buruma151_House of CommonsPA Images via Getty Images_boris johnson house of commons

بريطانيا وعدو الشعب

Sep 4, 2019 Ian Buruma

لندن ــ ربما يبدو من قبيل الشذوذ والانحراف أن يُعَد رئيس الوزراء البريطاني بوريس جونسون رجل الشعب ونصير الرجل العادي الذي يحارب النخب الراسخة. ذلك أن جونسون مثال خالص للنخبة الإنجليزية: فقد تلقى تعليمه في إيتون وأكسفورد، وهو يتحلى في كلامه وفِعله بكل الأنماط السلوكية المصطنعة المبالغ فيها، التي تميز الطبقة العليا البريطانية. وعندما كان صحافيا وعضوا في البرلمان، كان عابثا مولعا بالأذى، ومخادعا مضللا في كثير من الأحيان، لكنه كان دوما صوتا مخلصا للمؤسسة المحافِظة.

ومع ذلك، ها هو ذا يتظاهر بأنه يمثل "صوت الشعب" ضد الأصوات في البرلمان، من اليسار إلى اليمين، التي تعارض نهجه المتشدد في إدارة طلاق بريطانيا من الاتحاد الأوروبي. كان أحد مظاهر حملة الخروج البريطاني البارزة تصوير كل من يعارضون الانسحاب المفاجئ والكامل من الاتحاد الأوروبي على أنهم أعداء الشعب. ومنذ أعلن الناس قرارهم في استفتاء 2016، يجري تصوير أي محاولة لتخفيف العواقب السلبية المترتبة على خروج بريطانيا من الاتحاد الأوروبي عن طريق التسوية مع الاتحاد الأوروبي، أو تأجيل الانفصال، على أنها اعتداء على إرادة الشعب.

يواجه جونسون معارضة هائلة في البرلمان، وخاصة بعد القرار الذي اتخذه بتعليق البرلمان لإتمام الخروج البريطاني في الحادي والثلاثين من أكتوبر/تشرين الثاني، سواء كان ذلك بموجب اتفاق أو دون اتفاق. وفي يوم الثلاثاء، بعد انشقاق الوزير السابق فيليب لي وانضمامه إلى الديمقراطيين الليبراليين، خسر جونسون حتى أغلبية الشخص الواحد. ثم زاد الطين بلة عندما صوت البرلمان لانتزاع سيطرة رئيس الوزراء على أجندة الخروج من الاتحاد الأوروبي. وقد جرى تطهير المحافظين الذين صوتوا لصالح الاقتراح. ويكاد يكون من المؤكد أن هذا سيسفر عن إجراء انتخابات عامة، والتي سيصورها جونسون على أنها معركة بين "الشعب" و"الساسة" الذين يعترضون طريقه.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 27 Comments on this article

Zuriel Shiv Sep 14, 2019

The writer refers to the late period of the Republic, which symbolically was abolished by Caesar's crossing the Rubicon with his legion.
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Mikie boy21 Sep 10, 2019

There's no similarity at all between late Empire Rome and modern Britain. The former was a largely dictatorial state with input from an unelected Senate. The latter a fully democratic state. The only similarity is that both handed control of large areas of their borders to outsiders who ultimately turned against them.
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Kevin Lecocq Sep 10, 2019

Excellent article, thank you, Ian.
Three successful democracies: US, UK and Switzerland, each handle this dilemma in very different ways. The US has very clear rules for lawmaking and strict checks and balances set out in a written Constitution. National referenda have no legal standing. The Swiss allow both new laws and a veto of existing laws to be determined by referenda that also have strict rules and traditions. The citizens of Switzerland can effectively overrule the Federal Assembly and there's a legal process to do so.
The British system hasn't yet adopted either the US or Swiss models in the Scottish and Brexit referenda. Long term, this is the battle that must be decided. Short term, this is the problem Parliament currently faces: who is sovereign? Must a democratically elected Parliament accede to the precise demands of a democratic referendum or not?
While I applaud Gina Miller and John Major to fight this in the courts, I believe there has to be a national discussion and consensus on what rules to adopt for future referenda (or prohibit them). A binary choice is especially hard in an evolutionary, unwritten constitution such as Britain's. As the US and Switzerland demonstrate, either model can work if fashioned properly. The UK, sadly, is not in that position today.
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Robert Stephen Higgins Sep 9, 2019

