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An EU flag with one of the stars symbolically cut out in front of the Houses of Parliament shortly after British Prime Minister Theresa May announced to the House of Commons that Article 50 had been triggered in London on March 29, 2017. (Oli Scharff/AFP/Getty Images)

Nothing is quite right in British politics these days, but Prime Minister Theresa May’s latest turn, her surprise decision announced this week to work with Jeremy Corbyn and strike a cross-party compromise on Brexit, has been a sure step in the right direction. There are plenty of reasons not to expect the collaboration between the Conservative and Labour leaders to be successful—broad unpopularity for every measure in Parliament, backbenchers who will defy the whip, and long-standing animosity between May and Corbyn themselves. But there is at least some reason to expect it might work. And at this point, after May’s deal has been rejected three times and Parliament has failed twice to agree on an alternative, that’s more than can be said about anything else.

That’s the good news. The bad news is what comes next. Should May and Corbyn manage to reach a deal, any deal, they will quickly learn just how unpopular their success will be.

Nearly three years after the British public split 52 to 48 percent to leave the European Union, few people have changed their stances, and many have dug in. The consequence now is that Remainers will reject leaving the EU, Leavers will reject remaining in the EU, and both will reject striking a comprise.

“I think no matter what form of Brexit goes ahead,” said Thomas Cole, the head of policy for the People’s Vote campaign, “the debate will continue in the U.K.” On his side, this attitude makes sense. The coalition that has cropped up around demanding a second referendum—People’s Vote, For Our Future’s Sake, Open Britain, Britain for Europe, and more—has enjoyed remarkable momentum since the Brexit vote and has little reason to slow down now.

The “Remainiacs”—those Remainers who never relented—have continued to grow in strength and numbers, converted members of Parliament, catalyzed the creation of the Independent Group, and paved the way for a “final say” to be Labour’s official position. Hundreds of thousands of people have rallied to their cause, millions have signed their parliamentary petition, and, most important, more members of Parliament have backed a second referendum in indicative voting than any other measure. Sure, Britain “might crash out by mistake” in the coming weeks, Cole said, but that shouldn’t put off plans for a vote in the coming months.

While the People’s Vote will continue to fight Brexit until it happens, it does not seem poised to let the fight end when it does. “Even if the U.K. does leave the EU,” Cole said, “I can see this going on for a long time.”

A no-deal exit and its consequences—a financial crisis, a food crisis, a border crisis, and even, perhaps, a toilet paper crisis—are certainly expected to keep calls alive for a second referendum. But the softer Brexit that many reformed Remainers are now advocating will do that, too, Cole said. “If you have Common Market 2.0,” the closely aligned arrangement sometimes referred to as the Norway model in which the U.K. would pay to be a member of the European Economic Area and agree to follow the EU’s laws and regulations, “people will continue to ask themselves: ‘Why did we leave?’”

In the event of such a soft Brexit, few partisans on either side of the issue will be able to offer an honest answer to that question. In fact, those furthest from Cole’s position might be the ones likeliest to agree with his message. After all, Common Market 2.0 or the customs union plan would amount to “Brexit in Name Only,” or BRINO, and would not be something Brexiteers would allow.

“When I was voting,” one woman who had come down from Scotland to London for last week’s March to Leave rally told FP, “the question was in or out. There was nothing about a deal.” Another Brexiteer donning a “Make Britain Great Again” hat who had come up from Ramsgate was even more insistent. “If they don’t give us our Brexit,” he warned, “we’ll make the poll tax riots look like a walk in the park.”

These feelings of betrayal by the prime minister and disdain for her deal are not isolated to the fringe. In Britain, one of the few figures lower than May’s 27 percent approval rating, already among the weakest in the Western world, is the 22 percent approval rating for her deal. And with more than half of her own party opposed to or undecided on what she has put forward, there is little indication that her unpopular deal’s unlikely success would ever put the issue to rest—neither with Leavers nor with Remainers. Moreover, one would expect that the even softer Brexit that might now come from her collaboration with Corbyn will fare no better.

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Is Europe starting to close its doors to foreign competitors? Recent calls to establish “European Champions” in the wake of the U.S.-led trade wars and an attempt to invigorate flagging economies suggest that Europe is starting to pull up the drawbridge of Fortress Europe. Increasing populism throughout the EU, especially in core economic leaders such as Germany and France, are driving political leaders away from globalist principles and towards a more nationalistic economic strategy.The growing Green party politics at the European and national levels are also helping to restrict foreign market access: raising non-tariff barriers (NTBs) for exporters under the guise of consumer safety and environmental protection. As formerly staunch globalists leave center stage and attacks are made on the existing competition structure in the EU, what political risk might foreign firms face in Europe in the near and mid-term future as these political and economic protectionist movements play out?

