It is true that Mrs Merkel will soon retire from the office of Chancellor after a signal achievement of winning and keeping such a high office for 16 years. No-one else in her era came anywhere near such an achievement. She not only exercised great authority in Germany but also in the EU, where she was the leader of choice amongst the member states that the EU turned to to strike deals and find compromises to keep some momentum to the project. Being the Leader of the largest population, the largest national economy and the biggest financial contributor in the EU of course helped in carving out that niche.
Her diminishing numbers of fans and supporters in Germany will mourn her passing. They saw in her stability and calm, a woman who eschewed political gestures and strong arguments. She worked behind the scenes, sought compromises, changed policies when the wind changed and often sat on things for a long time before venturing into the argument. For most of her time Germany grew more prosperous, and unemployment stayed low following the SPD led contentious labour market and benefit reforms at the opening of the century.
Her legacy however should not be air brushed because she was a survivor. She leaves her party gravely weakened, sitting on around half the vote in recent polls  compared with what she achieved in the Federal elections of 2013 (21% in a recent poll versus 41.5%) and facing a difficult election. We will see soon how the party has performed in the actual election.
She has undermined the policies and principles of the conservative party she inherited. She led the party from support for nuclear power to a policy of closing it down. She changed policy from controlling migration to welcoming in hundreds of thousands of new economic migrants. She claimed to represent German conservative principles in the EU based around low levels of debt and no money printing only to allow or be unable to stop massive Quantitative easing programmes, the issue of EU debt and general large overshoots of the German inspired Maastricht debt and deficit criteria by many countries. She tried to reassure worried Germans that Germany’s wealth and tax revenues would not be used to subsidise high deficit countries elsewhere in the EU, only to permit the build up of over Euro 1 trillion of German deposits at zero interest at the ECB which was lent on at zero interest to the deficit countries. She leaves her successor with difficult issues over the transition to net zero, the requirement to close down the German petrol and diesel vehicle industry and the need to get out of coal whilst ending nuclear.
More importantly, her main legacy in the EU is to have greatly assisted in the unintended exit of the UK from the EU. She led Mr Cameron and Mrs May to think that she had power to settle the EU position, which may have been true, and that she might be the helping hand they needed. Instead she was a hawk denying Mr Cameron any negotiating wins to take home to persuade floating voters to stay with the EU. She offered Mrs May no help to shape a deal which more MPs could have accepted. Her enthusiasm to force the UK into a federal project which a majority of the public were never going to accept sealed the fate of two UK Prime Ministers and allowed Leave to win both the referendum and the 2019 General election.
September 25, 2021
Not one of your best pieces, I don’t think, John.
September 25, 2021
“She changed policy from controlling migration to welcoming in hundreds of thousands of new economic migrants”
Come on John, she did no such thing and you know it.
Germany only grants residency to those with upheld asylum claims – a small percentage of the influx.
Yes, Germany accepted large numbers initially but simply to prevent Italy and Greece from being overwhelmed.
September 25, 2021
Come off it MiC
A million were admitted into Germany without any real democratic process where voters were actually involved.
A record for Germany.
September 26, 2021
Now most of them are fleeing to the UK.
She was a complete disaster for Germany and the EU.
September 26, 2021
No, only of the order of a percent or so are trying to reach the UK.
The great majority are content to stay in Germany etc., even if only about one in forty claims are upheld.
September 26, 2021
Furthermore, she broke German law, EU law, and International law in the process, all without consulting anyone. This set off unprecedented levels of illegal immigration into Europe. The fact is she was terrified of unflattering footage emerging from the border and that was paramount in her mind. More charitable people say she was trying to grab the cream of the educated Syrian class before anyone else did.
September 26, 2021
tens of thousands tramped from country to country along railway lines causing untold concern for residents and migrants alike.
September 26, 2021
She had something going with Putin and by accident or design allowed him to control Russian gas imports to destabilise Western Europe.. so good riddance imvho.
Net zero is a while off. Uk population needs gas this winter. Prenez-vous un grip!
Pray the wind blows đ too
September 26, 2021
Itâs always about the foreigners with you lot, isnât it?
A million refugees has arrived in Europe – many at Germanyâs borders. What would you have done? Or is your response so inhuman that you darenât write it?
September 26, 2021
They didnt just arrive andy
Merkel told them to come to Germany
September 25, 2021
“Not one of your best pieces, I donât think, John.” Actually, it is bang on the money Martin.
Mrs Merkel is held in too much esteem here but has certainly been no friend to this country.
