It’s on! The Nationalists versus the Globalists. New British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has joined his Presidential friend from the US in leading the charge against the filthy Globalists – most particularly those sneering European Globalists. As happened in the inter-war years, 1919-1939, the whole world will suffer. History is set to repeat, with terrible consequences.
Boris Johnson has told Britain he will go through the motions and seek European agreement to a soft Brexit. When the Europeans respond with a Pythonesque “I fart in your general direction!” Johnson will don his Churchillian hat, as he did last week, declaring Britain will leave the European Union by end-October “do or die.”
Frustratingly, Johnson’s rhetoric is at odds with his long-held views as, basically, a free trader, and even at times (gasp) a Globalist. Time will tell. Yet Johnson the Nationalist bears no relationship with Churchill the Globalist who, with American President Franklin D Roosevelt, issued a joint statement in 1941 that was to become the Atlantic Charter. Among its clauses were commitments to ensure the access of all countries, on equal terms, to the trade and raw materials of the world that are needed for their economic prosperity and to full collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labour standards, economic advancement and social security.
The Atlantic Charter was embraced at the Bretton Woods Conference three-quarters of a century ago last week, which led to the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and later to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), precursor to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
US State Department archives confirm that lessons learned by US policymakers from the interwar period informed the institutions created at the Bretton Woods conference. The archives state the President believed free trade not only promoted international prosperity, but also international peace. The archives go on to say that policies adopted by governments to combat the Great Depression – high tariff barriers, competitive currency devaluations and discriminatory trading blocs – had contributed to creating an unstable international environment. This experience led international leaders to conclude that economic cooperation was the only way to achieve both peace and prosperity at home and abroad.
President Trump and Prime Minister Johnson mock the Globalists of today and, in doing so, repudiate Churchill and Roosevelt. Trump has announced the two countries are already working on a discriminatory trade deal. At the same time, the US is abandoning the World Trade Organization, flouting its rules by applying new tariffs on imports from Europe, China and a multitude of other nations, and crippling it by vetoing appointments to its dispute-settlement body.
In coming weeks, when the Europeans fart in his general direction, Johnson will likely announce that he intends to pursue a no-deal Brexit. This is worse that a hard Brexit, since it does not include a trade deal. And they said a hard Brexit was hard!
Before Britons realise just how hard it is Johnson will probably call a general election. Among other rivals, Johnson’s Conservative Party will need to contend with the Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage, who hurled departing British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Kim Darroch, what he would have considered the ultimate insult, branding the indiscreet Darroch “a Globalist.”
Assuming Johnson’s Conservatives defeat Jeremy Corbyn’s hopelessly divided Labour Party, he would have five years to implement Brexit.
Britain’s farmers and manufacturers would face tariffs in trying to sell their wares into Europe. British consumers would face higher prices for the goods and services they import from Europe. Young Britons would find it much harder to obtain work visas in Europe – but they voted to remain in the EU or didn’t vote at all, so they don’t count in a Nationalist’s world.
No doubt Johnson will blame everyone, and certainly the European Globalists, for making it so hard.
Economics, the inter-war years and the Great Depression taught us that nations do not prosper from imposing barriers to trade. But try telling that to America’s Trump, Britain’s Johnson, Nigel Farage and the rest of the neo-Nationalists.
Closer to home, anyone who argues that Brexit is good for Australia is a modern-day Mr Magoo. We are blessed that our major political parties support global economic integration for a more prosperous and peaceful world. The Coalition and Labor have learned the lessons of history. It’s a tragedy that Trump and Johnson, both promising to make their nations great again at the expense of others, have not. Or worse, that they know the lessons, but their vanity drives them to ignore history at the world’s peril.