By Michael Glackin
The Daily Star
Tuesday, May 29, 2019
In the end, nothing quite epitomized U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s disastrous premiership better than her ignominious departure. It wasn’t that her time in power literally ended in tears, with the prime minister breaking down as she choked on the final sentences of her resignation speech outside No. 10 Downing Street.
No, it was her bizarre decision to evoke the spirit of the late Sir Nicholas Winton. May suggested advice Winton once gave her on “compromise” should be followed by politicians who opposed her handling of the U.K.’s Brexit process.
Winton, who died four years ago at the age of 106, had helped to organize what is known as the Kindertransport that saved 669 mostly Jewish children from certain destruction in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Within hours of May’s speech, Lord Dubs, a U.K. politician who as 6 year old was among those saved by Winton, criticized May, pointing out that she had doggedly refused to help other unaccompanied refugee children from the Middle East and Africa that are languishing in camps in France, Italy and Greece. The criticism was echoed by Winton’s daughter.
Winton, dubbed the “British Schindler,” was about courage and action. May’s premiership was marked by her vacillation and inertia.
It is for this reason that her parliamentary colleagues ousted her. May had one job to do since she became prime minister three years ago: Deliver Brexit. But like her shameful quoting of Winton, her actions never matched her words.
One can argue she faced an impossible task trying to deliver Brexit against the backdrop of a divided country. The vote to leave the European Union in 2016 was just 52 percent versus 48 percent, and Parliament is largely in favor of remaining in the trading bloc. One can argue that such a situation required compromise.
In fact, it demanded leadership. Why? Because we must either remain fully in the EU or exit the trading bloc completely. May instead wasted two years trying to force through a Brexit deal that managed to offend both those who wanted to leave the EU and those who wanted to remain.
May needed to show Winton’s vision and courage. Instead she indulged in cliches and sound bites – “Brexit means Brexit” and “No deal is better than a bad deal” – both of which became increasingly meaningless as Brexit stalled and the U.K. Parliament voted against leaving the EU without a trade deal.
As Sunday’s European Parliament elections showed, the vacuum created by May’s inertia has been filled by dangerous right-wing populists. In the U.K., this means that Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, which didn’t even exist six weeks ago, is now the U.K.’s largest in the European Parliament, winning 28 seats. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally beat President Emmanuel Macron. In Italy the far-right also topped the polls.
The result is the U.K. is essentially back where it was the day after the historic referendum in 2016, still waiting for Brexit to be delivered.
Before that can happen, a leadership
contest to replace May must take place.
The prime minister will stand down on June 7. Replacing her will not involve a general election – something neither the government nor the Labour opposition party desire. May’s successor needs only to be elected by her party’s parliamentarians and its 120,000, largely middle-aged and elderly members.
Typical of the chaos British politics has descended into, there are so far eight declared candidates with another four expected to join the fray. The main favorites are all hard-line Brexiteers, thus the U.K., particularly against the backdrop of Sunday’s election results, looks set to finally leave the EU on Oct. 31, the latest deadline set for its exit by Brussels.
The overwhelming favorite to succeed May is former Foreign Secretary and exMayor of London Boris Johnson. Interestingly, Johnson’s paternal great-grandfather was Circassian-Turkish journalist and politician Ali Kemal, who was lynched by supporters of Ataturk in 1922. Johnson’s grandfather, who was by then living in England, changed the family name. Johnson, an ardent Brexiteer, appeals to the Conservative party’s rank-and-file membership, but is seen by many colleagues as a loose cannon. His appeal says much for the way demagoguery has enveloped U.K. politics since the 2016 Brexit referendum.
He infamously compared Muslim women who wear the burqa to letterboxes or bank robbers last year, and once compared the EU to the Third Reich. When he worked as a journalist he was sacked from one newspaper for making up quotes. During the Brexit campaign, and despite his Turkish heritage, he co-signed a letter stating that “the only way to avoid having common borders with Turkey is to vote Leave [the EU] and take back control.” He was also humiliatingly demoted by his own party for lying about one of his many extramarital affairs.
His main rival for the leadership looks set to be Michael Gove, another Brexiteer but fierce rival of Johnson. Two years ago Gove scuppered Johnson’s attempt to become prime minister by refusing to support him, insisting Johnson was not up to running the country. To say there is no love lost between the two would be an understatement. Another right-wing Brexiteer, Dominic Raab is also in the running though he lacks the high profile of Johnson or Gove. An outside bet is International Development Secretary Rory Stewart.
Stewart, a former diplomat and centrist politician who voted to remain in the EU, is an interesting character. For one thing, Brad Pitt’s production company bought the rights to make a biopic of his life, which definitely sets him apart from his rival leadership candidates.
Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Stewart was the coalition provisional authority deputy governorate coordinator in Maysan and in Dhi Qar. Before that, between 2000 and 2002 he walked around 9,600 kilometers through Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, staying in villagers’ homes. After his stint in Iraq, he went back to Afghanistan where he helped establish the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, which has restored infrastructure in Kabul and constructed health and educational facilities.
Oddly enough, I once requested an interview with him for The Daily Star to discuss Iraq and Afghanistan. He refused. An initial supporter of both invasions, he has since said they were mistakes.
Unfortunately, against the backdrop of a democracy that is in such disarray, the liberal worldly conservatism of Stewart will be drowned out by those whose primary talent is simply to shout loudest.
In the 1930s, George Orwell wrote: “The thing that strikes me more and more is the extraordinary viciousness of political controversy in our time. Nobody seems to feel that an opponent deserves a fair hearing or that the objective truth matters as long as you can score a neat debating point.”
This is where British politics, and indeed much of European politics is right now. And all caused by a refugee crisis that the EU failed to show leadership and deal with.
Europe has spent the last four years grappling with its biggest influx of asylum-seekers since World War II, as people flee conflict-ridden zones in the Middle East and Africa. It is this crisis, even more than the 2008 financial crisis, which has done the most to destabilize the European project, and led to the rise of populist politicians.
The continent now looks set to spend the next four years holding the ring of democracy against increasingly vocal and powerful politicians who care little for its virtues. One hopes our leaders and institutions finally wake up to the task and stop playing to the baying crowd.
Michael Glackin, is former managing editor of THE DAILY STAR. This article was first published in The Daily Star on May 29, 2019.
