Há 22 horas
sexta-feira, 31 de janeiro de 2025
Belgium gets new government with Flemish separatist Bart De Wever as PM
Belgium
gets new government with Flemish separatist Bart De Wever as PM
After
repeated false starts and breakdowns in talks, the country gets a
Flemish-nationalist led coalition.
January 31,
2025 10:10 pm CET
By Hanne
Cokelaere and Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing
Five parties
agreed to form a new Belgian coalition government late Friday, concluding
months of negotiations and paving the way for Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever
to serve as the country’s next prime minister.
“After seven
long months, we finally have a government for the country,” said Conner
Rousseau, the president of Vooruit, one of the parties in the new government.
Rousseau referenced the deep divisions the parties’ negotiators had bridged.
“There will be a lot of fake news and a lot of criticism. But many people will
be proud that we’re not afraid to make decisions.”
Negotiators
will still have to seek official approval from their parties to cement the
deal.
Coalition
talks between De Wever’s right-wing New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the
Francophone center-right Reformist Movement (MR), the Francophone centrist Les
Engagés, the centrist Christian Democrat and Flemish Party and the center-left
Flemish Vooruit party — dubbed the “Arizona” coalition after the colors of the
American state’s flag — hit multiple bumps in the road.
Belgium’s
June election delivered an unexpected result: In the traditionally left-wing
Walloon region in the south of the country, MR emerged the winner. In the
Flanders region in the north, De Wever’s N-VA stayed ahead of the far right. It
led some to hope that it would be easier than ever to bridge Belgium’s language
divides and forge a majority of like-minded parties.
But
negotiations repeatedly collapsed over budget disputes, and Belgian King
Philippe granted De Wever multiple extensions as he sought to reach a coalition
accord. Finally, earlier this month, the king issued De Wever an ultimatum:
form a new government by the end of January or face a new election.
Under
renewed pressure to do a deal, party negotiators entered the final stretch of
talks this Wednesday, racing against the clock to form a new government by
Friday.
Negotiators
finally struck an agreement after marathon talks in the Royal Military Academy,
a stone’s throw from EU institutions on the Schuman square. Initial plans to
meet at the Val Duchesse castle — the scene of several past government deals —
were abandoned when it transpired that the heating and showers were broken.
The new
government will have its work cut out for it, facing a laundry list of tasks
left undone during the prolonged negotiation process. During the extended
interregnum, Belgium missed several critical deadlines including appointing a
European commissioner candidate (which it eventually did) and presenting budget
plans to the European Commission by the end of September (a task that still
languishes).
Flemish
Liberal Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has led a caretaker government in the
months since the June election.
De Wever’s
right-wing nationalist party claims as one of its missions the independence of
Flanders from Belgium, although it’s shifted its approach to one of
“confederalism,” whereby a minimal federal state remains in place but its
regions get most of its powers.
“A Flemish
nationalist who’s moving into Rue de la Loi 16 [the prime minister’s official
seat] — who has to represent Belgium … I’d struggle with that,” Jan Peumans,
formerly the president of the Flemish parliament and a member of De Wever’s
Flemish-nationalist party, told VRT. But, he surmised, maybe “to save Belgium
is also, in part, to save Flanders.”
The
government formation talks have largely been focused on cutting Belgium’s
budget deficit through pension, tax and labor reforms.
But
typically Belgian clashes over the representation of Dutch and French language
groups could still rear their head in the last remaining Belgian region without
a government: Brussels.
Negotiators
in the capital region have cut deals within the two language groups, led by the
center-right MR on the French-speaking side and the Greens on the
Dutch-speaking side, but have not yet cut a deal to govern together. Ahmed
Laaouej, the leader of Brussels’ Francophone Socialist Party, has ruled out a
governing coalition with De Wever’s Flemish-Nationalist Party, and his
suggestions to bypass the usual checks and balances for the representation of
Brussels’ Dutch-speaking minority has riled up the party of Belgium’s brand new
prime minister.
The Maga backlash against Trump’s crypto grab: ‘This is bad, and looks bad’
Analysis
The Maga
backlash against Trump’s crypto grab: ‘This is bad, and looks bad’
J Oliver
Conroy
Trump’s meme
coin has some conservatives complaining over ‘most blatant ponzi scheme in
history’
Fri 31 Jan
2025 10.00 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/31/trump-cryptocurrency-republicans
When Donald
Trump announced – three days before assuming the presidency of the United
States, and followed shortly by Melania Trump – that he was launching a
self-named “meme coin” cryptocurrency, many in the crypto industry were quick
to express frustration. Ethics experts were also alarmed.
Among
Trump’s base, however, a similar backlash – smaller, more muted, but similarly
anguished – has been taking hold.
