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    Liz Truss’s elevation and downfall mirrors the American right | Andrew Gawthorpe

    Liz Truss’s elevation and downfall mirrors the American right Andrew GawthorpeThe British conservative party has lost touch with reality in ways that are reminiscent of how Trump transformed Republican politics in the US After serving for a mere 45 days, Liz Truss has become the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. George Canning, the previous holder of this record, was forced from office because he died of tuberculosis. Truss, by contrast, is entirely the author of her own demise. But even though her short premiership has no doubt left her own political talents utterly discredited, it would be a mistake to stop apportioning blame there. In fact, Truss’s elevation and downfall show how the British Conservative party has lost touch with reality over the past decade in ways which mirror the descent of the American right.Republicans always choose radicalization to energize their electoral base | Thomas ZimmerRead moreTruss was forced from office after unveiling a budget that was profoundly out of touch with the realities of modern Britain. A diehard libertarian, she announced steep tax cuts for the rich, including removing an immensely popular cap on bankers’ annual bonuses. Much like the Trump tax cuts of 2017, these moves were supposed to be paid for by generating trickle-down economic growth – and when that failed to happen, as it inevitably does, public service and welfare cuts would follow. This kamikaze libertarianism was combined with sheer nastiness towards the poor, such as when the chair of the Conservative party told voters worried about rising energy bills to either go and get a better-paid job or “freeze”.So dire were Truss’s plans that even the markets rejected them, causing a financial crisis and ultimately her unceremonious ejection from office. But just getting rid of Truss is not going to solve the Conservative party’s problems. Instead, it must face up to ideological blinders and delusions of grandeur which led it to put Britain in this situation to begin with.The first entry on the charge sheet is the party’s long-running flirtation with an extreme variant of libertarian economics. Far from being some bizarre outlier, Truss was comfortably elected in a party leadership race this summer despite making no secret of her plans. She was also enthusiastically embraced by rightwing talking heads and thinktanks who have long advocated for precisely the measures in Truss’s budget. Truss was not on a lone ideological bender but was seeking to implement the orthodoxy of a key set of conservative elites – precisely the reason they promoted her into a job she was manifestly unfit for in the first place.But a much larger issue is the way that Brexit transformed British political discourse, introducing a fetish for anti-intellectualism and bold, ill-thought-through action which is reminiscent of how Trump transformed Republican politics in the United States. The party has become addicted to elevating cranks who promise an impossible return to Britain’s former heyday and to sneering at the policy and economics experts who point out the reasons why this is impossible. For a party that has long cast its critics as unpatriotic and over-educated, it was a small step from the fairytale of Brexit to the fairytale of Truss’s economic program.Another way in which the party is culpable is its refusal to face up to the contradictions of Brexit, which was always animated by two very different impulses. The first, most important to the average Brexit voter, was to reduce immigration and embrace the culture wars which went along with that goal. The second, embraced mostly by Tory party elites, was to turn Britain into a libertarian economic paradise, which by contrast would require liberal immigration policies to replace the workers shut out by Brexit.Much like their counterparts in the modern Republican party, Tory elites failed to realize how successful their cynical turn against immigration and towards the culture wars would be. What they originally saw as an electoral strategy to get them into office and allow them to move onto their libertarian agenda eventually became the defining characteristic of their whole movement. In America, this process produced Donald Trump. In the UK, it produced Boris Johnson, who pledged to deport unauthorized immigrants – even those fleeing Ukraine – to Rwanda. Truss seems to have entirely failed to notice this change in conservative politics and tried simply to ignore it, setting up a collision with a large chunk of her own party.So completely did Truss’s premiership embody the policies and tendencies of a certain set of Conservative party elites that its implosion seems to herald the final destruction of their project. This might seem like something to celebrate, but it will in fact probably lead to the further Trumpification of her party. Facing the direct repudiation of their libertarian program and unable due to their own ideological blinders to consider realigning with the EU, Conservatives are likely to see only one way forward: rushing into the culture wars and trying to smuggle whatever parts of their plutocratic agenda they can along with them.For America and the rest of the world, this means a Britain that will continue to become more insular, smaller in its ambitions, and weaker in its capabilities. Conservative elites will continue to find many people to blame for this rather than looking in the mirror. But if they really want to repair the damage to their house, they have to begin by looking at the rotting foundations that they themselves laid.
    Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States and host of the podcast America Explained
    TopicsLiz TrussOpinionDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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    Joe Biden calls Liz Truss tax cuts a ‘mistake’ as political fallout continues

