Politics
The brutal truth behind Italy’s migrant reduction: beatings and rape by EU-funded forces in Tunisia | Global development
When she saw them, lined up at the road checkpoint, Marie sensed the situation might turn ugly. Four officers, each wearing the combat green of Tunisia’s national guard. They asked to look inside her bag.
“There was nothing, just some clothes.” For weeks Marie had traversed the Sahara, travelling 3,000 miles from home. Now, minutes from her destination – the north coast of Africa – she feared she might not make it.
An armed officer lunged towards her. Another grabbed her from behind, hoisting her into the air. By the road, on the outskirts of the Tunisian city of Sfax, the 22-year-old was sexually assaulted in broad daylight.
“It was clear they were going to rape me,” says the Ivorian, her voice wobbling.
Her screams saved her, alerting a group of passing Sudanese refugees. Her attackers retreated to a patrol car.
Marie knows she was lucky. According to Yasmine, who set up a healthcare organisation in Sfax, hundreds of sub-Saharan migrant women have been raped by Tunisian security forces over the past 18 months.
“We’ve had so many cases of violent rape and torture by the police,” she says.
Marie, from the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan, knows others who describe rape by Tunisia’s national guard. “We’re being raped in large numbers; they [the national guard] take everything from us.”
After the attack, Marie headed to a makeshift camp in olive groves near El Amra, a town north of Sfax. Migration experts say that tens of thousands of sub-Saharan refugees and migrants, encircled by police, are now living here. Conditions are described as “horrific”.
Humanitarian organisation, aid agencies, even the UN, are unable to access the camp.
What happened to Marie in May has relevance beyond her continent: her attackers belong to a police force directly funded by Europe.
Her account – along with further testimony gathered by the Guardian – indicates that the EU is funding security forces committing widespread sexual violence against vulnerable women, the most egregious allegations yet to taint last year’s contentious agreement between Brussels and Tunis to prevent migrants reaching Europe.
That agreement saw the EU pledge £89m migration-related funding to Tunisia. Large sums, according to internal documents, appear to have gone to the national guard.
The pact vows to combat migrant smugglers. A Guardian investigation, however, alleges national guard officers are colluding with smugglers to arrange migrant boat trips.
The deal also pledges “respect for human rights”. Yet smugglers and migrants reveal that the national guard is routinely robbing, beating and abandoning women and children in the desert without food or water.
Senior Brussels sources admit the EU is “aware” of the abuse allegations engulfing Tunisia’s security forces but is turning a blind eye in its desperation, led by Italy, to outsource Europe’s southern border to Africa.
In fact there are plans to send more money to Tunisia than publicly admitted.
Despite mounting human rights concerns, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, prompted dismay on Monday by expressing interest in the model of paying Tunisia to stop people reaching Europe.
During a meeting in Rome with his rightwing counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, Starmer admired how the pact had prompted a “dramatic” reduction in numbers reaching Italy.
By contrast, the number of refugees and migrants near El Amra continues to grow. One migration observer in Sfax estimates there may be at least 100,000, a number that some feel Tunisia’s increasingly autocratic president, Kais Saied, is deliberately cultivating as a threat to Europe: keep the money coming, or else.
“If Europe stops sending money, he’ll send Europe the migrants. Simple,” says the expert, requesting anonymity.
It is a predicament that provokes questions around Europe’s willingness to ditch commitments to human rights to stymie migration from the global south. And how much abuse of migrants such as Marie is Brussels prepared to overlook before re-examining payments to Saied?
Moussa could almost taste freedom. Ahead, searchlights shimmering in the water: the Italian coastguard which would ferry him to Europe. But behind, closing in quickly, Tunisia’s national maritime guard. Moussa’s dream was soon shattered.
The 28-year-old from Conakry, Guinea, was on board one of four boats intercepted off Sfax during the night of 6 February 2024. The occupants – about 150 men, women and children – were brought ashore to Sfax, handcuffed and herded on to buses.
