No. 181 - The Megaphone is Turned Off! Welcome Back America!

Dear James, 

Last Wednesday, the megaphone was turned off. What had seemed impossible for so long has happened. Donald Trump has fallen silent! Into this stunning and momentary ‘noise space’, have erupted the voices of hope and renewal. After four years of ranting and raving, four years of barefaced lies and deceit, four years of bluster, bluffing and name calling, the pursuit of decency and truth as an honourable aim, is being expressed once again. Last Wednesday, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stood before the American people and the world and smiled. In France, Paris Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, tweeted, ‘Welcome Back America!’.                                                                                                                                            

Of course, this was only day one. Trump still refuses to concede. Half of America is still angry and the bruised egos of men with guns lies just beneath the surface and may yet cause more havoc. But the speech by the Vice-President Elect, Kamala Harris said it all. “You (the American people) chose hope and unity, decency, science and, yes, truth. You chose Joe Biden as the Next President of the United States of America.” What person of honesty and integrity would not have shed a small tear last night as we watched events unfold in the nation that our own country gave birth to, two and a half centuries ago?

The way ahead is massively challenging for Biden and Harris. The next two months will be difficult as Trump takes his revenge on those he perceives as having betrayed him. America needs to look into its soul and rediscover the springs that created that great but imperfect country all those years ago. And while they do that, we must reflect on what it all may mean for us. Europe and Iran may relax slightly, climate change will be back on the agenda, NATO will rediscover its mojo and America will begin to deal with the Coronavirus. But what about the impact on us and Boris Johnson?

Like Trump, Boris came to power on a populist agenda seeded in our country by the likes of Nigel Farage and Aaron Banks. He ran with Brexit, that niggling, nostalgic, post-empirical ache for old school, British exceptionalism. He managed to merge that with the frustration and resentment of working people to being for so long ignored by the elites. The oligarchical take over of the genuine and justified resentments, fuelled by the new media and fake news, resulted in Brexit. Mr Biden called that decision a stupid mistake. 

But the differences go much deeper than that. Biden and Boris are miles apart as personalities. Boris has referred to Africans as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”, to Muslim women in burqas as “bank robbers” and “letter boxes”, to female Labor MPs as “hot totties”, to gay men as “tank-topped bumboys”. He once claimed that Obama’s "part-Kenyan heritage" made him anti-British. Trump and Boris share the same optimism bias, the same use of exaggeration as a policy tool, the same refusal to apologize, the same tendency to bluff and the same inability to deal with detail. And their impulsive and erratic decision making, particularly with respect to covid-19, has been lethal in its consequences. As Biden once said, Boris Johnson is a “physical and emotional clone” of Trump’’. Boris and Biden are not natural allies. Biden is a fundamentally decent man. Boris is Boris.  

At the moment the EU-UK negotiations are stalled. “Significant differences remain in a number of areas’. Biden has stated that he was appalled by Boris’s threat to the Good Friday Agreement when Boris indicated that he was willing to break the law over the Internal Market Bill. This is not a good basis for mutual understanding.

On the surface, of course, Boris and Biden will get along fine but much has changed underneath. With Western Europe, Biden will probably refer first to Brussels. He will also probably want to negotiate a treaty with the EU before he considers a trade deal with the UK. He will not be sympathetic when Britain finds herself marooned in Mid-Atlantic. 

James, with the election of Joe Biden and Kamal Harris, the populist surge since 2016 may have reached an inflexion point. Boris has lost an ally and sanity has regained a friend. Will it be too much to hope that Britain may also one day deliver itself from the populist nightmare? 

Fingers crossed!

Kind regards, 

BH – Your Concerned Constituent