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      Joe Biden signals he has no interest in signing US-UK trade agreement

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      Ministers have given up on signing a trade agreement with the US before the next election, after the Biden administration signalled it had no interest in agreeing one.British officials had been hoping to agree a “foundational trade partnership” before both countries head to the polls in the next 12 months, having already decided not to pursue a full-blown free trade agreement.However, sources briefed on the talks say they are no longer taking place, thanks to reluctance among senior Democrats to open US markets to more foreign-made goods. The story was first revealed by Politico.A British government spokesperson said: “The UK and US are rapidly expanding cooperation on a range of vital economic and trade issues building on the Atlantic declaration announced earlier this year.” Multiple sources, however, confirmed the foundational trade partnership was no longer on the table.Vote Leave campaigners said giving the UK the freedom to sign bilateral trade agreements with other countries would be one of the biggest benefits of Brexit, with a US trade deal often held up as the biggest prize of all.Talks over a free trade agreement stalled early on, however, thanks in part to resistance from Democratic members of Congress and concerns in the UK about opening up UK markets to chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-injected beef.Earlier this year, the Guardian saw documents outlining how Washington and London could instead coordinate over a partnership covering digital trade, labour protections and agriculture. The deal would not have included lower barriers for service companies, meaning it fell short of a fully fledged free trade deal, but could have paved the way for one in the future.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSources say the deal was always likely to prove difficult to finalise, in part because the US still wanted greater access for their agricultural products. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said at a food security summit earlier this year that he would not allow either chlorine-washed chicken or hormone-injected beef into the UK.It also became clear in recent weeks that the Biden administration had no interest in signing any kind of a deal before the election, given how Donald Trump had weaponised international trade agreements during his first run for president.A spokesperson for Ron Wyden, the Democratic chair of the Senate finance committee, told Politico: “It is Senator Wyden’s view that the United States and United Kingdom should not make announcements until a deal that benefits Americans is achievable.” More

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      A written constitution won’t right Britain’s wrongs | Letters

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      Gavin Esler (Here’s the key question about Britain in 2023: why do we put up with this rubbish?, 25 October) makes some good points, but his implication that we should have a written constitution, as the US does, should be resisted. There’s no more pernicious element in American life than the country’s practically irreformable constitution. Made for a slave-owning gentry republic (not a modern democracy), the constitution sports an electoral college that can, and does, overturn democratically elected majorities – often in cahoots with the supreme court, one of the world’s most nakedly political courts (and we complain about Hungary and Poland).The US constitution makes it impossible to legislate for firearms control and periodically allows an irresponsible legislature to threaten the dissolution of all federal government by withholding the revenue needed for the armed forces and civil servants. The US constitution is an affliction that Americans must bear. Let’s not have one. George Baugh Much Wenlock, Shropshire Gavin Esler says that ours is an antiquated democratic system. How can it be described as democratic at all when we have an unelected head of state, an unelected second chamber, a voting system that gives huge majorities in parliament with less than 50% of the vote?In addition, we have three different sorts of devolution to the three smallest parts of the UK and no effective devolution to the much larger regions of England. Dr Ken Hughes Hale Barns, Greater Manchester Gavin Esler’s article poses the questions “why are things so … shit?” and how it is that Liz Truss, Chris Grayling and others seem to repeatedly fail upwards? Esler proposes constitutional change as the solution. There is a much swifter alternative. Don’t vote for people who don’t use public transport. Don’t vote for people who don’t send their children to local schools. Don’t vote for people who don’t use the NHS. Don’t vote for people without links to your local community. Forget constitutional change. Politics can be that simple. Peter Riddle Wirksworth, Derbyshire Gavin Esler’s excellent article identifies the first necessary step in halting our prolonged descent into dysfunction and despair. This age-old decline will not be reversed without grasping the nettle of constitutional reform. How Keir Starmer can be so blind as to claim electoral reform especially is “not a priority” beggars belief. Dr Robert HercliffeLee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire Gavin Esler has it right. Almost every democratic country in the world except the UK has a written contract between its people and their government: a constitution. No sane person would agree to buy a house or a car from a salesman who said that there was no need for a written contract and that “their word was their bond”. And yet most British citizens seem happy to accept that situation with regards to their country. While there are plenty of other challenges facing the UK right now, a written constitution, created by the people, would go some way to resolving much of the dissembling, lying and corruption that are now endemic in our political system. It’s long past time to boot the dodgy car salesmen out of Westminster. Stephen Psallidas Newcastle upon Tyne More