Johnson is trying to implement the decision of the people. His opponents are playing the game of obstruction and ignoring the majority will.
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j. von Hettlingen Sep 8, 2019

Ian Buruma says Boris Johnson reminds him of an upper-class demagogue of the late Roman Republic. It was customary that such a rabble rouser sought to gain power by “stirring up the passions of aggrieved plebeians.” For most of its history, the Roman Republic was governed by patrician families and reliable power brokers who knew how to keep the masses in line. Elections were held, but they were deliberately designed to give the ruling classes the majority of the popular vote.
If the wealthy upper class, which voted first, chose a man for office, officials often would not even bother to count the ballots cast by the commoners. On occasion, disgruntled farmers, tavern owners and donkey drivers would rise up and press their powerholders for debt relief and a real voice in government. But these revolts were quickly put down with promises of better times ahead, and a few off-duty gladiators were often hired to rough up the rebel leaders.
The author points out, “people’s voices can be manipulated by demagogues and crooks in an unmediated free-for-all,” as it was the case ahead of the 2016 EU referendum and amidst the Brexit conumdrum. Johnson is best known for his cranky, mendacious rants, and rambling speeches that stoke fears of immigrants, peddle lofty “delusions of national grandeur,” and regain sovereignty etc.
“By undermining Parliament in one of the most important political debates of the century, Johnson poses the same dangers to liberal democracy that populist agitators did to the Roman Republic.”
Fortunately for Britain, there were some twenty rebels within the Conservative party who stood up to their prime minister last week, preventing him to prorogue Parliament and push through a hard Brexit.
Johnson, an Oxford graduate, like other prominent Brexiteers, all studied history or classics at university. Already as a child he daydreamed of becoming “world king.” Since becoming prime minister in July, he sees himself as a demigod, prompting many to compare him to an ancient Athenian leader. In reality he is merely a snake-oil salesman talking posh, and does not deserve this sort of flattery, as it amounts to taking his classical pretensions seriously.
Although Winston Churchill is one of Johnson's great idols and role models, he has kicked 21 MPs out of his party, including Tory MP, Nicholas Soames, Churchill’s grandson. Soames had members of parliament openly laughing at the prime minister, when he said Johnson’s “serial disloyalty has been an inspiration” to the Conservatives rebels. Critics note that the bust that will sit on Johnson’s Downing Street desk, is not one of Winston Churchill but that of his true hero, Pericles.
The Athenian statesman was champion of democracy in the fifth century BC, and came to power through valour in battle and the talent of chattering. Pericles drove his enemies into exile and spent lavishly on new buildings, including the Acropolis. For 30 years his Athens saw a “golden age” – a phrase Johnson used when he announced his premiership. But Pericles’s foreign policy was a disaster, incurring arrogantly the hostility of surrounding states, which took their revenge by backing Sparta in the Peloponnesian wars, and eventually crushing Athenian democracy.
But Johnson’s real model is not Pericles but his ward and brief successor as Athenian leader, Alcibiades. A talented, handsome and vain playboy, Alcibiades could never kick the vices of his youth or rise to the tasks later entrusted to him. His political loyalties were as unpredictable as his sex drive. When Athens tired of him, he defected to its enemy, Sparta.
He then defected to Sparta’s enemy Persia, and when this gambit ran its course Alcibiades relied on charm, guile and “a silken tongue” to return to Athens, where the mob welcomed his relentless optimism. Proroguing the democratic assembly, and welcoming oligarchy, his oratory was infused with Johnson’s chauvinist energy.
“Strike first to avert attack,” was his motto. Alcibiades duly led the Athenians to military defeat and eventual ruin. In exile he was soon murdered, either by his political enemies or by relatives of a girl he had just seduced.
Indeed, it is amazing to see how little human nature has changed over the millenia. No doubt Johnson will not meet the same fate as Alcibiades. But both characters seem share the traits of ruthless opportunists.
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Peter Lappo Sep 8, 2019

Good article.
Johnson’s hero is Augustus. Dictator and first emperor of Rome
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Angel Gavieiro Sep 8, 2019

