Trump and Brexit Are Quite Different Phenomena
One particularly welcome aspect of the House of Commons vote to pass the Bill to trigger the Article 50 process is the rebuff it represents to the relentless campaign, in some quarters, and in the Guardian in particular, to equate and conflate support for Brexit with support for Donald Trump. Trump’s justified unpopularity – in Europe as a whole and in Britain in particular – has proved to be for some a welcome and ever-ready stick with which to beat Brexiteers.
It seems to be an article of faith for some that it is impossible to support Brexit without supporting Trump; this contention takes its place as part of a wider (and equally determined, if unsupported) charge that there can be no legitimate grounds for supporting Brexit. A vote for Brexit, it is maintained, can be explained only as an expression of bigotry and ignorance – hence, it is argued, the unavoidable identification with Trump and his supporters.
The contention that no one could support Brexit without supporting Trump (a fiction of which I and many others are living refutations) can be maintained only by a resolute refusal to recognise the legitimacy of many of the rational objections that can be made to EU membership.
It also requires that no acknowledgment can be allowed of those voices, particularly from the left, who argue that the EU is not “Europe” but a particular economic arrangement – one which entrenches “free-market” precepts and operates against the interests of the UK and of the British working class in particular, as well as of working people across Europe. The stubborn refusal to hear those voices means that those arguing for Brexit on rational and pro-Europe grounds have struggled to be heard – and the debate is all the poorer for that.
It is one thing to choose not to share the reservations that others hold; but to deny that they exist, or so thoroughly to misrepresent them, is to do no one any favours. It leaves those who support EU membership bereft of any proper understanding of, and therefore too ready to dismiss, the real concerns of many of their fellow citizens; and it leaves unaddressed all those real concerns – about the UK’s perennial trade deficit, our manufacturing decline, the almost non-existent net productive investment, the unstoppable inflow of cheap labour from Eastern Europe, and above all the perceived sense of the loss of self-government and the weakening of our democracy – with the result that those who express such concerns, but are then ignored or dismissed, are left with an unappealing option.
If their legitimate and practical concerns are over-ridden – one might say “trumped” – by the “finer sensibilities” of those who lament the supposed breach with Europe (and its food, wine, music, literature and other cultural glories), where else have they to go, if their concerns are to be heard, but to a Trump or a Farage – and they are then excoriated all over again, de haut en bas, by their supposed betters.
It is to be hoped that the Commons vote, and the inevitability now of the Article 50 process and the consequent negotiation, will allow a shift of focus – away from constantly assessing, and campaigning for, the chances of somehow reversing the referendum result, and towards a sensible strategy for achieving the best possible outcomes of a Brexit for both Britain and Europe.
We might now look for a better balanced public and parliamentary debate – one that does not unnecessarily exacerbate existing divisions but allows us to come together in pursuit of a sensible arrangement that meets the interests of all parties; and, with an enhanced appreciation on the part of our interlocutors in the EU that the UK will indeed leave and that the die is now cast, they will, one hopes, no longer be misled by doubts about the British firmness of purpose, so that the negotiations can proceed on the part of both parties on a realistic basis.
We might also hope that we will no longer be encumbered by false trails and unjustified insults. The new President of the United States can, sadly, be left to pursue his own lonely furrow.
Bryan Gould
2 February 2017
The World Needs Reassurance
Donald Trump seems intent on continuing to offer the easiest of targets to his many critics. It is perhaps understandable, though regrettable, that some of those whose opinions are officially those of the countries they represent (such as our own Prime Minister) should feel some reluctance about courting the displeasure of the new US President – but that makes it all the more important that those suffering no such inhibitions should make their views clear.
President Trump’s executive order forbidding entry to those hailing from seven (primarily Muslim) countries and refusing asylum to refugees from Syria and elsewhere has been roundly condemned across the globe – and it is indeed a lamentable instance of bigotry, mean-mindedness and short-sightedness.
But it is not just the substance of the decision that will ring alarm bells. The really worrying aspect of the decision is the manner in which it was made, and what it tells us about how the Trump White House is likely to function, not just on this issue but on every issue that henceforth crosses the President’s desk.
The relish with which he took the step, the television cameras in attendance as he signed the order, his evident self-satisfaction, the twittered defence of his action and the rebuttal of criticism, all speak to the same conclusion. Any hope that we might see a different Trump in office from the one we saw on the campaign trail can be set aside.
