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      in Elections

      Angry Tory MPs reject Joe Biden's comments on UK-EU Brexit talks

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      Conservative MPs have reacted angrily to an intervention by Joe Biden, the US Democratic presidential candidate, in the UK Brexit talks, accusing him of ignorance of the Northern Ireland peace process.In a tweet on Wednesday, Biden warned the UK there would be no US-UK free trade agreement if the Brexit talks ended with the Good Friday agreement being undermined. He tweeted: “We can’t allow the Good Friday agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.“Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”His intervention was welcomed by Richard Neal, the chairman of Congress’s ways and means committee.The backlash was led by the former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith, who told the Times: “We don’t need lectures on the Northern Ireland peace deal from Mr Biden. If I were him I would worry more about the need for a peace deal in the US to stop the killing and rioting before lecturing other sovereign nations.”Donald Trump has made law and order a key theme of his re-election campaign after months of unrest triggered by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said: “Perhaps Mr Biden should talk to the EU since the only threat of an invisible border in Ireland would be if they insisted on levying tariffs.”Biden spoke out after the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, met the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in Washington in a bid to reassure her that the British government was not seeking a hard border on the island of Ireland via measures in its internal market bill, a move that is seen by the US pro-Irish lobby as potentially fatal to the peace process.Q&AWhat is the UK internal market bill?ShowThe internal market bill aims to enforce compatible rules and regulations regarding trade in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.Some rules, for example around food safety or air quality,  which were formerly set by EU agreements, will now be controlled by the devolved administrations or Westminster. The internal market bill insists that devolved administrations  have to accept goods and services from all the nations of the UK – even if their standards differ locally.This, says the government, is in part to ensure international traders have access to the UK as a whole, confident that standards and rules are consistent.The Scottish government has criticised it as a Westminster “power grab”, and the Welsh government has expressed fears it will lead to a race to the bottom. If one of the countries that makes up the UK lowers their standards, over the importation of chlorinated chicken, for example, the other three nations will have to accept chlorinated chicken too.It has become even more controversial because one of its main aims is to empower ministers to pass regulations even if they are contrary to the withdrawal agreement reached with the EU under the Northern Ireland protocol.The text does not disguise its intention, stating that powers contained in the bill “have effect notwithstanding any relevant international or domestic law with which they may be incompatible or inconsistent”.Martin Belam and Owen BowcottRaab has argued that the measures in the UK internal market bill are proportionate, precautionary and necessary due to the EU’s politicising of the stuttering talks on a trade deal between the UK and the EU.However, the EU hit back on Thursday, saying an agreement on a trade and security deal remained conditional on the government pulling the contentious clauses in the internal market bill.The European commission’s vice-president for the economy, Valdis Dombrovskis, said: “If the UK does not comply with the exit agreement, there will no longer be a basis for a free trade agreement between the EU and the UK. The UK government must correct this before we continue to negotiate our political and economic relations.”The dispute between Biden and Downing Street poses a broader threat to UK interests if Biden, a pro-EU and pro-Ireland politician, decides to turn against Boris Johnson, who has made a virtue of his close relations with the Trump administration.The former UK trade minister Conor Burns tweeted: “Hey JoeBiden would you like to discuss the Good Friday agreement? It is also called the Belfast agreement so it doesn’t offend both traditions. Did you actually know that? I was born in NI and I’m a Catholic and a Unionist. Here if you need help.”The Conservative MP for Beaconsfield, Joy Morrissey, replied that “Biden is shamelessly pandering to the American Irish vote while refusing to engage with the UK government or UK diplomatic channels. Nice.”She later deleted her tweet, but added: “Clearly it’s all about the Irish American vote.”Burns added: “The error those of us who supported Brexit was to assume the EU would behave rationally in seeking a free trade agreement with a large trading partner like the UK..”Alexander Stafford, the Conservative MP for Rother Valley, tweeted: “Is this the same JoeBiden who once described Britain’s position in Northern Ireland as ‘absolutely outrageous’. And who hit the headlines in the 1980s for his stand against the deportation of IRA suspects from the US to Britain?”John Redwood, a leading Brexiter, said: “Trade deals are nice to have but not essential. We did not have a trade deal with the US when we were in the EU. Getting back full control of our laws, our money and our borders is essential.”Theresa May’s former chief of staff Nick Timothy rejected the frenzy, dismissing “the sudden discovery that Democrats don’t like Brexit and prefer the Irish”.Other Tory MPs including Stewart Jackson tweeted articles claiming that two of the representatives criticising the UK over the Good Friday agreement were overt IRA sympathisers, and a third was a supporter of Martin McGuinness, the now deceased former deputy first minister for Northern Ireland.The shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy, said: “This shows the scale of the damage the government have done to Britain’s standing in the world. They’ve lost trust and undermined cooperation at the moment we most need it – and all to tear up an agreement they negotiated. Reckless, incompetent and utterly self-defeating.”Daniel Mulhall, the Irish ambassador to the US, has been working the corridors in Washington for the past fortnight, lobbying to lessen the threat the Irish perceive to the Good Friday agreement posed by the British proposals. He has been tweeting his gratitude to those representatives issuing support for the Good Friday agreement.No free trade deal between the UK and the US can be agreed unless it is supported by two-thirds of Congress.In a sign of Trump administration concern about the row, Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former acting chief of staff, will shortly make his first trip to the the UK in his new role as the US special envoy for Northern Ireland.The Foreign Office, criticised by some for failing to anticipate the likely US backlash, will argue Raab’s visit to Washington may have drawn a predictable reaction from some corners, but was necessary to reassure and counter Irish propaganda.But UK diplomats will be anxious that the UK is not seen to adopt a partisan stance in the US elections, especially since Biden currently holds a fragile poll lead. More