Of course (whilst you might not like to hear it) her intransigence was probably a key factor in some people deciding to vote Leave. Cameron might have swung it for Remain if he hadn’t come back from Brussels empty handed. We can thank Mrs M for that unintended consequence! đ
September 26, 2021
Exactly as you say bang on the money. I suppose we should be grateful that she gave Cameron and May almost nothing. But why on earth did the foolish, cast rubber, abandon ship, face Eurosceptic & rather pathetic David Cameron decide to accept this worthless thin gruel âdealâ and recommend it to the nation?
Anyone wishing to depress themselves should search crime figure in Sweden. From one of the safest countries 20 years back but now (& for the past 15 years) Sweden has the highest rate of death by shooting in Europe. Plus over 100 bombings PA and many other appalling statistics.
September 26, 2021
I read in the Telegraph today that the Committee on Climate Change are accused of grossly misleading parliament (rightly in my view). They go on to say a Business Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesman said “with some (EVs) now costing as little as ÂŁ1p to run”.
With charging, financing, depreciation (of car and battery), maintenance, insurance they actually cost more like ÂŁ1 a mile to run over the life of the car. Does this BEIS department have a clue what they are talking about? We know the ministers do not.
Plus they even cause more CO2 output than keeping your old small ICE car as a new EV cars has to be build.
A typical old ICE care will cost more like ÂŁ20p per mile and much of this is tax revenue for the government too. Whereas there is almost no tax on the EV currently and they get a grant subsidy.
We are governed either by innumerate, group think idiots or perhaps just dishonest liars on the make? What other explanation?
September 26, 2021
The article is behind the Telegraph paywall – and why would I pay anything to that rag?
But from what I can see the people doing the accusing including Craig Mackinkey – ex-UKIPPER. And Nigel Lawsonâs thoroughly discredited Global Warming think tank.
Your problem is that rather than listening to sensible people you always believe the extremist nutters.
September 26, 2021
Yes, it was the EU’s refusal to agree to Cameron’s requests that showed we had zero ‘influence’ and friends there and that led to Leave’s victory. And Merkel was instrumental in this. First she stabbed Cameron on the back, supporting the appointment of Juncker after having promised not to do so, and then she spat in Cameron’s face when he sought a few small changes to the EU’s rules on migration.
Given how close the referendum vote was, all sensible observers agree that if the EU – led by Merkel – had been more accommodating and had given Cameron a few big ‘wins’, then Remain would have won. But Merkel and the rest of the EU hated us much too much for that, and that hatred continues today. That’s the reason we just had to leave. Our self-respect just would not allow us to remain in an organisation that hates us so much and treats us with such loathing and contempt.
September 26, 2021
Cameron asked the European Union to destroy its central pillars to please people like John, and to get his excuse for a party united.
Even if they’d agreed to do that, the ERG types would not have been remotely satisfied, and people like Mrs. Merkel knew that.
They were 100% correct to refuse, therefore.
September 26, 2021
Spot on!
September 25, 2021
So when she said “We can do this” she was actually saying “We can admit the small percentage of the influx that have upheld asylum claims”?
September 26, 2021
Exactly.
September 26, 2021
Merkel not only did what you deny, MiC, but did so while knowing full well what it would lead to – social division. Five years earlier she told a CDU meeting in Potsdam that immigrants needed to do more to integrate into German society. The multicultural approach, where they did not integrate, ‘has failed, utterly failed’, she said. The idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living happily “side by side” did not work, according to her. Yet in 2015-16 she opened the borders and allowed into Germany at least a million Middle Eastern migrants, exacerbating a situation that she herself had said did not work. That is not good government.
September 26, 2021
No one thought that the refugee crisis – dumped in Europe’s lap by US and UK recklessness in the ME – was a Good Thing.
The question which Germany, Sweden, France etc. answered magnificently was “can we do what is needed to help Italy and Greece, who are being overwhelmed?”
The generous and principled response from Mrs. Merkel was “we can do this”.
Your cynical twisting of her words are no more than I would expect from you.
September 26, 2021
MiC: Of course you’re right that the sheer volume of refugees in the Middle East was a massive problem, following the inhuman and illegal wars waged on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But I seem to remember the refugee crisis in September 2015 was directly provoked (i) by the UN’s decision earlier in the year to stop providing refugees in countries neighbouring Syria with the level of support they had previously enjoyed, and (ii) by the EU’s decision in 2015 not to assist Greece’s totally underequipped coastguard force in keeping out illegal migration. Not that this should have come as a surprise – the EU Commission had itself claimed in 2007 that Europe needed ‘about 56 million migrants’ by 2050 in order to compensate for the predicted shrinkage of the native European population.