At about 2am they arrived at a national guard base near the Algerian border. Shortly after, says Moussa, Tunisia’s security forces began methodically raping the women.
“There was a small house outside and every hour or so they’d take two or three women from the base and rape them there. They took a lot of women.
“We could hear them screaming, crying for help. They didn’t care there were 100 witnesses.”
Afterwards Moussa says some could hardly walk. Others were handed back their babies. Some were viciously beaten.
“There was a pregnant woman and they beat her until blood started coming from between her legs. She passed out,” whispers Moussa in the upstairs area of a Sfax coffee shop. Foreign media are not welcome in the city. Outside, a lookout scouts for police.
His account is corroborated by Sfax organisations working with sub-Saharan migrants.
“We’ve had so many cases of women being raped in the desert. They take them from here and attack them,” says Yasmine, whose group helps survivors overcome physical injuries from such attacks.
Requesting anonymity to avoid being detained, Yasmine says their caseload suggests “nine in 10” of all African female migrants arrested around Sfax had experienced sexual violence or “torture” by security forces.
At another cafe in the gritty neighbourhood of Haffara, a smuggler describes witnessing a sexual assault by police.
“It was dawn and the national guard started searching women for money, but really they were searching their private parts. It was very violent,” says Youssef.
Another Sfax smuggler, Khaled, who ferries migrants from Kasserine, near the Algerian border, to Sfax, describes meeting migrant women attacked in the desert.
“Many times I pick up women who are crying, saying they’ve been raped,” says Khaled, a veteran of more than 1,000 trips.
Along with sexual violence, physical beatings appear routine. Joseph, 21, was taken from the El Amra camp last September during a national guard raid.
“We were handcuffed and put on a bus. Police were beating everyone with batons: kids, women, elderly. Everyone.”
Pointing to a scar above his left eye, the Kenyan adds: “I was hit many times.”
Others fared worse: one guard fired a teargas shell into a friend’s face. “His eye was hanging from his socket plus his leg was broken by police so he had to hop.”
Joseph was left near Algeria where the national guard seized his money, phone and passport. “After thrashing me with a stick they said, ‘Go there [Algeria], don’t come back.’”
In the chaos Joseph lost his friend with the fractured limb. He never saw him again.
Central to the EU-Tunisia deal is its desire to dismantle “criminal networks of migrant smugglers”.
The EU states it wants to improve a code of conduct for Tunisia’s police, an ambition that incorporates human rights training.
Sfax smugglers, however, tell the Guardian of widespread and systematic corruption between them and the national guard.
“The national guard organise the Mediterranean boats. They watch them go into the water then take the boat and motor and sell them back to us,” says Youssef.
Often, he says, the scarcity of £2,000 motors in Sfax means the national guard are the only sellers.
“Smugglers call the police for spare motors. A smuggler might buy the same motor four times from the national guard.”
Another element of the EU-Tunisia deal is facilitating prosecutions against smugglers. When asked for details, the European Commission could not share data on convictions.
The commission says Tunisia and the EU’s police agency, Europol, are seeking to build a partnership to tackle smugglers. Europol says it has no working arrangement with Tunisia.
From afar, it looked like a football, bobbing in the water off Sfax. Closer, the grisly truth: a human head, eyes devoured by fish, probably severed from its body by a passing boat.
Ahmed’s most recent catch was on 15 July. On other days he has found legs, occasionally an arm. Usually it is an entire body – normally young, always black – ensnared in his fishing net.
That morning the fishers retrieved one body, then another, and another. Finally, a fourth: a young woman with long hair.
Ahmed brought them ashore but almost none were identified. Some were buried in unmarked graves labelled “African”.
The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, normally registers new arrivals, a process “critical to their protection”. But UNHCR has been banned from Sfax by the government.
The agency lists 12,000 refugees or asylum seekers in Tunisia, although officials concede this constitutes a “fraction” of migrant numbers at El Amra.
Abdel, the head of a Sfax-based NGO, which cares for migrant children, estimates a minimum of 100,000.