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      in World Politics

      Boris Johnson Pushes Unreason to an Extreme

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      The Guardian offered its readers what is certainly the most comic and hyperreal sentence of the week when it reported that “Boris Johnson accused the EU of preparing to go to ‘extreme and unreasonable lengths’ in Brexit talks as he defended breaching international law amid a mounting rebellion from Tory backbenchers.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Go to extreme and unreasonable lengths:

      An expression that those who habitually go to extreme and unreasonable lengths in everything they do like to apply to those who oppose any of their extremely unreasonable acts

      Contextual Note

      We live in an era in which extreme and unreasonable discourse and action have become the most reliable tool for those seeking political, economic or social success. It explains how purveyors of extreme and unreasonable discourse have won recent elections in nations as diverse as the US, the UK, India, the Philippines and Brazil, to mention only those countries. 

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      Whether their names are Johnson, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Silvio Berlusconi, Rodrigo Duterte, Elon Musk or Kanye West, each in his own patented way has perfected the art of outrageous hyperreality that thrives on projecting a personality that is extreme and unreasonable. The phenomenon goes beyond politics. In fact, it originates in the world of entertainment. West, an American rapper, did as much to inspire President Trump’s approach to politics as Trump did to convince West he could have a future in politics.

      The Guardian’s readers may be left wondering what kind of exceptionally outrageous behavior could merit Johnson, the British prime minister, calling European negotiators’ behavior “extreme and unreasonable.” Even during his career as a journalist before moving into politics, Johnson specialized in extreme and unreasonable exaggeration in his reporting of the news.

      In 2016, Johnson also went from the extreme of preparing an article for publication in The Telegraph in which he argued in favor of Britain remaining in Europe and warned that leaving the EU would provoke an “economic shock,” to leading the wing of the Conservative Party in the “leave” campaign for Brexit. That permitted him to identify himself with the cause of Brexit and assume the leadership of that faction of a party officially committed to remaining as a member of the European Union. He sensed that it would be the shortest route to Downing Street as he witnessed the wavering fortunes of David Cameron, the prime minister at the time.

      Embed from Getty Images

      So, what terribly extreme and unreasonable actions are the Europeans guilty of in Johnson’s eyes? Very simply, they disapprove of his proposed “internal market bill,” which calls for unilaterally overturning the withdrawal agreement Johnson signed last year to presumably settle the initial political conditions of the UK leaving the European Union. On Johnson’s own initiative, that agreement drew a border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, which together make up the United Kingdom. 

