The backlash against President Trump's travel ban continued to reverberate with a sensational statement by the Speaker of the Commons, John Bercow last week. He opposed a Trump address to Parliament in protest against sexism, racism, the migrant ban, and to uphold equality before the law, and an independent judiciary.
I won't fuss too much about a popular move given my opposition to the migrant ban which damaged America's reputation and ability to sustain the vital Muslim/Western alliance against Daesh. Trump will anyway skip parliament when he visits the UK but Speakers should not unilaterally throw hand grenades into delicate matters.
A note of caution about Trump's ban. It is a hostage to fortune to keep stressing that attackers from banned countries have not reached America because that's no guarantee they won't, especially when Daesh loses control in Iraq and one day Syria. American vetting is already strict but vigilance remains vital, just as the KRG has to do with the IDP flow. I worry less about "the politics of the last atrocity" - overreaction to outrages that are part of a vicious cycle of tit-for-tat attacks - but more in the politics of the next atrocity, which could rescue Trump and stump many critics. The ban should be carefully opposed on the right grounds.
But a bigger British border issue dominated the Commons last week as it discussed Brexit. Labour's big political headache was exposed again. It does not want to spurn a majority vote in the referendum, and alienate Labour voters on both sides of the Brexit divide but opposes the Government's threat of a "bargain basement Britain" - a low tax haven off the European continent.
Labour sought a better Brexit by unsuccessfully seeking to amend the government's motion but its leader Jeremy Corbyn ordered his MPs to support the government anyway. The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland panned this feebleness by citing a tweet that Labour’s position amounted to: “Give us everything we want, and if you don’t, we’ll give you everything you want.”
Several Corbyn supporters resigned including Clive Lewis, a former soldier seen as a potential successor to Corbyn. Some say, without much evidence, that Corbyn wishes to step down but his supporters are seeking changes in party rules to allow a hard-left legacy candidate with narrow parliamentary backing reaching a wider membership ballot. And some names are being put in the frame.
The Commons vote reminded some of Corbyn's failure to mobilise enough Labour voters to back remain in the tight referendum where a million votes could have swung it the other way. Many Labour voters had no idea what the party favoured but it is anyone's guess if Corbyn could have made a positive or negative difference if he had been clearer. Many Corbynistas are keen on the EU and thousands have left the party. Europe could do Corbyn in and this time from Labour's new left.
PM May is sitting pretty for now. Opinion polls show she easily exceeds Corbyn, who tanks in polling of every category of age, class and geography. Corbyn's allies promise Labour will come back in the polls but it may soon lose one or maybe two crucial by-elections in seats previously held for decades by Labour.
If May continues to command popular confidence she could, either in a snap election or in 2020, win say 40% or more of the vote. Subtract nationalist votes and you have Labour, the LibDems and UKIP contesting about half the vote. Labour could one day lose its position as the Opposition and split, with no guarantee that current borders between left and right will continue to mark out the political landscape.
A feeble opposition is also disastrous for good governance. Britain faces huge challenges. One is how to either reverse Brexit or to make the best of the most radical policy rupture in fifty years. Time will tell which is feasible, but any new referendum should require a two-third threshold for reversing Brexit.
Other issues include how to fashion a health service and social care fit for a growing population, how to provide homes for all, how to tackle the robotisation of the economy and provide work, income and meaning in life for the millions displaced. Plus all the usual issues of war and peace, not least America's new approach to Iran. And other emerging issues about protecting our digital borders against cyberwarfare and fake news.
Gary Kent is the director of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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