Paradigm shift towards protecting domestic/European businesses?

In early February, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Peter Altmaier, announced a new industrial policy to protect domestic technology companies. This also includes a potential investment fund to boost their competitive development.  Soon thereafter, France and Germany jointly called for the creation of European “Industrial Champions” that could take on heavyweight companies, especially in the high tech industries, from the U.S. and China.  This strategic shift is in direct response to the U.S.-led, multi-front trade war, but also reflects a new paradigm in the EU. Globalist leaders are losing political clout across the continent to parties on both the right and left edges of the political spectrum. With the UK – traditionally a free-market champion – divorcing from EU economic planning, this Franco-German push for government support for domestic business will have an overwhelming voice in European Union strategic thinking.

France and Germany have faced structural challenges with the competition regulations in the EU, which torpedoed the recent attempt to combine French Alstom and German Siemens into a larger train-producing company. However, in the face of slowing growth and a recognition that the rules of the global trade game are changing, EU nations are hoping to shift to a more Euro-centric and aggressive mode to protect their interests. Back in December, nineteen European member states announced their joint interest in modifying the competition rules in the EU to help facilitate the creation of European powerhouse companies.  More recently, Dutch PM Rutte highlighted that the EU has to get more “streetwise” in competing with other powers on issues of global trade and politics.  The gloves are coming off.

Populist parties as the driving force towards protectionist policies

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), as a surging German populist party which did not focus much on economic woes among its voting bloc, nevertheless pulled the national dialogue away form the globalist rhetoric that had been previously espoused by Angela Merkel’s CDU.  Prior to the 2017 elections, the party hung its economic hat on departing the Euro zone, and railed against the Greek bailout which Germany had reached out to finance over the last few years. Now the party has decided to back the German diesel car industry in an attempt to capture voter interest, seizing on the protest movements in France as inspiration for the protection of domestic markets.

As in Germany, the populist movement in France is running on a platform to protect its own national interests over European unity.  Titled ‘intelligent protectionism’, the proposed policies of Marie Le Pen’s National Rally party are intended to shield French industries from outside competition. Le Pen laid out her approach in 2017, and of special concern to foreign businesses is her interest in establishing an Economic Security Agency to limit and monitor foreign investments in France, as well as her intent to force the French state to buy exclusively from French companies. While these approaches would require changes to existing, EU-wide law, the popularity of such approaches in the populist rhetoric across Europe is clear.  Certainly, voters in key nations such as Italy – once a strong and reliable proponent of an integrated EU – will also be willing to consider changes to EU regulation which would give their government greater authority to defend national industries from foreign competition.

The risk of greater government scrutiny and political attacks against “foreign” firms (most of who are of course also registered as European companies) seems to be increasing, especially if they appear to compete with domestic start-ups in the tech area. Attacks on established tech giants over privacy concerns, competition law and taxation issues are well-known. The campaign against Huawei, prompted initially by the U.S. and U.K. and increasingly taken up by continental EU nations, helps to show that many European officials are more comfortable taking a stand against Chinese state-owned enterprises that compete directly with European firms such as Ericsson and Nokia. There is certainly an element of national security driving these public condemnations and concerns, however, economic nationalism undoubtedly flavors the recent actions many EU states are taking, as they strive to keep domestic firms competitive in a tepid EU economy.

Green party politics are limiting market access

Another important element of this shift away from globalization and open markets are the policies of Green / environmental parties in Europe. Both at the national and European level (where the Greens hold only 6% of the seats at the European Parliament, but have grown steadily over the last three elections), Green parties have encouraged policies which serve to limit non-EU business access to the common market.  Programs such as REACH (regarding chemical limitations), phytosanitary restrictions, limitations on packaging, an emphasis on consumer rights and sustainability/fair trade requirements and restrictions on GMO content in food products indirectly limit market access for outside companies that rely on less stringent or politically-driven standards in their home markets.  As the UK – where its Green Party is not as influential as that of other EU countries – is leaving the EU in the next few months, the sway of Green party politics on the European regulatory regime may increase, further closing the European market to outside companies.