The UN’s International Organisation for Migration has no updated data, fuelling concern that large numbers of migrants are not being registered. “Individuals disappear as if they never existed,” Abdel says.
More arrive daily. In a smoke-filled Sfax bar, Ali Amami of the Tunisian League for Human Rights says: “Throughout Africa everyone heads here.” Last year Tunisia – with Sfax its centre – was the busiest departure point for migrants reaching Italy.
Now Sfax is off limits. Police have “cleansed” neighbourhoods of migrants, forcing them to El Amra. Cafe owners are arrested if a migrant is caught ordering a coffee.
Police “snatch squads” scout districts such as Haffara, ready to remove any stray migrant.
“Only women have the courage to go shopping,” says Mohamed, a migrant from Guinea. Courage is required. Last month one of his friends – seven months pregnant – visited central Sfax for groceries.
At a checkpoint, police pulled her into a van and took her to the Algerian border. “For days she was begging for water for her and her unborn child.”
Her body was found mid-August near Kasserine, face down in sand. Mohamed estimates up to 50 of his friends have been snatched from Sfax by the national guard and dumped in the desert. Of these five have disappeared or were found dead. Another 10 crossed into Algeria.
Although conditions in the desert are bleak, for many it is preferable to El Amra.
A crackdown, fuelled by Saied’s anti-migrant tirades, has meant organisations that helped El Amra’s migrants have shut. Staff are questioned or arrested. Yasmine folded her group in July after police intimidation.
Images of her colleagues were posted on Facebook, chastising them for helping migrants. “We couldn’t leave our houses for days,” she says.
For the migrants themselves, it means even food and water no longer reach the camp.
“They eat dead animals, roadkill, anything they find,” says Youssef.
Denied all healthcare, Yasmine says the camp is rife with disease including tuberculosis, HIV, scabies and syphilis. Concern is mounting over the infant mortality rate. “Babies are born in 40C heat without medical help, vaccination, food. How can they survive?”
Youssef adds: “I’ve watched women giving birth in the bushes. They need to go to hospital but instead die.”
Unmarked graves of migrants are “everywhere” around El Amra, says Youssef. An olive farmer, he says, recently found two bodies in a shallow grave.
Smuggler Khaled also worries about the body count. He recalls being chased by police as a heavily pregnant woman wailed in the back seat.
“At Sfax I finally turned around and there was a baby! I wept.”
He watched as the mother lowered the infant into a carrier bag and set off walking in 35C heat towards El Amra.
Many more die crossing the Mediterranean. Officially more than 30,000 migrants have gone missing in the Med over the last decade, but many believe this is a significant underestimate.
Few know the route’s escalating risks better than Youssef. More people are crowded on to more dangerous boats. Hastily assembled from metal barrels, the boats float an inch or two above the water.
“They should hold 10 people, but carry 50. From my experience as a smuggler I know many more have died than ever succeeded.”
In Sfax, it is known as the “mousetrap”. Abdel, speaking in his office near the city’s medina, says: “You allow the mice over the border but close the sea. Trapped, their numbers boom.”
Using patrol boats provided by Europe, Tunisia’s maritime national guard has prevented more than 50,000 people crossing the Med this year, prompting the steep fall in numbers reaching Italy that so piqued Starmer’s interest this week. “Tunisia is being paid to become Europe’s coastguard,” says Amami.
It is a well-remunerated role, seemingly for its president too. It is claimed that £127m as part of a wider migration and development deal was transferred directly to Saied. Asked for clarification, the European Commission says the payment followed Tunisia meeting “mutually agreed conditions”.
There are also questions about why no EU human rights impact assessment into Tunisia was commissioned before the pact was announced. Similarly, why it has avoided parliamentary oversight.
Emily O’Reilly, the EU ombudsman, says it is inconceivable the EU had no idea the police were repeatedly abusing migrants. “They would not be unaware of the situation in Tunisia.”
Even so, no apparent attempt has been made to suspend payments to Tunis.
