White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

Brexit Equals Severe Storms in English Channel, Irish Sea

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Blimey! What a cock-up!

That is what you might say in London vernacular about the mess that Britain is dealing with as it struggles to leave the European Union by March 29, 2019.

With the deadline in clear line of sight, there is no exit plan and Britain is becoming — depending on whom in the Great British Divide you ask — either critically alarmed or hysterically impatient.

British industry and the whole import-export infrastructure are in panic. Supply lines need to be adjusted and possibly new ones established. Manufacturers are wondering whether it will be possible to continue as Britain-based or whether they should up and move to Europe. The British motor industry, which is not owned in the United Kingdom any longer, is a case in point. Jaguar and Land Rover may be iconic marques, but they are Indian-owned, and will they always be made in Coventry, England? Can London remain the financial center of Europe when Paris, Dublin and Frankfurt are scrambling for the title?

On the impatient side, Brexiteers are screaming for an end to the European linkage no matter what.

In the middle, and in a muddle, is Prime Minister Theresa May, distrusted by the extreme Brexit supporters and considered incompetent by the “Remainers,” who still hope that there will be a miraculous reprieve from the referendum vote of June 29, 2016.

Collectively, the British media is not helpful. Most of the press (especially but not exclusively those newspapers controlled by Rupert Murdoch) is for leaving, often vociferously so. When it appeared, in the latest development, that more time may be granted for Britain to find solutions to the thorniest issues like the Irish border question, they howled in unison for faster action.

The newspapers, representing almost the entire readership of daily newspapers in Britain, have fought for Brexit and fight against reconsideration: The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Sun are adamantly and relentlessly for Britain getting out, mostly with little regard to the consequences.

You cannot consider these newspapers without understanding that they have played the same role as Fox News in the United States in inflaming nationalism and worries about sovereignty — a word that has been taken out of history’s locker for the purpose of stirring up antagonism to Europe.

The newspapers I have cited have been aggressively antagonistic to Europe for decades and were, it could be argued, decisive in the “advisory” referendum in which the British public voted to leave Europe by 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent. The die was cast for the most extraordinary change of direction ever voted by a democracy.

The Brexiteers had the advantage of passion, a well-oiled disinformation campaign and the wild-card endorsement of Boris Johnson, the clownish but clever politician who wants to be prime minister beyond all else. David Cameron’s government, which called the referendum, misjudged the electorate through over-reliance on the polls.

Hopes that Parliament will finally assert itself, take charge of Brexit and call another referendum or nullify the first on the grounds that it was not constitutionally binding, are fading. There is wide acceptance in Britain that the nation is set to sail into waters uncharted — stormy but somehow having the lure of the nation’s explorer past.

Economists are not so sure, and business is looking at decampment to the European mainland.

The Brexiteers see a glowing new era for Britain, which shed its empire with little pain at home, and they may feel this will happen again. British creativity has always been one of its great strengths; for example, creativity in technology that contributed to the success of the empire, including John Harrison’s chronometer and James Watts’s steam engine.

The British will continue to create, to be sure. But how will they sell their creations if they have exempted themselves from their largest market?

The United States, if we do not choke off all immigration, can look forward to a surge of British talent coming across the Atlantic.

The Future of Britain is on the Ballot

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By Llewellyn King

Long before our election in November, a much greater upheaval may hit Britain. Probably in late June, the country will vote on whether to stay in the European Union. Leaving is called “Brexit” in the British press.

While polls have consistently shown that voters favor Britain remaining a member of the 28-nation bloc, there are signs that things are changing. British business, which has until now seen its future as being in the EU, is beginning to rethink its support for British membership. A recent poll shows industry believing it could prosper out of the EU.

This is a big problem for British Prime Minister David Cameron. He has promised dramatic changes in Britain’s membership, which will be announced at the European summit next month.

Britain wants less-oppressive regulations and a change in immigration policy. It wants an end to what has been a fundamental part of the European structure: the freedom of movement between countries. In short: no more immigration to Britain from Europe.

It is a complex negotiation which Cameron believes he can win; particularly when Europe is in shaky shape after the economic crisis in Greece and from the surge of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

Although Europe’s political elites may have to hold their refined noses, the chances are better today than ever that they would rather their unruly island neighbors stay in than further damage the European project by withdrawing.

