Europe

This pandemic has put politics on fast-forward

‘The normal grease of politics is not there,’ bemoans one sociable cabinet minister. Certainly, the whispered conversations in corridors that make up so much of Westminster life are in abeyance during this period of social distancing. The fact that the backbenches and the cabinet have deep reservations about the government’s approach matters far less than it would in normal times. In the Zoom parliament, there is no such thing as the mood of the House. One Tory grandee pushing for a significant easing of the lockdown complains that the current arrangements ‘make it easier for No. 10 to ignore parliament and cabinet’. But contrary to appearances, politics has actually sped

Is it ‘speculation’ to say the UK has the most deaths in Europe?

It’s a grim news week for the government with Dominic Raab announcing in Tuesday’s press conference that the UK coronavirus death toll is now at 29,427 (ONS figures suggest the number of deaths is as high as 32,313). This means that according to official figures from each country, the UK has overtaken Italy in fatalities and currently has the highest death toll in Europe.  However, at the press conference, Raab suggested such a conclusion was ‘speculation’ and warned against early international comparisons on the grounds that there are differences in the way various countries’ record coronavirus deaths and excess deaths with the size of the population also needing to be taken into account: I don’t think

Have we been fighting a very different disease to China?

One of the great mysteries of coronavirus is how the epidemic has become much more severe in Europe and North America than in the Far East. A disease which appeared to be on the wane in China, South Korea and elsewhere in mid-February suddenly erupted with a vengeance in Europe in March, with death tolls quickly surpassing those in Wuhan. Various explanations have been offered: from the Chinese lying about the extent of cases and deaths to the difficulties of enforcing lockdowns and launching intrusive tracking and tracing strategies in western democracies. But then have we really been fighting the same disease? A pre-publication paper from a team at the

Why the coronavirus crisis is likely to bring Europe together

Solidarity usually suggests physical proximity: goodwill spreading with hugs and cosy chatter. But when you have a crisis with social distancing as an antidote, is that a barrier to comradeship? Far from it. On social media, videos of Italian flash-mobs singing to their neighbours have been shared, as well as petitions to test NHS staff and footage of the ‘Viva los Medicos’ (long live the doctors) mass shout-outs from Spanish windows. Online solidarity overcomes borders, all the more so during a global pandemic. But Europe, which has been described as the ‘epicentre’ of Covid-19, has its own particular flavour of solidarity. It was the growing outbreak in Italy that really brought

The West is failing to rise to the challenge of coronavirus

Having apparently shaken off the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda machine is now in full swing. One of the more preposterous conspiracy theories they are peddling is that the spread of the disease was a deliberate attempt at subterfuge from the American government. As in the middle of the tragic Aids epidemic in the 1980s, geopolitical conspiracy theories are running rife, and overwhelmed national governments are desperate to find someone to blame for the crisis. The notion that the United States somehow contrived to unleash such a contagious and pernicious virus on its economic rival, however, is simply absurd. In a globalised world, with

How coronavirus derailed the largest Nato exercise in 25 years

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across Europe, the United States has reduced its participation in a Nato military exercise that was set to be one of the alliance’s largest since the end of the Cold War. In April and May, the Defender-Europe 20 exercise was meant to feature 37,000 troops from 18 countries, including 20,000 soldiers deployed from the United States. It was planned to take place across ten European countries, with the bulk of the drills in Germany, Poland, and the Baltic states. Shortly after the WHO declared that Europe had become the new ‘epicentre of the pandemic’, the Trump administration enacted a travel ban for foreign visitors from

Le crunch: are the Brexit talks doomed before they begin?

When Boris Johnson and the new European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met in Downing Street last month, they agreed on one thing immediately: that it was time to stop the sniping, animosity and backbiting that had characterised the first round of the Brexit talks. The Prime Minister emphasised that Britain wanted to be the EU’s close friend and ally. Only a few weeks later, and already the Brexit wars are back. The two sides are so far apart that many diplomats think there is a better-than-even chance that the talks will fail. One member state is already planning around the central assumption that there will be no deal

The Brexit reshuffle: every great office of state is now held by a Leaver

One of the Tories’ tactical successes has been to push Brexit down the news agenda. But even if it no longer dominates front pages and news bulletins as it once did, the task of sorting out Britain’s future relationship with the European Union remains the government’s biggest challenge. Brexit also provides the best explanation for some of No. 10’s other actions. Last week’s cabinet reshuffle, for instance, can only be properly understood in the context of Brexit. The purpose was to create an all-powerful centre. The three greatest parts of government — No. 10, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office — have now been joined together. There is a combined

Letters: How to make a cup of tea

No defence Sir: Jon Stone (Letters, 15 February) recalls the horrors and miseries of being subjected to bombing from the air. How right he is to do so. The deliberate burning and crushing of civilians in their homes is a revolting and indefensible form of warfare. It is no surprise that Hitler used it. What is surprising is that people in this country continue to make excuses for our own use of this method, which was actually far more extensive and deadly than the German bombing of the United Kingdom. There are no such excuses. Those who fall back on utilitarian justifications will also find that these do not work.