Next month O’Reilly publishes the result of her inquiry into the agreement, findings likely to raise fresh questions over its integrity.
A European Commission spokesperson says about reports of abuses by the national guard: “The EU remains engaged to improve the situation on the ground.”
Documents indicate payments have already been made to the national guard. Circulated last December, an action plan indicates that £21m has been “delivered” for patrol vessels, training and equipment for the maritime national guard.
Reports suggest the EU is already planning to extend funding up to £139m over the next three years to Tunisia’s security forces.
The Tunisian authorities have rejected the Guardian’s allegations as “false and groundless”, saying that their security forces operate with “professionalism to uphold the rule of law on our territory, while fully observing international principles and standards”.
A statement says Tunisian authorities “spared no efforts” to meet migrants’ basic needs, combat criminal networks that “exploit vulnerability” and tackle irregular migration by complying with international human rights law.
Yet, as Starmer’s meeting with Meloni this week confirmed, the EU’s deal with Tunisia is increasingly seen as the template for how Europe deals with migration, a salient issue as far right parties gain influence.
Similar deals have already been struck with Mauritania and Egypt. Others are expected to follow.
Back in Tunisia, preparations are under way for presidential elections next month. Saied is certain to win, a coronation that will confirm the unravelling of Tunisia’s democratic experiment since its 2011 revolution.
“In 2011 we dreamed of freedom, now it’s about survival,” says Yasmine.
Marie’s dream remains Europe, but it is slipping away. On a recent voice note from El Amra, she sounds terrified: “There’s a lot going on here. I’m really scared, we’re trapped in hell.”
* Names have been changed for safety reasons.
Politics
UK support for Ukraine ‘iron-clad’, Keir Starmer tells Zelensky
Sir Keir Starmer has assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the UK’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia remains “iron-clad”.
The two men met at a summit of the European Political Community in the Hungarian capital, Budapest.
The US has been by far the largest single donor of military aid to Ukraine.
But fears have been expressed that the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January might slow, if not halt, the flow of American military aid to Kyiv.
The prime minister said the summit was “not just about sovereignty of Ukraine”, but also “our freedom, our democracy and our values”.
Following his talks with the Ukrainian leader, Sir Keir sidestepped a question about whether Trump’s presidential election victory was good for Europe and Ukraine.
He said he had met President Zelensky for the sixth time since becoming PM, adding it was an opportunity to affirm the UK’s “iron-clad support of Ukraine”.
Earlier, summit host Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Europe’s leaders had agreed that they needed to take responsibility for their security and not just rely on the US for their defence.
“To be blunt, we cannot wait for the Americans to protect us,” Orban said.
The Hungarian leader is a staunch Trump supporter and has close ties to Moscow. He has been reluctant to impose sanctions on Russia or to supply Ukraine with weapons.
Trump has said he wants to end the Ukraine war “within a day”, but has declined to set out how this would be achieved.
Some commentators have suggested it could mean the new US administration putting pressure on Zelensky to give up some territory as part of a peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian leader said he had yet to discuss the conflict with the US president-elect.
Sir Keir urged Ukraine’s allies to “step up” their backing, telling Zelensky: “As you know, our support for Ukraine is unwavering.
“It’s very important that we see this through. It’s very important that we stand with you.”
The Ukrainian president thanked him “for sticking with us all through this tough period”.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have also repeatedly pledged to stand by Ukraine.
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said Trump’s first term had stimulated Europe to spend more on defence, but “we need to do more”.
He stressed that the threat of Russia, and its alliance with North Korea, China and Iran, posed problems for the US as well as Europe.
“If Russia would be successful in Ukraine, you would have an emboldened Russia at our border,” he said in Budapest.
Rutte, who was Dutch prime minister during Mr Trump’s first 2017-2021 presidency, added: “I worked with him very well for four years.
“He is extremely clear about what he wants. He understands that you have to deal with each other to come to joint positions. And I think we can do that.”
Sir Keir dodged a question about a report Trump had privately described him as “very left-wing”.
