The Brexit chickens have well and truly come home to roost over the past few days. If more proof were needed of the divide-and-rule-intentions behind the scheme pushed by British, European and American billionaire/oligarch-supported, authoritarian, pro-Russian agitators and useful idiots, it was delivered plentifully by the new American Musk-Trump power couple levelling open threats of military and economic warfare while waging an actual dezinformatsiya campaign against former allies.
Let’s be very clear: Europe is under attack. The battle is already in an advanced stage in Ukraine and the Caucasus and the hybrid warfare side of it is heating up. Unfortunately, creating the impression of a threatening, uncertain world might well be part of the gameplan making it very hard to effectively rally against it.
Splitting the UK from the EU has been key to weakening both the one economic bloc that stood in the way of the impromptu coalition of authoritarian robber baron countries and factions, and the one European nation that still had a little bit of the military and intelligence wherewithal to push back against their domineering and expansionist schemes.
This is not to idealise the EU and the UK, who both have plenty of ruthless, cut-throat domestic and global economic and political ambitions and skeletons in their closets. But at least the bloc is built on the idea of cross-border cooperation and security through economic stability and spreading prosperity.
Dividing up the continent
Despite Brexit, Britain is still in the crosshairs of the newly ascendent authoritarian far-right and its boosters. Labour’s insurmountable majority for at least another four years, is one of the major blockades on the road to a total right-wing take-over of Europe.
Italy and the Netherlands are already there, France might well follow in 2027, Germany, with Austria in the lead, is moving in their direction.
All with the purpose, or at least the result, of dividing up the continent into powerless, mid-size morsels unable to resist the combination mostly of a vengeful Russia, an aggressively competitive China and an unconstrained, oligarch-dominated USA that has decided to impose its will on its erstwhile allies.
How successful the anti-European, pro-authoritarian and oligarchical side has been in undermining European and national cohesion
How successful the anti-European, pro-authoritarian and oligarchical side has been in undermining European and national cohesion, can be gauged from the reactions in the UK to the unprecedented attack by the incoming US government on a serving British Prime Minister and his team.
Previously, the insults to His Majesty’s government and the gross foreign interference from what will very soon be an American government official, would have seen the Westminster parties closing ranks, at least on the surface. Now, the leader of the opposition, egged on by Britain’s own far-right faction, is leaning into the smear campaign.
Organised threat to the UK and Europe
The campaign against Keir Starmer and his government is but one aspect of what is developing as a larger, organised threat to the UK and Europe. Among the other strands that are now becoming clear are American designs on, or at least destabilisation of, Canada, a key member of the British Commonwealth, and threats of military force against a longstanding European ally, Denmark.
In addition, a threatened American takeover of the Panama Canal in the current context, can pose a challenge to the movement of goods between the Atlantic and the Pacific, given the belligerent trade rhetoric of the incoming Trump administration.
In isolation, the Trump/Musk broadsides could still be dismissed
In isolation, the Trump/Musk broadsides could still be dismissed as a mere softening up of the targets, setting out maximalist demands as part of the delusional idea of the art of the deal, never mind all the damage that is being done.
But in combination with the war in Ukraine and the very real political and economic impact already being felt in Europe, it reeks more of a mafia protection racket gambit, including the real threat of violence, that has also been a stock-in-trade of Vladimir Putin and his allies.
A new reality
Britain and the EU must now come to terms with a new reality in which the US, by far the world’s most powerful country in economic and military terms, is no longer an ally. It is much closer to Moscow and Beijing in its outlook than to Brussels, and also London for now.
This is a permanent change, not one that will be significantly corrected in two- or four-years’ time. The Biden hiatus shows that even if a temporary pushback succeeds, the longer-term trend holds.
The Starmer government will very soon have to make some fateful choices on where it stands
The Starmer government will very soon have to make some fateful choices on where it stands. It could still bend the knee to Trump and his coterie, pulling closer to the US, giving up any semblance of independence, becoming the 51st state in practice even before Canada and giving new meaning to being an unsinkable US aircraft carrier off the coast of Europe.
Or it could become serious about restoring ties with the EU. Because until now, despite talk of a reset of relations with Brussels, the Labour government has done nothing materially to achieve that stated goal.
Counter-intuitively, perhaps, Starmer should give up on any grand ambition to reset Britain’s trade relations with the EU, even though that would be the fastest way to grow the British economy.
Apart from some tinkering at the edges, a new veterinary agreement for example, there is no prospect of significant progress in that direction. Nor is the much-hyped youth mobility scheme going to make a substantial difference; Brussels is only pushing it because it wants to forestall individual countries making such deals.
The new grouping
Instead of wasting precious time, resources and personnel on such pipedreams, the EU and UK should refocus and redouble their efforts on security, intelligence and mutual assistance.
And, while no longer one trade bloc, they should strengthen mechanisms to jointly act in international contexts to promote their common interests in terms of trade, the environment, standards and rule of law.
Europe and the UK now have to confront the fact that the US has gone beyond merely bending its allies to its will into outright imperial mode
The question is whether Europe and possible allies can stand up to an all-powerful America that is going fully adversarial. NATO and Five Eyes are American in all but name. It has long been a tenet of EU defence planning that it cannot create an alternative to a strongly US-anchored NATO.
Yet, here we are. While a complete unravelling of the military alliance is for now unthinkable, it is almost as unthinkable to continue as is with a so openly adversarial power.
Trying to make nice with Trump, as many leaders have done in the past few weeks, has clearly not worked. Europe and the UK now have to confront the fact that the US has gone beyond merely bending its allies to its will into outright imperial mode.
As a first step, the EU and UK could contemplate setting up their own version of BRICS, such groups seem to be in vogue anyway. The new grouping could include all the countries directly threatened by the new Moscow-Washington power axis, to begin with the EU-27, the UK, Ukraine, Canada and Mexico.
If The Resistance is too provocatively a name for the new grouping, it can surely come up with a boring acronym. The question remains, though, whether it can make a real fist.