The most attractive countries for migrants, Germany and Britain, were not on Europe’s Eastern borders, so the EU’s ‘Dublin III’ Regulation should have prevented migrants from being allowed beyond Greece. How to get round that? Simply ignore the Dublin III regulation, which is what Merkel did, and is what Johnson is doing now, with third-world migration from France.
The fact that some European leaders had gleefully participated in Middle Eastern wars does not mean that the social consequences of unrestricted migration should be dumped on their citizens – even the ones that foolishly elected them.
September 26, 2021
The more Sweden and Germany took in, the more poured into Greece, Spain, and Italy. Just as with Britain and France today. And with the USA and Mexico.
September 26, 2021
There’s a suspicion that ‘UK and US recklessness’ was in fact deliberate policy to provide a flow of ‘refugees’ in pursuit of the globalist objective of destroying Western democracies to facilitate the ‘Great Reset’. Ghadaffi was obstructing the passage of migrants, so he had to go. But of course a number of migrants come from countries unmolested by the globalists’ wars, such as Bangladesh and Tunisia. What we now have is a ‘me too’ effect, where in an era of global communication their former neighbours are getting free stuff merely by rocking up in Britain.
September 26, 2021
She said ‘we’ without a moment’s thought on getting agreement to have several countries invaded and overwhelmed….remember the drowned children washed up on a beach Martin?
September 26, 2021
Hat Man
It is almost as though North Africa was ‘uncorked’ deliberately.
As MiC says, our interference…
September 26, 2021
MiC – Reporting what a person actually said doesn’t mean I’m twisting their words. Merkel’s observation in 2010 that integration wasn’t working caused a lot of upset on the left of German politics (your sort of people), so you can have no doubt that that’s what she was saying. Of course, whether she was being sincere is another matter. Some critics thought she said that to stave off a right wing revolt within her party, and didn’t want those elements forming a new party to the right of the CDU. With the subsequent emergence of the AfD, she has now failed in that too.
September 26, 2021
MiC
As if we needed EVEN more proof that youâre deluded but thanks for providing it anyway!
Donât you ever get the feeling that youâre swimming against a strong current?
September 26, 2021
You forget that she banned immigration by those from the A8 new entrant EU countries for as long as permitted by their accession arrangements while the UK opened its borders to them. That is why we have a large Polish population while Germany does not, despite being next door.
September 26, 2021
Say no more.
September 26, 2021
Mike Wilson
Situation normal then Mike?
September 26, 2021
Ahh, you donât understand quoting someone else. Must make it hard to follow whatâs going on
September 26, 2021
MW
+ 100
September 26, 2021
@ Mic âNot one of your best pieces, I donât think, John.â I assume you mean you do think this not you donât?
Perhaps not, but that is after all a very competitive field. It is however a very good analysis.
September 25, 2021
This sounds like something Mrs Merkel would approve:
Permanent Secretary Home Office Matthew Rycroft confirmed on the Work Of The Home Office select committee 22nd September that 15,000+ refugees are currently housed in âhotelsâ (or as the Home Office call them âbridging accommodation)
September 26, 2021
+1
âBridgingâuntil the big, new built-for-a family-of-twelve (!) houses are finished, no doubt to the highest spec?
September 25, 2021
‘She has undermined the policies and principles of the conservative party she inherited.’
Most would agree with that comment about Mrs May. However it is used against Merkel. The woman who by opening borders and inviting all to wander through EU countries, caused untold misery both in the many countries but also among the migrants led to believe they would be welcomed and find a better life.
No wonder she will not be missed.
September 26, 2021
Micky Taking.
Your first paragraph could also apply to our present leader the way things are going. History has a nasty habit of repeating itself.
September 26, 2021
+1
September 25, 2021
Talking about leaders, I think there is fair chance that today will go down in history as the moment Starmer killed the Labour Party for a generation. By proposing to get rid of One Man One vote and then backing down, he has effectively immunized OMOV against future challenges.
This puts an end to Starmer’s own leadership, because to surrender so quickly on a key issue – and in the face of personal abuse from John McDonnell – shows zero strength. And that means that centre-left Starmer will soon be replaced by a left-centre-left figure, but they in turn will be under threat by the three quid brigade, who if they elected Corbyn, will soon find another pure-left candidate.
So the next two or three Labour leaders will find themselves constantly tacking to the left to fend off challenges from further-left figures, and Labour eventually ends up with some Tony Benn, or even worse.
And since Labour’s guaranteed tribal vote is dying off, and today’s technically aware voters won’t put up with hard-left Socialism, not matter how you sweeten it, that means that Labou faces yet more election losses, and even a future of third place results.
