Joe Cox - A Political Tragedy.

There is a rule, for troubled times, that I would see adopted en masse. I think I would formulate it as follows:

Be most wary, and most critical, of those who implore you not to politicise a tragedy.

Two things seem, to me at least, to be invariably true. First, people who make that request (or demand) are always quickest off the mark. Second, they always have a very political motive. That motive tends to be first conservative, the shielding of a view or alliance or policy from criticism. Once that is achieved, and the criticism forestalled, space is opened for something much more assertive.

“How dare Clinton use Sandy Hook to score political points,” began the NRA following the massacre of schoolchildren in 2012. “How dare she politicize this tragedy?!” Then it progresses: “Guns are not the issue. Gun control is not the issue. Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”

This sort of thing is not limited to the political Right, of course. Liberals, and the Left, are guilty of the same. Donald Trump is a nasty narcissist and it’s quite possible that he’s clinically stupid, of that there can be little doubt. But the liberal Left’s reaction to his statements after the Paris attacks, and the recent assault on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, tended toward that depressingly familiar refrain: “Donald Trump should not politicize this tragedy!”

It continues: “Religion is not the issue. White people do bad things too. Hate has no religion,” and so on.

This has become the default response, the preferred recourse, to any statement made in the aftermath of tragedy. It’s incredibly popular; it’s also deeply cynical. It seeks not only to pre-empt criticism and close down debate but also to create a setting in which assertions can be made – “Guns don’t kill people,” “Hate has no religion,” – that are themselves explicitly political. How dare you politicize this issue; that’s my job.

So it has been particularly depressing to note the way in which the public, and some politicians, have responded to the brutal murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox.

Granted, the official Leave and Remain campaigns have declared a temporary cessation of hostilities. I am not sure that that is quite so proper and praiseworthy as has been claimed. In any case, that has not stopped observers and participants, especially on the side of Remain, making the most shameless political capital out of the murder, and of the murderer’s alleged political affiliations.

So here we are again. David Cameron, firmly of the opinion that we should not politicize the tragedy, begins to say all the right things about hope not hate, joy not fear, diversity not intolerance, et cetera, ad nauseam. Never mind that, when not banging on about The Economy, Stupid, in the course of the referendum campaign, he has made those same soundbytes and platitudes and niceties his rhetorical tools in service of the Remain faction. But no, not now. Times have changed. He is no longer a politician, he is a human being. He has no opinion on the referendum; how could he following such a tragic event? No, no, he is not politicizing the issue at all.

Others, lacking Mr. Cameron’s experience and gift in the art of trickery, have not been quite so subtle.

The character of the murderer, who it seems was both mentally ill and had links to far-right and neo-Nazi groups, must say something about the state of politics and of political rhetoric in this country. We must not politicize the issue, but surely the toxic atmosphere of the referendum debate is at least partly responsible for this tragedy?

Alex Massie, writing in The Spectator and presumably just as keen as everyone else to avoid politicizing the tragedy, wrote, apolitically of course, that the blame for this horrible crime lies at the feet of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, and the casually racist Leave campaign. A political statement? Of course not. Heaven forfend that anyone might make one of those in the aftermath of tragedy.

Massie was not the only writer at The Spectator to offer their thoughts on the matter. Those familiar with Rod Liddle are, if they have any sense, disinclined to assume that anything he writes is meant to be considered sincere. One suspects that the sentiment of his piece, entitled ‘RIP Joe Cox. Let’s call the referendum off as a mark of respect.’ was meant in earnest but not the claim itself. I was surprised to hear Douglas Murray, on Newsnight, express ‘some sympathy’ with the idea.

But there are some – quite a few, judging by the number of signatories to the petition on Change.org – who do sincerely believe that the referendum should be called off.

Whilst put online before the murder of Jo Cox, there are a large number of people, supported by ‘news’ outlets like The Independent which has gleefully reported a surge in signatures since the event, who have been moved to support it precisely because of the killing. What is this if not a political statement? The petition’s argument is that “Britain is a parliamentary democracy and that parliament, rather than a national plebiscite, should determine whether Britain stays in the EU.” What is that if not a political statement? Asinine, to be sure. Fatuous. Nonsensical. Unintentionally ironic. But a political statement is certainly is.

