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Tbilisi clashes: Georgia government pushes "Russian" bill risking EU candidacy
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Arizona, US.
With the huge protests that we see in the streets of Tbilisi, is that a sign of the Georgian government moving closer to Russia?
Well, it is certainly a sign of the Georgian government being more authoritarian and distinctly more anti-Western. And that is, of course, endangering the ambitions of Georgia to move closer to the European Union, eventually membership. We'll see what happens. But Georgia was given this status of candidate country to the European Union. I think what we see now is going to have the consequences that there's not going to be any movement forward on that until we see Georgia moving into more Western, Democratic, and liberal direction.
Which are the implications of the resignation of the first minister of Scotland?
I think what we see there, in that particular crisis in Edinburgh, is part of the decline of the Scottish Nationalist Party. It was the dominant force in Scottish politics for quite some time. It, of course, drove the issue of Scottish independence that was defeated, rather narrowly, though, in a referendum some years ago. But independence isn't the only issue, and they've been stumbling on the one issue and all the others since then. I think what will happen is the return of the Labour Party as the dominant political force in Scotland. And for the time being, the question of independence on a distinct back-burner.
- Sturgeon's arrest roils Scottish politics ›
- Turmoil in Scotland as first minister resigns ›
- Georgians take to the streets against ‘foreign agent’ law ›
- Russia invaded Georgia too, and it never left ›
- Xi invites Putin to China to strengthen "no limits" partnership - GZERO Media ›
- Why was Slovakia's Prime Minister attacked? - GZERO Media ›
First Minister Humza Yousaf and his wife Nadia El-Nakla leaving Bute House, the official residence of First Minister, after he announced that he will resign as SNP leader and Scotland's First Minister, avoiding having to face a no confidence vote in his leadership. Mr Yousaf's premiership has been hanging by a thread since he ended the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens last week. Picture date: Monday April 29, 2024
Turmoil in Scotland as first minister resigns
On Monday, Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, announced he would resign following a controversial move last week to end the SNP’s power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Green Party. Once Yousaf’sresignation is formalized, Scotland will need a new first minister within 28 days.
In the coming days, it will become clear whether SNP officials can settle on a consensus party leader to engineer a hoped-for political comeback ahead of national polls or whether they will have to hold a leadership contest.
Yousaf’s resignation is just the latest sign ofturmoil within the party that has dominated Scotland’s politics for the past decade. Yousaf became first minister 13 months ago following a scandal that led to the arrest of former party leader Nicola Sturgeon.
Across Britain, this move will further boostBritain’s Labour Party, which looks poised to reclaim its place as the first party of Scotland, adding to the seats in parliament it’s likely to win in national elections expected later this year. The Scottish Parliament was established in 1999 amid hopes in London that a devolution of more decision-making power to Scotland would help ease demand for its independence from the UK.Calton Hill and Edinburgh city scenic view at sunset Beautiful view of Edinburgh at sunset Edinbourgh United Kingdom.
Labour takes the lead in Scotland
Good news for Britain’s Labour Party: Anew poll from YouGov shows that, for the first time in nearly a decade, the party leads in Scotland, a result that can bolster its already-high odds of winning the UK’s next general election, probably this fall.
Years ago, Labour could count on votes in Scotland, where the Conservative Party is traditionally less popular than in England and Wales, to boost its seat total in the UK parliament. In 2010, a year when Scotland’s own Gordon Brown led Labour, the party won 41 of Scotland’s 59 seats. But as demand for an independence referendum lifted the Scottish National Party to prominence, Labour won just one seat in Scotland in 2015 and the same in 2019.
But the SNP, burdened with the disappointment of the failed referendum, a poor economy, and scandals that engulfed once-popular leader Nicola Sturgeon, has faded, and Labour is again in favor with Scottish voters.
Nationally, Labour already leads Conservatives by 20 points. A restoration in Scotland could help the party and its current leader, Sir Keir Starmer, secure the landslide win they seek and a return to 10 Downing Street for the first time in 14 years.Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reacts during a press conference at St Andrews House in Edinburgh.
Sturgeon's arrest roils Scottish politics
On Sunday, Scotland's former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was briefly detained over a police investigation into some 600,000 pounds ($750,000) worth of missing funds at the Scottish National Party. She was released without being charged after seven hours of questioning.
The arrest sent political chills throughout the SNP, which has been thrown into chaos since Sturgeon abruptly resigned in February as Scotland's longest-serving and first female leader. At the time, her departure was seen by many as a clear sign that a new Scottish independence referendum — the SNP's raison d'être — is highly unlikely in the near term. That seems an even longer shot now following the police probe into the party's finances.