After a
brief bubble as speculators raced to buy them, both Trump coins have mostly
plummeted in value. Within the online Maga community – which has a certain
degree of overlap with crypto enthusiasts – some feel betrayed by the
president’s embrace of what some conservatives view as little better than a
penny-stock pump-and-dump scam.
Trump, who
in 2021 said bitcoin “seems like a scam”, has since flipped on the issue. He
was widely expected to be a “pro-crypto” president, with the crypto sector
hoping he would be a broadminded sheriff who would grant their financial
frontier new legitimacy; instead he embarrassed them by initiating a gold-rush
on meme coins, considered the riskiest and least reputable form of mainstream
cryptocurrency.
Unlike
traditional crypto-currencies that are “mined” and used in a blockchain, meme
coins cannot be used as electronic currency and are generally regarded as
having no enduring value. They are “minted” to exploit a viral moment.
“Now, on the
cusp of getting some liberalization of crypto regulations in this country, the
main thing people are thinking about crypto is, ‘Oh, it’s just a casino for
these meme coins,’” Nic Carter, a Trump supporter and cryptocurrency investor,
told the New York Post. “It does the opposite of validating us, it makes it
look completely unserious.”
Similarly,
keyboard Maga warriors who hoped that Trump would stick up for the American
little guy are bitterly disappointed that he endorsed a financial scheme that
immediately took little guys for a ride.
The new
president claimed his coin would “celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!”,
but not everyone seems persuaded.
“I wish
Trump was more tempered on this,” someone on a conservative Reddit forum
despaired after Trump’s coin debuted. “He owns casinos and knows the addiction
of gambling.” Another argued that meme coins prey “on the poor and most
desperate”.
“Can anyone
make a cogent argument in favor of this?” one poster asked. Few did. “This is
bad, and looks bad,” one person said.
Others
called the Trump token “degrad[ing] to the office of the Presidency”, “a lame
money grab”, “a bad idea with a million ways to go wrong and derail his second
term”, “shady”, and “kinda gross”. Another added, “This crypto is the most
blatant ponzi scheme in history and we are the marks.”
One
conservative wrote that their litmus test was “if Biden pulled this shit, how
would I feel? … I can’t imagine any other president doing this”.
“The GOP has
to find someone better for 2028,” someone said – a sentiment that was
surprisingly common. “I want a real man like Vance to run this,” someone else
said.
After a meme
coin named IVANKA launched last week, Ivanka Trump was forced to clarify that
she had no relationship with the venture, and condemned it as “being promoted
without my consent or approval”. She said the coin “risks deceiving consumers
and defrauding them of their hard-earned money”, an argument that some crypto
critics might say applies to all meme coins, including Trump and Melania’s
official tokens.
The famously
conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board, influential in conservative
circles, ran an editorial criticizing Trump’s turn as a crypto impresario. The
piece noted a litany of legal, ethical and political problems with meme coins,
“vehicles for speculation” that could open Trump to civil and criminal
liabilities or be used by foreign adversaries to curry influence. “No careful
President would get anywhere near this kind of political risk, and we can’t
recall any President who has.”
The Trump
token’s website contains a disclaimer noting that the tokens are “not intended
to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract,
or security of any type”, though that language probably does not bear much
relation with how the average investor views a meme coin.
Undeterred,
Trump’s wider business empire is stepping further into this space. On Tuesday,
the Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates Trump’s social media
platform Truth Social, announced the launch of a financial technology brand
called “Truth.Fi”, through which the company plans to invest up to $250m in
crypto-currencies and “crypto securities”, and other investment accounts.
Ethics
experts have widely condemned Trump’s coin as creating serious and
unprecedented conflicts of interest or as one conservative on Reddit begs:
“Please please please Mr. President. Don’t get involved with crypto.”
Merz’s far-right gamble backfires
Merz’s
far-right gamble backfires
Favorite to
be next German chancellor loses bid to use AfD support to push through
immigration law, after days of turmoil over weakening of Germany’s “firewall.”
The draft
bill, which sought to impose stricter immigration controls, failed in a narrow
vote.
January 31,
2025 5:47 pm CET
By Chris
Lunday
BERLIN —
Friedrich Merz, the conservative frontrunner to become Germany’s next
chancellor, suffered a major political defeat on Friday as his controversial
immigration bill backed by the far right was rejected in the Bundestag, with
some members of his own party refusing to support the measure.
Merz had
earlier declared his willingness to push through the draft law to restrict
migration even with support from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, a
move that weakened Germany’s so-called firewall against the far right and
sparked a fierce pre-election debate that struck at the heart of the country’s
postwar identity.
The draft
bill, which sought to impose stricter immigration controls, failed in a narrow
vote — 338 in favor, 350 against — marking a significant blow to Merz’s
leadership and election strategy just weeks before Germany’s federal vote, set
for Feb. 23.
In a
passionate debate in parliament, center-left lawmakers warned that the
conservative acceptance of far-right support would badly scar Germany’s
democracy.