This was a Donald Trump who had clearly decided that the stances and attitudes that had won him popular support through the campaign would do just as good a job for him in the Oval office.
Indeed, it was a deliberate attempt to link the two situations. The immediate ban on Muslim migrants and visitors, and the authorisation of the wall along the thousands of miles of the border with Mexico, were intended to say, in effect, that here was a President who would act, and not just talk, and that he would brook no interference with the immediate making good of his election promises. Here indeed was “action man!”
There will be many among his supporters who will applaud what they will see as his decisiveness. But the rest of us should recognise real cause for concern.
The US now has a President whose first priority is his own image. So keen was he on striking the right pose in the short term that all else was cast aside. His total focus was on promoting himself. Nothing else mattered.
Where was the time taken for proper reflection and discussion? Where was consultation with his own experts, with even his own staff and cabinet, with his allies overseas, with religious figures and with Muslim leaders in his own country? Where was any consideration for the suffering, disruption and anxiety it would cause in individual lives, and the practical problems its implementation would bring about, let alone for the damage it would do to America’s standing abroad and its unity, peace and integrity at home, or for the propaganda victory it would hand to those he sought to disable? None of this could be allowed to deprive him of his moment of supposed glory, and all was swept aside in pursuit of building the preferred image.
That a decision of this magnitude should be taken on the basis of such a narrow spectrum of short-term considerations by the supposed “leader of the free world” – the man who has his finger on the nuclear trigger – is a cause for great alarm. The new President seems to have no understanding that there is more at stake when decisions of this kind are taken than his own personal popularity.
Our fate as a civilisation, as a species, has never before been entrusted to someone afflicted by this degree of egotism – not to say narcissism – and we have no reason to expect that future actions and decisions, of perhaps even greater magnitude, will not be taken on the same basis.
Leaks from his own White House staff record that this is a man “who would be king”. A bombastic blowhard may have amused –even fascinated – those brought up on comic books and “reality” television, but these are serious matters. A man with a significant personality defect and apparently living in a fantasy world cannot be trusted to exercise potentially destructive power on a global scale. We are all on notice that not only the US, but the world, is on the threshold of a very dangerous phase.
This is not a matter of liking Trump and his policies or not. It is a question of fitness for office. We all have a stake in this. We must all hope, and urge, that the American political system can find, if not a solution, at least some form of protection and insurance. The world needs some reassurance.
Bryan Gould
2 February 2017.
What Price Public Service Broadcasting?
I had the privilege of serving for a number of years on the board of TVNZ. The company had a dual mandate over that period – first, as a state-owned enterprise, it had to turn a profit by competing with commercial rivals and selling advertising time, so as to pay an annual dividend of at least 9% to the government. But, at the same time, TVNZ was governed by a charter drawn up by the Labour government in 2003.
The charter meant that, while TVNZ would be called to account if it failed to produce a big enough dividend, it was also required to operate more or less as a public service broadcaster, a kind of south-seas BBC. The requirements included, amongst other things, recognising New Zealand’s cultural diversity, promoting New Zealand-made content, and providing “independent, comprehensive, impartial, and in-depth coverage and analysis of news and current affairs”.
Successive chief executives found this dual mandate somewhat confusing, but they recognised the importance of the charter’s requirements; and, in strictly commercial terms, of course, the public service role had the advantage of providing TVNZ with a Unique Selling Point.
The board was always alert to ensure that we did not lose sight of our charter obligations – and I recall Rick Ellis, our very able and commercially-minded chief executive, assuring us that “the charter is in our DNA.”
But the charter did not long survive a change of government. The new National government quickly signalled its intention to consign the charter to the junk heap, on the grounds that it diverted TVNZ from its main function of maximising a dividend that helped the government to shore up its own finances. The charter was duly scrapped in 2011.
That has left Radio New Zealand as the sole standard-bearer of “public service broadcasting”. But even that role is now threatened.
Government ministers have made clear their belief that broadcasting should operate on a commercial basis. They see Radio New Zealand’s own charter as an irksome distraction and they resent the money paid to keep the broadcaster in operation.