How businesses can respond to the risk of Fortress Europe

Apple, Ford and Amazon are identified as U.S. companies no matter how they might be structured, but for the majority of foreign companies, much of the threat of a defensive European market can be rendered toothless by establishing a European corporate arm in the EU or partnering/merging with existing European companies.  For the purposes of public tenders which may see heightened restrictions based on burgeoning populism/nationalism, question of board composition may eventually come into consideration, but for now, flexibility of corporate structure may be the easiest solution. For exporters, the issues are more complex. Facing a “Fortress Europe”, companies will likely see more NTBs and state support to European companies (especially in the tech sector) which will hamper their ability to compete.  Rhetoric against “foreign” companies is an easy balm in election season when the economy is struggling. In the next decade, expect to see European politicians proactively defending national companies and “European champions” over the previous globalization rhetoric as populism swings the economic pendulum towards protectionist policies.

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MAINZ, Germany — Not even 100 days after she negotiated her way to a fourth term as German leader, Angela Merkel is mired in a political crisis that underscores Europe’s divisions over immigration amid a surge in populism.

The German chancellor faces a showdown with her own interior minister that threatens not only her fragile ruling alliance but also her European Union-wide vision of cooperation to deal with the migrant crisis.

The world’s most powerful woman will embark on a weekend of talks ahead of a Monday meeting that could decide her future — and potentially signal the end of the Merkel era. She has been in power since 2005.

Along with French President Emmanuel Macron, Merkel is seen as one of the last bastions of European liberal democracy amid the rise of populism across the continent.

Merkel may be forced to make a U-turn on her open-door policy which has already been scaled back since Germany opened its borders to welcome around 1 million asylum-seekers in 2015. At times more than 10,000 people were arriving daily in the country, which had a population of around 81 million.

Migrants walk from the main station in Dortmund, Germany, in September 2015.Martin Meissner / AP file

Her refugee policy is widely blamed for a surge in support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which became the main opposition party after last September’s inconclusive election.

Gemany’s political turmoil comes amid a rise in populism and anti-immigration sentiment across Europe, including in neighbors such as Poland, Austria and Hungary.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, a conservative critic of Merkel’s migration policy, this week pushed for an “axis of the willing” among Austria, Germany and Italy to fight illegal migration.

It is a view shared by German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who wants to reject migrants at his country’s border if they have already registered in other E.U. states to the south.

In March, Seehofer told a newspaper that “Islam does not belong to Germany.” Seehofer is a member of Merkel’s CSU Bavarian allies, who are further to the right than her own Christian Democrats (CDU). He has also vowed to implement a “master plan for quicker deportations.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition is at risk after clashes with Interior Minister Horst Seehofer over Germany’s refugee policy.Carsten Koall / Getty Images

Keen not to antagonize Germany’s neighbors, Merkel prefers an E.U.-wide solution and wants to wait until the outcome of a summit of the bloc’s leaders on June 28. She has warned that Seehofer’s plan could shift the migrant burden onto countries such as Greece and Italy, where she is already unpopular for her economic policies.

“I personally think illegal migration is one of the big challenges for the European Union, so I don’t believe we should act unilaterally,” she said Thursday. “We should not act in an uncoordinated way, and we should not act at the expense of third parties.”

However, lawmakers from the CSU have backed Seehofer, who said he might defy Merkel by going ahead with his plan next week without her agreement.

If defied, Markel could be forced to fire Seehofer, or lead her CDU to split up the parliamentary bloc in which they have cooperated with the CSU since 1949. That would leave her coalition without a majority and could result in another election.

“Merkel is caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Thomas Walde, co-host of the political affairs show “Berlin Direkt” at NBC’s German partner channel ZDF. “She could either revoke her own policy, which would in effect mean that she is correcting herself and that everything she did so far was wrong. She cannot possibly do that because then she would be a lame duck in her position.”

He added: “Or, she could fire the minister of the interior on Monday, if he were to act. But then her coalition partner would leave the coalition, which would leave her without a majority in Parliament, which would be tough. She could try to go for a little while, but in effect that might lead to new elections.”

“She is fighting various fires in Europe.”

It is unclear whether Merkel would run again should German voters be sent back to the ballot box.

The CSU’s hardline stance on immigration comes ahead of regional elections in Germany. In the Bavarian heartland, along Germany’s southern border, the migrant crisis is a crucial issue and the party fears anti-immigration sentiment could bring to an end its decades-old dominance of Bavaria’s government.

