[ad_1]
Politics throws awful coincidences. Just as Theresa May's cabinet cracked under the pressure of conservative struggles over the shape of Brexit, Donald Trump is making a comeback in Europe by reminding that the Atlantic Alliance is collapsing. Until 2016, British foreign policy combined a partnership in Europe with influence in Washington. Now, his state ship sails without a compbad.
Those who love politics as a reality TV feasted this week. The US president broke the furniture of NATO. Boris Johnson resigned from the Foreign Office, accusing, in Trumpian terms, that Ms. May is leading a deep state conspiracy to turn Great Britain, after Brexit, into a "colony" of Brussels. The Brexit cabinet's negotiator, David Davis, has also resigned, albeit with a certain dignity that forever eludes the former Foreign Minister.
million. Trump and Johnson share a respectful narcissism. There is something childish in the way they look at the world. The president is not baffled in his lie; Mr. Johnson's homemade image as a maverick barely conceals a cheat and liar record. His officials branded the former Foreign Secretary as having a first-rate ego and a second-clbad spirit. His letter of resignation, a prolonged fit of anger, was true to his character.
The departure of Mr. Johnson will bring back a little bit of intelligence and probity to British diplomacy; it will do nothing to end the Brexit headache. Ms May has developed a plan for future relations with the EU that will not satisfy anyone. And there may be no version of Brexit that will win a majority in the House of Commons. For his part, Mr. Johnson returned to his obsessive quest for the keys to 10 Downing Street. It sounds like self-delusion. Yet the same thing has been said about Mr. Trump's run at the White House.
America had barely stopped counting votes in the 2016 elections before Ms. May sent her invitation to Mr. Trump: Come to Britain. Meet the queen. Have your picture taken at Buckingham Palace. US leaders love the pump and the show, and the queen has a serious pulling power. It was before, however, the British had clear glimpse of Mr. Trump.
This week's visit was duly reduced from an opportunity of state – with all the paraphernalia and regalia – to a series of "work" meetings. The president's time in London has been reduced to almost nothing to avoid collisions with public demonstrations. He always manages to meet the monarch, but in Windsor. Her interviews with Ms. May will be at her country residence, Checkers. He will then be packed at the golf course he owns in Scotland.
The Queen loves and admires Barack and Michelle Obama. Helps speak of a real warmth in the relationship. They have not said anything about what she thinks to have tea with Mr. Trump – they do not have to do it.
To be fair, most of Ms. May's predecessors would have issued the same invitation with the same rapidity. British prime ministers have been overwhelmed by the idea of a "special relationship" with Washington since Winston Churchill popularized the phase in his 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri.
The British warlord embellished the notion with all kinds of flirtations and myths about eternal bonds, family ties, and cultural affinities. He imagined, of course, an equal partnership. When he had sat in Potsdam with Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin a year earlier, he had been one of the "Big Three" – a phrase to which the British clung for another decade. The task of the prime ministers was to preserve the idea of a single bond even as the realities of relative power expanded beyond anything Churchill imagined.
Some were more successful than others. The English patrician Harold Macmillan made an improbable connection with John F. Kennedy, an Irish-American Catholic. The boundless atlanticism of Margaret Thatcher gave her permission to speak to Ronald Reagan. Even before the Iraq debacle, George W. Bush's wooing by Tony Blair was likely to be too close to the pleading rather than the partner
In other circumstances, Trump's presidency could have been an opportunity to normalize things. alliance with Washington while reaffirming Britain's right to make its own choices. After blowing up the bridges to Europe, the Brexiters have instead promoted the illusion that Britain and the United States could recreate the mythical special relationship.
Well, says Mr. Trump, as long as the British can be forcibly fed with American Chicken Chicken and hormone-treated beef, and that they will sign the National Health Service to American companies. The president does not believe in Atlanticism. Nor in alliances based on shared interests and values. The United States must win – every time.
As for the Brexit, Mr. Johnson and his band promise to reject any agreement that Ms. May will bring back from Brussels. Oddly enough, this provides the only glimpse of light for a nation watching the twin pillars of its foreign policy be reduced to ruins.
If Mr. Johnson, for once, is true to his word and destroys discussions with the EU27, the result is less likely to be a chaotic Brexit cliff than an indefinite extension of the status quo and, ultimately, a second referendum. Fortunately, the former Foreign Minister did not think about that.
Source link
