Love's Labor's Lost: Londonistan fuels Brexit

Just days ahead of a pivotal parliamentary election, a new terrorist-inspired stabbing at the London bridge brings to the front page what has been behind the growing momentum for Brexit.

It is clear that for most UK voters the reality of "Londonistan" -as the growingly insulated and non-integrated fundamentalist enclaves are called in London- is one of the key reasons for breaking with the European Union "Schengen" immigration policies.

The unintended -and unattended- effects of what in practice is an "open- and cross- border" policy that allows low-income Muslim and Eastern European cheap labor workers to establish in the UK has been a national uproar for two clear reasons: economic and cultural.

Love's Labor Lost I: it's the economy, again.

Attracted by the availability of welfare state serviced, low-income migrants have overwhelmed the resources of the healthcare and housing systems and crowded-out low income workers who feel betrayed by their traditional Labor union party which they see in cahoots with "anywhere" mobile elites traditionally favoring globalization and gentrification.

Love's Labor Lost II:  the culture clash.

On top of the economic conflict, a sizable part of the UK immigration adds a couple of cultural explosive deal-breakers: anti-Western religious indoctrination and beliefs and islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

The latest stabbings follow a string of attacks that started with the 2005 London bombings but more dramatically spread into the civil society with stabbings and violence in almost all major cities where Muslim fundamentalist immigrants settled for jobs without proper cultural assimilation.  "Londonistan" ghettos grew out of a toxic combination of anti-Western fundamentalist indoctrination and "multi-cultural", "salad-bowl" progressive policies.

The result is in full display: a turn against the EU and for Brexit and a deep and longer-lasting social conflict that will traumatize UK for years to come.

Like in Shakespeare's high comedy,  it's time for getting wisdom out of humiliation and for abandoning ideological posturing.  

Anglosphere vs Eurosphere: the future of EU

The anglosphere has succeeded in bringing together 53 diverse countries much more effectively than the European Union. By respecting their member states "freedom under law" and staying away from Napoleonic central planning, the Anglosphere has been able to achieve the same objectives than the European Union still struggles to accomplish.

I just returned from a trip to a UK where I had time to engage with pro and anti Brexiteers and get a better grasp of what is behind and beyond Brexit.

It is clear to me that beyond the shock of the immigration crisis, terrorism and the loss of blue collar jobs lays a much deeper and ancient cultural gap between Great Britain and the Continent -as they used to call Europe in the old days-.

Well before EU and the process of creating an Eurosphere that started after WWII there was an Anglosphere across the English channel, the Atlantic and in all continents where European and British colonies settled with their mother tongues and culture. 

At a time when Europe and UK contemplate Brexit, is good time to realize about the existence of an "anglosphere" as a non-exclusive alternative to the "European Union" continental project.  It was called Commonwealth and it hsa continually expanded to 53 countries, 26 million square miles and 2,460 million people since its last constitutional update in 1949.

The roots of the Anglosphere go back to 1215, when the Magna Carta established for the first time in human history that rulers should obey their own laws.

"Freedom Under Law" 

remains the core shared principle that serves as a common framework for countries in the Anglosphere.

United by a shared language and colonial past, in which they fought against each other and British rule, English-speaking countries remain and thrive as a de facto global community that has achieved all the goals proposed by the EU in a much more effective way.

The Anglo-speaking nations are the most successful, entrepreneurial, free and innovative nations of the world.  They have risen the standards of living, pushed the boundaries of knowledge and innovation and created the most treasured and successful institutions of freedom.

The Euro zone and the Anglo zone are veering apart, driven by opposite economic, cultural and social models.

• The Euro zone economic model is based on state capitalism, high taxation and regulation, strong and expensive welfare states and shared control over monetary emission. 

• The Anglo zone economic model is based on market capitalism, low taxation (compared to the Euro zone), looser regulation and minimal welfare states with nation governments retaining control over monetary emission.

• The Euro zone cultural model is based on complex, comprehensive Napoleonic-type laws and high levels of labor costs and unionization, with large public employment and government bureaucracies. 

• The Anglo zone cultural model is based on common law (UK has no written Constitution save for the principles), lower levels of labor taxation and unionization, with restrained public employment.

• While in the Euro zone government is viewed as a source of security and social prestige, in the Anglo zone government is viewed as a "necessary evil" and suspicious of red tape, bureaucracy and patronage.

These traits explain why the EU came about as a formal union -with even a formal Constitution and Euro parliament- while the Anglo zone remained a loose "commonwealth" or cultural community and kept strict government independence.

When it comes to trade, the Euro zone is free trade-averse and protectionist -hence the problems with the Irish "backstop" and the default "protective" tariff barriers to non-members- whereas the Anglo zone is more pro free trade and its countries in principle see lower tariffs as a way to stimulate their economies and tariffs in general as barriers to wealth creation.

Brexit in UK and Trump in US have shown a clear preference for one-on-one looser trade agreements. Their condition of members of a cultural and historical Anglosphere  might evolve pretty soon in a regrouping by trade zones across continents and in competition or at least outside the Euro zone framework. 

The Anglo zone countries and economies have been growing at a faster pace than the Euro zone ones and their difference in economic performance and models are pulling them apart.

Brexit and Trump's MAGA are just the first step towards new alliances between US and UK and with the other more dynamic economies of the Anglosphere, such as Singapore, Hong Kong and India.  

The unusual participation of India's PM, Narendra Modi in a Trump rally has sent a strong signal of the acceleration of this process. Thanks to its large English-speaking population and its British and Anglo-like institutions India is better suited to collaborate with US and UK than Communist China.