Predictably some economists say that Britain will do just fine without Europe, while others see dire economic consequences.

When the referendum comes, it will be a free vote with about half of Cameron’s Conservative Party voting to withdraw. These are the rambunctious “Euroskeptics” that have bedeviled British elections for generations and have made the role of Conservative prime ministers particularly trying.

The opposition Labor Party is divided on a Brexit. But Labor has so imploded under the extreme leftist Jeremy Corbyn that it is likely to go along and lend its support — feeble though it is — to the forces wishing to stay in the EU.

The Scottish Nationalists will also support continued membership. They hope that if they break away from the United Kingdom, they will get succor from the EU.

But the forces for exiting the EU are powerful and articulate. They are emboldened by Europe’s problems and the fact that they will no longer be bound by the dictates of, as they say, “faceless bureaucrats in Brussels.”

The wild card in the referendum may be England’s wild man: Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

Now finishing his term as mayor of London, Boris Johnson is a lovable version of Donald Trump. He has gone from scrape to scrape and has come out ahead of the game. For instance, three years after having won a seat in Parliament in 2001, Johnson was sacked by the Tory leader at the time, Michael Howard, for allegedly lying over an affair with journalist Petronella Wyatt. Johnson called newspaper stories about the affair “an inverted pyramid of piffle.” He was also sacked from his editorship of The Spectator, where the piffle took place.

But being elected to higher office is such a compensation, so Johnson, a bicycle-riding, tradition-loving maverick got himself elected mayor of London. In this office he saved the iconic double-decker buses, presided over the 2012 Summer Olympics, and endeared himself to an even wider audience.

The British revere Johnson’s eccentricity and voted him back into Parliament in the last election. Now people talk openly of him being Cameron’s successor after the referendum.

Johnson has hedged his bets on British membership in the EU. Just this week he declared that he will not lead the “Out” forces, but he does not totally endorse the “In” forces.

Here is the possible scenario: Cameron has to produce a deal that satisfies some of the Euroskeptics and set a date for referendum. Then the vote. Then the hangover, one way or another. Then Johnson makes his move – unless some schemer, like the current Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, has not outmaneuvered the charming and brilliant Boris.

Cleverly Johnson has written a long political treatise comparing London to Athens, and leaving room for people to believe he has the qualities of Pericles, without actually claiming the great Greek’s mantle. Then, just to be safe, he has knocked off a highly laudatory biography of Churchill, which invites the idea that Johnson shares some of his hero’s traits.

This kind of effrontery makes British politics a perpetual night in the pub. Cheers! — For Inside Sources

London Murder May Move History

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The murder of a British soldier in Woolwich, the working-class district of London, may be one of those murders that move history. The repercussions will echo down through the years affecting British politics, immigration, attitudes to Europe, possibly the survival of the United Kingdom as now constituted and the social progress of Asian and African minorities there. Immigrants now comprise 11.9 percent of the population.

These things, which were in flux, may now transit to turmoil. And Prime Minister David Cameron's differences with his own Conservative Party could lead to his ouster, unless he can use the murder as a kind of call to order in his rebellious ranks.

There are two big but related issues that have already roiled British politics and now may be forced to a head. The first is immigration. Always a thorny issue for Conservatives, it has been front and center since a big victory in local elections this month by the upstart United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) led by Nigel Farage.

Farage's platform is anti-immigration, not only from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean but also from the European Union. He calls for Britain to the leave the European Union and essentially seal Britain's borders against all comers.

UKIP's local government success led to backbench Conservatives — more than 100 of them — to seek an immediate referendum on Britain’s leaving Europe. They were joined in public support by Tory grandees, who had heretofore supported the prime minister.

One way or another, things will be harder for immigrants no matter when their families arrived in Britain. These divide essentially into longtime immigrant groups from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, and eastern Europeans, allowed in as a result of European Union labor law.

