It is a difficult task to search for positives in 2020, but as this strange, deadly year winds down it can be said that it has exposed the utter incompetence of populist-style government in the face of a genuine emergency.
Without COVID-19, it is just possible we would be facing another four years of Donald Trump, whose bonfire of industrial and environmental regulation, coupled with an aggressively destructive foreign policy, resonated with his hard-core supporters and produced favourable economic figures — however short-lived and short-sighted they might have been.
The possibility of that nightmare scenario was demonstrated by a mostly forgotten comment by German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass on US election night when the President was claiming his false victory: “Germany cannot work with Trump if he is re-elected”.
It is quite possible that the Western alliance, already under severe strain from four years of White House antics, would have been fractured by a second Trump Administration, much to the delight of the dictators in Moscow and Beijing.
COVID-19 ended any prospect of that, exposing a populist President bankrupt of ideas and with no notion of what to do when the situation went pear-shaped around him.
His false slogans – “we have turned the corner”, “we are only getting high numbers of infections because we are so good at testing”, increasingly sounded hollow against the evidence of deaths in the tens and hundreds of thousands.
The election of Joe Biden is a clear indication that Americans want a President who separates facts from fantasy. There is no false cheer from the next inhabitant of the White House, rather a grim warning that “our darkest days are still ahead”.
That the population at large are willing to accept this suggests there is a feeling that after a taste of Trump’s populism, the old ways of governing might not be so bad after all.
While the US will get some respite, this is not the case in the United Kingdom where the populist Brexit Government, equally incompetent and dealing with the pandemic, has rushed blindly ahead with a program to sever its last ties to the European Union.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been ramping up the rhetoric as usual, calling the trade deal he has finally negotiated with the bloc his personal “Christmas present to the nation”.
In a triumphant Christmas Eve address, Johnson said the UK had taken back control of its laws and destiny.
“We have taken back control of every jot and tittle of our regulation in a way that is complete and unfettered,” he said.
Of course, as the details of the deal are examined, it will be found that there are some jots and not a few tittles that are not quite as the Prime Minister described.
Professor of EU Law at the University of Cambridge, Catherine Barnard noted the small matter of a swathe of machinery that the deal would introduce “all with the power to make legally-binding decisions”.
She said this included the Partnership Council, a political body comprised of representatives of the European Commission and UK Government Ministers, that will consider “any issue relating to the implementation, application and interpretation” of the trade deal.
“It even holds the power, in certain circumstances, to amend the agreement itself and decisions are by mutual consent — including on jots and tittles,” Professor Barnard said.
So for the moment, while it is all festive cheer and the usual fatuous sound bites, reality awaits the celebrating Brexiteers.
It might take a little while, but eventually the UK public, like the Americans, will realise the emperor is somewhat short of clothing.
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