At the bottom of it, the heavy discontent that drove UK voters to the Brexit referendum result, beyond the manipulations by some politicians, I believe was fueled by the negative economic and social impact experienced since 2008 crisis and the subsequent measures the UK governments took, overall pro-austerity. Let’s recall UKIP and its anti-EU before 2008 were a residual movement.
The vast majority of this impact and measures were in the hands of the UK government and institutions to tackle, not the EU.
Thus, Brexit becomes a double mistake, first & foremost in not identifying the real reason for the economic & social suffering were the decisions of local government and so make them accountable for the mess to large parts of the country, and second in accepting a 3rd party (EU) as culprit and by doing so destroying the economic & commercial advantages associated with that linkage, which undoubtedly near everyone now (not then at the Referendum!) recognises the UK will lose and suffer from for years to come. Self-inflicted double whammy as no other since post-WWII.
- Henk Crop Sep 8, 2019
  
  It seems that neither the British people nor their politicians are able to see the impact of a Brexit. Over the past 30 years the EU economy , incl. Britain, has been thoroughly restructured. In the past you had one factory or distribution center supplying one national market. But these days you have one factory or distribution center supplying all over the EU. This enables industries to gain efficiencies by scale. When you cut the logistic lines by Brexit, this advantage will be lost. It will result in higher prices and loss of jobs. When an overseas Company would like to sell their product in the 450 million consumer market. They will invest in the EU and not in the UK.
  Brexit is a strategic decision but it seems that only local politics matter.
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New Cavendish Sep 8, 2019

There's a further point here. Brexit will not maximize sovereignty, but reduce it. The UK (or what remains of it in a few years) will be subordinated to other structures, first and most obviously as a supplicant to Trump ... which side will be "sovereign" in an America First Trump trade agreement? Every US lobby (chlorinated chicken is the least of it) will have its demands, which Trump will cater to. It won't even be a reliable agreement, as he will modify it or cancel it depending on the last lobbyist he spoke to. Furthermore, even if it crashes out, the UK will spend the next 10 years at least in negotiations with the EU, the difference being that it now is just a third country, having given up the very disproportionate amount of influence it had as an EU member (in fact, it almost always got its way, whether on major things such as the Euro or on the details of the most technical directives).
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New Cavendish Sep 8, 2019

It is most unfortunate that you repeat the Brexiteer canard that "the EU is not a democratic state". The EU institutions are all expressions of democracy in different modes and, in fact, one of the EU's problems is the compromises required by an excess of democracy. The Council is the expression of democratically elected governments (well, sort of in Hungary); the Parliament is directly elected and has been aggressive in expanding its turf (it's true that the Parliament is under-valued in public opinion, but that's because of the laziness of the media and the fact that political parties have tended to abuse it and not to give it enough prominence). The Commission is fully under the control of the Council and the national governments, with substantial checks by the Parliament. It does no good for otherwise-sensible commentators to continue to repeat the untrue claim that the EU is somehow not democratic. That's how we got to the Brexit mess in the first place ... journalists, including especially Johnson, spinning exaggerations and untruths about the EU.
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Mikie boy21 Sep 8, 2019

Sorry, don't agree with the parallel between Britain and the fall of the Roman Empire. Rome fell for many reasons completely different from those postulated in this article. Rome's Empire grew so large it proved impossible effectively to protect its frontiers. Faced with many enemies trying to force their way across those frontiers Rome allowed some of them to enter on condition they protected those frontiers. They did for a while but eventually turned against Rome thus allowing the frontiers to be breached and Rome's enemies to enter. Unable to stop them Rome eventually fell. However the Eastern section of the Empire, protected from Byzantium/Constantinople held out for almost another thousand years. So, the moral for Britain is, don't trust your enemies or allow them to protect our borders.
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nigel southway Sep 8, 2019

ask the people .. get a response.. then ignore it... not democracy
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Jawahar Solai Sep 7, 2019

Liberal democracy has come under crisis with the manipulative politicians misusing the mainstream populist views to their advantage to stall the parliamentary process. This is now evident in all the liberal democracies across, USA, Briton,India etc.,. Liberal democracy, or representation method, in a way has been pushed back by the millions of people who see it as a failure of sorts to represent diverse interest group. This kind of dissent was always there but social media has empowered it in a manner that it is a kind of new form of representation.
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P. Kamath Sep 5, 2019

Don’t worry fellows, this all show and on the way to a climax...