September 26, 2021
Not really – it takes a special kind of incompetence to get a country into the mess in which it now finds itself, and these facts are becoming impossible to hide, even from Leave voters.
Tory infighting has been far worse – expelling the only actual talent that it possessed en masse, for instance.
September 26, 2021
But you said that the EU wasn’t depressing UK wages and conditions of employment.
It is now patently obvious that it was.
We had five years of May trying to stop us leaving the EU and nothing done about actually leaving it.
September 26, 2021
No, Tory employment and union “law” meant that UK workers were in a very poor position to defend themselves against competition of ANY kind. Yes, workers from anywhere else were competition.
But pay and conditions on the Mainland have generally been in nothing like the same downward spiral and they’re all members of the European Union, aren’t they?
So what was the difference?
September 26, 2021
MiC – No, it takes a special kind of vindictiveness for a left of centre media to create a run on fuel the weekend of the Labour Party conference.
September 26, 2021
perfect timing let us hope many couldn’t travel- Brighton? Blockaded M3 / M25 M23…
September 26, 2021
And you also have the ‘Red Conservatives’ trespassing into what was once Labour territory – Tax , spend and waste. Or to put it another way, buying your votes with the voters money.
September 26, 2021
If you spend my money wisely then I’ll vote for you.
What ever is wrong with that?
The Tories have been spending it in trying to hide the disastrous results of their ineptitude, however, e.g. bribing car makers to stay in the UK, and it looks like there’ll be some incentive scheme to bribe back European Union lorry drivers amongst the rest.
I mean, since we’re told that “the lorry driver shortage is just as bad in the European Union as it is here” why ever would they want to come here otherwise?
Maybe the claim is false? It certainly looks like it.
September 26, 2021
so you would rather we had abandoned all the carmakers employees and associated contractors to unemployment? Bet you made a fuss on closing empty pits though!
September 26, 2021
No, I’d rather that the Tories had not inflicted disaster on those employees’ industry by their puritanical, obsessive version of brexit.
September 27, 2021
MiC – what incentive scheme to ‘bribe Eu drivers back’? Please give us the information you have.
September 26, 2021
Particularly foolish too, to try to dismantle private education. The new Labour base, the urban immigrants, are full of aspiration for their children and make up more and more of the independent schools’ constituency.
September 26, 2021
Rose, doesnât that sum up the Labour Party – donât raise up anybody or lift anybody out, you average people down. People that worked to keep food on the shelves, companies that did everything to stay open and keep the Country running and ticking along, whilst the majority were safe in their homes for a month at the start of the covid crisis, are now vilified for making money. This Country will never make the leaps forward and create the wealth needed to help the poor in society by continually removing any incentives or providing the means to meet the aspirations of gifted and talented and just pure entrepreneurial people.
If everyone is average and the same no-one benefits.
There is talk of spending millions and millions on those that havenât helped themselves to get qualifications in fourteen years of free education in the UK, but is there the equivalent spent on the most gifted and talented the actual top 5% that can make a difference in this Country.
September 25, 2021
There has always been something about Merkel that has bothered me. Though she was born in Hamburg, she grew up in East Germany, joined a communist youth organisation, studied Marx, Lenin and Engels – and passed exams in socialist theory – went into higher education and became a research chemist. As Chancellor she was careful to keep the Bundeswehr weak, particularly after the Cold War ended, and spent little on defence, which enraged Trump. She has always been close to ex-KGB Putin and supported the building of gas pipelines to import Russian gas. Too close….
I would agree that Merkel has been no friend to the UK. She made sure that the UK imported more German products (particularly cars and Lager) than Germany took from us as exports while we were in the EU. She made sure that the German manufacturing base and economy survived the various world recessions, while ours suffered. The Germans refer to Merkel as “mutti” which can be translated as “mummy” and she retains a great deal of affection among the German public. Even so, I have always regarded her as untrustworthy and as Sir John says, no friend of the UK
September 26, 2021
As did many in New Labour.
She looked after ‘her’ nations interests better than our PM’s and MP’s looked after their own. Can’t blame her for that ! Our lot are quite happy for UK industry and jobs either to be shipped abroad due to high energy costs or, sold to foreign ‘investors’ / governments who cream off the profits with zero back investment – eg Gas storage. It also makes their spiv mates in the City a pile in fees.
September 26, 2021
Skara Gold
Well said.
September 25, 2021
One of the most over rated politicians I can think of – with fierce competition from Nicola Sturgeon and Jacinda Ardern. Her unmaking was, of course, PR which makes it extremely difficult to achieve anything at all other than wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to form a coalition.
In all those years, what did she achieve for her great country?
September 25, 2021
Do great leaders create great countries, or does it take a great country to stand the cost of a great leader?