There is also a sharp division between Muslim immigrants and those who practice other religions. Muslim immigration has grown to the point of domination in some areas – like Bradford, in the north of England, and Birmingham in the Midlands. Muslim immigrants — now 4.8 percent of the population, and Islam the second-largest religion after Christianity in the United Kingdom — have established states within their adopted state with Islamic education, very visible mosques, and a palpable sense of their homelands being where they came from ancestrally rather than where they live now.

The Internet and cell phones have made this duality easier to practice. Sadly, the Muslim community in the United Kingdom has prospered far less than the Hindu community, where millionaires and some billionaires abound.

British resentment of the Muslims extends to the treatment of women, halal slaughter of animals, instances of honor killings and many foiled terrorist plots since the subway bombing of 2005.

In Qatar, I ran into a young English Muslim woman wearing a veil and dressed in traditional Arabic clothing. Hearing her speak, I said: “Hi, you’re English.” She rounded on me, replying angrily that although she was born and raised in England that did not make her English.

Understandably, this active refusal to assimilate breeds resentment among the Anglos. The trouble is everyone of color is assumed to be Muslim in the eyes of the Anglos, and the working class in particular.

Hence the rise of right-wing extremists, like the skinheads and the fascistic British National Party, and the more seductive UKIP. The Labor and Liberal parties are sidelined for now, without the visceral appeal that the Tories feel they may ceded to the UKIP.

Meanwhile, there is another shadow on the horizon: Scottish nationalists may push their own referendum on whether to leave the United Kingdom. Their leader, Alex Salmond, sees trouble in the south as opportunity in the north.
 
 
If things go really badly, Cameron could be seen in history as the prime minister who lost both Europe and Scotland – or rallied the country and saved the day. The murder in Woolwich, ghastly in its barbarity, will have consequences beyond that place. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

Prime Ministers and Publishers: An Unholy Alliance

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Lord Northcliffe: The Read Baron

Lord Northcliffe

 

British newspaper publishers love prime ministers. Conversely, prime ministers love publishers. That is, if the publisher in question owns a national newspaper with a big circulation (often in the millions).

You cannot get into the club if you only own, say, the Lewisham Borough News. This is an exclusive club for those who wield real, palpable power: Witness the scandal of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. in Britain today.

The club has been operating for more than 200 years. But it was at the turn of the 20th century, with ever-expanding voter rolls, that the intimacy became really intense. Victorian prime ministers had to put up with editors and owners of journals of opinion, like The Spectator or Punch, and sometimes The Times.

Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and his Liberal rival, William Gladstone, bargained with the media of their day. But these did not sway huge swathes of the electorate in the way that was to come. General education produced millions of avid readers and improved printing technology, notably the Linotype machine, made large mass- circulation newspapers possible.

Two brothers, Vere Harmsworth and his more colorful sibling, Alfred, were the first big-time press barons. In time, they were rewarded with titles: Alfred became Lord Northcliffe and Vere, Lord Rothermere.

It is unlikely that all of the prime ministers — and all of them had to deal with the press barons — really liked the intimacy. These men mostly had huge egos, daunting agendas, and their friendship always came with a price. So, of course, did the friendship of the politicians. They sought support in elections and freedom from scrutiny in governing.

Part of the price was usually the peerage, but then there were other considerations. Lord Beaverbrook, a Canadian, wanted prime ministers to endorse his campaign for “Empire Free Trade.” Others had other interests; but the tariffs on newsprint, the subsidy of cable traffic (which made getting news from overseas cheaper), and subsidized postal rates for newspapers and periodicals were common to all.

Northcliffe lectured World War I Prime Minister Lloyd George on how to run the war — and everything else. Beaverbrook treated Lloyd George’s successor, Bonar Law, a fellow Canadian, as his surrogate in government and campaigned for him relentlessly.

After that, Beaverbrook turned his demonic energies to supporting Winston Churchill — even though Churchill was at a low period during much of the1930s. Not only was the man who was to be Britain’s greatest prime minister out of power, he was also out of money.

The newspaper proprietors, in surprising unity, came to Churchill’s aid. Churchill boasted that he made 1 million pounds from his articles in one year and retired his debts. That was an astounding amount of money, and it reflected the fact that the newspaper bosses were overpaying him enormously, according the historian A.J.P. Taylor.