Then, everybody sings:

“....There'll always be an England,
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me...”
——- Vera Lynn
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sffitz Sep 5, 2019

Of course the will of the people should be ignored. The gilded elite knows what is best . Reshaping the demographics of a nation for increased political power is what liberals are all about. The people voted in a parliament initiated referendum to LEAVE the EU. The basic question that the common man asked is "What is wrong with being proud to be British?" Parliament opened the door and now have no right to try and close it. Labour and Liberal Democrats are traitors to the nation.
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Henk Crop Sep 5, 2019

" the EU is not a democratic state. .. certain laws are .. enacted by people who have not been directly chosen in national elections".
Correct, the EU is a cooperation of sovereign democratic states. The leaders of these 28 states, form the superior body that leads the EU ( The European Council).
All these leaders are elected by their people. Also the EU proposals require the authorization of the National Parliaments. In theory the EU is a democratic Institute. However the EU has a several major democratic deficits, causing poor performance as an Insitute and leading to dissatifaction among the voters.
The UK has been a major EEC/EU member for many years and were in a position to contribute to a better EU. Why didn't they do more ?
- Prashant Kotak Sep 5, 2019
  
  "...The UK has been a major EEC/EU member for many years ... Why didn't they do more ?..."
  
  Henk, my observation is that the focus of successive UK governments vis-a-vis the EU has been mercantilist - improve the flow of goods, labour and finance to facilitate trade. They left the politics to the civil servants to negotiate the seepage of German and French ideas, which steadily grew larger in influence. It all kind of crept up on the UK - the boiling frog scenario. Clearly a mistake because large questions about that amorphous blob called Identity' were brushed under the carpet, as though they didn't exist. But you won't find Major or Blair admitting that. Brown's luke-warm endorsement of Lisbon (he turned up late at the signing) perhaps indicates he understood this, but it was too late. Those in the UK that had warned this would happen were regarded by the mainstream political class as nuts. The problem for that class is that they are now faced with the prospect of having to label half the UK population as nuts too - not necessarily a stance conducive to a prolonged political career.
  
  But I have a counter-question for you: Had the UK engaged in a different way with the EU, do you think the EU would have turned out a different type of entity?
  - Henk Crop Sep 6, 2019
    
    Yes I do. Up to the German unification, the EU was lead by France, Germany, the UK and the EU Commission.
    Then France became nervous about the growing economic strength of Germany and wanted to tie them to the EU. An EU which would then have to be more integrated. So hurredly and recklessly the Euro was introduced (ca 2000). Then they wanted to appprove an EU Constitution ( ca. 2005). However the Constitution was rejected by the French and Dutch people, two founding EU members. They were silenced by the Europhile elites, mainly in France, the EU Commission and members who expected to benefit.
    I think at that point in time the UK should have stopped the thoughtless integration process and simply should have demanded a thorough feasibility study on the future of the EU. The UK should have stayed in touch with other unhappy EU members and form a Hanseatic group.
    The UK just failed to play the EU chessboard.
    
    The Europhiles obsessively dream about building a US of Europe, a bloc.
    But they overlook that the US has one language and one culture. It took them nevertheless 200 years and a bloody civil war to become a successful Nation.
    The Russians made an attempt to unify. But after 70 years they failed and left their country in tatters and people in poverty.
    Juncker (Commission President) wanted to have the EU completed next month, after less than 20 years.
    However by now they have begun to realize that a group of very diverse 27 members cannot simply be fused into a bloc, a US of Europe.
    Between 2009 - 2017 the Eurozone economy declined by 2,4 %, while the US economy increased by 39 %. Something has to be done.
    The solution is to forget about the one block concept and go, more or less, back to the successful market organisation, the EEC.
    It would make the EU manageable again. The 27 members have to decide about it, but it would also facilitate a better relationship with the UK.
    For now we have to see what the new EU Commission comes up with.
    ( recommended reading: Macron, Renewing Europe, PS Mar 2019; Juncker Sate of the Union Address 2017; Mark Rutte: Underpromise and overdeliver: fulfilling the promise of Europe, 2018; Getting Europe right, AKK, president of the CDU ( Germany), 2019, The Eurotragedy, A. Mody, 2018, The deep state of Europe, B. Coronakis, 2016 ).
    - Richard Schippers Sep 9, 2019
      
      Even in the 1950s, during the negotiations that would eventually lead to the original EEC, with Germany still hanging against the ropes, the Dutch government very much wanted to involve the UK as a counterweight to the French centralist tendencies. So yes, if the UK had taken this role seriously since joining in 1973, we would have had a strong force opposed to 'ever closer union', and now live in the world's biggest, most efficient and prosperous free trade zone. The EU might have been steered away from becoming a political project first and foremost, and just be the best customs union in history...
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    - Prashant Kotak Sep 7, 2019
      
