World powers have experienced a dramatic shift in recent years from the political centre (inclusive of the centre left and right) towards the far right.
The trend has risen to power in many countries and its mounting popularity has affected other countries in ways that are impossible to ignore.
Its continuity and durability now face two major tests. The first is the fate of Brexit and Boris Johnson’s durability as prime minister.
The second is how US President Donald Trump will fare in the US presidential elections next year.
The US is not just a superpower and the UK is not just a great power. Both are huge monuments in contemporary world civilisation.
Although the rightward shift began early in this second decade of the 21st century, Brexit and Trump’s election both symbolise and energise the profound change unfolding in the world.
Bolsonaro’s election in Brazil, Modi’s arrival to power in India, Xi’s rise to paramount leader in China, Putin’s extended rule in Russia and the rise of numerous other strongmen elsewhere in the world are the details in the global picture. Brexit and Trump’s fiery tweets are the foreground.
God bless technology which made it possible for television audiences in Cairo to watch last week’s House of Commons sessions which proved an exception to those long-established rules of order and decorum that inspire worldwide admiration.
Firstly, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pulled an ancient convention out of the hat in order to obstruct activities in the House of Commons: prorogation. Its purpose is to shut down parliament for about a month until mid-October, only two weeks before he plans to announce the UK’s departure from the EU at the end of that month, even without a deal.
In response to this tactic members of parliament submitted a bill to prevent a no-deal exit and to mandate him to ask the EU for an extension to the negotiating period until January.
The bill passed on its third reading, in accordance with the established procedures for enacting legislation in the British parliament. This would to have been numerically unfeasible had it not been for the alliance between Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats and some minority parties.
Finding his hands tied, Johnson then called for early elections. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn refused this gambit, insisting that the bill first be passed by the House of Lords. (Holding a snap election requires a two-thirds majority in the House of Commons.)
It would seem that the “time honoured” British democracy has lost its ability to take decisions. The two main parties have become engaged in a dance of steps and counter-steps which have dragged out the question over whether to stay or not to stay in the EU, a process that began when former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron asked parliament to put the matter to a public referendum which he believed to be the democratic step needed to settle the matter.
In Britain’s representative democratic system that scenario is not a buttress of democracy because representative democracy presumes that the main political parties and the political elites are capable of reaching a consensus on such strategic matters and that if they are unable to do so then they will resort to certain long-established rules and conventions.
But in this case, what happened was that the conventions turned into a play that all the actors and spectators knew would remain open-ended.
There would be no happy ending where the lover marries his beloved, nor a tragic ending where the hero or heroine die. When this occurs in the UK it is the sign of the democratic times in which the most delicate political questions are turned over to the people and populist demagogues.
On the other side of the Atlantic we have another sign of the times: Donald Trump. Like many others across the world, he too followed developments in the House of Commons live.
He also tweeted his comments and issued a statement here and there about how pleased he was at “Boris’s” strength, resolve and determination. Even Hurricane Dorian raging up the US eastern seaboard couldn’t divert his attention.
This had nothing to do with the historic and sacred alliance between the UK and the US.
It had everything to do with that alliance shaped by a powerful and tempestuous political trend, a trend that does not express itself in Congress or the House of Commons or other such institutions. Rather it has found its voice in guns in the US where, for example, two terrorist attacks were carried out by White supremacists in Texas in the past two months.
No one in the US would dispute the fact that the increasing frequency of these incidents in the US is a direct consequence of the rhetoric disseminated by the president. Another sign of the times.
But there are more. Despite his setback in the House of Commons, Johnson was confident that in the event of a snap election he would win because of the weak character and power of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Trump, too, is fully confident that he will win next year because of his certainty that no one in the Democratic camp will be able take him on.
Either the democratic leadership has drifted too far to the left in the persons of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, or they have remained in the dwindling centre as is the case with Pete Buttigieg or Joe Biden who, while known for his service in Congress and as Obama’s vice president, cannot speak for more than a few minutes without losing track of what he was about to say.
All the circumstances favour Trump who has no rivals within the Republican Party while his fanatical base will continue to support him blindly, regardless of sex, tax and business practice scandals.
Also, the Democratic Party still has the gruelling task of choosing a candidate. When that is over, the candidate will have spent large sums of campaign funds and he/she will be fatigued by the Democratic primaries conducted across 50 states.
In normal times, which now lay in the past, such things were customary in the US. Also, like in the UK, there would be considerable overlap between the outlooks and general policies of the two main parties.
All sides also respected the conventions of antagonism and concord. But this no longer exists, both in London and in Washington. There are no more steady beacons for their own countries or the world. If Boris Johnson and Donald Trump win in their respective elections and if Britain exits the EU and the US exits the world, the planet as we know it will become a new and unfamiliar place.
* The writer is chairman of the board, CEO and director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 12 September, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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