September 26, 2021
To answer your first question I offer you, Otto von Bismarck.
September 26, 2021
It is amazing how so many people and happy to vote for even proven appalling leaders and would be leaders:- Nicola Sturgeon, Jacinda Ardern, Sadiq Khan, Justin Trudeau, Corbyn, Blair, Brown âŠ
September 26, 2021
And you voted for………..Alexander Johnson – boom tish!
September 26, 2021
And Corbyn would have been a much better bet? Oh Yea – well the voters weren’t that stupid! đ
September 26, 2021
Quite simply, as the evidence stacks up – how could anyone possibly have been worse?
September 26, 2021
Well no I did not as I no longer live in the UK. I would have as he was considerably better than the only realistic alternative of Labour/SNP.
September 26, 2021
Rose
Just love the comparisons.
September 26, 2021
Well, PR seems to have given them a sane political system and a country with a huge balance of payments surplus and an exceptionally high standard of living. Good health services too. Difficult to see why you thing first past the post is better.
September 26, 2021
Bismarck set up their health system and we set up their unions. Not having the union trouble we did after the war gave them an enormous advantage, besides which Germans have virtues which have superseded their political system. But just think how well they could have done with strong united government.
September 27, 2021
The Italians have a form of PR to0 – love the country, cars and people but never wanted their government…
September 28, 2021
The Irish have a problem too called PR. They always tell us,”Hang on to FPTP. Once you let it go you will never get it back.”
Now we have to witness the most orderly and disciplined people in Europe going through their post election shambles until at last a weak government emerges which no-one voted for.
September 25, 2021
You say Mrs merkel was no friend of the UK – truth is we have few friends now – not in Europe – not in America – not in India or Africa – but maybe Australia? ‘ while it suits
Reply We have more friends now than when we were in the EU
September 26, 2021
“A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed”
September 26, 2021
I don’t see any ‘Friends indeed’ offering help.
September 26, 2021
Reply to reply
I disagree. W do not have any friends, only interests. Something I am happy to live with and a policy I wish our government would pursue.
September 26, 2021
Hazlet
Teal friends do not constantly ask you for money, if on the rear occasions that happens, they always seek to pay you back.
September 26, 2021
Teal = Real.
September 25, 2021
Bro, seriously. Have you not seen whatâs going on around the place? And weâre penning stuff like this???
September 26, 2021
+1
September 26, 2021
It is because, not in spite of what’s going on all around, that John writes these pieces, I’d say.
September 26, 2021
Whilst I agree, much of what is going on is covered elsewhere in depth.
September 26, 2021
It appears to have escaped your notice that this is a personal blog, not a national news broadcaster.
September 27, 2021
I don’t know if you are a constituent, but as it happens I am. And I think you will find that this ‘personal blog’ (as you call it) is linked from Mr Redwood’s Parliamentary page and, as such, is pretty much the only way we mere constituents get to hear what our MP thinks (cf. other Conservative MP’s I can mention, who take the time to routinely write to their constituents and earn their crust). So if you don’t mind I will express an opinion on it’s content and relevance to me. Of course, if you can direct me to where I can receive a different newsletter dealing with relevant constituency topics, I will greatly receive it………….
Reply I communicate all the time with constituents by email, press articles and releases, social media and conversations. This blog has a local pages section which sets out some of the things I do locally. This website is not a Parliamentary website.
September 25, 2021
Mrs Merkel stayed in office well past her ”sell-by-date” and her party will lose badly in the coming election.
In her early years she gained a reputation for solving the problem rather than winning the argument, but as time passed the suffocating cobweb of the EU enveloped her and clouded her judgement. A good example to all, not to stay too long. Seven to ten years is the maximum.
September 26, 2021
What about the one blocking a bed for 34 years and in his old age turning from EU-allergic to Merkel-paranoid?
September 26, 2021
George Brooks
Exactly. Sad that the SNP and Sturgeon have not read the script.
Could it be the Scottish people have not written one? In aÄșl these situations as always it will end in tears.
September 25, 2021
Merkel is one of the most over-rated politicians of our time. She was clearly an enemy of the UK, but like a certain predecessor of hers she underestimated us and ended up with the exact opposite of what she wanted. She was certainly a major cause of Brexit. Perhaps we should actually be thankful to her for that …
September 25, 2021
It was all smoke and mirrors.
Smoke and mirrors so that she could maintain Germany’s position as the exemplar of fiscal responsibility by obeying its âDebt brakeâ yet inject significant deficit spending into its recessed economy, which is starved of public infrastructure spending.