However, others have criticized the CSU for putting its interests ahead of national unity.

Malu Dreyer, the premier of the Rhineland-Pfalz region, called the CSU’s tactics “scandalous.”

“The CSU is risking a lot, namely the stability of this government,” she said Thursday.

Andrea Nahles, the leader of Germany’s center-left Social Democrats, accused Bavaria’s CSU governor, Markus Soeder, of “behaving like a bonsai Trump.”

“We won’t allow the panic of the [Bavarian] state government to take all of Germany and Europe hostage,” said Nahles.

Gero Neugebauer, professor of politics at the Free University Berlin, said Seehofer’s CSU wanted to change the law that automatically guarantees asylum to anyone facing persecution overseas, replacing it with the power to accept or reject asylum applications.

However, the dispute is also a power struggle over who dominates German politics.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds a news conference in Berlin on Friday.Markus Schreiber / AP

“That is why the dispute is in substance about [migration policy], but it is also a conflict between people,” Neugebauer said, adding Seehofer is hoping to emerge as the winner in a confrontation with Merkel.

It cannot be excluded that a collapse of the coalition government “could be imminent,” Neugebauer warned, but added that that would pose risks “which are higher for the CSU than for Merkel’s CDU party.”

Sophia Besch, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think tank, said Merkel has become more isolated on the European stage but her patience and experience could ensure her political survival.

“She is fighting various fires in Europe. She has the Dutch and the northern and Scandinavian countries on her side, but she is certainly not strong enough to be called the undisputed leader of Europe as she might have been,” Besch added. “She’s great at surviving these things, in part because of her calm approach, which is in stark contrast to the posturing in the CSU and the ‘Merkel must go’ faction of the CDU.”

Merkel and Macron are among the few remaining European leaders to explicitly shun populism and the protectionist trade policies of President Donald Trump, and share a vision of a stronger, more unified E.U.-wide foreign policy.

Macron warned in March that the European Union faces a “civil war” and “fascination with the illiberal” as nationalist governments in Poland and Hungary turn away from liberal democracy and appealed to Europeans not to “sleepwalk” into authoritarianism.

Andy Eckardt reported from Mainz, Germany, and Alastair Jamieson from London.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/europes-border-crisis/germany-s-merkel-faces-political-crisis-over-migrant-policy-n883441

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It has become a new ritual of Western politics: hold an election, watch a far-right populist party do better than ever before, then anxiously debate the significance of its rise.

Is populism surging or falling short of expectations? Are voters turning to the far right because of economic anxiety, xenophobia or something else entirely? Is the Western liberal order decaying, or showing its resilience?

The latest opportunity to perform that rite comes from Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won 13 percent of the vote in national elections Sunday — its largest share ever. It is now the third-largest party in the Bundestag, with 94 seats.

I have spent more than a year reporting on the AfD, along with other far-right parties and politicians across the West. I have spoken to social scientists, sifted through mountains of data and stood in snowy squares during AfD rallies until my feet went numb. Over time, that work has revealed the surprising social, institutional and political factors behind the party’s success — and its potential to change German politics in the future.

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Mainstream Parties Falter

The most important story of last weekend’s election in Germany was not so much the rise of AfD but the collapse of support for the country’s mainstream political parties, which lost more than 100 seats in the Bundestag, their worst result in the postwar era.

These mainstream party losses fit a pattern that has played out across other countries where the far right is rising. In France and the Netherlands, for instance, the mainstream parties’ losses in recent elections were far greater than the gains of far-right parties.

That suggests that populist parties are taking advantage of a much broader loss of faith in mainstream parties. In an article in the journal Foreign Affairs, Cas Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia who studies populism, blamed the “undemocratic liberalism” of mainstream politics for the loss of voter support.

Mr. Mudde argues that certain issues — including immigration, European Union integration, and center-right economic reforms — had become “depoliticized.” Once elite consensus around those policies hardened, they were treated as foregone conclusions, not the subject of genuine debate. That has alienated voters, he believes, creating opportunities for populist parties that promise alternatives.

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A Threatened Sense of Identity

When I asked AfD supporters what had led them to the party, no one mentioned the economy. Rather, I heard again and again that the nation and its essential Germanness were under threat from Muslim immigrants and other outsiders, and that only the AfD, among all the political parties, was willing to protect it.