“The
original sin will follow you forever,” Rolf Mützenich, parliamentary leader for
the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), warned conservatives. He then
urged Merz and his allies to change course and reject the AfD’s help. “The
gates of hell, we can still close together,” he said.
Twelve
conservative lawmakers rejected the bill or abstained, revealing a deep rift
within Merz’s alliance and embarrassing the candidate at a critical time in the
campaign. Earlier this week, Merz’s conservative predecessor, former chancellor
Angela Merkel, condemned his decision to accept far-right support.
“I consider
it wrong to abandon this commitment and, as a result, to knowingly allow a
majority with AfD votes in the Bundestag for the first time,” Merkel said in a
statement.
In
parliament, Merz defended his decision, arguing that the government had lost
control of migration policy and that mainstream parties needed to act, no
matter who supported the legislation. “People outside don’t want us to argue
among ourselves about the AfD,” he said. “They want us to find solutions.”
At the same
time, Merz used the kind of inflammatory rhetoric often employed by the AfD,
referring to a series of violent attacks perpetrated by immigrants, such as the
attack on a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, and knife
attack in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg earlier this month.
“Is it
seriously your position that, in light of the attacks in Magdeburg and
Aschaffenburg, in light of daily gang rapes committed by asylum seekers […] we
should do nothing? That we should not take action, even as parents across
Germany fear for their children?” Merz said, drawing a direct link between
crime and migration.
It remains
to be seen how Merz’s failure to pass the bill will change the contours of the
race, but the conservative attempt to peel back votes from the AfD may well end
up suffering as a result. At the same time, centrist voters upset with Merz’s
weakening of the firewall may shift to left-leaning parties that have pushed to
uphold it.
Merz’s
conservatives currently lead in polls at 30 percent, while the AfD is at 21
percent, having seen its popularity increase in recent weeks.
‘Disrupt or be disrupted’, mainstream parties warned as voters turn to populists
‘Disrupt
or be disrupted’, mainstream parties warned as voters turn to populists
Research
shows voters losing faith in traditional centre-left and centre-right to
deliver meaningful change
Eleni Courea
Political correspondent
Thu 30 Jan
2025 18.00 GMT
Voters in
western democracies are turning away from mainstream political parties and
towards populists because they are losing faith in their ability to implement
meaningful change, a major report based on surveys of 12,000 voters has found.
The
popularity of traditional centre-left and centre-right parties across major
democratic countries has plummeted from 73% in 2000 to 51% today, according to
research by the Tony Blair Institute.
Researchers
looked in depth at the views of samples of 2,000 voters polled in each of six
big democracies – the UK, US, Australia, Germany, France and Canada – and found
they were “remarkably similar”.
They
concluded that voters were increasingly turning away from centre-left and
centre-right parties not for ideological reasons, but because confidence in
their competence and integrity have plummeted.
“Whatever
voters are looking for, they increasingly seem to doubt that it can be
delivered by the parties they have traditionally elected to office,” the report
said.
In the TBI’s
analysis, voters were divided into “insiders”, who were willing mainstream
politicians to work, and “outsiders”, who have given up on traditional parties
and turned to insurgents. Both groups wanted honesty, competence and reform –
but the difference was in their faith in mainstream parties to deliver it, the
thinktank said.
Outsiders
felt they were victims of a system run by remote elites serving their own
interests instead of implementing simple solutions to political problems. They
placed greater value on “common sense” over independent evidence, and strong,
decisive leaders over negotiation and compromise.
In the UK,
older voters were likelier to be outsiders, while in France and Germany – where
the far-right National Rally and Alternative for Germany have surged in
popularity – younger and older voters were equally likely to be outsiders.
Across the
countries surveyed, there was a high degree of economic pessimism among voters,
who expected children born today to be worse off than their parents. This
feeling was most acute in the UK – where 49% expected children to be worse off,
compared with 26% who expected them to be better off – and in Australia and
France.
The report
found that this economic pessimism was linked to declining faith in democracy.
Of those voters who said they had negative views about democracy, 77% said they
believed that children born today would be worse off than their parents.
Voters
generally thought that technology made their lives better, but were ambivalent
about its impact on public services. Asked how optimistic they were about
potential improvements brought about by AI, most placed themselves between a
three and seven out of 10. Outsiders who were distrustful of politicians were
much more pessimistic about technology.
The report
concluded that “the key to bringing coalitions back together is effective
delivery” and “paradoxically, modern technology can offer part of an answer”.
It suggested that, for example, introducing digital IDs, which the UK
government has backed, could help assuage concerns about controlling
immigration.
Ryan Wain,
the TBI’s executive director of politics, said the findings served as a
“clarion call to mainstream parties: disrupt or be disrupted”.