      The law he is now proposing would permit him to effectively erase that border, leading to the necessity of creating a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Keeping that border open as provided by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement — a deal that ended the violence between Catholics and Protestants — was the required condition for reaching any kind of permanent solution to the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.

      Now, key members of Johnson’s cabinet have begun to revolt, as this is a clear violation of the terms of the withdrawal agreement that took so long to hammer out. Britain’s former ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, now points out that the bill will be “hugely damaging to our international reputation.” He warned that “it could deter other countries from entering into agreements with the UK in the future.” He wasn’t alone. Five former British prime ministers have also expressed concern over the move. Darroch speculated on what might happen “if people think the Brits are just going to say: we didn’t like this on reflection, and we would like to rewrite this part unilaterally.”

      Historical Note

      During the centuries when the British dominated the world and owned an empire on which the sun never set, as a people they acquired the reputation of being committed to “fair play.” The French, who never had an entente with the British that was deeper than merely cordial, to this day identify the British as a people who want to be respected for maintaining the cultural value of fair play, at least as it applies to sports.

      The French have never been naive. They have always recognized that their British neighbors were perfectly capable of perfidy. To this day, the French will ironically trot out the expression “perfide Albion” to explain Britain’s positions concerning other nations. But Albion’s traditional perfidy was always subtle, carrying an air of reasonableness and delivered with what appeared to be a complicit smile. Boris Johnson’s is both extreme and unreasonable.

      Empires will always be suspected of perfidy, if only because everyone understands that they can, on a whim, betray treaties and agreements — and even their own stated principles and values — as they rely on their military prowess and financial clout to carry them through. To some extent, this becomes the law of empires, their way of indicating that the countries they deal with have a greater interest in being nice to them than they do in being nice to the others. 

      The irony this time — and some see it as a tragedy — lies in the fact that Britain hasn’t been an empire for at least 70 years. Johnson has become little more than Shakespeare’s “poor player who struts and frets his hour upon a stage” and someday soon will be heard no more. The burning question, when it comes to Johnson, Rodrigo Duterte and Donald Trump — whose exit may be announced in November — is this: What will the damaged landscape look like when those leaders specialized in upending their own cultures are gone?

      As the world breathlessly awaits the major events that affect every nation in the world — starting with the US presidential election in November and including the unabating drama of the waxing and waning of hopes to see the end of the COVID-19 pandemic — the British have the added angst of speculating about just how irreparably damaging what appears to be an inevitable “hard Brexit” on January 1, 2021, is likely to be. One thing seems to be sure: it will be both extreme and unreasonable. 

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Failing to Protect the Independence of the European Commission

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      I have always believed that the independence of members of the European Commission (EC) was a keystone of successful European integration. Commissioners are obliged by their oath of office to seek a European solution to problems, rather than just seek a balance between conflicting national interests. They have done so ever since 1958. This is why European integration has succeeded, while integration efforts on other continents have failed under the weight of national egoism.

      As the European Union grows, the independence of commissioners from national politics has become ever more important. Some believe the European Commission is too large. From an efficiency point of view, they have a point. But Ireland, among others, has insisted that despite this, each member state should have one of its nationals as a member of the commission at all times.

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      But if the one-commissioner-per-member-state rule is to be upheld as the EU enlarges, commissioners from all states — large and small — must demonstrate that they put European interest first and are not subject to the vagaries and passions of politics in their country of origin. In other words, European commissioners must be independent. All member states must be seen to respect this.

      This is why I am deeply troubled by the attitude taken by the Irish government, and then by President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission, to call for Phil Hogan to resign as EU trade commissioner. Both of them failed in their understanding of the European Union and of one of its vital interests — namely the visible independence of members of the European Commission from the politics of any EU state, large or small.

      I was genuinely shocked by what happened. Late in the evening of August 22, leaders of the Irish government called on Hogan to “consider his position.” That means to resign. They piled on the pressure thereafter, with a further statement on August 23 containing a political determination that he had broken the government’s quarantine rules to combat the spread of COVID-19 after returning to Ireland from Belgium. Hogan resigned on August 26. That was his decision and one he was entitled to make.