The Sino-American trade war has provided an opening that both India and US are exploiting to enhance their bargaining positions with China, that remains to a larger extent a less-integrated outsider.

The main reason for this is China's lack or weakness of the equivalent to the Anglo zone key institutions (rules) that Hannan summarizes as three "irreductible elements":

First, the rule of law. The government of the day doesn’t get to set the rules. Those rules exist on a higher plane, and are interpreted by independent magistrates. The law, in other words, is not an instrument of state control, but a mechanism open to any individual seeking redress.

Second, personal liberty: freedom to say what you like, to assemble in any configuration you choose with your fellow citizens, to buy and sell without hindrance, to dispose as you wish of your assets, to work for whom you please, and, conversely, to hire and fire as you will.

Third, representative government. Laws should not be passed, nor taxes levied, except by elected legislators who are answerable to the rest of us. 

We are experiencing a tectonic shift and realignment of the world economy that -in spite of Trump's belligerent rhetoric-  may end strengthening rather than weakening globalization by forcing protectionist and closed economies like EU and China to open their markets and play by the common rules.

As a matter of fact, a recent book on Brexit by Jochen Buchsteiner has recently underscored the existence of two kinds of "Brexiteers": isolationists and nationalists such as Nigel Farage on one hand and those who seek international alliance with other fellow members of the Anglosphere under much more open and free trade-friendly conditions.

Buchsteiner's argument underscores the characteristics of the Anglosphere identified before:

“The Britons have created a strange sociotope for themselves,” Mr Buchsteiner writes, “with a spaceship-like capital city whose international character overshadows all other European metropolises.” Here, “Openness, revolution and tradition are uniquely entangled…In all their urbanity and exceptionalism [Britons] are a strange people.” He suggests that as America turns away from Europe and Asia rises, Brexit might turn out well, though he acknowledges that only time will tell. Mr Roche is less cautious. Brexit, he says, will mean Britain’s rebirth—albeit as a low-tax, low-regulation Trojan horse for American, Chinese and other intercontinental interests at the doors of Europe. “Far from sinking, England [sic] will be renewed. And Elizabeth II will doubtless celebrate her 100th birthday in her revitalised country, confident of itself and prosperous.”

The idea of Brexit as a "Trojan horse" for China and America sounds as exaggerated as the idea of an EU as a "Trojan horse" for the interests of France and Germany. Such distrust and apprehension are the results of centuries of European and World wars between the Euro and the Anglosphere.

It is worth asking whether it would not be more productive to follow rather than opposing those large cultural divisions and seek "soft" versions not only of Brexit but of the EU itself, ditching those elements that are clearly incompatibles, such as trying to combine open borders with welfare states or free trade within with trade barriers without.

Perhaps once Eurocentrists and Anglocentrists have exhausted all other alternatives they might find common ground in common sense.

EU Parliament elections: Populism Turns to the Right

The coming EU Parliament elections will check the strength and sustainability of the populist wave that has taken over UK and Italy, most of Eastern Europe and some smaller countries like Austria.

After an initial wave with Brexit and the triumph of Five Stars in Italy, the populist trend seems to have peaked. Part of this has to do with the poor government performance of the first wave in Spain and Greece -where the far left  Podemos lost votes and Syriza ended implementing an impopular but necessary stabilization program with the IMF-. 

Other, without doubt, with the chaotic and protracted drama around Brexit, which pitted Scotland, Ireland and London against the economically declining regions of England. The Brexiteers didn't have a clear plan nor credible leadership to form a government, and turned to a Remainer PM like Theresa May to implement a deal with EU. The result has been a long stalemate and cold feet for business that have been hemorrhaging out of UK for two years already.

According to a comprehensive Financial Times poll in all EU countries, UK and Italy will increase the seats for EU populists, but far short from a working majority able to elect a populist for the position of EU PM. (click to enlarge) 

While Spain turned to the moderate social-democratic center-left with PSOE, France  -which still has a dominant centrist in power- seems to be wobbling under the street riots promoted by the Yellow Vests anti-European populists.

A closer look by Politico polls show that the moderate center-Right and the center-Left will still hold majorities in the 2019-2024 EU Parliament, with the Liberal centrists as "king-makers" but also needing populist votes to form government.

The growth chart seems to show populists plateauing and moderates bouncing back, most likely as results of Brexit/UKIP, Podemos' and Syriza's fizzling after government and opposition fiascos.

Pro-EU forces hold a healthy 467 majority seats almost doubling Euro-skeptics.

All this said, the situation for the coming five years (2019-2024) is fluid, highly dependent on the economy, mostly at the mercy of the US-China trade brinkmanship.

Last but not least significant, US anti-EU nationalist Steve Bannon is working overtime propping up Trumpian-esque forces in UK (Brexit-UKIP) Italy (Salvini), France (Gillettes Jaunes),  Spain (Vox), Hungary (Orban) and even Brazil (Bolsonaro).

Those who underestimate Bannon's impact and power do so at their own peril. Trump might be less ideological and more pragmatic, but Bannon is a man on a mission, and that mission can generate a Second Coming for right-wing populism in EU. Is good to remind those who look down on this phenomenon that the  First Coming brought Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and WWII during the 1922-1932 decade, right (pun intended) for the hundred anniversary of the crowning of European fascism that preceded World War II.

The Long View: European history tends to repeat itself. During the 20th century two world wars erupted for the same reasons -nationalism, populism, economic depression, anti-immigration and the perennial antisemitism (particularly in Eastern Europe)-