He said that
to build and maintain support, mainstream parties needed to “change through
disruption – of social media feeds, of the old left-right spectrum and by
embracing new technology, especially AI. At the same time, credible answers
must be provided for legitimate grievances, including around immigration.”
Rob Ford, a
professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said the report
reflected that “while the TBI has provided us with an elegant and rigorous
report to give us a diagnosis of the problem, they don’t offer much by way of a
cure. I’m not sure anyone has the answer.”
He added:
“The central conundrum of our times is: is there any kind of deliverable
performance for any government that voters will reward? We’re seeing every
single incumbent getting kicked out whatever they do, whatever they support,
whatever narrative they promote.
“Take a
typical Reform voter – they will say, ‘here’s a list I demand that the
government do’. Some of those things are impossible for any government to do.
They will say they want net migration down to zero and major improvements to
the healthcare system, and also lower taxes. How? If you deliver any one of
those things you are making it drastically harder to deliver the others.”
Brexit makes no sense in a world dominated by Trump. Britain’s place is back in the EU
.jpg)
Brexit
makes no sense in a world dominated by Trump. Britain’s place is back in the EU
Jonathan
Freedland
From defence
to trade, the incoming US president is upending the old order – and standing
apart from our neighbours leaves us dangerously exposed
Fri 29 Nov
2024 16.08 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/29/brexit-donald-trump-britain-eu-us
It’s one
damned thing after another. As Keir Starmer is discovering, government, like
life, can feel like a fusillade of events, each coming faster than the one
before. If it’s not a cabinet minister resigning over a past fraud conviction,
it’s MPs voting for assisted dying – and that’s just in one day. Through that
blizzard of news, it can be hard to make out the lasting changes in the
landscape – even those that have profound implications for our place in the
world.
The November
2024 event that will have the most enduring global impact is the election of
Donald Trump. There are some in the higher reaches of the UK government who are
surprisingly relaxed about that fact, reassuring themselves that, in effect, we
got through it once, we’ll get through it again. Yes, they admit, Trump has
nominated some crazy people to lead in areas crucial to the UK-US relationship,
such as defence and intelligence, but don’t worry, officials in London will do
what they did last time: work with like-minded counterparts in the Washington
bureaucracy to bypass the Trump loyalists at the top.
Whether
that’s complacency or naivety, it’s a mistake. This is not like last time. As
Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, put it to
me: “Trump is different and the world is different.” During his first term,
Trump was hemmed in by the establishment types he had appointed to key jobs.
Now he will be unbound. Back then, there was no war in Europe, China was in
cooperation mode and Britain was still in the EU. That’s all changed now.
Consider
what Trumpism, if implemented, means for the world. It would dismantle the
post-1945 order, underpinned for eight decades by the US. In that period, the
US acted as both guarantor for a system of global trade and defensive umbrella
for the western alliance, with Britain and Europe the obvious beneficiaries.
Playing that role came at a cost for the US, but successive presidents believed
it was worth it, because a stable world was one in which the US could prosper.
Trump marks
a radical break from that thinking. He believes those previous US presidents
were suckers, ripped off by allies taking a free ride at US expense. He denies
the US has any greater responsibilities than any other country: it should
sacrifice nothing, looking out instead solely for itself. He’s happy for the US
to be No 1 in the world, but not the world’s leader. The two are different.
Like the slogan says: it’s “America first”.
For China,
Russia, the Gulf states, Brazil and others there is some relief at that: they
relish a future without a scolding Washington sticking its nose into their
business. But for Europe, including Britain, it’s a disaster. In terms of both
defence and the economy, our societies are predicated on a US-led world that
will soon no longer exist.
The impact
will be felt most sharply in Ukraine, which is weeks away from seeing US
support fall away. Leonard fears a “Yalta-type settlement sealed by Trump and
Vladimir Putin over the heads of European countries”, one that will reward
Putin’s aggression and leave him emboldened. That leaves more than the likes of
Moldova and the Baltic states feeling vulnerable. As the Guardian reported
today, “Germany is developing an app to help people locate the nearest bunker
in the event of attack. Sweden is distributing a 32-page pamphlet titled If
Crisis or War Comes. Half a million Finns have already downloaded an emergency
preparedness guide.” Berlin is taking steps to get the German public
kriegstüchtig: war-capable.
On the
continent, it’s become an urgent question: can Europe defend itself either
without America or, at best, with less America? European defence spending is up
and there is talk of shifting the industrial base, repurposing factories, to
allow for a fast and massive, Europe-wide programme of rearmament. Our nearest
neighbours understand that if the US president no longer believes in the core
Nato principle of mutual defence – one for all and all for one – then, at the
very least, Nato’s US pillar is gone. If Nato is to survive, the EU pillar will
have to bear much of the weight alone.