      Lessons From This Precedent

      But there are profound lessons to be learned by President von der Leyen — and by the European Commission as a whole — as to how and to whom commissioners should be held accountable, and a need to understand what this precedent means for the future political independence of commissioners from their home governments. Separately, there are also questions to be asked about the internal management of and the collegiality of the EC.

      I will set out my concerns here, drawing on the words of the EU treaty, which I helped draft as a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe.

      On August 26, von der Leyen clearly withdrew any active support from Commissioner Hogan and unquestioningly accepted the line of the Irish government. This influenced him to resign from his position. In this action, I contend that the president did not fulfill all of her responsibilities under the treaties. I know she faced genuine political difficulty. But the treaties were framed to deal with fraught political situations while preserving the independence of the EC and due process.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The European Commission is the guardian of EU treaties and should be seen to defend the rules laid down in the treaties under all circumstances, even when it is politically difficult. Article 245 of the treaty requires member states to respect the independence of commissioners. Ireland is bound by that article, after having ratified it in a referendum. One should note that Article 245 refers to respecting the independence of commissioners individually, not just to the EC as a whole.

      It is for the Irish government to say whether publicly demanding a commissioner’s resignation for an alleged breach of Irish rules is compatible with the Irish government’s treaty obligation under Article 245. But it had other options,

      If a commissioner is visiting a member state for any reason, he or she is subject to the laws of that state on the same basis as any other citizen. A visiting commissioner would not be above the law, nor would they be below it either. If they breached the law, due process in the courts ought to be applied — as with any citizen. This is what would have happened if the visiting commissioner was from any country other than Ireland and had experienced the difficulties that Hogan did, and due process would have been followed.

      The statements of the Irish government, and the unsatisfactory explanations by Hogan, created political problems for von der Leyen. She had to do something, but not necessarily what she did. Yet there were options available to her, which she inexplicably failed to use or consider.

      Rules Ignored

      Commissioners are subject to a code of conduct. Under that code, there is an ethics committee to determine if its guidelines have been breached. If the matter is urgent, there is provision for a time limit to be set for a report by the committee. Nonetheless, a reference to the ethics committee would have allowed for due process and a calm and fair hearing. More importantly, using this process would also have asserted the independence of the European Commission as an institution.

      The code says that it is to be applied “in good faith and with due consideration of the proportionality principle,” and it allows for a reprimand that does not warrant asking the commissioner to resign. Due to the course followed, we will never know if there was any breach of the code at all by Hogan.

      President von der Leyen’s failure to use these mechanisms seems to be a serious failure to defend due process and proportionality and to protect the independence of individual commissioners, as was required by the treaty. The EC and the European Parliament should inquire into why she did not do so. There are consequences now for the viability of the code of conduct if it is not to be used in a case like this.

      Criteria Not Applied

      Was what Phil Hogan did a resigning matter anyway? Article 247 allows for only two grounds for asking a commissioner to resign. These are that he or she is “no longer being able to fulfil the conditions for the performance of [their] duties” or “has been guilty of serious misconduct.” I do not think either condition was met in Hogan’s case.

      Hogan would have been fully capable of carrying out his duties while the ethics committee did its work. Instead, his position is now effectively vacant.

      Most people I have spoken to do not think the breaches committed by Hogan — while foolish — amounted to “serious misconduct” within the meaning of Article 247. Failure to recollect all the details of a private visit over two weeks, or to issue a sufficient apology quickly enough, may be political failing, but they hardly rise to the level of “serious misconduct.” Any deliberate and knowing breach of quarantine measures should have been dealt with in Irish courts without fuss.

      In any event, von der Leyen would have been far wiser to have gotten an objective view on all of this from the ethics committee before allowing Hogan to resign.

      Why Did the European Commission Not Meet?

      Another issue is the president’s failure to call an EC meeting if she was considering that a commissioner should resign. Under Article 247, it is the EC — not the president alone — that can make a commissioner resign, and even then it must be approved by the European Court of Justice. These safeguards were put in the treaty to protect the independence of the European Commission. They were ignored in this case.