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      Iran’s Mahsa Revolution One Year On

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      Why some people get sucked into the conspiracy rabbit hole | Letter

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      Naomi Klein asks what causes her fellow author Naomi Wolf and others to “lurch to the hard right” and ally with conspiracy theorists (Naomi Klein on following her ‘doppelganger’ down the conspiracy rabbit hole – and why millions of people have entered an alternative political reality, 26 August). There are two important factors. First, the attraction of “theories of everything” that ignore nuance and complexity, and are prevalent at both ends of the political spectrum. Second, there has long been a rebellious thrill to the counter-culture that once favoured the left against a Conservative establishment, but since the adoption of some left-liberal policies, now seems to work both ways. Policies of community and solidarity are probably a more solid foundation for the left from which to challenge the real elite.Tim SandersLeeds More

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      Age apparently gives you wisdom, so why doesn’t Joe Biden know when to quit? | Chris Mullin

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      Some years ago, at an African Union conference in Addis Ababa, I heard the then UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, say to an audience stuffed with life presidents: “One of the tests of leadership is knowing when to leave the stage.” All the big offenders were present – Robert Mugabe from Zimbabwe, Omar Bongo from Gabon, Teodoro Obiang from Equatorial Guinea and Yoweri Museveni from Uganda. They sat stony-faced amid much nervous foot-shuffling and laughter as the chairman, the former president of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano (one of the few African leaders who stood down when his time was up), pointed at them and said, “And we all know who Kofi was talking about, don’t we?” It was an electric moment.Annan may have been talking about African presidents, but today his words might equally apply elsewhere. Is it not extraordinary that, more than 200 years after it was founded, a political system as open and allegedly sophisticated as that in the US can only offer the American electorate a choice between two elderly males – one a serial liar and the other a decent man well past his sell-by date. One can understand what drives Donald Trump (77) – a desire to stay out of prison – but why on earth should Joe Biden (80), who has held elected office since 1972, want to cling to power? And not just Biden; what of Nancy Pelosi (83), until recently House speaker, or the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell (81), both visibly fading? Or, indeed, the revered supreme court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose refusal to recognise that her time was up arguably gifted control of the most important institution in the US to the hard right when she died in post in 2020 at the age of 87.Despots at least have the excuse that, having trampled their enemies and made themselves rich beyond the dreams of avarice, they can’t guarantee that were they to relinquish the reins of office, they wouldn’t be called to account for their misdeeds. Political leaders in a mature democracy, however, have no such excuse. A comfortable retirement awaits them – a good pension, lucrative memoirs and (should they want it) adulation on the after-dinner speaking circuit.In the UK, whatever our problems, rule by geriatrics is not an issue, although once upon a time it was. William Gladstone, Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee – great men in their heyday – overstayed their welcome. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, though by no means geriatric, had to be prised out of office. Some of our judges, too – notably Lord Denning – overstayed.Our problem, however, is almost the opposite: in the increasingly febrile UK, such is the pressure on a reigning prime minister that, in recent years, it has been rare to last a single full term, never mind two. And as for ministers, the turnover is extraordinary. Rory Stewart, to name but one, held five posts in four years. We could do with a bit more stability, not less.Many of the current generation of MPs seem to get their feet on the ladder when they are far too young. Some are not long out of university or a political thinktank. I am occasionally asked by an ambitious young person for my thoughts on how to get into parliament. My advice is always the same: “Go away and do something else first and then you might be of more use if and when you do get elected.” For better or worse, I was 39 when I was first elected as an MP.Experience in other fields is important. There is more to politics than tweeting. (Though I read with horror the other day that there are now companies that, for an appropriate fee, offer a bespoke social media service to young professionals vying for selection as candidates for parliament. Lord, save us.)Power, of course, when finally achieved, is addictive. Having striven for so long to reach the top – nearly 50 years in Biden’s case – there is understandably a reluctance to relinquish office. The longer you are in power, the more messianic you become. “All prime ministers go mad after two terms,” one of Blair’s closest advisers once remarked to me, only half-jokingly. The US system, for all its faults, does have one great strength: two terms and you are out.As for me, who only ever inhabited the political foothills, I stood down at the age of 62. As those who have read my diaries will know, a great deal of agonising preceded the decision. At the time I regarded it as either the best or the worst decision of my life. Thirteen years on, I am pleased to report that it has worked out better than I could ever have anticipated. It’s always better to go when people are still asking “why” rather than “when”.
      Chris Mullin is a former Labour minister. His most recent diaries, Didn’t You Use to Be Chris Mullin?, are published by Biteback More