It’s not
clear that this penny has quite dropped in London. And remember there is a
double threat here. Trump also plans to protect US domestic industry by
slapping tariffs on imports from the rest of the world. China is likely to be
hardest hit, with a 60% charge, but Trump wants a “universal” tariff of up to
20% on all goods coming into the US – including from Britain. For a trading
nation such as the UK, that spells calamity.
What, then,
can be done? On defence, Britain can vow to spend more and increase military
cooperation with European allies. Fine, as far as it goes. But in the face of a
trade war, Britain alone would be all but impotent against the might of the US.
There is only one nearby market that is of comparable heft to the US, whose
threats to retaliate against US tariffs would have a deterrent effect, a body,
incidentally, that happens to be a virtuoso in the realm of trade and trade
disputes. I am speaking of course of the European Union.
What’s more,
these two spheres, military and economic, are no longer as distinct as they
once were. When states confront each other, they no longer do it solely through
bombs and bullets. Everything else gets weaponised too, whether it’s the
financial system through sanctions, the supply of energy or food or technology.
Witness Russia’s war against Ukraine. As it happens, these are all areas where
the EU’s particular brand of cooperation can help. So when Russia moved to
choke off the gas supply to individual European countries, the EU was able to
step in and connect what were previously separate energy grids, thereby
thwarting that threat.
The point
is, the landscape of 2016 – that fateful year – no longer exists. Plenty of
Brexiters believed, in good faith, that a buccaneering, free-trading Britain
could thrive in a world of open borders. But that world has gone now, replaced
by one of war, barriers and Darwinian competition. Whatever case you could make
for Britain being out of the EU in the Obama era of 2016 makes no sense now.
I don’t
expect Starmer to announce a plan to rejoin the EU tomorrow. But it’s time for
outriders to start riding out. Labour MPs, perhaps the odd minister, can begin
to make the case that is becoming increasingly obvious to many millions of
Britons. The polls are saying it, the governor of the Bank of England is saying
it. And when immigration levels are four times higher now than when we were in
the EU, the issue that served as the Brexiters’ trump card lies in shreds. One
by one, the premises of Britain’s 2016 decision are crumbling.
I understand
the political calculus that made Labour believe Brexit was an issue best
avoided. But the reality around us is changing and politicians, governments
especially, have to adapt to it. In the age of Trump, when the US is no longer
the predictable guarantor it once was, Britain cannot thrive alone and in the
cold. It’s not ideology or idealism, but hard-headed, practical common sense to
say our place is in Europe – and to say so now.
Jonathan
Freedland is a Guardian columnist
Fri 8 Dec 2023 : By every measure, Brexit is harming Britain
Letters
By every measure, Brexit is harming Britain
Readers respond to an article by Larry Elliott that
said the UK’s departure from the EU hasn’t been as bad as predicted
Fri 8 Dec
2023 16.25 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/08/by-every-measure-brexit-is-harming-britain
Larry
Elliott makes two main arguments in his article (I’ve got news for those who
say Brexit is a disaster: it isn’t. That’s why rejoining is just a pipe dream,
5 December). He’s wrong on both.
His first
point is that the EU is faltering and the UK is recovering more quickly from
global headwinds. However, he is using the wrong comparison. We should not
compare the UK with the EU, but with what the UK would have been like without
Brexit. The opportunity cost, not the relative comparison, is the relevant
factor. And on this correct measure, Brexit is deeply damaging to the UK
economy.
The Office
for Budget Responsibility is crystal clear on this point – it expects long-run
productivity to reduce by 4%, and imports and exports by 15%; and new trade
deals will not have a material impact. Worse, the damage will accrue for many
years to come – not just in sales lost and companies that have already folded,
but in businesses that will never be set up and developments that will never
take place.
The second
point Elliott makes is that the UK has avoided the rise of far-right parties
such as the Alternative for Germany party or the Freedom party in the
Netherlands. On this point, I can only imagine that he is being wilfully blind.
The Tories are the functional substitute for the European far-right parties.
They have dealt with the rise of the far right by adopting its language,
policies, presentation and contempt for norms and governance. It is disturbing
that Elliott ignores this in favour of spurious pro-Brexit arguments.
Oscar Franklin
Chatham, Kent
Larry Elliott’s excellent article highlighted
real challenges to those of us who persist in campaigning to overturn Brexit.
But he did not mention the educational and wider political identity that being
part of the EU confers.
I have just
returned from a conference in Italy to discuss progress towards a pan-European
graduate-tracking study that will monitor graduate careers and migration among
member states and beyond. We used to be able to compare similar UK employment
statistics with those of other European countries as part of the EU-funded
Eurostat, but the UK is not included any more. And that’s only one area of
social science research. Think about all the scientific, political, humanities
and arts research, and opportunities for knowledge exchange that have been
affected by Brexit, not to mention the wider cultural restrictions in the
performance arts.