      The subsequent weakening of the institutional independence of the commission is very damaging to European integration and to the interests of smaller EU states. This should be of concern to the European Parliament.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Donald Trump hopes for election boost from Kosovo-Serbia talks

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      The leaders of Kosovo and Serbia will meet at the White House on Thursday and Friday, in an encounter that some see as a push for a diplomatic win for Donald Trump to brandish during his re-election campaign.Kosovo’s prime minister, Avdullah Hoti, will meet with the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, in talks that Trump aides say will be primarily about economic issues between the two countries, but may pave the way to a broader deal.The goal of the talks is “to create economic development that will then somehow change the dynamic amongst the political class”, said a senior adviser to Trump in a call with reporters earlier in the week. The adviser said it was not yet clear whether Trump would take part in the meetings – suggesting he would only meet the two leaders if there is a deal to be signed.Kosovo broke from Serbia after a war and Nato bombing campaign, and declared independence in 2008, but the two sides have no relations.The White House diplomatic push, led by the Trump loyalist Richard Grenell, has irritated some European diplomats, who say the EU’s long-running mediation process should be given priority.It has also prompted fears that a land swap could be on the table as part of the deal, which many believe would have knock-on effects in other parts of the Balkans. Grenell has long denied that a land swap is under consideration.Grenell, who has courted controversy as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and then as acting director of national intelligence, has also attracted criticism for his negotiation tactics. In April, Kosovo’s ousted prime minister Albin Kurti accused Grenell of mounting a coup to overthrow him so he could present Trump with a diplomatic success in an election year. “My government was not overthrown for anything else but simply because Ambassador Grenell was in a hurry to sign an agreement with Serbia,” said Kurti.A meeting at the White House planned in late June fell apart at the last minute after prosecutors at a court in The Hague announced they had filed a draft indictment against Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaçi. The statement was released as Thaçi was already en route to Washington.Now, two months before the US election, the meeting will finally take place, with the emphasis on economic progress.“We can either sit around and continue talking about political issues that get us nowhere, or we can do something that President Trump thinks might work, and we’re going to test it to see if it works,” said the Trump adviser.The EU-brokered talks were on hold for two years after Kosovo imposed import tariffs on Serbian goods, but have recently resumed. Meetings in Brussels, including expert dialogue and top-level discussions, are planned for next week.The EU envoy for Kosovo-Serbia talks, Miroslav Lajčak, has said an EU-brokered deal to normalise relations between Belgrade and Pristina could be ready soon.“Let’s see how much time we need, but I am speaking about months, I am not speaking about years,” he said at a forum in Slovenia this week. “Both parties are committed, both parties are serious, respecting each other.” More

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      in World Politics

      Negotiating the End of Brexit

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      It is increasingly likely that, unless things change, on January 1, 2021, we will have a no-deal Brexit. That would mean the only deal between the European Union and the United Kingdom would be the already ratified EU withdrawal agreement of 2019.

      There are only around 50 working days left in which to make a broader agreement for a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU. The consequences of failing to do so for Ireland will be as profound — and perhaps even as long-lasting — as those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

      A failure to reach a UK-EU agreement would mean a deep rift between the UK and Ireland. It would also mean heightened tensions within Northern Ireland, disruptions to century-old business relations and a succession of high-profile court cases between the EU and the UK dragging on for years.

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      Issues on which a deal could have easily been reached in amicable give-and-take negotiations will be used as hostages or leverage on other matters. The economic and political damage would be incalculable. And we must do everything we can to avoid this.

      Changing the EU trade commissioner, Phil Hogan, under such circumstances would be dangerous. Trying to change horses in midstream is always difficult. But attempting to do so at the height of a flood — in high winds — would be even more so.

      The EU would lose an exceptionally competent trade commissioner when he was never more needed. An Irishman would no longer hold the trade portfolio. The independence of the European Commission, a vital ingredient in the EU’s success, would have been compromised — a huge loss for all smaller EU states.

      According to the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, talks between the European Union and the UK, which ended last week, seemed at times to be going “backwards rather than forwards.” The impasse has been reached for three reasons.

      The Meaning of Sovereignty

      First, the two sides have set themselves incompatible objectives. The European Union wants a wide-ranging “economic partnership” between the UK and the EU, with a “level playing field” for “open and fair” competition. The UK agreed to this objective in the joint political declaration made with the EU at the time of the withdrawal agreement, which was reached in October 2019.