She set up new institutions which would be funded by government-guaranteed debt and spend billions into the economy while ensuring these transactions did not show up on the official fiscal books of the German government.
The only financial constraint these new agencies were bound by were the European Commissionâs Stability and Growth Pact rules. But because the allowable spending difference between the âDebt brakeâ and the SGP is huge (but still well below what is needed to redress the years of austerity and infrastructure degradation) provided a much-needed stimulus to the ailing German economy.
Meanwhile, the Germans told the world how thrifty they are and how they obey their own rules. And then said that all other Member States should also stick to the rules. The Debt brake was just a sham. The upside is that needed public spending will enter the economy which tells everybody that the Debt brake should never have been introduced in the first place or allowed to be used by other member states. Such is life in the EU â a daily circus.
It was the German government-owned development bank â Kreditanstalt fĂŒr Wiederaufbau (KfW) that allowed Germany to say do what we say not do what we do to other member states. Allowed Germany to avoid the permanent austerity measures of other member states.
The role that the KfW plays in the German economy after it was created in 1948 as a German vehicle to faciliate the infrastructure rebuilding under the Marshall Plan. Allowed the smoke and mirrors.
It is now one of the largest banks in Germany (taken its main business units into account) and pumps millions of Euros in the domestic economy and the export sector (via IPEX, its 100 per cent owned subsidiary).
It is a major reason why the public debt ratio in Germany is around 60 per cent rather than closer to 100 per cent of GDP.
It is a major reason why the federal fiscal deficit was able to be cut to the point of achieving surplus without scorching the German economy. Remember g that budget deficits are private sector surpluses and budget surpluses are private sector deficits.
It is a classic story about smoke-and-mirrors accounting, German-style. The Federal Government owns 80 per cent of a development bank while the States own the remaining 20 per cent. The national government uses it as a fiscal instrument.
Its chairman is/ was the Federal Minister of Finance, Olaf Scholz and its Deputy-Chairman is Peter Altmaier, Minster of Economic Affairs and Energy.
It borrows in capital markets and all its debt is federal government-guaranteed, which reduces its funding costs relative to a private bank with no such guarantee. It is also exempt from paying company tax.
Taken together, it offers loans to developments at much lower rates than the commercial banks, although it is precluded by law from direct competition with the banks.
The KfW extends credit to the private sector, which, inasmuch as the liquidity enters the German economy, allows for a higher increase in aggregate spending without being recorded as âdeficit spendingâ in the the official government books, which are subject to the European Commissionâs Stability and Growth Pact rules, and more recently to the ridiculous Debt Brake that is now embedded in the Basic Law (Constitution).
As a result, economic activity is higher than it would be without the KfWâs input and the fiscal deficit can be lower at each level of real GDP growth. The KfW provides the German government with a vehicle to shift stimulus away from the fiscal books and onto the bankâs books.
Whether you think that is controversial or not, in the light of all that has been going on in the Eurozone over the last decade or so, depends on your viewpoint.
It is a demonstration of scandalous hypocrisy given to the way Germany insisted on Greece and other member states and the way they were being treated. Not being allowed to run government deficits greater than 3% of GDP and being fined if they did so. Government deficits being private sector surpluses when you Look at the asset side of the balance sheets.
Olaf Schultz is Merkel and will follow her agenda. It is how the EU operates and get their stooges into positions of power. Olaf , like Starmer is just a neoliberal tribute act. If you think either are not embedded in the middle of the right wing spectrum geopolitically then you are deluding yourselves. Drahgi who wasn’t even elected by voters in Italy is the exact same. None of them would be allowed to be there otherwise. It is a geopolitical circus.
September 26, 2021
Yeah Derek I understand what you wrote BUT why donât all the other member states do the same, why doesnât the UK?
If Cameron and Osborne just changed Britains benefits as they had the ability to it would have cut immigration and this government needs to get on and do it now.
September 26, 2021
That is a fascinating and illuminating analysis of the way things are done in Germany. I was aware of other wheezes, based on careful use of regulations, that protect certain sectors (brewing and pharmacies come to mind) but had not appreciated the scale of the arrangements you describe.
September 26, 2021
And here we go again, yet another person to blame for why Brexit is turning into a complete disaster from which this country will take decades to recover. It’s the fault of Remoaners, judges, civil servants, the EU … and now we learn it is Angela Merkel’s fault, as if it was her job to turn the Brexit fantasies into workable policy. John Redwood will never point the finger at those truly responsible for this Brexit catastrophe – the people like him who promised the British people that Brexit would be pain free, negotaited in an afternoon, full of sunny uplands.