Academics
cannot so easily work with their European colleagues and we have seen a
significant exit of European scholars from British universities. Our children
can’t participate in the Erasmus undergraduate exchanges either.
Hopefully
some of these disadvantages can be ameliorated after a change of government,
but in the short term, they have been costly. The UK is a group of small
islands just off the coast of Europe and our long-term interests surely lie in
Europe. We should be in there, in support of other Europeans who are fighting
the rise of the far right.
Kate Purcell
Coventry
I agree with Larry Elliott. Playing political
hokey cokey around membership of the EU will be a disaster. The problem with
making Brexit a success is that the political, economic and business
establishments don’t accept his analysis of the underlying weaknesses of the UK
economy, particularly the punishing impact of a combination of economic
inequality, stagnated growth and a chronic inability to invest in the future by
the state and the market.
We need an
alternative to the neoliberal economics that has led the country to absorb such
absurdities as water firms dumping raw sewage into our rivers, for which no one
can be held to account. On the flip side, if you advocate for models of public
ownership for our utilities, which are the norm in the six founding EU nations,
you are painted as a dangerous radical.
Labour’s
position seems to be that bringing us back to a state of pre-Brexit orthodoxy
will sort out the economy. I think Elliott would agree that that is flawed. We
need an alternative. It’s not coming from the main two-party system. Brexit was
led by the extreme right and was an anti-immigration vote. But for Brexit to
work, we need something way more progressive than Keir Starmer’s Labour, and
that is unlikely to emerge from our two-party system, which is tied at the hip
to the dogma of neoliberal economics.
Cllr Mark Blake
Independent Socialists, Haringey council, London
Larry Elliott writes that Brexit “isn’t a
disaster” for the economy. He’s right, but perhaps not in the way that he
thinks. Mainstream economics would not characterise Brexit as disastrous for
growth. Rather, Brexit is an inversion of Dave Brailsford’s maxim of “marginal
gains” – the wildly successful sporting philosophy that saw British champions
triumph at the Tour de France.
If the UK
economy were a cyclist competing in the Tour d’Europe, she wouldn’t be totally
unfit – but she would be subject to a series of “marginal losses”, struggling
at the back of the peloton, envious of her less-afflicted competitors.
Eventually, she’d probably fire her manager, and strive to undo the marginal
losses that impair competitiveness.
Sam Langfield
Principal economist, European Central Bank, and
former economist, Bank of England
I had the most overwhelming feeling of sadness
on reading Larry Elliott’s article. As the child of a displaced person who
couldn’t get back to her own country after the second world war, but was
welcomed in the UK even though she was German, I felt totally rejected by the
country of my birth.
My mum came
here without a word of English and only the clothes she stood up in. She was
given a job in a cotton mill and eventually taught herself enough English to be
able to train as a nurse. She embraced life here. She came not even knowing if
she would ever see her family again. My heart bursts with pride at her bravery
and determination. Now, thanks to Brexit, I feel people like her would be
vilified and despised. Like millions of others fleeing conflict and
persecution, all Mum wanted was a home and a life – and the UK gave her that.
Mr Elliott doesn’t look at the bigger picture.
Ingrid Marsh
Newton Abbot, Devon
One glaring omission from Larry Elliott’s
article is the ways in which Brexit has made things better. Privacy? Human
rights? Trade? Water quality? Roaming charges? Staff shortages? Food prices?
Trust in politics? A policy that has made almost everything worse and made
nothing better can’t be anything other than a disaster.
Jon Page
Camberley, Surrey
So Brexit is only a partial disaster. That’s
all right then.
David Walters
Cardiff
Farage accepts people 'disappointed' by Brexit - but claims Reform UK could 'finish the job'
45m ago
10.24 GMT
Farage
accepts people 'disappointed' by Brexit - but claims Reform UK could 'finish
the job'
Nigel
Farage, the Reform UK leader, has admitted that people are “disappointed” by
Brexit. He has marked the fifth anniversary by recording a video message for
Daily Express readers saying that the proper Brexit they wanted has not been
delivered because they were let down by the Tories. He says:
[Brexit
has] not been delivered and if I sat here five years ago I’d have said to you
in five years’ time I’d be retired, I’d be out, I’d have done my bit, my 27
years of campaigning finally paid off.
But I’m
back and I’m back because we now need people in charge to deliver the Brexit we
voted for who actually believe in it …
We know
Labour were opposed, [Keir] Starmer wanted a second referendum, Liberal
Democrats the same.
But I
frankly look now at Boris Johnson, Kemi Badenoch, all of these people, I don’t
think they ever really believed in it.
I think
they used it as a vehicle to win a general election, which I helped them do.
They never really believed in it.
They
always kind of saw it I think a bit more as damage limitation rather than an
opportunity.
I’m here
to say I’m disappointed, you watching this will be disappointed, we can do so
much better and we’re the guys to do it.