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      A tsunami of AI misinformation will shape next year’s knife-edge elections | John Naughton

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      It looks like 2024 will be a pivotal year for democracy. There are elections taking place all over the free world – in South Africa, Ghana, Tunisia, Mexico, India, Austria, Belgium, Lithuania, Moldova and Slovakia, to name just a few. And of course there’s also the UK and the US. Of these, the last may be the most pivotal because: Donald Trump is a racing certainty to be the Republican candidate; a significant segment of the voting population seems to believe that the 2020 election was “stolen”; and the Democrats are, well… underwhelming.The consequences of a Trump victory would be epochal. It would mean the end (for the time being, at least) of the US experiment with democracy, because the people behind Trump have been assiduously making what the normally sober Economist describes as “meticulous, ruthless preparations” for his second, vengeful term. The US would morph into an authoritarian state, Ukraine would be abandoned and US corporations unhindered in maximising shareholder value while incinerating the planet.So very high stakes are involved. Trump’s indictment “has turned every American voter into a juror”, as the Economist puts it. Worse still, the likelihood is that it might also be an election that – like its predecessor – is decided by a very narrow margin.In such knife-edge circumstances, attention focuses on what might tip the balance in such a fractured polity. One obvious place to look is social media, an arena that rightwing actors have historically been masters at exploiting. Its importance in bringing about the 2016 political earthquakes of Trump’s election and Brexit is probably exaggerated, but it – and notably Trump’s exploitation of Twitter and Facebook – definitely played a role in the upheavals of that year. Accordingly, it would be unwise to underestimate its disruptive potential in 2024, particularly for the way social media are engines for disseminating BS and disinformation at light-speed.And it is precisely in that respect that 2024 will be different from 2016: there was no AI way back then, but there is now. That is significant because generative AI – tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion et al – are absolutely terrific at generating plausible misinformation at scale. And social media is great at making it go viral. Put the two together and you have a different world.So you’d like a photograph of an explosive attack on the Pentagon? No problem: Dall-E, Midjourney or Stable Diffusion will be happy to oblige in seconds. Or you can summon up the latest version of ChatGPT, built on OpenAI’s large language model GPT-4, and ask it to generate a paragraph from the point of view of an anti-vaccine advocate “falsely claiming that Pfizer secretly added an ingredient to its Covid-19 vaccine to cover up its allegedly dangerous side-effects” and it will happily oblige. “As a staunch advocate for natural health,” the chatbot begins, “it has come to my attention that Pfizer, in a clandestine move, added tromethamine to its Covid-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11. This was a calculated ploy to mitigate the risk of serious heart conditions associated with the vaccine. It is an outrageous attempt to obscure the potential dangers of this experimental injection, which has been rushed to market without appropriate long-term safety data…” Cont. p94, as they say.You get the point: this is social media on steroids, and without the usual telltale signs of human derangement or any indication that it has emerged from a machine. We can expected a tsunami of this stuff in the coming year. Wouldn’t it be prudent to prepare for it and look for ways of mitigating it?That’s what the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University is trying to do. In June, it published a thoughtful paper by Sayash Kapoor and Arvind Narayanan on how to prepare for the deluge. It contains a useful categorisation of malicious uses of the technology, but also, sensibly, includes the non-malicious ones – because, like all technologies, this stuff has beneficial uses too (as the tech industry keeps reminding us).The malicious uses it examines are disinformation, so-called “spear phishing”, non-consensual image sharing and voice and video cloning, all of which are real and worrying. But when it comes to what might be done about these abuses, the paper runs out of steam, retreating to bromides about public education and the possibility of civil society interventions while avoiding the only organisations that have the capacity actually to do something about it: the tech companies that own the platforms and have a vested interest in not doing anything that might impair their profitability. Could it be that speaking truth to power is not a good career move in academia?What I’ve been readingShake it upDavid Hepworth has written a lovely essay for LitHub about the Beatles recording Twist and Shout at Abbey Road, “the moment when the band found its voice”.Dish the dirtThere is an interesting profile of Techdirt founder Mike Masnick by Kashmir Hill in the New York Times, titled An Internet Veteran’s Guide to Not Being Scared of Technology.Truth bombsWhat does Oppenheimer the film get wrong about Oppenheimer the man? A sharp essay by Haydn Belfield for Vox illuminates the differences. More