So, the funding needed to keep Radio New Zealand afloat has been frozen since 2009, and will not increase in any foreseeable future. As costs inevitably rise, this means, in effect, death by a thousand cuts. RNZ is struggling to maintain its role as the sole remaining guarantor of New Zealanders’ access on the airwaves to impartial news and commentary.
The stakes for all of us are high. The value of a public service broadcaster is not just as a source of calm and authoritative information at times of national emergency, like the Kaikoura earthquake, important though that is. It lies in what it offers to those who prefer their news reporting not to be influenced by individual or commercial biases; and it also helps to ensure that those beholden to other interests and influences are kept honest.
It is also a question of standards in a wider sense. Radio New Zealand remains an indispensable provider of high-quality broadcasting, not just in the field of news reporting and in holding to account those who make decisions affecting all of us, but in keeping us informed about world affairs, and the latest developments in music, the arts, science, sport and business.
If Radio New Zealand is no longer able fully to discharge these functions, it is not just a question of what we lose, but of what we are then compelled to rely on. Those who care little for impartiality and high standards, or who look mainly to be entertained, will happily look elsewhere – to commercial providers or even the social media. But those who value what Radio NZ offers will be bereft – and will be less than impressed by the limited choices then available.
Like many others, I would prefer not to have the news and current affairs interpreted for me by a Paul Henry or a Mike Hosking. The news should not be a vehicle for self-promotion or for the presenter’s own prejudices. Democracy itself is threatened if we are not fully and fairly informed. Long may Radio New Zealand thrive and continue its essential role – and, hooray, Morning Report is back this week! – but it will do so only if we stand up and defend it.
Bryan Gould
21 January 2017
No Excuse for Offensive Behaviour
So-called “casual racism” hit the headlines recently, following the publicity attending the Mad Butcher’s reported remarks to fellow-visitors to Waiheke. As Dame Susan Devoy, our Race Relations Commissioner, pointed out concerning that incident, racism may not seem “casual” to those who are its target.
“Casual” racism may in some senses actually be even more damaging and more of a danger signal than when it is more deliberate and overt. Racism, when unmistakeable, is more easily recognised and therefore countered or opposed. But when it is “casual” and therefore unthinking, and reveals sentiments that are scarcely formulated but which simply rise unbidden to the surface, it is more likely to stay beneath the radar and to have a better chance of being regarded as acceptable and part of the everyday discourse.
The debate about “casual racism” is closely related to the issue of “political correctness”. Just as the word “casual” is meant to deflect criticism of, and to diminish the significance of, unacceptable behaviour, so too is the oft-repeated claim that protests about such behaviour are examples of “political correctness gone mad”.
This defence has been deployed so often by those who seek to brush aside criticism of offensive words and actions that “PC” has become a veritable term of abuse. This practice became so much a government-endorsed attitude that the portfolio of Wayne Mapp, a government minister, no less, was extended in 2005 to cover the “monitoring of political correctness issues”, as though it were a contagious disease.
We should not be so easily taken in. “Political correctness” is a term devised by those who are careless about exacerbating divisions in our society and who seek to avoid justified disapproval for doing so.
No one suggests that offensive views should be censored, but those expressing them should expect to be criticised or at least scrutinised if they do so. They should not expect to shelter behind a mindless epithet and to get away with the suggestion that any criticism is politically motivated.
Indeed, the “correctness” that is referred to would be better captured by the word “acceptability” – and it is hard to see how the word “political” got into the picture, other than for its derogatory connotations.
The acceptability that is being sought is not “political” but rather social or moral. It is essentially about how we treat each other. One would hope that most of us would endorse the notion that we are all better off if we treat each other with thoughtfulness, understanding and, above all, kindness.
Most of us will naturally display such attitudes in our dealings with our fellow-citizens –especially those whom we come across individually in our day-to-day lives. Life would be a miserable business if we were constantly creating conflict and tensions. Most of us would not see it as acceptable to offend, casually or otherwise, those we meet or speak to or about, or to treat them so as to denigrate or insult them or make them uncomfortable or unhappy.
Why, then, do we think it is acceptable for people who are given the privilege of airing their views in public – and often on television – to abandon those normal standards of behaviour and to insult and offend – sometimes just as a form of entertainment – those whose offence is merely that they are different in some respect or another?