He is also
urging voters to let his party “finish the job”.
Another
anniversary, yet still Brexit has not been properly delivered.
The time
has come to let those of us who started Brexit in 2016 finish the job.
Reform
stands ready to do just that in 2029
And tonight
he is holding a rally in Badenoch’s North West Essex constituency to try to
show that his party has more support than hers.
Why Tories think fifth anniversary of Brexit should be celebrated
7m ago
10.59 GMT
Why
Tories think fifth anniversary of Brexit should be celebrated
Since only
around one person in 10 thinks Brexit has been a success, it is worth recording
why the Conservative party says the fifth anniversary is worth celebrating.
This is what the party said in the press notice sent out yesterday afternoon by
Priti Patel. (See 9.23am.)
Five
years ago today, Boris Johnson and the Conservative party delivered on the
results of the Brexit referendum and secured our departure from the European
Union – delivering on the clear democratic will of the country.
Since
then, our country – standing on its own two feet as a sovereign nation – has
been able to achieve so much.
This has
included 73 trade deals with countries and the EU, including the Comprehensive
and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, boosting British
businesses and lowering prices for consumers.
It has
also led to the UK ending the supremacy of EU law, putting parliament in
control of UK laws, and leading to the reform or revocation of almost 2,500
pieces of arbitrary or burdensome EU law.
Outside
the EU, and free of their regulations, we have been able to deliver more
competitive tax policies, such as cutting VAT on certain products, reduce and
simplify tariffs, and make the City more competitive with the Edinburgh
Reforms.
The UK
was also able to take control of its waters and protect our fisherman as an
independent coastal state.
Calls for criminals nationality to be included in security reports
Calls for
criminals nationality to be included in security reports
Immigration
experts agree with the inclusion of the nationality of criminals and victims in
the Annual Internal Security Report (RASI), but some warn of the need to
distinguish immigrants from those who are merely foreigners.
By TPN/Lusa,
in News, Portugal, Crime · 28 Jan 2025 · 1 Comments
In
statements to Lusa, jurist Ana Rita Gil and geographer Jorge Malheiros agree
with the inclusion of data such as nationality in the RASI, requested by the
Liberal Initiative, considering that this, if properly done, can demystify the
discourse that links immigrants to criminality.
"Nationality
is an objective fact, therefore, it does not seem to me that anything in the
Constitution opposes this possibility", Ana Rita Gil told Lusa,
considering that the measure could "combat prejudices and a narrative that
thinks that immigrant populations come to cause more crime".
For Jorge
Malheiros, having only "nationalities is insufficient information",
because "some of the foreign detainees do not reside in Portugal and,
therefore, by publishing only nationalities and not having components about
residence or intersection with age, it may send the wrong message that certain
groups of immigrants are associated with certain criminality."
When, in
many cases, it may not be immigrants, but people who are passing through
Portugal who are committing crimes, mainly in drug and human trafficking cases,
"where there is an overrepresentation of foreigners", said the
professor at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University
of Lisbon.
Including
only nationality, "in current times, can very easily fuel a discourse
based on incomplete and distorted information", which amounts to
"saying that foreigners from certain groups are immigrants" in
Portugal, added the researcher.
For Ana Rita
Gil, professor at Lisbon Public Law (Centre for Research in Public Law at the
Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon), the publication of "objective
information" that is nationality will also have the virtue of allowing
existing problems to be identified.
"If
there is indeed a community that commits more crimes than another, it could
also be a way for the State to invest in greater integration," she
explained, considering that public information should be the rule of a state
governed by the rule of law.
"Information
that is not protected must be transparent," because "we live in a
democratic state," she added.
Regarding
the publication of nationality data in RASI 2024, the Internal Security System
has already informed Lusa that it does not intend to introduce changes for the
time being.
German lawmakers can’t agree whether to seek ban on far-right AfD
German
lawmakers can’t agree whether to seek ban on far-right AfD
Many
mainstream leaders worry a pre-election debate on banning Alternative for
Germany will only boost the party ahead of a national election.
January 30,
2025 4:01 am CET
By Emily
Schultheis
BERLIN —
Will it help or hurt the far right?
German
parliamentarians are set to debate a hotly contested proposal on banning the
far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), but there’s little consensus, even
among the party’s critics, on whether it’s a good idea to be having such a
discussion just weeks ahead of a national election.
“It’s
important for the population to know that the German Bundestag is grappling
with this and is clearly stating where the dangers to democracy come from,”
said Carmen Wegge, a lawmaker from the center-left Social Democratic Party
(SPD) and one of the sponsors of the proposal.
But many
mainstream politicians — including some in her own party, like Chancellor Olaf
Scholz — have expressed reservations.
“The worst
thing,” Scholz said recently, would be a prolonged attempts to ban the party
“that might end up going wrong.”