Sturgeon was replaced by Humza Yousaf, who after several months in charge has struggled to unite the party. Just hours before his predecessor was picked up by the cops, he offered to cut a deal with the opposition Labour Party if the next British election delivers a hung parliament (presumably in exchange for another vote to leave the UK).
But the problem is that the SNP stands to lose many votes and seats to Labour, which used to dominate Scottish politics until the early 2010s. Upshot: The window of opportunity for a fresh plebiscite that opened up after Brexit is fast closing.
Scotland's First Minister and Scottish National Party (SNP) Leader Nicola Sturgeon.
What We’re Watching: Sturgeon's resignation, NATO-Nordic divide, India vs. BBC, Tunisia’s tightening grip
Nicola Sturgeon steps down
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced on Wednesday that she is stepping down. She’s been in the role for over eight years, having taken power after the failed 2014 independence referendum. Speaking from Edinburgh, Sturgeon said she’d been contemplating her future for weeks and knew "in my head and in my heart" it was time to go. A longtime supporter of Scottish independence, Sturgeon was pushing for a new referendum, which was rejected by the UK’s top court late last year. In recent weeks, she and her colleagues had been debating whether the next national election in 2024 should be an effective referendum on independence. Sturgeon will stay in power until a successor is elected — likely contenders include John Swinney, Sturgeon’s deputy first minister, Angus Robertson, the culture and external affairs secretary, and Kate Forbes, the finance secretary.
Turkey divides Finland and Sweden
On Tuesday, NATO and other Western officials publicly acknowledged for the first time that Finland and Sweden might join the transatlantic alliance at different times, a notable public admission that negotiations with Turkey over Sweden’s NATO accession haven’t gone well. Neither Nordic country can become an alliance member without unanimous support from all existing members, and NATO-member Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a beef with Sweden. Erdogan is angry that Sweden’s government has provided asylum for dozens of Kurdish leaders he considers terrorists, and it didn’t help when a right-wing activist burned a Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, an act Sweden’s government treated as an offensive act of free speech that’s protected by law. Erdogan may also see a political opportunity to boost his reelection chances by defying European leaders in general and Sweden in particular. (Turkey’s elections are expected in May or June.) For NATO, Finland’s membership is arguably the more urgent priority. Though Sweden monitors occasional Russian naval intrusions into its territorial waters, it’s Finland that shares an 810-mile land border with Russia. European leaders hope that, if Erdogan wins his election, a deal can be cut in the coming months to allow Sweden to join the club.
India takes aim at BBC
Indian tax officials raided the BBC’s local offices on Tuesday in what they said was a probe into the British broadcaster’s business practices. But the move comes amid a broader government campaign to censor a new BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in anti-Muslim riots that killed more than 1,000 people in the state of Gujarat while he was governor in 2002. Modi has always denied stoking – or neglecting – the violence, and India’s Supreme Court has reached a similar conclusion. In the weeks since the doc aired in the UK, Modi’s government has cracked down swiftly in India, blocking it from being viewed online in the country, halting screenings at Indian universities, and forcing both Twitter and YouTube to remove it locally. Modi has often used internet laws to muzzle criticism, and tax officials have searched critical media outlets before. Last year the subcontinent slipped eight points to 150 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. How will the UK government respond?
Tunisia crackdown intensifies
Robocop is not messing around now. Tunisian President Kais Saied, whose monotone style earned him that nickname, has unleashed a ferocious crackdown on his critics and opponents in recent days. On Tuesday, sweeping arrests ensnared the leader of Ennahda, an opposition Islamist movement that once held power in the country. Saied, a constitutional lawyer who was elected as an outsider candidate in 2019, has led a massive overhaul of Tunisia’s government, diminishing the power of the legislature and the courts. He says he’s trying to make government more decisive and efficient in the only country that emerged from the Arab Spring with a democracy. His critics say he is plunging the country of 12 million right back into an authoritarian winter. See our full profile of Saied here.
Podcast: "United" Kingdom? Tony Blair on Truss, Charles, Brexit, and division in UK & beyond
Listen: In the span of just 48 hours in early September, the United Kingdom got a new prime minister, Liz Truss, and a new monarch, King Charles III. Both face big challenges in their new roles. For Truss, the Tory leader: a range of issues from inflation to the ongoing fallout of Brexit. For Charles: the relevance of the monarchy itself, now that Britain's longest-serving and much-beloved queen is gone. The United Kingdom also faces staggering inflation and a looming energy crunch. On the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer talks with a man who occupied 10 Downing Street for a decade - former prime minister Tony Blair - about the road ahead for his country. Blair believes there will be a lot of uncertainty over the next year or two if Truss insists on big tax cuts and big borrowing. He also looks back at the queen's legacy and the future of the monarchy, explains why Brexit will hurt - but probably not fragment - the UK, and argues that we need to return to his comfort zone of the political center to fix today's problems.
