David Cameron’s letter to European Council president Donald Tusk is the most hotly anticipated piece of correspondence in recent memory. Typically, correspondence isn’t ever hotly anticipated. The fact that everyone wants to know what’s in this letter tells you how much is at stake as Britain begins its negotiations to reform the European Union or leave it altogether.
The contents of the letter are not a well-kept secret
He wants a guarantee that members of the EU who don’t use the euro still have access to the ‘single market’. The second demand is more nebulous. According to the FT, Cameron will demand to “write competitiveness into the DNA of the whole European Union”.
Is that some kind of supra-national gene therapy I haven’t heard about? You can write words on a piece of paper. But seeing them in print doesn’t make them true. The ‘DNA of the European Union’ is rife with the idea of centralisation – economic, political, monetary, and social. Good luck reforming that.
The third item on the reform agenda would exclude Britain from the idea of ”ever closer union”. This is a nod to Margaret Thatcher’s vision of a union of sovereign states, not a federal Europe. The fourth item would restrict access to benefits by migrants.
It’s probably the fourth item that will get the most public attention. It will appeal and appall depending on your political affiliation. The prime minister must hope it’s enough to sway the public that, having got what it asked for, the sensible thing for Britain is to stay in the Union and lead from within.
The sensible, non-controversial forecast is that Britain will probably stay in. Cameron will get most of what he asks for. Some cosmetic changes will be made to EU laws. But at a fundamental level, the project of “ever closer union” will continue anyway.
What do you think, dear reader? Is it going to be a ‘smash and grab’ referendum that keeps Britain in Europe before the public has time to get exercised about the issue? Do you think the British pound is at risk of crashing on Brexit, particularly given Britain’s public debt-to-GDP ratio and current account deficit?
More missiles fly in California
The US Navy launched a second Trident II (D5) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) overnight. It came from the same submarine, the USS Kentucky. It didn’t cause quite the stir the first launch did. But anyone who grew up during the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet Union had thousands of missiles pointed at each other, would have been a little unnerved about the sight. I know I was.
The Navy said it’s customary for a ship and its crew to go through drills like this to prove their operational readiness. The Kentucky has recently come out of a multi-year operation to refuel its nuclear power plant. The Navy says the missile drills are part of getting the submarine back into service.
It was probably just a coincidence that US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter was in at the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley a few days before, giving a speech on Russia. In that speech , Carter said:
“We do not seek a cold, let alone a hot, war with Russia. We do not seek to make Russia an enemy. But make no mistake: the United States will defend our interests, our allies, the principled international order, and the positive future it affords us all.” And then three days later two missiles.
Not very subtle is it?
No need to remind anyone that the US Navy has 14 submarines like the Kentucky. Each sub is armed with 24 missiles. Each missile has 14 different warheads capable of independent targeting. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s 336 different nuclear warheads.
Chairman Mao once said power comes from the barrel of a gun. In an age of currency wars, economic power blocs, and a ‘dark war’ on the internet, the US seems to be asserting that power still comes from… power. Might might not make right, but, to paraphrase Stalin, overwhelming power has a quality all its own.
Is it too much a stretch to say this is all a monetary phenomenon? Not at all. Undermining the value of money – and that’s what’s happened all over the planet since 2008 – undermines an economy. Societies churn and become more volatile. The economic becomes political and the political becomes geopolitical.
Category: Brexit