Those interviews, though anecdotal, fit with experts’ findings about the drivers of far-right support in Germany. Anxiety over identity and social change, experts say, not economic distress, attracts voters to far-right politics. And immigration, the signature issue of the AfD and a major concern of its supporters, has emerged as a way to discuss issues of German identity that have long been taboo.

Immo Fritsche, a professor at the University of Leipzig who studies group identity formation, told me in an interview last winter that “there has never been a positive definition of German identity since the Nazi era.” After the war, national identity, even national pride, were seen as too close to the aggressive nationalism that had led to Naziism.

Instead, Germany defined its national identity negatively, by what it was not. Not fascist. Not nationalist. Not separate from Europe.

But now, decades after the end of World War II, many Germans are chafing against that taboo against identity. At a rally in Dresden, earnest young AfD supporters told me over the roar of the crowd that it was unfair that other countries were allowed to have national pride and Germany was not.

The AfD has proved adept at exploiting frustration at this. It presents itself as a champion of ordinary Germans, punching up at the elite who would deny them their national identity.

Recent events have made national identity feel especially important, and threatened, for many Germans.

The refugee crisis has brought an influx of over a million immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, many of whom have settled in towns and cities that were once overwhelmingly white. Eric Kaufmann, a professor at Birkbeck, University of London, who studies ethnic majority politics, has found that this kind of sudden demographic change is particularly likely to set off a nativist backlash that can fuel far-right populism.

After Sunday’s election, he wrote on Twitter that the AfD may have even underperformed, relative to the level of immigration Germany has received in a short period of time.

Also, the perceived unresponsiveness of the European Union on matters of immigration and border security create a sense, for many Germans, that they have lost control over their country.

Professor Fritsche’s research shows that when people feel a loss of control, they seek a stronger connection to group identity, and experience a desire to make their group more powerful. Therefore, he says, a sense that borders are open and immigration is uncontrolled may have made many Germans seek out a stronger sense of German identity, and a stronger Germany.

The AfD’s message of border security and a return to national pride was perfectly placed to fulfill that need.

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Looking to the Future

During a January visit to Berlin, I asked politicians from the Christian Democratic Union, led by Angela Merkel, and the opposition Social Democratic Party if they were worried about the rise of the AfD. Their response tended to be breezy confidence.

Yes, the party had gone from nothing to polling at 15 percent in the few short years since its founding. Yes, it was rather shocking to see the far right gaining ground in Germany. But then they would come back to the same reassuring point: 15 percent was less than 85 percent. So what would this upstart party be able to do, anyway?

Research suggests they should not be so confident. Far-right parties’ influence on politics is often much greater than simple numbers would suggest.

Across Europe, although populist parties themselves rarely capture more than a small minority of the vote, their success has pushed mainstream parties to court far-right voters by mimicking elements of their platforms. That has amplified the influence of the right-wing populist agenda, allowing far-right parties to shape policy from the fringes.

In Britain, for instance, the UK Independence Party, known as UKIP, tended to poll between 10 percent and 15 percent in 2012 and 2013. While that was far from a majority, it was enough to put pressure on the center-right Conservative party, which announced a referendum on European Union membership in order to court those voters.

The result was the Brexit vote — the most significant event of British politics for a generation.

That same process has played out in other countries, with somewhat less extreme results, as center-right politicians have swung hard to the right on matters of immigration and Muslim integration in the Netherlands, France and even Germany itself, where Ms. Merkel gave a speech in December calling for a ban on full-face veils for Muslim women.

But the greater influence may be on the political system itself. Professor Fritsche’s research shows that the same sense of threat and chaos that can fuel the far right can also drive polarization.

When leftists and liberals feel threatened, they too become more likely to close ranks with their own group and become more vehemently opposed to those who do not share their values, such as far-right parties and their supporters.

That can lead to oppositional, us-vs-them tribalism that can have a profound effect on the political ecosystem.

In Germany it has long been the norm for AfD rallies to be surrounded by protests that are often far larger than the rallies themselves. At the events I attended, riot-gear-clad police officers held the groups apart from each other, carving a wide, empty space between the protesters and protested.

The measures were necessary to preserve safety, but reinforced the sense that each side was a threat to the other. It looked as if Professor Fritsche’s research on polarization was given corporeal, very noisy form.

The question now is whether the AfD’s presence in the Bundestag will cause those divisions to grow, and whether the political system will be able to bear the strain.

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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/world/europe/germany-far-right-election.html?mcubz=0

[Disclaimer]

The post What the Far Right’s Rise May Mean for Germany’s Future first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.