      Very interesting counterfactual. Thankyou for the reading recommendations. I don't normally go for Economics books but the Mody book looks interesting.
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Ted Peters Sep 5, 2019

All true... but the British elites are running the show on the other side as well and don't give a damn about the average Englishman or Englishwoman either.
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vivek iyer Sep 5, 2019

Boris believes he can get a better deal than May did provided he is seen by Europe as representing a united Cabinet with a working majority. The British tradition has been to hold elections to resolve political deadlock on issues with constitutional implications. Buruma's talk of the Continent is wholly irrelevant. British people know British laws and British political traditions. They knew neither know nor have any great incentive to learn how the French mismanage things. Why? France has been very very unstable. Britain has been very very stable since the Glorious Revolution. Very stupidly, a fixed term bill was brought in by the Tory-Liberal coalition so as ensure its own stability. It is now clear that this was a terrible mistake. Boris is testing the hypothesis that the Fixed term Bill has a workaround and thus does not substantially change the British political tradition in this respect. Tonight, he expressed his frustration at Corbyn's cautious approach. He is hoping Corbyn can be goaded into accepting the old tradition on thymotic grounds- i.e that he will get rattled at being accused of cowardice and pick up the guantlet. Corbyn, for his part, must decide whether 'no deal' panic has contaminated the man in the street. My own feeling is that it hasn't but he may know better. The fact is the Government has loosened the purse-strings and this is affecting working class areas. Moreover the depreciation of the currency, as well as increased uncertainty, has curbed immigration. In a relatively tight labor market, this has created a feel good factor. This is why Boris is bullish on an October election. But, Corbyn has seen with his own eyes two very different Tory P.Ms make catastrophic blunders, within a very short period, when it comes to predicting voting behavior. Corbyn himself, who had looked weak within his own party, gained tremendously from helping May hold an early election. Clearly Boris was hoping Corbyn would throw caution to the winds and rise to the bait tonight.
He may still do so. It is better to go into an election with your head up high, rather than be dragged into it. Moreover, what he can himself do in the coming weeks? Try to resurrect May's deal? How? Boris would be a fool to cooperate and the issue is almost as divisive for Labor. There is genuine uncertainty as to how this game will play out but the one thing which must be said is that it is a very British game. Voices within Parliament echo those in the street. Buruma's bizarre notion that there is some gaping chasm between the 'classes and the masses' is wholly un-British. Politicians are like actors. Their persona is wholly independent of their passions and their interests- and this is what lends drama to their performance within Parliament and then outside it on the stump.

As if to underline his utter alienation from British political traditions, Buruma burbles about fascism. He raises up the bogey of the Gracchi- though the whole point about Tiberius Gracchus was that, misled by his Greek education, he overestimated the power the plebs could have in the Roman setup. This is utterly puerile. Boris may not be a great classicist but he is less ignorant than the author of this 'piffle'.
The British tradition has always been to break a parliamentary deadlock, more especially of a constitutional kind, by holding a General Election. Currently, it appears Corbyn may choose to prevent this happening. However, British people- for whom our unwritten constitution commands obedience as if to an unthought known- feel that an Election must happen. We don't yet know by what expedient this will occur. But that is a settled feature of our Law- which is 'artificial reason'- since, according to Coke, the time of the Druids.
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Gerry H Sep 4, 2019

The Parliament voted against leaving with no deal, after repeatedly having rejected any deal, thereby putting themselves checkmate, again. But this is exactly Boris' intention. Boris intends for the UK to leave the EU at all cost but also to remain in the seat of power. It's clear that this government is not capable of resolving the situation and will by the due date be even more tightly bound in conflictions, asking the EU for extensions even when it's clear there is no majority for any approach.
So come the due date, it will have to be the EU, and not the UK, to deliver the separating blow. That is the intention, and that is where they are going. This way, Boris can credibly claim it was not him who caused this, it was the EU, despite him trying so hard to avoid it and then he can go on winning the next election being seen as standing up for the nation and being a man of the people. This is Boris have your cake and eat it all. And like his examples from antiquity, he cares not how much damage he leaves behind. It's the moment that counts and how big an impression you leave behind. Go, Boris!
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