September 26, 2021
And now we learn from the head of the Swiss Logistics giant KĂŒhne & Nagel that the deliveries problem is world-wide, not caused by Brexit, but caused by Covid response measures affecting airports and especially harbours, where productivity has slumped. Loading teams can no longer overlap their time schedules, he said, which may be a question of whether workers have been injected or not. Orders in Europe are taking weeks longer to arrive than before the Covid crisis.
Good to know the world economy is in safe hands.
September 26, 2021
Where are the queues at filling stations on the Continent? And the animals being culled rather than going to slaughter? And the crops rotting on trees and in the fields?
There just aren’t any, are there?
September 26, 2021
The problem that so many Remoaners have is that they never understood that Brexit never was an end in itself – it is simply a mechanism to allow us to make our own choices, rather than being governed by the EU. Whether we make good choices or bad choices is now up to us. One of the benefits of Brexit will be an improvement in our governing class, as they now cannot simply coast, allowing the EU to make all our decisions, and cannot hide behind the excuse ‘this is all the EU’s fault’ when they get things wrong. Membership of the EU led to the infantilising of our politicians, and this will, I’m afraid, take a while to correct.
We can now see how stupid and useless Boris Johnson is, for instance. He refuses to solve the NI problem, he sold out our fishermen, he refuses to ensure energy self-sufficiency, he over-reacted to covid (leading directly, for instance, to the present shortage of truck drivers), he refuses to stop the Channel invasion, he refuses to leave the ECHR, etc. Brexit has exposed his inadequacies.
Boris is not just grossly incompetent, but a coward too. He refuses to make wholesale changes to Britain’s laws now that we are out of the EU, preferring instead to dither and tinker in a hopeless fashion. Take, for instance, gene editing (CRISPR). This is such a fantastic, wonderful, amazing opportunity that, frankly, it was worth leaving the EU for this alone (it is banned there). But still, after all this time, Boris has done nothing other than conduct ‘negotiations’ and ‘discussions’. There is NOTHING to discuss: just liberalise the rules, completely and immediately. I despise the government’s timidity. And worse still, it appears that the government is only considering doing so for plants, not animals. This article reveals very clearly why gene editing for farm animals is crucial: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/26/gene-editing-would-allow-us-to-create-hardier-farm-breeds Will Boris listen? I doubt it. We need a better leader – NOW.
September 26, 2021
I 100% agree with you. BREXIT was only the beginning of what is, and I said here BEFORE the 2016 EU Referendum, the slow and painful journey we have to make in order to be both free, independent and well governed.
Let the idiots expose themselves, so that we can be well rid.
September 26, 2021
So it was the Germans fault we never got what we wanted when we were in the EU, and itâs the Germans fault weâre not getting what we wanted now we are out of the EU. Not the fault of the Brexiters, oh no, heavens no
September 26, 2021
So you think it was Mrs Merkelâs job to negotiate for the UK? Really this is a shaming post, you sound like a toddler bawling itâs not faaiirrr. If Brexit is a mess – and with petrol running out, by God it is – try blaming Brexiters. No one else wanted this, itâs on you
Reply Iâm delighted she was so unpleasant that we got out. She anD the EU failed because they wanted to keep us in.
September 26, 2021
Failed John?
They aren’t queueing for miles at every available filling station on the Mainland – nor in Northern Ireland for some odd reason come to that.
They have plenty of CO2 cylinders too.
Reply The policy of keeping us in failed. Do you never admit anything is wrong in the EU?
September 26, 2021
In a chaotic world there’s never anywhere which is perfectly suited to everything that happens.
However, some places are more ill-prepared than others, aren’t they?
You ERG types demand that the Perfect must be the mortal enemy of the Good as far as the European Union is concerned, yet as far as your own catastrophic mishandling of the UK goes it’s the opposite extreme, that is, so long as most of the population are still just about drawing breath then things are acceptable.
You can’t hide behind that double standard much longer. Its life is probably measured in hours now.
September 26, 2021
There was no “policy of keeping us in”. The UK voted to Leave. The EU accepted that. And the UK has left. True, the EU did not accept that , as Brexiter after Brexiter wrongly claimed, we could leave and yet still be treated as if we were a member, so now there are lots of very costly barriers to trade between the UK and our biggest market, the EU. But that’s Brexit, that’s what you voted for. Leave the club, get out of the clubhouse
September 26, 2021
What costly barriers are there?
September 26, 2021
How are the supermarket shelves in Belfast? With the EU obstructing food deliveries at least there are jobs for tanker drivers.