    Joe Biden calls Liz Truss tax cuts a ‘mistake’ as political fallout continuesUS president rejects ‘cutting taxes on the super-wealthy’ and says he is not the only world leader critical of abandoned plan00:39Joe Biden has called Liz Truss’s abandoned economic plan that sent financial markets into chaos and caused a sharp drop in the value of the pound a “mistake” as criticism of her approach continued.The US president hinted that other world leaders felt the same way about her disastrous mini-budget, saying he “wasn’t the only one” who had concerns over the lack of “sound policy” in other countries.Biden said it was “predictable” that the new British prime minister was forced on Friday to backtrack on plans to aggressively cut taxes without saying how they would be paid for, after Truss’s proposal caused turmoil in global financial markets.His comments on Sunday to reporters at an ice-cream parlour in Oregon marked a highly unusual intervention by a US president into the domestic policy decisions of one of its closest allies.“I wasn’t the only one that thought it was a mistake,” Biden said. “I think that the idea of cutting taxes on the super-wealthy at a time when … I disagree with the policy, but it’s up to Britain to make that judgment, not me.”Labour leapt on the US president’s remarks. The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said: “As well as crashing the economy, Liz Truss’s humiliating U-turns have made Britain’s economy an international punchline.“President Biden knows the dangerous folly of trickle-down economics. His comments confirm the hit our reputation has taken thanks to the Conservatives.”Biden has repeatedly poured scorn on so-called trickle-down economics and before his first bilateral talks with Truss in New York last month tweeted that he was “sick and tired” of the approach, which he claimed had never worked.Mini-budget went ‘too far, too fast’, says Jeremy HuntRead moreBiden’s comments came after weeks of White House officials declining to criticise Truss’s plans, though they emphasised they were monitoring the economic fallout closely.The US president was speaking during an unannounced campaign stop for the Democratic candidate for governor, Tina Kotek. Democrats face a tough US political environment amid Republican criticism of their handling of the economy.Biden said he was not concerned about the strength of the dollar – it set a new record against sterling in recent weeks, which benefits imports but makes US exports more expensive to the rest of the world.He claimed the US economy was “strong as hell” but added: “I’m concerned about the rest of the world. The problem is the lack of economic growth and sound policy in other countries. It’s worldwide inflation, that’s consequential.”Truss’s own new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has said Truss and his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget went “too far, too fast” as he effectively signalled the demise of the prime minister’s economic vision.“We have to be honest with people and we are going to have to take some very difficult decisions both on spending and on tax to get debt falling, but at the top of our minds when making these decisions will be how to protect and help struggling families, businesses and people.”Hunt is expected to announce that plans to reduce the basic rate of income tax next April will be pushed back by a year. The cut to 19% will now take effect at the time previously proposed by Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor who was Truss’s main leadership rival.TopicsUS foreign policyJoe BidenLiz TrussEconomic policyUS politicsConservativesnewsReuse this content More

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    The Guardian view on moving the British embassy to Jerusalem: don’t do it | Editorial

    The Guardian view on moving the British embassy to Jerusalem: don’t do itEditorialLiz Truss has promised a review, but relocating it would be shameful and stupid. That might not put off the prime minister – but it should Donald Trump’s relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 was incendiary. Widely criticised, including by the British government, it sparked protests and clashes in which Israeli security forces killed dozens of Palestinians. Though a superpower’s example offers cover to others, only four countries followed suit: Honduras, Guatemala, Kosovo – and Paraguay, which swiftly reversed course.Yet Liz Truss last week said that she was considering relocating the British embassy. The case against a move is logical, legal and practical as well as moral. East Jerusalem has been considered occupied territory under international law since the six-day war in 1967, and the future capital of a Palestinian state. Mr Trump’s proposals for an unworkable “peace plan” committed to Jerusalem as an “undivided” capital – Israel’s position. But British policy remains unchanged. Moving the embassy would tear up the commitment to any meaningful two-state solution. It would tacitly condone the march of illegal settlements. Palestinian doors would slam in the faces of diplomats, the British Council and others: longstanding suspicion of the UK has accelerated in recent years. Relations with other Middle East nations would suffer. All this for minimal, if any, benefit.The prime minister’s remarks came on the sidelines of the UN general assembly meeting where Yair Lapid voiced support for a two-state solution – the first Israeli prime minister to do so since 2017. This is a return to the rhetorical status quo ante, without either intention or ability to act upon his words, while the reality on the ground makes a peace deal ever more distant. There is no prospect of serious talks with Palestinians and minimal external pressure. While it may have been intended to sweeten his message on Iran, most have seen it in the context of November’s general election – Israel’s fifth in less than four years, and once again shaping up as a contest for and against former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (currently favoured by polls). The thinking is that Mr Lapid hopes to encourage voters on the left to turn out or, more likely, switch to him, keeping him at the head of the anti-Bibi bloc.It may also smooth relations with Joe Biden, who hailed his remarks, but has shown little real interest in the future of Palestinians. His administration vowed to reopen the consulate in Jerusalem, which served Palestinians, and the PLO mission in Washington; neither has happened. The president’s cursory trip to East Jerusalem and Bethlehem this summer looked like cover for his meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman.Badly failed by their own leadership too, Palestinians feel not only frustrated and angry, but betrayed. Ms Truss’s review is further confirmation that they are right. Her brief tenure has already demonstrated that a policy’s badness, stupidity and unpopularity are not obstacles to embracing it: the opportunity to “challenge conformity” – ignoring officials’ warnings – may even be a spur. This is still more likely when Palestinians, rather than her own electorate, will pay. But Britain’s historical responsibilities, as well as international law, demand that it does better. It should keep the embassy in Tel Aviv, and not add to the damage already done.TopicsIsraelOpinionMiddle East and north AfricaBenjamin NetanyahuYair LapidLiz TrussUS politicsJoe BideneditorialsReuse this content More

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    Ditching the Northern Ireland Protocol is unConservative and May Break the UK

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