On Thursday,
lawmakers will consider a proposal to direct Germany’s top court to examine
whether the AfD is an anti-constitutional party, a first step toward legally
banning it under German law.
The debate
comes as the conservative frontrunner for chancellor, Friedrich Merz, moves to
push through tougher migration measures with support from the far right,
eroding the Brandmauer, or firewall, that mainstream parties have erected to
block the AfD. The taboo-breaking move has sparked an emotional discussion
about how to handle the rise of the party.
Though the
proposal to examine a ban on the AfD has little chance of passing, its backers
say they are obliged to use all means available under the German constitution
to stop a party they believe poses a grave threat to democracy.
But many AfD
critics fear the ban debate will play into the hands of the far right by
further alienating the party’s many voters — and fueling the AfD narrative that
mainstream parties are the ones subverting democracy by scorning the democratic
will of their many supporters. The party is polling in second place on 20
percent ahead of a national election set for Feb. 23.
“Calls for
the AfD to be banned are completely absurd and expose the anti-democratic
attitude of those making these demands,” Alice Weidel, the AfD’s chancellor
candidate, told POLITICO last year.
Never again
Germany’s
constitution, which is designed to prevent a repeat of Nazi rule, allows for
bans on political parties that attempt to use democratic means to subvert
democracy. Any party that seeks to undermine the “free democratic basic order”
can therefore be banned.
But the bar
for banning a party is high, and German courts have only done so twice before:
in 1952, for the neofascist Socialist Reich Party, and in 1956, for the
Communist Party of Germany. Two more recent efforts to ban the neo-Nazi
National Democratic Party (NPD) were unsuccessful.
Many AfD
critics fear the ban debate will play into the hands of the far right by
further alienating the party’s many voters. |
The AfD
first won seats in the Bundestag in 2017 and has grown increasingly radical in
the years since. Elements of the party have been declared extremist by
state-level domestic intelligence agencies tasked with monitoring
anti-constitutional groups.
Calls for a
ban intensified early last year following a report that AfD officials had taken
part in a secret meeting of right-wing extremists who planned the mass
deportation of migrants and “unassimilated citizens.”
Backers of
the ban — 124 lawmakers including members of the center-left SPD and the Greens
as well as the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) — have nowhere
near enough votes to pass the motion on Thursday.
But they say
the growing influence of the AfD and recent acts of provocation — like handing
out mock deportation tickets for migrants as a campaign ploy — make it more
critical than ever to spotlight what they regard as the party’s extremism ahead
of the national election.
Many others
warn the only way to defeat the AfD is at the ballot box.
“I’m pretty
sure there are radical and also extreme elements in the AfD,” conservative
parliamentary leader Alexander Dobrindt said at a press conference after the
ban proposal was first introduced. “But under no circumstances do I want to
give the AfD an additional opportunity to portray itself as the victim.”
Nette
Nöstlinger contributed reporting.
German politicians debate ban for far-right AfD after divisive vote
German
politicians debate ban for far-right AfD after divisive vote
DPA
Thu, January
30, 2025 at 8:14 PM GMT+12 min read
https://www.yahoo.com/news/german-politicians-debate-ban-far-191417855.html
German
members of parliament held an emotional debate about whether to ban the
far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Thursday, after it helped to pass a
controversial motion in parliament the previous day demanding hard-line
migration reforms.
The
centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) on Thursday relied on the AfD to
narrowly pass the motion in Germany's Bundestag, or lower house of parliament,
causing an outcry just weeks before the country's parliamentary election on
February 23.
It was the
first time that a party has depended on the AfD to form a majority for a vote
in the lower house.
The vote
related to a non-binding five-point plan for a tougher migration policy, which
has become a hot-button issue in the German election campaign after a string of
attacks attributed to suspects with migrant backgrounds.
A
cross-party initiative of 120 parliamentarians is asking the Bundestag to apply
to Germany's Constitutional Court to ban the AfD.
But
Thursday's debate on the matter revealed differences of opinion, even across
party lines.
CDU member
Marco Wanderwitz, who leads the initiative, said Germany could no longer
tolerate the AfD "without suffering irreparable long-term damage to its
very fabric."
However, his
party colleague Philipp Amthor warned that if the initiative fails, the AfD
could "affix a democratic seal of quality to itself that it does not
deserve."
Meanwhile,
Konstantin Kuhle of the Free Democrats said such a move could intensify the
sense of alienation that many feel from the institutions of liberal democracy.
Another
proposal, supported by numerous members of parliament from the Green Party,
instead calls for an expert assessment to be conducted to determine whether the
AfD is unconstitutional.
Green
parliamentarian Renate Künast said that in order to ban a party, it must be
deemed unconstitutional, not just extremist.
The AfD is
currently under investigation by Germany's domestic intelligence service as a
suspected extremist group.
Subscrever:
Mensagens (Atom)