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      US and EU leaders urged to change tack on Kosovo-Serbia tensions

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      A group of influential politicians including the chair of the US, German and British parliamentary foreign affairs committees have written to US and EU leaders to urge them to reconsider their approach to easing tensions between Kosovo and Serbia.In a shot across the bows of those leading international efforts to normalise relations between the two countries, they have criticised the “lack of pressure placed on Serbia” and say the “EU-facilitated dialogue has yet to yield positive results”.The strongly worded letter reinforces Kosovan concerns, voiced behind the scenes, that the EU and the US are siding with the Serbian leadership.It comes two months after tensions flared in the north of Kosovo over mayoral elections that Pristina says followed the letter of the law but were marred by a boycott of Serbian voters resulting in a turnout of less than 4%.Kosovo’s prime minister blamed the violence in the north of the country on “fascist mobs” controlled by the government of neighbouring Serbia, and said he had rejected a US request to relocate recently installed mayors from their official offices.In turn, the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, denounced the elections as invalid and accused Kosovo of refusing to enter a dialogue.The authors of the letter say EU and US efforts to resolve the crisis are not working and urge a rethink of approach. “Attempts to disrupt democratic elections in Kosovo by Serbia must be criticised publicly as foreign interference with tangible measures implemented to hold them accountable if they continue to undermine free and fair elections,” the letter said.It was sent to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, who has been leading recent efforts in Moldova and Brussels to de-escalate tensions between the two countries.“The current approach is not working,” the authors wrote. “We would ask that the international community learns from our past and ensure we do not adopt a Belgrade-centred policy for the Balkans.”The signatories include Bob Menendez, the chair of the US senate foreign relations committee, Michael Roth, chair of the foreign affairs committee of the German Bundestag, and Alicia Kearns, the chair of the UK’s foreign affairs committee, along with politicians from the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Ireland, Lithuania, Estonia and Iceland.The letter added that Kosovo had “faced significant repercussions” following the election of mayors in four municipalities in the north of the country, elections that the majority Serbian population of the area boycotted.By contrast, the letter said there was a “lack of pressure on Serbia” following the detention of three Kosovan police officers by Serbian authorities and “a failure to hold to account those responsible” for attacks on the peace-keeping KFOR force.That, the signatories wrote, “highlights the current lack of even-handedness in addressing such flashpoints”.Vučić subsequently called on Kosovo authorities to withdraw what he termed “alleged mayors” in northern Kosovo to defuse a crisis that prompted violence.He claimed at a meeting of European leaders in Moldova and later in Brussels that the Kosovan leadership had refused to enter dialogue to resolve the crisis.Behind the scenes, Kosovans have accused the US and the EU leadership of in effect appeasing Serbia amid fears Russia would involve itself in the western Balkans. An additional 41 members of national parliaments and the European parliament also signed the letter.A spokesperson for Borrell confirmed he had just received the communique but suggested it was not representative of member states.The official pointed out that the letter was from 56 MPs among “thousands of parliamentarians”, with foreign policy set by 27 governments in the bloc in “unanimity”.“The EU is a neutral facilitator in the dialogue on normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia,” they said.It added that member states “are consulted on EU actions and the EU cooperates closely with its partners, particularly the USA”.“The EU is currently closely monitoring Serbia’s compliance to the EU’s requests and stands ready to take measures in case of non-compliance to these requests.” More

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      The big idea: is it too late to stop extremism taking over politics?

