacon for other centre right or centre left governments in Europe, and indeed for the Democrats in the US as they recover from their crushing defeat by Donald Trump.
Colin Hines
Listening to chancellor Rachel Reeves talking at the Mansion House, it seemed we were back in the Brexit La-La Land of “having our cake and eating it”. And we know how that ended.
It’s time for all of us, particularly the Labour government, to face the facts and accept we got Brexit wrong.
To carry on with the same actions expecting a different result is a definition of insanity.
John Simpson
Ross on Wye, Herefordshire
How did we get here?
I’m afraid Matthew d’Ancona, in “The wolves in the White House” (TNE #412) has misinterpreted the American comedian George Carlin’s quote “When fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts.”
Carlin uttered those words almost 20 years ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina during a discussion of looters in New Orleans. And Carlin, despite my enjoyment of him, was in fact wrong in his prediction.
Fascism has not come to America through the looting of athletic apparel. Nor has it come through general consumerism. It has come via a campaign that was clear about its intentions, including its thirst for hate, for retribution and for violence.
My country’s current state of affairs requires much deeper thought about how we have arrived at this point. In the case of a Kamala Harris victory, should we have taken comfort that 49% of American voters pulled the lever for an unabashedly fascist campaign?
I’d like to think not. But I fear that, as they have in the past, the left would declare victory and move on. Whistling past the graveyard. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons we have come to this point.
As the old saying goes: problems long in the making are long in the solving.
Wesley Eberle
London
“The wolves in the White House” was an insightful article as ever from Matthew d’Ancona, but the Nazi takeover of the Weimar Republic is a more appropriate analogy than a brutal medieval court.
Hitler apportioned ministries to those loyal to him if they showed enough “National-Socialist zeal”. His henchmen in turn rewarded those loyal to them, and the rotten system of patronage and reward washed through the government, allowing the Nazis to take rapid and total control of the state. The parallels are chilling.
Mark Grahame
As Matthew d’Ancona, James Ball and others have made clear, the GOP elephant – let’s call her Nellie – has gone rogue. It was bad enough in 2016 when off she went with a trumpety trump (trump, trump, trump).
Once she has smashed down the walls of her enclosure there will be nothing to stop her trampling the whole circus and the audience as well.
Jim Trimmer
MAGA is built on lies. Most of the 19 million illegal immigrants that Donald Trump wishes to expel from the US are employed in businesses across the country. If they were all forced to leave, many firms would be plunged into uncertainty, while some would be forced to close down. The result could cause a recession.
As for Trump’s denial of global warming, why did he ignore the catastrophic Hurricane Milton, which crossed Florida and with its associated tornadoes did enormous damage? Does it need a severe hurricane to hit Trump’s estate at Mar-a-Lago before he realises the threat of global warming?
David Hogg
North Somerset
Donald Trump and Elon Musk can deny climate change as much as they want, but I have never had to mow my lawn in November before.
David Evans
Pontlliw, Swansea
As you might expect from a New European reader, I agree with much of Alastair Campbell, Matthew d’Ancona, James Ball and others’ analysis of the nightmare that is the US election result. But I am often left wondering if there has been a collective amnesia on the progressive left, but also generally in the minds of politicians and advisers (the “elites”?) who have held power in recent times.
The global economic system has now worked way too well, for way too long for way too few people. These facts, I’m afraid, implicate all who have implemented the neo-liberal economic policies of the last 30-40 years, either as a guiding ideology or in resignation towards the prevailing orthodoxy.
As seems to be acknowledged, Trump voters have had enough of a political system they feel is ignoring them and the harshness of their daily lives. If the system won’t listen to them, they want to see that system and everything it represents torn down, whatever the cost. I think the sentiment of many Brexit voters was the same.
I hope it is still possible to save a semblance of democratic capitalism as we have known it for a very brief period of human history. But if there is any chance, progressive politicians, necessarily working together across national boundaries, need to start actively and explicitly promoting not just notions of public service, but public service for the many, and pretty damn quick.
Kevin Boardley
Wandsworth, SW18
Beethoven and the sax
In his piece about Beethoven’s Belgian roots (TNE #412), Peter Trudgill writes: “People driving through Belgium have to keep their linguistic wits about them!” I found this out many years ago when driving through Flanders following signs for Rijsel and ending up in Lille.
Graham Guest
Bromley, Greater London
I was shocked to the core that Peter Trudgill when discussing Ludwig van Belgisch failed to mention the most famous of all Belgians: Hergé!!!
Patrice Moor
London, NW1
Re: famous Belgians. What about Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone?
John Ashelford
Missing Middle East
I am an avid reader of the New European. However, in TNE #411, both Alastair Campbell and James Ball list the potential consequences for the world from the election of the new US president. Their lists are similar: Ukraine, the future of Nato, the climate crisis, tariffs, human rights… but there is no mention of the Middle East.
The current suffering and terror in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are a direct consequence of the Biden administration, and even though to many of us it seems impossible to imagine, things are highly likely to get worse.
Maria Roe
Wimborne, Dorset
Litter bug
Re: Alastair Campbell on litter (TNE #410). I live near the Jurassic Coast, a few miles south of a main holiday route, where people who have stopped at the local petrol station and food outlet then throw their rubbish a few miles down the road into the countryside.
This service area is due to be expanded to include a cafe and drive-thru. Perhaps these outlets should be legally obliged to erect signs at their exits such as: “Don’t be a tosser – bin your litter”!
Lyn Farnworth
Bere Regis, Dorset
BELOW THE LINE
Comments, conversation and correspondence from our online subscribers
“The losers who knew best” by James Ball (TNE #412) reveals several failures by the Democrats that must be noted by Labour and others.
Rule number one of a successful political campaign: listen to the voters. Rule number two: propose policies to try and address their concerns. Rule number three: keep listening to them and be prepared to explain and debate rather than lecture. Rule number four: simply trashing what the other lot did as an excuse does not go down well with voters. They want to know what your solution is. Remember, keeping voters onside is the way you win elections. Democracy teaches hard lessons to those who do not follow some simple rules of engagement. Listen to the voters or suffer the consequences.
David Rolfe
Commentators like James Ball are in danger of overdoing Trump’s essentially quite narrow victory. You would think he had won two-thirds of the vote and by 20m votes. In fact his margin of victory (likely to be less than 3m votes) was much smaller than Biden’s (7m votes) four years ago – an election that is in danger of being airbrushed out of history.
Dreadful yes, and the next four years will be long and difficult, but his victory needs to be seen in perspective and proportion.
John Hyder-Wilson
Re: Everyday Philosophy on Ayn Rand (TNE #412). If evil objectively exists, Ayn Rand (or Randy An as I prefer to call her) was its modern personification. Her horrible views clearly inspired Thatcher’s nasty “no such thing as society” ideas.
Ian Williams
In writing “far from being the root of all evil, money…”, Nigel Warburton perpetuates the common misconception that “money is the root of all evil”. The root of all evil referred to in St Paul’s correspondence with Timothy is “the love of money”.
David Irwin
Re: Paul Mason’s “The next two months will define Starmer” (TNE #412). Between now and Trump taking over, Ukraine should be getting everything they want. It’s good that Biden has dropped restrictions on missile distance limits – stop pandering to Putin and give Ukraine a chance to be in a stronger negotiating position come January.
Danny Abrahams
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Subscribe and download our free new app to comment and chat with our writers