The leading paymasters were Beaverbrook, who owned the Daily Express and the Evening Standard, and Brendan Bracken, the Irishman who owned the Financial Times. In Churchill they saw potential, a lively contributor, and someone who gave the best dinner parties in England. Bracken even encouraged rumor that he was Churchill’s illegitimate son, although he knew this was nonsense.

The cultivating of prime ministers was an ecumenical affair. Cecil Harmsworth King, who ran Mirror Group Newspapers in the 1960s, lectured Prime Minister Harold Wilson on everything, including his own somewhat ridiculous idea that Britain needed a bipartisan national government — as in wartime — to get it out of his its financial difficulties. Rupert Murdoch went all out for Margaret Thatcher. But he turned against her successor, John Major, and supported the Labor Party and Tony Blair. Gordon Brown failed to get Murdoch’s nod, but current Prime Minister David Cameron did. The rest, as they say, is history.

When television came along, the proprietors had a new incentive to cultivate prime ministers: licenses. The big winner here was the least pushy of the publishers, Roy Thomson, another Canadian, who owned The Times. He got the license to run commercial television in Scotland and became Lord Thomson. Like Murdoch, Thomson did not crave the company of prime ministers. He was happy to let others carry his requirements to the men in power. Murdoch has used various  intermediaries, including the American economist and free-market ideologue Irwin Stelzer.

Is it all over now? Will prime ministers shun the company of media barons?

Will the sun rise in the East tomorrow?  — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

 

 

 

Obama and Cameron: Pretending To Be Pals

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I cannot look at British Prime Minister David Cameron without feeling that he has been made from an Identi-Kit, and that they just missed the perfect likeness. The hair is from a Vidal Sassoon catalogue; the face from an exhibition of Dutch masters; and the body from, well, the ranks of the well-fed but not fat.

This sense that Cameron is a made-up man came back to me in the East Room, when President Barack Obama welcomed him to the White House as both men gave their first joint press conference since the prime minister was elected.

With just four questions from pre-selected reporters, it is stretching it to call these events press conferences; and the lack of enthusiasm for the format was shown by the empty media seats.

Anyway, the purpose of the event was to convince the media that Cameron and Obama are on the same page of the hymnal. Everybody knows they are not. They are divided by four not-unsubstantial issues.

They tried hard to sound like chums. They wore almost identical dark suits and blue ties. They called each other by their first names: It was “David” this and “Barack” that.

There has been a steady growth of informality at the White House, but this was a new mile post. One British reporter -presumably for the benefit of his American colleagues -actually addressed Cameron as “Mr. Prime Minister.” That is a form of address peculiarly American and never heard around the British Parliament. The British prefer to believe that a title determines the form of address. So it is simply, “Prime Minister, could you tell us …”

Cameron tried to set the stage by writing an article that appeared that morning in the Wall Street Journal. In it, he redefined the “special relationship” and called for the British to be less sentimental about it.

Underlining their differences, Cameron and Obama share something that is not helpful: neither of them is an Atlanticist.

Unlike many British Conservatives, Cameron has not been seduced by the United States. He did not spend a year at a U.S. university and has not peppered his talk with mention of the American example.

Likewise, Obama is one of the least Eurocentric of American presidents. He, too, did not spend time at a British university, as did Bill Clinton. He even offended many by banishing a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.

We do not know whether the public coziness extended into two days of talks between Obama and Cameron, but the policy differences are wide.

First, there is the global economy. Obama and his advisers believe too much austerity now will lead to a second recession and catastrophic deflation. So much so that Obama wrote to his partners in the G8 urging them to stimulate, not strangle, their economies.

But Cameron, keenly aware of the fate of Greece and the downgrading of Irish debt, has put forward an austerity budget and asked his departments to come up with possible cuts in staff and expenditures of 25 and 40 per cent, respectively. The real pain will not be felt until the cutting begins in the fall.

Second, there is the delicate matter of BP. Obama does not mind if the oil giant is squeezed so much over the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that it has to be sold off to, say, an American company. Cameron minds a lot.

Then there is the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, by the Scottish government. Americans want an inquiry into whether there was a deal to release al-Megrahi to protect British business interests in Libya, possibly involving BP. Cameron, who opposed the release at the time, thinks it is a closed issue. But he has already been pressured into a review.