The prime minister said their meeting in New York in September and their phone call on Wednesday after the US election result had been “very positive, very constructive”.
Politics
Whitehaven ex-miner calls for ‘unjust’ pension payment change
A former miner who is among those missing out on extra pension payments is calling for the government to address the “injustice”.
A pension boost for those signed up to the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme (MPS) was announced in last week’s Budget, to address what Energy Secretary Ed Miliband called a “scandal” in historic management of the fund.
Dave Cradduck, who spent 20 years working at Haig Pit in Whitehaven, Cumbria, said it was “unjust” that “not a penny” would be given back to those on a different scheme.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) said the pension funds operated differently and it “must consider the two schemes separately”.
When coal mining was privatised in 1994, the government agreed to guarantee miners’ pensions.
It also said it would put aside some of the pension fund profits, in case the fund did not have enough money in it later.
Ex-miners had campaigned for years for money to be returned to them and the government has now pledged to return about £1.5bn to 112,000 former coalminers and their families.
It only applies to those who were part of the MPS and not those, like Mr Cradduck, who were signed up to the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme (BCSSS).
‘Our money’
Mr Cradduck said it was “immoral and unjust”.
The 77-year-old said the government had taken £4.8bn out of the MPS fund, and £3.2bn out of BCSSS, therefore those on the scheme were also owed money.
Mr Cradduck, who worked in the pit’s ventilation department ensuring the flammable gas underground was kept to safe levels, added: “I greatly wonder whether they’ll ever do anything about it.
“It’s not their money, it’s our money – we just want our own money back.
“Is that too much to ask?”
Mr Cradduck said although promises about the pension fund had been made by previous governments, this was the first time any money was going to be paid out.
“They obviously think it’s an injustice, and if it is, why isn’t the other scheme treated as an injustice as well?”
Those affected are writing to MPs to ask for their concerns to be raised in Parliament.
A DESNZ spokesman said it was open to considering any proposals for changes from the trustees of the BCSSS.
They added: “The BCSSS operates in a different way to the MPS, with the government taking no money from the scheme’s surpluses.
“All of that surplus is used purely to fund future pensions.”
Politics
£100m cost for HS2 bat safety ‘shed’ in Buckinghamshire
HS2 Ltd is spending more than £100m building a “shed” for bats, the chairman of the government-owned company said.
Sir Jon Thompson told a rail industry conference the bat protection structure in Buckinghamshire was needed to appease Natural England, as bats are legally protected in the UK.
Government adviser Natural England was contacted for comment.
The 1km (0.6 mile) curved barrier will cover the tracks alongside Sheephouse Wood near Calvert to prevent bats being disturbed by high-speed trains.
Sir Jon said there was “no evidence that high-speed trains interfere with bats”.
“We call it a shed. This shed, you’re not going to believe this, cost more than £100m to protect the bats in this wood,” he said.
Other more expensive options, including a bored tunnel and re-routing the railway, were considered.
After receiving the go ahead from Natural England for the design, HS2 Ltd was forced to spend “hundreds of thousands of pounds” on lawyers and environmental specialists because the local council did not approve the work, Sir Jon said.
“In the end, I won the planning permission by going above Buckinghamshire Council’s head,” he explained.
Buckinghamshire Council’s Peter Martin, who is deputy cabinet member for HS2, previously expressed “extreme disappointment” about the structure.
In March 2023, the council said HS2 was cutting back trees in Sheephouse Wood in order to protect the “Bat Mitigation Structure” and railway line.
Earlier this year, Mr Martin said: “We believe HS2 Limited is unnecessarily damaging Sheephouse Wood, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and Ancient Woodland.”
Sir Jon claimed the issue was an example of the UK’s “genuine problem” with completing major infrastructure projects.
He told the Rail Industry Association’s annual conference that HS2 Ltd has been required to obtain 8,276 consents from other public bodies in order to build phase one of the railway between London and Birmingham.