This whole thing is an ugly mess. It is made especially ugly because capital is being made on lies and at the expense of democracy. Is this really the way we wish to mark Jo Cox’s legacy? With deceit?

You are well within your rights to be wrong. You are perfectly entitled to use this murder to support your argument. “The murderer was a Nazi, Farage is a racist, don’t vote Leave” is utterly contemptible, but you have the right to be stupid. But don’t you dare try to excuse yourself of the charge of politics. You are making a political point, you are politicizing a tragedy, and you should bloody well stand up and acknowledge it.

Germany: Europe's Alpha & Omega, Beginning & End.

Germany: Europe’s Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End.

Sunday, March 13^th – Chancellor Angela Merkel faces three regional elections in the German states of Saxony-Anhalt, Baden-Weurttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate that are being described, by various observers, commentators and news outlets, as a ‘test of support’ for the Chancellor’s stance on the refugee crisis.

‘Test’ is one way to describe the process, I suppose. Whilst frau Merkel might wish it to be otherwise, the sudden rise of the anti-establishment and populist AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), which is presenting its regional campaigns as a national referendum on Germany’s open-door response to the crisis and which is polling well above the 7.1% of the vote it achieved in the European elections of 2014, is pulling the narrative away from regional affairs and on to questions of national policy.

International policy, as well. AfD, which is the political wing of the Pegida movement in all but name, is but the closest to home of the myriad of anti-immigration, anti-EU parties that are now in bloom across Europe, resplendant in colours of both the Left and the Right. Syriza and Golden Dawn in Greece, the Jobbiks in Hungary, the FPO and the Freedom Party of Austria, National Front in France, UKIP and roughly half the Tory cabinet at home – the political allegiances, goals and methods of each may differ drastically; what they all seem to have in common, and what those that tend toward anti-immigration sentiments certainly have in common, is their opposition to Angela Merkel and the policies of the CDU-led coalition government in Germany.

Angela Merkel is the public face of Germany’s official response to the migrant (or refugee) crisis. Given the unity of the opposition to that response across the right and the far-right, anti-Merkelism seems a fitting and necessary addition to their labels.

There is an essential qualifier to what I am about to say and I beg that you withhold your judgement until you have seen it: they are right to be opposed to Merkel and the German response.

This is not to say that any position defined by xenophobia is correct. This is not to give credence to any argument that is by its nature anti-migrant. But it is to acknowledge that migration policy should be open to discussion (and the argument that the encouraging of mass-immigration is itself an anti-migrant position), and it is to acknowledge that the imposition of policy without an elected mandate, nationally or Europe-wide, is anti-democratic. They are right, then, in that this issue sheds light on the cracks in the foundations of the European Union; cracks that are becoming fissures as the weight of Germany’s influence continues to grow.

You might, as I do, feel by instinct that we should help the poor and the desperate and the destitute. You might, as I do, feel a profound anger at an international community that has shown itself to be powerless to stop the savagery and the barbarism of the conflict in Syria, to which we have contributed bombs and planes and very little else. You might feel, as I do, that the promise by our own government to take in 20,000 refugees over five years is at best a negligible one.

We would, then, share the conviction that these refugees deserve far better than their lot.

But to take that conviction and hide behind it, to throw in the faces of those opposed to mass-migration the accusation that they are unfeeling and uncaring, is to be uncritical. To praise Chancellor Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders is to give her credit that she does not deserve, based on the presumption that it is something that it’s not.

That decision, which I suspect was intended solely (or mostly) to win popular support for the CDU in Germany, represents the impossibility of unilateral action in the context of a continental political union. What it amounted to was the creation of a policy in Germany, for German party-political interests, which has now been imposed upon every other member state in the European Union, especially those in what has become known as the Balkans Route, without any form of democratic debate, without their consent, and without any consideration for their ability to deal with its consequences.

It shows the arrogance of a continental power, on whose industry and economy the European Union has been built, deeming either that its own interests trump all other concerns or that what is in its own interests must, by definiton, be in everyone else’s interests, too.

