Letter to America

Dear Americans - friends, family, all,

I’m writing from the east Atlantic coast.

If the US is anything other than fully committed, at great scale and in the pre-eminent leadership role, in NATO, Europe, the US and the world face disaster.

Bookmark that. /1. More importantly, stop this madness.

There isn’t a way out of this, any more than there is a way of avoiding gravity on the surface of the Earth.

Cutting down US military presence in Europe has been a huge mistake. Successive US administrations are guilty. /2.

Donald Trump saying “Ukraine is finished” once again, starkly, highlights the question of what the world’s first & only (with the possible exception of Britain), & still remaining, hyper power would do geopolitically under his leadership.

But it isn’t just about Trump.

A 🧵/1. I’ll be unashamedly Eurocentric.

There’s a broader & deeper story, of course. But Europe is a vital part of it.

The decision the USA has to make, as it did in the 1940s, & repeatedly at intervals after that, is whether it cares about Europe, & if so how much of it, & why. /2.

.@timleunig in @FT is right about Brexit.

But it’s far worse.

Brexit ripped us out of our $19 trillion GDP domestic market & reduced us to one a 6th of it, thumped our economy, fractured the UK, threw our governance into chaos, & generated perilous geopolitical effects.

A🧵/1.

https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1826967692525371850

The EU (& the EEC/EC before it) has never been, was never intended to be, & was never claimed to be just another “trading partner”, however large.

Suggestions it was, or was claimed to be, are Brexiter mythology - sometimes cynically deliberate, sometimes plain ignorant. /2.

UK Government Debt - Wealth Beyond Imagination

Today’s headlines are again stoking debt panic.

We need to get a grip.

Strangling the economy to “balance the books” is as economically literate as burning down a factory to save on heating bills.

We need government debt.

A🧵/1. 💰in the 150 years to 1880 UK government debt rose over 10x, beyond $120B (it peaked around $150B c.1830 to 1850) [constant 2011 $)]

💰in the next 50-ish years, to the 1930s, it multiplied a further 5x to around $600B, (it was around $100B in the early 20th century) /2.

Nice @prestonjbyrne.

Tendentious.

And (if you mean it seriously) wildly naive about what actually takes place, legally (although you’d say “in my opinion this is unconstitutional”: good luck!) in the USA.

Still, if we just look at England/UK: yes, there are many concerns. /1.

https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne/status/1822627000734896484

I never said or, I hope, implied (to a fair, reasonable reader) that there weren’t.

For example (not the subject of my already long 🧵which focused on the way criminal incitement & freedom of expression relate) I personally deeply dislike revocation of citizenship. /2.

Twitter’s full of people trumpeting near zero understanding of English law or of the convictions in respect of the violence of the last 10 days or so.

Nor does the US 1st Amendment mean what many (often Americans) seem to think.

Frustrated? Maybe this will be some use.

A🧵/1. “Incitement” was an offence under English common law pretty much forever.

In 2008 the Serious Crime Act 2007 replaced common law “incitement” with statutory offences of encouraging or assisting crime.

Incitement in respect of specific statutory offences remains. /2.

Some say they’re the #FarageRiots.

Others say the #MuskRiots.

Some say neither.

I’m not sure we yet know the whole truth about these men’s possible involvement, potentially as inciters to or participants in violence or even terrorism.

There are legitimate questions.

A 🧵/1. To be guilty of terrorism in England, you don’t have to be physically present (see CPS guidance ⬇️). Similar considerations apply to some other crimes relevant to the current violent disorder.

“I was only tweeting” or “I was just asking questions” are far from safe defences. /2.

Poll poker: going for broke

LAB is 20 points ahead because the CON/NatCon vote is split between CON & REF.

If not, LAB would be 5 ahead. If it didn’t lose a few points to LD/GRN/SNP. It well might.

Plug in the numbers: a CON/REF merger could upend the contest.

Will they? /1. On the CON side, desperation is so great, why wouldn’t they?

The last defences - Sunak’s opposition, “one nation Tories”, party constitution, precedent, notions of decency/national interest as understood by Churchill, Macmillan or Thatcher - are threadbare to non-existent. /2.

Keir Starmer says growth is the goal, everything depends on it.

“Wealth creation is our No. 1 priority. Growth is our core business”.

But …

- “tough spending rules”

- & being outside the single market

… are huge, linked obstacles.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

A🧵/1. Keir Starmer claims some policy changes, such as liberalising planning & smarter regulation, will unlock growth.

Fine (maybe) up to a point.

But unconvincing, considering the massive challenge the UK faces, including needing far higher defence spending than so far admitted. /2.

A graph was circulated on Tuesday from a journalist & news organisation who should know better.

Title:

“It’s not just ‘normal’”

The implication (the wording is more careful) is the UK is experiencing an unprecedented population increase.

Nonsense.

A 🧵/1. Apparently the country is “full”.

And that’s leading to all sorts of “problems”.

And it means we’re all getting “poorer”.

So say some politicians.

We’ll come back to that graph later.

But let’s first look at the population & prosperity claims.