      Since then, the UK has held a general election with the ruling Conservative Party winning an overall majority in Parliament, and it has changed its mind. It is now insisting, in the uncompromising words of it chief negotiator, David Frost, on “sovereign control of our own laws, borders, and waters.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      This formula fails to take account of the fact that any agreement the UK might make with the EU (or with anyone else) on standards for goods, services or food items necessarily involves a diminution of sovereign control. Even being in the World Trade Organization (WTO) involves accepting its rulings, which are a diminution of “sovereign control.” This is why US President Donald Trump does not like the WTO and is trying to undermine it.

      The 2019 withdrawal agreement from the EU also involves a diminution of sovereign control by Westminster over the laws that will apply in Northern Ireland and thus within the UK. That agreement obliges the UK to apply EU laws on tariffs and standards to goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain — i.e., going from one part of the UK to another.

      This obligation is one of the reasons given by a group of UK parliamentarians — including Iain Duncan Smith, David Trimble, Bill Cash, Owen Paterson and Sammy Wilson — for wanting the UK to pull out from the withdrawal agreement, even though most of them voted for it last year.

      Sovereignty is a metaphysical concept, not a practical policy. Attempting to apply it literally would make structured and predictable international cooperation between states impossible. That is not understood by many in the Conservative Party.

      The Method of Negotiation

      Second, the negotiating method has proved challenging. The legal and political timetables do not gel. The UK wants to discuss the legal texts of a possible free trade agreement first and leave the controversial issues — like competition and fisheries — until the endgame in October. But the EU wants serious engagement to start on these sticking points straight away.

      Any resolution of these matters will require complex legal drafting, which cannot be left to the last minute. After all, these texts will have to be approved by the European and British Parliaments before the end of 2020. There can be no ambiguities or late-night sloppy drafting.

      The problem is that the UK negotiator cannot yet get instructions on the compromises he can make from Boris Johnson, the British prime minister. Johnson is instead preoccupied with combating the spread of the COVID-19 disease, as well as keeping the likes of Duncan Smith and Co. onside. The prime minister is a last-minute type of guy.

      Trade Relations With Other Blocs

      Third, there is the matter of making provisions for the trade agreements the UK wants to make in the future with other countries, such as the US, Japan and New Zealand. Freedom to make such deals was presented to UK voters as one of the benefits of Brexit.

      The underlying problem here is that the UK government has yet to make up its mind on whether it will continue with the European Union’s strict precautionary policy on food safety or adopt the more permissive approach favored by the US. Similar policy choices will have to be made by the UK on chemicals, energy efficiency displays and geographical indicators.

      The more the UK diverges from existing EU standards on these issues, the more intrusive the controls on goods coming into Northern Ireland from Britain will have to be, and the more acute the distress will be for Unionist circles in Northern Ireland. Issues that are uncontroversial in themselves will assume vast symbolic significance and threaten peace on the island of Ireland

      The UK is likely to be forced to make side deals with the US on issues like hormone-treated beef, genetically modified organisms and chlorinated chicken. The US questions the scientific basis for the existing EU restrictions and has won a WTO case on beef over this. It would probably win on chlorinated chicken, too.

      If Britain conceded to the US on hormones and chlorination, this would create control problems at the border between the UK and the EU, wherever that border is in Ireland. Either UK officials would enforce EU rules on hormones and chlorination on the entry of beef or chicken to this island, or there would be a huge international court case.