Next time you hear someone accused of “political correctness” because they object to such behaviour, pause for a moment, reflect and ask yourself – is it really so wrong to expect, indeed demand, that those in public life, in politics or the media especially, should demonstrate the same care, tolerance and goodwill that we, hopefully, take for granted in our own person-to-person interactions?
“Political correctness”, in other words, is a misnomer that denotes no more than the proper standards of behaviour writ large – projected on to the social scale affecting all of us rather than just the individual scale. We should demand no less from those who claim to speak on our behalf than that they should meet the standards we choose to set for ourselves – that we should speak to each other courteously and kindly.
Bryan Gould
15 January 2017
Presidential L-Plates
Donald Trump is by no means the first US President to take office without any previous experience of holding political office. Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower, for example, became President after a stellar career in the military, though his military service no doubt gave him some familiarity with the concept of public service.
Trump, however, is unusual in taking office with only the experience of pursuing his own self-interest to guide him – “and a very good thing too” many of his supporters will no doubt say.
But, however appealing may be the prospect of a President unencumbered by political baggage, the lack of any political or governmental experience can be just as much a handicap for a new President as would be a similar absence of relevant experience in any other field of endeavour that requires judgment, knowledge and understanding.
Politics in a democracy is essentially about carrying people with you. It requires – in addition to the usual qualities – an ability to persuade and compromise, to respect the other person’s point of view, to recognise that “the public interest” is more than the simple aggregation of individual interests – yet these are precisely the qualities that the President-elect has yet to demonstrate.
The absence of relevant experience, though, is one thing – the continuing impact of inappropriate and unhelpful experience quite another. It is the fact that Trump’s life has been dedicated to his own self-advancement that leads to concern that he is not just lacking the necessary qualities but that he is actually handicapped, as he takes office, by allowing his experience to have taught him the wrong lessons.
The early indications, even before his inauguration, are not encouraging. He has already been exposed, by some immediate and pressing issues, as being ill-prepared for the major responsibilities that will soon become his.
It was surely unwise, and unlikely to build confidence, to have parted company so publicly from his providers of intelligence. His rejection of the briefing he has been given by the FBI, and the breakdown of relations between them, means that the US no longer has an accepted and reliable source of information about the activities of hostile interests – and the fact that the rejected briefings involve President Putin and Russia can only increase anxieties about the role they may have played in Trump’s election.
And his child-like susceptibility to flattery, so expertly exploited by Putin, is hardly what one would expect from the man to whom the free world entrusts its future.
The nature of the allegations made against him – that the Russians have “compromising” material of either a sexual or financial nature or both that could be used to blackmail him – and his difficulty in shaking himself free of this story, show how much his public image has already been damaged by what he revealed about himself during his election campaign. There can be few who have ascended to high office under such a cloud of their own making.
In domestic politics, too, he has already shown himself to be less than sure-footed. He seems to have struggled to comprehend that running the country is different from running his own businesses and that the two must be separated – indeed, it isn’t clear that he sees any difference between them.
There is also, of course, the persistent impression – not helped by his continued refusal to publish his tax returns – that those businesses are in trouble and that they owe vast sums of money; indeed, it is believed in some quarters that his prime motivation in running for President was to rescue his businesses from failure. The fact that such a belief has taken hold is further evidence of the low regard in which he is held.
His record in business does not help. It is one marked by risky borrowing, followed by repeated bankruptcies, leaving the burden of unpaid debt to be borne by the lenders – hardly likely to inspire confidence if (as he advocates) the same practices are applied to the management of the public finances.
And, in the appointments he has made to some of the most important offices in his administration, he seems to have followed the principle that the essential qualification is that the appointee should have a record of opposition to the interests (such as climate change or an end to racial discrimination) to be overseen.
Most worryingly, Trump’s life experience appears to have taught him that celebrity and headlines are all that matter and will cure all. It seems that we are about to enter an era of government by Twitter. A snap overnight response to some perceived slight is apparently to replace careful analysis and considered policy – and opponents and those who disagree with him are to be countered by insults and scant regard for the truth.
It is hard to see that such an impetuous and narcissistic approach to government can possibly succeed. It is even harder to discern the likely end point. No American President, surely, has ever entered the White House so much behind the eight ball before he has even begun. Oh, American voters, what have you done?
Bryan Gould
13 January 2017