Hard Numbers: Germany ditches nuclear, (some) Americans justify anti-government violence, Mali’s election in danger, Scottish witches pardoned
3: Germany has closed three of its remaining six nuclear power plants as it hastens its withdrawal from nuclear in favor of renewable sources of energy. Berlin decided to speed up its shift away from nuclear power after Japan's Fukushima disaster in 2011.
33: More than 33 percent of Americans say that violence against the government can at times be justified, according to a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. Many cited government overreach to contain the pandemic to explain their views.
5: Mali’s transitional government, installed after a 2020 coup, has called for next month’s presidential and legislative elections to be delayed by five years. Meanwhile, a group of West African neighbors has threatened Mali with more sanctions if the vote doesn’t go ahead.
3,837: Some four centuries later, the Scottish parliament has moved to pardon thousands of people — mostly women — charged with being witches. Until the Witchcraft Act was repealed by Edinburgh in the mid-1700s, 3,837 were charged under the law in Scotland, more than 2,500 of whom were executed.Is Brexit breaking Britain?
When the UK left the EU at the end of last year, Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised that his country would put its new freedom to good use. A more open and dynamic "Global Britain" would still benefit from solid ties with Europe, he pledged, but aligning its foreign and trade policies more closely with democracies in other regions – the United States, India, South Korea, Australia and others — would lift the UK into a new era of security and prosperity.
But critics warned that Brexit, the most dramatic and abrupt large-scale commercial realignment in modern history, would inflict both short-term and lasting damage to Britain's economy. For decades, most of Britain's exports have gone to Europe. People and money moved freely between the UK and EU too. London's importance for Europe made it a global financial capital. You can't give all that up, the critics cautioned, and expect Britain's ship to sail smoothly on.
There was also the question of boundaries. How to draw a new line between the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, and Northern Ireland, still part of the UK, without disrupting the hard-won peace that ended an era of Irish violence in 1998? Though Johnson got Brexit done, that problem remains unresolved.
Turn on the news now in Britain, and it appears the critics were right, at least about the short-term pain. A shortage of truck drivers, about 20,000 of them foreigners forced home by COVID and then kept out by post-Brexit visa restrictions, have created product shortages at British supermarkets and petrol stations. Prices have reached their highest point in nearly a decade and are predicted to climb higher.
There are also fears of longer-term pain as many UK industries, like its automakers, face higher costs, more paperwork, and longer wait times for parts they've long imported from Europe. The UK services sector — finance professionals, doctors, lawyers, architects etc. — which accounts for about 80 percent of economic output and jobs, is now newly subject to rules created by European regulators that increase costs and delays.
There are also new fights between the UK and EU over the Irish border question and threats flying between London and Paris over fishing rights and lingering controversies over the long-term status of EU citizens still living in the UK.
Some of the economic damage can surely be blamed on COVID, which killed more people in the UK than in any European country and forced extended lockdowns. But the lack of gasoline and other shortages in Northern Ireland, which still has an open border to the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, suggests Brexit, not COVID, is mainly to blame.
Boris Johnson says he's "not worried" about shortages and rising prices. The PM said this week that "Brexit freedoms" will boost Britain in coming years even if the UK is now struggling through an unfortunate but entirely natural period of economic adjustment. He insists the current problems will prove short-lived, and late last month his government announced an offer of three-month visas for foreign truck drivers to help Britons cope with the Christmas season.
But in the end, the truth about Brexit and its effects may not matter, because the perception that Brexit is sinking Britain's economy and prospects – and that Johnson doesn't understand or doesn't care about the impact – will boost the voices of those in Scotland who want to leave the UK and those in Ireland dreaming of Irish reunification. Latest polls suggest that support for independence in Scotland (48.3 percent) is now higher than during the 2014 independence referendum, when Scotland voted 55-45 percent to remain in the UK. The Irish border question created by Brexit has already triggered violence in Northern Ireland.
The bottom line: Brexit won't break Britain's economy – despite the shortages and anxiety it's now provoking. Producers will adjust to post-Brexit realities, and recovery from COVID will create momentum for new growth. But it might yet break up the UK politically if the current economic disruption and public anger across the country continues long enough for Scottish and Irish secessionists to build momentum for exit plans of their own.