They’re stone cold false. /2.

Donald Trump’s trial in New York was about illegal election interference, by him, attempting to benefit himself as a candidate, in the 2016 US presidential election.

Anyone claiming that’s “trivial”, “difficult to understand” or “wrong to prosecute” is having you on.

A 🧵 /1. Falsifying business records, of which Donald Trump was convicted yesterday on 34 counts, would normally be a “misdemeanour”, a crime under New York State law which carries a maximum of 1 year in jail.

Important for sure and criminally illegal, but a lower level of liability. /2.

While understanding the surprise (it was unexpected!) at Natalie Elphicke’s defection, I’m bemused by the shock, in some quarters, that Keir Starmer welcomed her.

No, not because Sir Keir is a “Red Tory” or a “short-term opportunist”.

His grand strategy explains it.

A 🧵/1. Starmer’s Labour is on a mission, even if some in the party don’t yet realise, to make Labour *the* party of Britain, embedding it in government for decades.

Creating a national consensus, drawing in the widest feasible span of committed supporters. /2.

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, date of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

27 January, the liberation of Auschwitz, is UN Holocaust Remembrance Day.

We remember systematic, industrial, genocidal murder.

In 2022 I shared a letter from Peter.

I’d like to do so again.

A🧵/1. Mauthausen, 13 May 1945

Dear Fritz, Dear Barbara!

After an infinitely long time I am allowed to write to you, the still existing branch of the family – or so I hope – and to tell you the events of the last 3 years. /2.

The other day I took part in a seminar organised by perhaps the world’s most famous human rights organisation.

The subject was UN efforts to end mass atrocities & the need to prevent countries blocking the UN doing so.

Something unexpected happened.

A 🧵/1. Much of the session focused on the use of international law, & on the role of the UN Security Council, particularly its veto-wielding five permanent members, China, France, Russia, the UK & the USA. /2.

A Study in Scarlet

The human suffering of 7 October & since renders any but sociopaths deeply distressed. We're all covered in blood. Perhaps you're now angry with me for "moral relativism" or another modern deadly sin. Reading on may not help. But I hope you will.

A long🧵/1. The most obvious reason for distress is the carnage. Then feelings of impotence & rage. Then, for the more honestly reflective, a recognition of complicity & guilt.

There is no "clean" way out. Nor has there ever been.

Don't be angry. Be determined. And realistic. /2.

The US and us

Current world events are both highly distressing in many respects, and highly clarifying.

Whether we're in the US, of it, or neither; interested in the US or not; supportive of the US or critical - the US is indispensable, and unavoidable.

A shortish thread. /1. When (or if ...) the US loses its leverage, anywhere significant, it spells deep trouble for us all.

If the US uses its leverage badly, we're also in deep trouble.

The UN, and the world, depend on the US using its leverage, and well. /2.

Israel-Palestine

You’re right, of course, @McFaul.

And you know this subject well. But many who are now, rightly, taking a close interest, don’t.

So, as a former policy-maker with relevant background, I offer some thoughts for social media users.

A 🧵/1.

https://twitter.com/mcfaul/status/1712702847136260411

The kinds of ultimate resolution under discussion require a few things.

I’ll start with acceptance by all of Israel’s right to exist within internationally recognised borders. (Presumably those would be, or would be no less than, the pre-1967 “six day war” borders). /2.

In the current situation much commentary appears to assume an understanding of the views of “Jews”, “Israelis” or “Israeli Jews” which … let’s just say, doesn’t obviously correspond to reality.

A few facts might help.

So here goes, from July 2023.

A 🧵/1. Unless otherwise stated, the results quoted are views of “Israeli Jews”, excluding don’t knows.

“What political strategy should the next govt adopt on the Palestinian issue?”

60% support peace, based on a two-state solution or a single state with full equal rights for all. /2.

It really - really - isn’t a coincidence.

Stand up and fight. Just in case you’re sceptical, of course one photo isn’t proof on its own.

So: look back over the Oswald Mosley archive. And Mussolini, whom he imitated. And Hitler. And the (brilliant) representations of them in popular culture - eg Roderick Spode in “Jeeves & Wooster”.

You know this, @RoryStewartUK, but …

… that’s why we have a system in which a permanent, unelected, executive government (“Civil Service”), over which ministers - drawn from the governing parliamentary party by a PM with a Commons majority - are from time to time placed. /1.

https://twitter.com/rorystewartuk/status/1700907268261269519

It is little understood in our national discourse (although it certainly is by you) that the entire system necessarily depends on the unelected, permanent government doing the vast bulk of all the actual governing - in the name of (& sometimes via) the Secretary of State … /2.

According to @YouGov immigration & asylum is *not* the most important issue voters think the country faces.

Not close.

This after a relentless, near hysterical government campaign demonising “illegals”, lawyers, “the left”, the ECHR …

What’s up?

A 🧵/1. According to @YouGov, asked to choose the top three issues facing the country 40% of all adults include immigration & asylum.

That’s a significant number.

But it’s nowhere near the highest.

45% do so for health.

And 60% for the economy. /2.