Finally there is the case of Gary McKinnon, the computer genius with Asperger’s syndrome, who hacked into Pentagon and NASA computers after 9/11. The United States wants him extradited for trial here and Cameron is under pressure on grounds of humanitarianism and sovereignty not to oblige. Obama says it is a legal not presidential matter; Cameron raised it anyway.

His “special relationship” might not be Obama’s cup of tea.


Boris Johnson: Mayor of London, Clown of England

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I would like to introduce you to the new Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson. He is remarkable. He is unique. His political success is based on the oft-repeated pratfall. Yes, Johnson has committed every political sin and is now at the helm of the most important city in Europe, and the one best beloved by Americans.

In the age of the technocrat, Johnson is more like something out of a P.G. Wodehouse novel. For more than a decade, the British media have been regaled by Johnson’s “scrapes.” For example, he was demoted in the Conservative Party from a position on its front bench (which means that if the Tories had come back to power, he would have been a cabinet member) for variously insulting the city of Liverpool, antagonizing Pacific Islanders, and having an extramarital affair with Petronella Wyatt, a columnist at The Spectator, the weekly magazine which he edited.

Indeed, everyone at The Spectator seemed to be having an affair at the time Johnson occupied the editor’s chair. Publisher Kimberly Quinn, an American, was having an extramarital affair with David Blunkett, the blind British home secretary. Associate Editor Rod Liddle was having an extramarital affair with a Spectator secretary. Given that the staff is very small, that it is the oldest continuously published magazine in England (1828), and it is the seat of the Conservative intelligentsia, you can imagine how the tabloids loved the goings on. In fact, they took to calling Johnson “Boudoir Boris” and the magazine “The Sextator.”

Johnson was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and with which he has been able to cut himself. From Eton, the world’s most exclusive boarding school, Johnson sailed into Oxford University, where he distinguished himself as president of its debating society, The Oxford Union. Many a future prime minister has honed his skills debating at Oxford, and it seemed inevitable that Johnson would find his way into parliament. In 2001, he became a Conservative member.

Johnson’s running for mayor of London had all the characteristics of William F. Buckley Jr.’s running for mayor of New York. The only difference is that Johnson secured–to the horror of his party–the formal Conservative nomination, and now he is the mayor. At 43, he is one of the few executive mayors in England. He is a man known for his dazzling white hair, disorganization, irreverently witty tongue, and a sense that absolutely everything is not to be taken seriously.

Johnson was aided in his campaign because he was running against an equally bizarre, but more calculating, Ken Livingstone, also known as “Red Ken.” Livingstone had a long history in London politics and was elected to the new post of executive mayor eight years ago. Livingstone’s admiration of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, coupled with his newly found affection for big business, offended the left and the right of his party. Yet, to his credit, Livingstone introduced congestion pricing, which has eased London traffic, and coped with the al-Qaeda subway bombings on July 7, 2005.

But in this election, the big issues like the 2012 Olympic Games in London and street crime were dwarfed by a silly argument over buses. Livingstone had decided that it was time to replace London’s double-decker fleet with flexible single-deck buses, commonly called “bendy” buses. The argument is one of tradition versus modernity. Johnson, who mostly rides a bicycle, wants the double-decker Routemaster buses redesigned and saved. He wants to ban the bendy buses that he believes hurt the image of London as well as being, well, un-English: the Routemasters are made in England and the bendys are made in Germany.

The Conservative Party is not so happy about Johnson winning the executive mayoral race. They feel that he will embarrass the party leader, David Cameron, and generally humiliate Tory values. Johnson has the wit of Will Rodgers and none of the temperance. Here are some of Boris’s best:

“My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.”

“I don’t see why people are so snooty about Channel 5. It has some respectable documentaries about the Second World War. It also devotes considerable airtime to investigations into lap dancing, and other related and vital subjects.”

“I love tennis with a passion. I challenged Boris Becker to a match once and he said he was up for it, but he never called back. I bet I could make him run around.”

“I have as much chance of becoming prime minister as of being decapitated by a Frisbee or of finding Elvis.”