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      Welcome to the 2020s, the beginning of what history books might one day describe as the digital middle ages. Let’s briefly travel back to 2017. I remember sitting in various government buildings briefing politicians and civil servants about QAnon, the emerging internet conspiracy movement whose adherents believe that a cabal of Satan-worshipping elites runs a global paedophile network. We joked about the absurdity of it all but no one took the few thousand anonymous true believers seriously.Fast-forward to 2023. Significant portions of the population in liberal democracies consider it possible that global elites drink the blood of children in order to stay young. Recent surveys suggest that around 17% of Americans believe in the QAnon myth. Some 5% of Germans believe ideas related to the anti-democratic Reichsbürger movement, which asserts that the German Reich continues to exist and rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state. Up to a third of Britons believe that powerful figures in Hollywood, government and the media are secretly engaged in child trafficking. Is humanity on the return journey from enlightenment to the dark ages?As segments of the public have headed towards extremes, so has our politics. In the US, dozens of congressional candidates, including the successfully elected Lauren Boebert, have been supportive of QAnon. The German far-right populist party Alternative für Deutschland is at an all-time high in terms of both its radicalism and its popularity, while Austria’s xenophobic Freedom party is topping the polls. The recent rise to power of far-right parties such as Fratelli d’Italia and the populist Sweden Democrats bolster this trend.I am often asked why the UK doesn’t have a successful far-right populist party. My answer is: because it doesn’t need to. Parts of the Conservative party now cater to audiences that would have voted for the BNP or Ukip in the past. A few years ago, the far-right Britain First claimed that 5,000 of its members had joined the Tory party. Not unlike the Republicans in the US, the Tories have increasingly departed from moderate conservative thinking and lean more and more towards radicalism.In 2020, Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski was asked to apologise for attending the National Conservatism conference in Rome. The event is well known for attracting international far-right figures such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the hard-right US presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. This year, an entire delegation of leading Conservatives attended the same conference in London. It might be hard for extreme-right parties to rise to power in Britain, but there is no shortage of routes for extremist ideas to reach Westminster.Language is a key indicator of radicalisation. The words of Conservative politicians speak for themselves: home secretary Suella Braverman referred to migrants arriving in the UK as an “invasion on our southern coast”, while MP Miriam Cates gave a nod to conspiracy theorists when she warned that “children’s souls” were being “destroyed” by cultural Marxism. Using far-right dog whistles such as “invasion” and “cultural Marxism” invites listeners to open a Pandora’s box of conspiracy myths. Research shows that believing in one makes you more susceptible to others.I sometimes wonder what a QAnon briefing to policymakers might look like in a few years. What if the room no longer laughs at the ludicrous myths but instead endorses them? One could certainly imagine this scenario in the US if Donald Trump were to win the next election. In 2019 – before conspiracy myths inspired attacks on the US Capitol, the German Reichstag, the New Zealand parliament and the Brazilian Congress – I warned in a Guardian opinion piece of the threat QAnon would soon pose to democracy. Are we now at a point where it is it too late to stop democracies being taken over by far-right ideologies and conspiracy thinking? If so, do we simply have to accept the “new normal”?There are various ways we can try to prevent and reverse the spread of extremist narratives. For some people who have turned to extremism over the past few years, too little has changed: anger over political inaction on economic inequality is now further fuelled by the exacerbating cost of living crisis. For others, too much has changed: they see themselves as rebels against a takeover by “woke” or “globalist” policies.What they have in common is a sense that the political class no longer takes their wellbeing seriously, and moves to improve social conditions and reduce inequality would go some way towards reducing such grievances. But beyond that, their fears and frustrations have clearly been instrumentalised by extremists, as well as by opportunistic politicians and profit-oriented social media firms. This means that it is essential to expose extremist manipulation tactics, call out politicians when they normalise conspiracy thinking and regulate algorithm design by the big technology companies that still amplify harmful content.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf the private sector is part of the problem, it can also be part of the solution. Surveys by the Edelman Trust Barometer found that people in liberal democracies have largely lost trust in governments, media and even NGOs but, surprisingly, still trust their employers and workplaces. Companies can play an important role in the fight for democratic values. For example, the Business Council for Democracy tests and develops training courses that firms can offer to employees to help them identify and counter conspiracy myths and targeted disinformation.Young people should be helped to become good digital citizens with rights and responsibilities online, so that they can develop into critical consumers of information. National school curricula should include a new subject at the intersection of psychology and internet studies to help digital natives understand the forces that their parents have struggled to grasp: the psychological processes that drive digital group dynamics, online engagement and the rise of conspiracy thinking.Ultimately, the next generation will vote conspiracy theorists in or out of power. Only they can reverse our journey towards the digital middle ages. Julia Ebner is the author of Going Mainstream: How Extremists Are Taking Over (Ithaka Press).Further readingHow Democracies Die by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky (Penguin, £10.99)How Civil War Starts by Barbara F Walter (Penguin, £10.99)Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon by Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko (Redwood, £16.99) More