He said: “People say you’ve gone over the budget, but did people think about the bats [when setting the budget]?
“I’m being trite about it, but I’m trying to illustrate one example of the 8,276 of these [consents].”
Sir Jon, who has led the project since Mark Thurston left his role as chief executive in September 2023, warned in January that the estimated cost for phase one has soared to as much as £66.6bn compared to the £37.5bn forecast in 2013.
Politics
Former NI assembly member dies
The Alliance Party has paid tribute to its “ground-breaking” and “trailblazing” former assembly member Anna Lo, who has died at the age of 74.
Ms Lo was the first ethnic-minority politician elected to Stormont, and the first Chinese-born person to be elected to a legislative parliament in western Europe
Alliance leader Naomi Long described her as a “great friend” and paid tribute to her “dedication and passion for serving her constituents” in Belfast.
She added that Ms Lo had been brave in confronting the “appalling racism” she faced during her political career.
‘Championing causes from hospital bed’
Born in Hong Kong, Anna Lo moved to Northern Ireland in 1974.
At first she took jobs as a translator and as a BBC secretary, before attending Ulster University where she qualified to begin work as a social worker.
She later became the director of the Chinese Welfare Association in Belfast and a founding commissioner of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.
Lo was first elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2007, representing South Belfast for the Alliance Party.
She was re-elected five years later and served until her retirement in 2016.
Her sons, Owen and Conall Watson described her as a “campaigner for equality and social justice in Northern Ireland”.
In a family statement, they confirmed that she died in Belfast City Hospital on Wednesday, following complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
They added that even from her hospital bed, she “continued to champion the issues that she had dedicated her life to”.
“We are incredibly proud of Anna and what she achieved throughout her life and career,” her sons said.
“She was a wonderful mother, grandmother, partner and friend, whose energy, joy and integrity inspired those she met.”
“Anna stood for and fought for equality, for women’s rights, against discrimination including racism, and for a political system to serve the needs of people rather than reinforce historic divisions,” they added.
‘Trailblazer in Northern Ireland politics’
In a party statement, the Alliance leader said: “Anna will forever be remembered as a ground-breaker in local politics.”
Ms Long added: “Her service to the Chinese community, to good relations and to the city of Belfast, much of which went unseen by most, was transformational.”
She said her friend had “a number of causes close to her heart, including protection of the environment and human rights, and was a strong voice on women’s rights and equality”.
Former Alliance leader David Ford also expressed his condolences and described Ms Lo as a “trailblazer in Northern Ireland politics”.
“I first met Anna in her previous career as a social worker, where she was known for the exemplary care she gave all her clients,” he said.
“On a professional level, she gave Alliance a massive boost when she made the party’s first Assembly gain, in South Belfast in 2007.”
He added: “I am sad to hear the news of her passing but her legacy as a trailblazer in Northern Ireland politics will live on.”
Lo served on several assembly scrutiny committees, including as chair of the environment committee.
In 2014, she said she would not be seeking re-election, explaining that continual racist abuse had influenced her decision.
She made headlines earlier that year after declaring her preference for a united Ireland at a time when she was an Alliance election candidate for the European Parliament.
She is survived by her sons Conall and Owen, two grandchildren and partner Robert.
Politics
If I were a cautious, centre-left prime minister, Trump’s victory would have me worried | Andy Beckett
Whatever determinedly positive things centre-left leaders around the world have said about Donald Trump’s victory in public, in private they must have greeted it with a shudder. Not just because of the dark and chaotic prospect of another Trump presidency, but because in many ways the defeated Kamala Harris is just like them. She is a hard worker, a patient reformer, a reasonably good communicator, an instinctive mover towards the ideological centre, a supposed antidote to rightwing populism, and yet also an incumbent, in an era when such perceived protectors of the status quo are widely despised.