      All this shows that, in the absence of some sort of partnership agreement between the EU and the UK, relations could spiral out of control. Ireland, as well as the European Union, needs its best team on the pitch to ensure that this does not happen.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Lies, suspicion and silence in the Tory party | Letters

      by

      In your admirably concise analysis of the government’s failings over the past week, there are two flaws: one of them delusional, the other an omission (The Guardian view on Boris Johnson’s government: an omnishambles week, 20 August).First the delusion: “Much depends on Conservatives with consciences” may have made sense until 12 months ago. Then MPs who dared to challenge the leadership on a range of topics, not just Brexit, but crucially the unlawful prorogation of parliament, were thrown out of their party. Others who shared those opinions decided not to seek re-election, and as a consequence the Conservative parliamentary party can now easily be passed off as a slightly more media-friendly version of Farage’s Brexit party. If any are left who have the conscience necessary to challenge “the New Tory party”, they will be fearful of showing themselves until such time as things are much worse and they have no alternative.The omission: aside from citing one opinion poll that suggests Labour is beginning to eat into the Tory lead, the opposition does not feature.I hope that MPs from all other parties are hatching plans to harry ministers at every turn, challenge every decision and use the full force of parliamentary procedure to expose the lies and to investigate the growing suspicion that public money is being misused to feather friends’ nests.Les BrightExeter, Devon• Martin Kettle quite rightly sees Boris Johnson as a threat to parliamentary democracy (Johnson vowed to strengthen parliament. Yet he and Cummings are silencing it, 19 August). But we should not be surprised. “Johnson talked about how MPs didn’t count, they were just marriage-guidance counsellors on a Friday,” Tony Benn wrote about a radio discussion between the two in 1997. “I just went for him. I shouldn’t lose my temper, but actually it was quite good.” And good too if a few more people now lose their temper about what Kettle chillingly identifies as already almost amounting to “a quiet coup”.David KynastonNew Malden, London• What an amazing speech by Barack Obama to the Democratic national convention. Perhaps Theresa May could download it, replace the words Donald Trump with Boris Johnson, president with prime minister and America with the United Kingdom, and then deliver it in the Commons. If only parliament was sitting.Elizabeth BrettWelling, Kent• Join the conversation – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters More

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      in US Politics

      'Never give up': Greek asylum fight is gifted student's hardest lesson

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      Europe’s dreamers

      ‘Never give up’: Greek asylum fight is gifted student’s hardest lesson

      Amadou Diallo arrived in Greece from west African nearly four years ago.
      Composite: Enri Canaj/Magnum

      Amadou Diallo fled child labour in an African gold mine. Only by proving his ability to an elite university has he won the right to a future in Europe
      ‘We want to build a life’: Europe’s paperless young people speak out
      by Fahrinisa Campana

      Main image:
      Amadou Diallo arrived in Greece from west African nearly four years ago.
      Composite: Enri Canaj/Magnum

      From the stack of books Amadou Diallo took with him last summer to the Greek islands, it was a biography of Frederick Douglass that kept finding its way back to the top. One quote from the 19th-century slavery abolitionist particularly resonated: “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
      Diallo was on Sifnos, a holiday destination for cultured Athenians and well-heeled foreign families. An asylum seeker from Guinea, he was working long hours in a hotel. At night he would read the life stories of great men, wondering what shape his own freedom might take.
      Still just 20, the boy who arrived alone from west Africa nearly four years ago has seized every chance given to him. From boutique hotels on fashionably offbeat islands, to a private school where diplomats send their children, he has seen a vision of what Europe has to offer. He has read voraciously and worked hard to educate himself and to belong. But his place in this new world relies on Greece’s asylum process.
      Q&A Who are Europe’s dreamers?
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      Dreamers is the US term collectively given to young people without legal immigration status who were brought to the US as children. Some young people living in Europe without legal status now also call themselves ‘dreamers’ because their struggle against hostile European migration and asylum policies echoes the US campaign. Between 3.9 and 4.8 million people in Europe are believed to be living without residency permits, about 65% of whom are under 35 years old, according to the Pew Research Center. In the UK, a recent University of Wolverhampton study commissioned by the mayor of London estimated there are 332,000 children and young people living undocumented in the UK, including 106,000 children born in the country. Estimating numbers of undocumented people necessarily involves guesswork – and the methodologies are often criticised – but it is thought there are millions of dreamers across Europe. 