This arrogant assumption of power is, in fact, no assumption at all. Power in both the Eurozone and the European Union has never been properly codified to rest in any one elected body; it has its own freedom of movement and, like money, like people, it is drawn to the one place power is known to coalesce of its own volition: power itself. Germany, by virtue of the strength of its economy, is the power in Europe. As such, it has become not only the economic hub but also the political centre of the continent. Dealings between EU member states, and between the EU and other nations, happen through Germany with the official apparatus serving as nothing but a seldom-used fig-leaf.

Greece, which harbours the firsts ports to which migrants and refugees arrive from Turkey on their way to Germany, provided just one of a series of examples of Germany’s monopoly on power. When Syriza swept to electoral victory on the promise of rejecting and then reversing the economic doctrine imposed upon them by the Troika, it was Germany which led the counterrevolution. It demanded control of the Greek economy. When it failed, it demanded the imposition of its own austerity doctrine on the Greek state, effectively using different words to make the same demand.

The charismatic Yanis Varoufakis, during his brief stint as Syriza’s finance minister, primarily dealt not with members of the Eurogroup (comprised of the finance ministers of those countries within the Eurozone) but with Wolfgang Schauble, the German finance minister and architect of the ‘deals‘ imposed upon Greece that Syriza had been committed to reversing. When Varoufakis attempted to discuss the changes proposed by Syriza, he was met with a steadfast refusal to compromise. Shauble’s view was, according to Varoufakis, that “‘I’m not discussing the programme – this was accepted by the previous [Greek] government and we can’t possibly allow an election to change anything.”

Varoufakis was subsequently removed from the negotiating team, resigning from his post in the Syriza government shortly afterwards, and Schauble got his way.

Greece now has unemployment standing at 25% and it remains to be seen whether it will be able even to service the debt on the last round of bailout funds. Its economic policy, created in and imposed by Germany, leaves it in an untenable position. And now it is expected to shoulder the burden of Germany’s immigration policy, even as that same policy has led to countries along the Balkans route invalidating the Schengen agreement by unilaterally closing their borders. That move has been condemned by frau Merkel, but yet again it is a display of arrogance. Germany is allowed to unilaterally set the immigration policy of the European Union (and beyond – Macedonia has been a candidate for accession since 2005, is not yet a full member, but is amongst those with new fences along its borders) but others, like Hungary, are not allowed to do the same.

Germany is, meanwhile, leading the team negotiating with Turkey on the issue of migration. The vast majority of boats arriving on the borders of the now-dead Schengen zone leave port in Turkey for an often treacherous journey across the Aegean. Given the nature of the Erdogan government, it would be very difficult to imagine the Turkish negotiating team doing anything other than exploiting the migration crisis to suit their own ends: visa-free travel for Turkish citizens within the EU in advance of fasttracked admission to the Union proper. And, given the nature of the Erdogan government, it is tempting to ask quite how committed Turkey is to stopping the boats given that each one serves their political purposes quite nicely.

Any deal struck between Germany and Turkey with provisions for faster Turkish integration with the EU will be yet another example of EU policy set and pursued by Germany without even the pretense at democratic negotiation with its supposed equals.

This is the state of things as they are and there is no hint of any improvement to come. The migration crisis, the nature of which warrants an article of its own, is playing into a crisis in Europe; a political union in which the only demos with any power are the German people. It is they alone whose votes, under the current system, have any real influence on European policy. We have our own referendum to focus on, but should we vote to stay, there will be another referendum soon afterwards; a referendum on the nature of the European Union under the guise of a German general election.

The domestic debate in Germany, a debate of domestic policy, is then not domestic at all. Pegida and the AfD, along with parties like the Greens, represent a continent’s worth of dissatisfaction with a deaf establishment. And it is a damning indictment of the structure of the European Union, a provocateur of the extremes to which the disenfranchised will become suseptible, as well as the complete and final proof of its lack of anything even resembling a democratic process, that burden of responsibility now rests almost entirely on the shoulders of German voters.

You may interpret it as you like when I say that it is a burden we should do our part to alleviate them of.