Keir Starmer may have particular cause to worry. On her campaign website, Harris promised to “bring together” trade unions and business, “grow the economy” and increase both basic pay rates and employment. She said she had voted for legislation “creating hundreds of thousands of high-quality clean-energy jobs”, and “ensuring America’s energy security”. She said she would “cut red tape” to “build more housing”. She pledged “tough, smart solutions to secure the border … and reform our broken immigration system.” Above all, she presented her rightwing opponent as “cruel”, “dangerous” and “unfit to lead”.
All these policy ideas and political messages, and sometimes their precise language, could come from a Starmer speech or Labour press release. If they’ve been rejected by voters in the US, could that also soon happen here?
Supporters and members of the Starmer government who want to believe that Harris’s defeat is not cause for panic can point to the Conservatives’ weakness compared with the Republicans. While the catastrophes of Trump’s first presidency, such as his mishandling of Covid, appear to have been forgotten by many Americans, the Tories are weighed down by their more recent and much longer record in office, and are likely to be for years to come.
Britain and the US can also be very different politically. In the week that the notoriously reactionary Conservative membership nevertheless elected Kemi Badenoch as party leader, many Americans seem to have been put off by Harris’s race and gender. Yet other contrasts between the countries are less reassuring. While the administration of which Harris is part has overseen strong economic growth, Starmer’s government is likely to bring only a more modest improvement, according to the official forecasts that accompanied last week’s budget. If many voters did not notice, or refused to give Harris credit for, the boom under her and Joe Biden, what chance is there that Starmer’s probably smaller economic successes will be electorally rewarded?
This apparent breakdown in the relationship between a government’s achievements and its popularity poses a profound threat to centre-left politics. For decades, centrists have assumed that “what counts is what works”, as Tony Blair put it. As its name implies, centre-left politics is about compromise and alliances, which are meant to make steady, measurable progress on concrete issues. Yet it appears that more and more voters prefer the dogmas, tribalism, symbolic gestures and fantasy policies of rightwing populism. This dramatic, accelerated, often more short-term politics comes across better on digital media. It also expresses many voters’ anger about the present and anxiety about the future – or their desire to ignore looming disasters such as the climate crisis for as long as possible.
In the two previous periods when western democracies were consumed by doomy thoughts, the 1930s and the 1970s, many centre-left governments also struggled and were sometimes replaced by authoritarian rightwing populists. At prime minister’s questions this week, hours after Trump’s election, there was a new mood, which could not just be attributed to the fact that Badenoch was making her debut. She beamed with satisfaction at Trump’s victory, and woundingly remarked that Labour’s budget had been “cut and paste Bidenomics”. Meanwhile, Starmer gave unconvincing assurances that Anglo-American relations would continue as normal.
In these exchanges was possibly the beginning of a political shift: towards a situation where his government, while still theoretically dominant at Westminster because of its majority, in fact loses the ideological initiative and becomes isolated, even beleaguered.
We’re not there yet. Despite her aggression, Badenoch is not a commanding public performer and may never be one, given her tendency to bluff and her party’s lack of credibility and fresh ideas. Labour also has time on its side. By our next election, Trump’s final, four-year term may be over – and may also have demonstrated, as he did last time, that populists are better at electioneering than governing.
It’s possible that his latest victory will be the Republican equivalent of the Tory win in 2019: achieved by making impossible promises in circumstances that favour the right to a greater than usual extent, with Biden’s infirmity analogous to the huge but fleeting Conservative opportunity created by the vote for Brexit.
Yet simply waiting for Trump and other populists to fail in office again would be a slow and uninspiring strategy for the centre left: an acceptance that change can only come after further, possibly terminal, social and environmental damage. Instead, the centre left could make a better case, whether in government or opposition, by addressing inequality with more urgency, as Biden did before beating Trump in 2020, having incorporated ideas from Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaigns to become the Democratic candidate.
We live in a different world to the one that formed the modern centre left. Unless it becomes more aggressive and more class-conscious – effectively, more populist – it will continue to rule only occasionally and with modest success. The rest of the time, the radical right will run riot.
Politics
Former Defence Secretary John Nott dies aged 92
Sir John Nott, who served as Conservative defence secretary during the Falklands War, has died aged 92.