The Tory war over Europe is finally over

Happy Christmas (War Is Over). John Lennon probably didn’t have the decades long Conservative dispute over Europe in mind when he wrote that, but the message seems very apt this year after almost the entire Tory parliamentary party trooped through the lobbies in support of its leader’s plan to take Britain out of the EU. It was back in 1971 that Lennon released his blockbuster Christmas single. At the time, the Conservatives were largely united behind the idea of joining the European Economic Community. So few could have anticipated that an internecine political war lasting almost half a century was taking hold. In the key Commons division of that year,

The mysteries of the Corbyn world-view

It is worth fixing for posterity the feelings which, on polling day, swirled in the breasts of many who wanted a Boris victory. Being a journalist, I normally enjoy the electoral scene with some detachment. I cannot claim to be neutral, since I have never, even in Tony Blair’s pinkish dawn of 1997, wanted a Labour government; but I can take it in my stride. This time, however, millions, including myself, were knotted with fear that anything other than a clear Tory victory would destroy Brexit and make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister. The risks were actually frightening. We sought distractions. Listening to the Radio 4 Today programme that morning, I

The Brexit blame game

There will be no last-minute deal. The talks between the UK and the EU have effectively broken down. It isn’t that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, it’s that there’s no tunnel at all. The blame game is now far more advanced than the negotiations. The diplomatic crockery has been smashed even before Boris Johnson and the leaders of the EU27 have arrived in Brussels for this month’s European Council. The question now is whether the talks can ever be resuscitated at a later date —  or if we are in a world where the only options are no Brexit or no deal. The assumption had long been

David Cameron would be a winner in Ancient Greece

David Cameron is convinced he was right to call a referendum and to promise to enact it. Justifiably: there was a huge turnout and a clear winner. That’s democracy. But he has been lashing out because the referendum did not go as he hoped. This whingeing makes him look like a total loser. An ancient Greek in that position would argue he was a winner: he had kept his promise, and therefore reputation, intact. For a Greek, reputation was of the very highest importance because simply doing or being good was not enough: if people did not know about it, what was the point? As a result, Greeks often explained

Portrait of the week: EU negotiations, genderless babies and Brexit in court

Home ‘I will uphold the constitution, I will obey the law, but we will come out on 31 October,’ Boris Johnson told the BBC, adding that the EU ‘have had a bellyful of all this stuff’. After a lunch of chicken and pollock at the Bouquet Garni in Luxembourg with Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, he found noise from British protesters made it impossible for him to join Xavier Bettel, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, in an open-air press conference, so Mr Bettel continued on his own, gesturing angrily to an empty podium and saying what a ‘nightmare’ of uncertainty Britain had left Europe in. A couple

Brexit has its risks. But staying in the EU is now unthinkable

This is one of the most crucial weeks in modern British history. We have a prime minister and cabinet who understand the stakes in terms of our future independence. But the forces fighting them — some of them sincere, many of them cynical — are fearsome. There are risks in proceeding with Brexit. But there are far greater risks in abandoning it. This endless crisis has led to widespread criticism of British politicians of all hues, some of it justified. I find it deeply distasteful to see very senior Conservatives plotting with the opposition to bring down the Prime Minister. But far less criticism has been levelled at the EU

Letters: civil servants have ruined our trains

Travelling in discomfort Sir: I don’t agree with much of what Matthew Parris says these days, but he was spot on with his piece about train seats (‘Who’s to blame for my terrible journey?’, 17 August). I think his hunch about where the blame lies for such uncomfortable seats is correct. In these parts, our train service provider is GWR, which has introduced new trains with bum-numbingly unforgiving seats that are wholly unsuited to typical journeys of four to five hours. When questioned, the always helpful staff respond that: ‘This is what happens when you get civil servants to design the trains.’ To add insult to injury, the new GWR

Matteo Salvini prepares for his big gamble

Italians have had ten prime ministers in the last 20 years. They may soon have another. Matteo Salvini, the interior minister, deputy prime minister, and leader of the League, is ready to pull the plug on a coalition government increasingly pitted against itself. The League and its coalition ally, the Five Star Movement or 5SM, are less ideological brothers-in-arms than sibling rivals forced to live under the same roof. Salvini and Five Star Leader Luigi Di Maio are two strong personalities who were never completely aligned to begin with – Salvini having represented Italy’s industrial north, Di Maio coming onto the national scene as the leader of a grassroots party

View from the EU

The conviction has been spreading among French people in recent days that les Britanniques have just elected Donald Trump. The papers are filled with meditations on British anxieties over lost empire, descriptions of Boris Johnson’s hair and the wildest speculations about what he might do as Prime Minister. Every squib about European overregulation that Johnson wrote during his stint as a Brussels correspondent for the Telegraph in the 1980s and 1990s has by now been vetted, stripped of its humorous intent and found wanting. Johnson exaggerated the threat of European regulations to prawn cocktail-flavoured crisps! Nowhere did he cite a single EU directive banning the large-sized condoms that an Englishman

Who’s afraid of no deal?

How bad would a no-deal Brexit really be? This is now perhaps the most important question in politics, and the one provoking greatest disagreement. The answer will help decide whether parliament allows Brexit to happen, and whether Tory MPs bring down their own government. If they think calamity would follow, patriotic rebels might risk a general election to stop the Tories. But what if it would not be so bad? And is there any way of finding out? Almost everyone accepts it will cause problems, but views range from manageable to ‘national suicide’. It is difficult to predict complex events without historic precedent, but there are other reasons for the

The moment the European project first went wrong

At a time when the EU is at its least popular and, worse still, least respected, it is worth reflecting on how the idea for a united Europe developed – and where it went wrong. The Spectator’s reprint last week of Christopher Booker’s 2014 article ‘How the first world war inspired the EU’ is a timely reminder of the real genesis of the EU. Yet it was only after the Second World War amid fear of a renascent Germany, that the concept of an ‘ever-closer union’ became the shibboleth of European construction. It was here that the European project took a mistaken turn. The First World War led to France