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      Diallo did not grow up with dreams of leaving Guinea. It was only after his father died that his life pitched into something that could have been imagined by a west African Dickens. Along with his younger brother, he was sent to live with his stepmother, who he says was abusive and sold him to the owner of a gold mine.
      His life at the mine was essentially one of forced labour. The first time he tried to escape, he was caught and brutally punished.
      Unbowed, he tried again. Locked in with other children, he screamed that there was a fire. The guards unlocked the door and in the chaos he managed to slip away.
      He crossed the border into Mali and took the route north that would eventually lead him to Turkey. From there, he caught a boat to the Greek island of Lesbos. When the 16-year-old finally reached Athens, two months after leaving Guinea, he was spotted by an aid worker who brought him to a children’s shelter run by the Home Project, a non-profit organisation. It focuses on sheltering lone children who, like Diallo, came in their thousands and ended up surviving on the streets, in camps or detention centres. As an unaccompanied minor he was classed as vulnerable and granted temporary protection.
      Through the Home Project he met Anna-Maria Kountouri, an immigration lawyer. She explains that minors have a race against time to gain legal status to remain in Europe, as when they reach 18 it is more difficult.
      To secure his future in Europe, Diallo needed the Greek authorities to accept his asylum claim. But the rejection rate in Greece for unaccompanied minors has risen sharply in recent years under new hardline asylum laws. Children whose cases are rejected are not deported but coming of age sweeps away that protection.
      Between June 2013 and January 2020 a total of 7,558 asylum applications from unaccompanied minors were processed in Greece, of which 63% were rejected. Of the 186 applications processed in January 2020, 71% were rejected. More

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      in US Politics

      Why a Biden presidency might not mean a return to pre-Trump foreign relations

      by

      European leaders, desperate for an end to the Trump presidency, are being warned that four years of Joe Biden may present them with new challenges and not a simple restoration of the benign status quo in transatlantic relations prior to 2016.An evolving Biden doctrine about ending “forever wars” and protecting American workers from Chinese competition would require collective military and economic commitments from the EU that it is still ill-equipped to meet, foreign policy specialists have suggested.The overall tenor of the platform, emphasising post-Covid multilateralism and cooperation with fellow liberal democracies, is already welcome in Europe. Biden’s promised end to the institutionalised mayhem, animus towards allies and pandering to authoritarians will be a relief. Competence, reliability and dialogue may not be a high bar to set a presidency, but simple normality would amount to a revival of the idea of the west, such has been the chaos of the past four years.Forsaken multilateral institutions, such as the World Health Organization, would be rejoined, ending the US practice, in the words of Biden’s chief foreign policy adviser Tony Blinken, of simply going awol. “Ninety per cent of life is about showing up,” Blinken told Chatham House, adapting Woody Allen.Biden may seem to personify an old-school nostalgic Atlanticism of the foreign policy establishment. But the Democrat’s draft policy platform released last month reflects the influence of the progressive left, and an effort to absorb the lessons from the shock 2016 defeat.Matt Duss, Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy adviser, speaking to the European Council on Foreign Relations podcast, agreed that Biden had moved to the left, saying he had faced mobilisation on foreign policy from progressives in a way that Barack Obama never experienced. As a result, foreign policy is no longer a backwater in democratic politics, and new links between foreign and economic policy are being drawn.Many of the Obama-era foreign policy advisers now clustered around Biden, dismissed as a horror show by some on the left, also deny that they crave simple restoration, saying everything has changed since 2016.Stung by Hillary Clinton’s defeat, they recognise the populists’ claim to have better constructed a foreign policy to help Americans’ daily lives at home. William Burns, a former state department official under Obama and one of Biden’s many advisers, recently wrote: “The wellbeing of the American middle class ought to be the engine that drives our foreign policy. We’re long overdue for a historic course correction at home.”Jeremy Shapiro, a senior researcher with the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR), also says there has been a pressure on Democrats to make their foreign policy more relevant to daily American lives. “There was this sense that in the Obama administration foreign policy was a plaything of the elites divorced from Americans’ daily existence. The change from Obama to Biden is there will be more focus on America.”Without threatening tariff wars, the Biden platform hints at a new scepticism about globalism and free trade. In broader policy terms, Europe will welcome Biden’s commitment to the Paris climate change treaty, and to Nato, “the single most significant military alliance in the history of the world,” as Biden described the organisation to the Munich security conference in 2019. To the relief of Berlin, the withdrawal of US troops from Germany would stop. A more consistent approach to Turkey would be sought. More