Following the Argentine invasion of the South Atlantic islands, Sir John twice offered to resign.
Then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to accept, and he stayed on until the conclusion of the war after which he stepped down to focus on his business interests.
During a political career that spanned almost two decades, he also worked in the Treasury and trade department, as well as representing the Cornish constituency of St Ives.
However, he became better known for storming out of a television interview, when broadcaster Sir Robin Day pressing him on defence spending cuts referred to him as a “here today, gone tomorrow politician”.
Removing his microphone, he muttered “I’m sorry, I’m fed up of this interview. It’s ridiculous” and left the studio.
Recalling the interview in 2002 he told the BBC that Sir Robin “was just looking, as interviewers do, to create trouble”.
“I was thinking of my farm, and the harvest and the green fields of England and half my brain was saying, ‘why do I have to sit here listening to all this ridiculous questioning’.
“I just got bored with it and just walked out.”
He retained a sense of humour about the incident, later entitling his memoir ‘Here Today, Gone Tomorrow’.
Born in 1932, he attended Kings Mead Schools, Steaford, Bradfield College and Trinity College Cambridge.
He also served as a lieutenant in the Gurkha Rifles, fighting in the Malayan Emergency, a communist-inspired revolt against the British colonial authorities.
In the 1966 election, he won St Ives for the National Liberals, a party which merged with the Conservatives two years later.
He slowly climbed the parliamentary ladder and in 1981, Margaret Thatcher appointed him as her defence secretary.
Over a year into the job he, along with the rest of the British government, was largely taken by surprise when the Falkland Islands where attacked by Argentina, who claim the territory as their own.
Sir John faced fierce criticism in the House of Commons for failing to foresee the attack and leaving the islands vulnerable to invasion.
Already bruised by rows over defence spending cuts the year before, he pleaded with Thatcher to be allowed to step down.
While she accepted the resignation of Lord Carrington, foreign secretary at the time, she refused to let Sir John to go saying “she could not possibly accept” when the British taskforce was still carrying out its operation to retake the islands.
Initially Sir John had been sceptical that the UK could regain the territory, however, his doubts were soon dispelled and later praised the deployment as “a remarkable achievement”.
Speaking to the BBC in 2002, he rejected criticism of the infamous sinking of the Argentine ship, the Belgrano, during which 323 sailors died.
“We didn’t start the war, – there was a great army of people who tried to somehow blame the war on us. (But) we were negotiating peacefully with the Argentinians,” he said.
“It was a terrible tragedy. I was shocked when all those Argentinian soldiers died. It was terrible really.”
However, he said that after that the incident the Argentine Navy was never put to sea, adding: “If we had had to contend against not only the very brave Argentine pilots but against the Argentine navy it would have been very much more difficult.”
Following Britain’s victory June 1982, Sir John again asked to be allowed to resign and eventually got his way in 1983.
He returned to banking, a career he had pursued before entering Parliament, taking up the chairmanship at Lazard Brothers.
He continued some involvement in politics and in 1999, then-Conservative leader William Hague, put him in charge of a commission to opposed the UK adopting the Euro.
During the 2016 Brexit referendum, he quit the Conservative Party in protest at what he called a “tirade of fear” coming from then prime minister David Cameron.
Later in life he took up writing, producing not only a political autobiography but two further books about the “adventures of an old age pensioner”.
Mr Wonderful Takes a Cruise and its sequel Mr Wonderful Seeks Immortality detail his trips to, among other places, Bromley, Balham and the nightclub Spearmint Rhino.
He is survived by his wife and three children including Sasha Swire, author of the memoir, Diary of an MP’s Wife.
Swire paid tribute to her father in a social media post: “RIP my beloved father, John Nott, protector, politician, farmer, me.”
Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said: “John Nott was an inspiring defence secretary and politician who stood up, alongside Margaret Thatcher, to aggression.
“His resolute determination to free British sovereign territory from tyranny is as important today as it was during the Falklands conflict.”
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