September 26, 2021
Reply to reply – no John, not since the 1970’s when I first passed through the Heathrow without being checked by Customs or Immigration at that time, and with only a nod from the policeman on the gate, I thought this EU or EEC as it was at the time was the greatest thing ever and have not changed my mind since but lucky lucky for me now I don’t live in your jurisdiction.
September 26, 2021
And I suppose you would laud the traveller’s convenience of a single currency too?
September 26, 2021
Her personal history condemns her though unlike contemporary British political leaders she displayed a degree of pragmatism (the Germanic character still) when it was needed ie her decision to bring Germany closer to Russia by massively ratcheting up gas imports from Putin is evidence of a political leader who understands that the world is imperfect and that the material needs of a nation take absolutely priority. Akin to a Faustian Pact, Germany and by extension the rest of Europe may come to regret being so reliant on the dude Vladimir for gas. No virtue signalling with Putin.
She also understood that she could exploit the EU and its structures using Germany’s economic and financial power to expand Germany’s export markets using debt capture in the way China now does today. Debt is both a form of finance and a unique political weapon of control using obligation to extract concessions and rights. China and Germany understand this perfectly. ‘You vill pay what you owe us or else the consequences will be severe’.
September 26, 2021
+1
September 26, 2021
She didn’t have to dispense with nuclear power. It was incredibly stupid and short sighted. Now she is dependent on Putin, and also tearing up ancient forests for the open cast mining of dirty brown lignite. That is taking “pragmatism” too far. She should have stuck to German common sense and engineering.
September 26, 2021
Personally, I will remember Merkel for just assuming control and inviting millions of unchecked immigrants into Europe without any thought for, or consultation with, other countries or their people. Democracy and courtesy went out the window.
September 26, 2021
They were refugees. Do you know what a refugee is?
September 26, 2021
Surprising comment:
One million migrants were on the move in 2015, coming from Iraq, Syria, Libya, and farther afield in Africa and the Middle East: Had they been âinvitedâ?
âWithout any thought for, or consultation with, other countriesâ? Most of these migrants had originally been arriving in Turkey, Greece, Italy: so had the German Chancellor not had interactions with these Governments? as well as those in the countries on the way to Germany?
As for democracy, as far as I know the CDU/CSU was put in pole position by the German voters in 2017 and Merkel chosen as Chancellor for the fourth time in 2018.
September 26, 2021
Yes they were invited by Merkel and by Sweden too.
Virtue signalling by leaders of Germany and Sweden encouraged well over a million to make their journey.
September 26, 2021
As if the migrants had waited a positive signal from the German chancellor or the Swedish PM to start on their journey to Europe.
September 27, 2021
That positive signal seemed to work hef.
September 26, 2021
Yes, if anything remotely like that had actually happened then you would be right to be very critical of her.
Nothing like it did, though.
Those that she did invite into Germany were *already here*, overwhelming fellow European Union countries such as Italy and Greece.
September 26, 2021
Complete nonsense MiC
There were not a million in Greece nor Italy
September 27, 2021
No, when there’s a final at Wembley there aren’t 90,000 people on the platform of Wembley Central either, Pete.
September 27, 2021
More nonsense from you.
You will be up to 50 posts a day soon.
September 26, 2021
Wow. She did exactly what your Tory government is doing. Made promises then ignored or broke them. Please update in your next piece swapping her name for Johnson.
And in other news we see it finally surfacing that we have been lied to over the cost of Net Zero, the frantic spinning of nuclear as a solution when even if we start now it will take 15/20 years to come on stream, more uninformed nonsense from Andrea Leadsom on heat pumps, forget the new larger rads, underfloor heating, where are new builds etc with combis going to put their hot water tank and vast increases in our energy bills because yet again you failed to plan.
You say Merkel lost support, bring on the next election, you will find that a lot closer to home.
Please tell the economically stupid Johnson that if he forces up drivers wages it is us who have to pay and my bills are increasing enough. Obviously not a problem for him because he just gets a donor hoping/getting an honour in return.
September 26, 2021
Johnson’s not ignorant of the market and the nature of basic personal and commercial finance. It’s just that he doesn’t give a toss. His concerns are promoting the position and power of this party and his future career and that’s the only thing that drives him, his colleagues and those in opposition.
I believe we are seeing the rise of an extremist form of politics embraced by all western political leaders that will at some point end in disaster. When the State becomes our master purporting to be our protector as opposed to our servant then be afraid, be very afraid.
Ask yourself why it is that Communism, its ideology and its supporters in the west have not been demonised and criminalised? Why is this extremism tolerated? This refusal to criminalise those who propagate such ideas that have led to genocide and slaughter on an unimaginable scale suggests official endorsement of such an ideology for political ends. That’s terrifying
September 26, 2021
If a job is unpopular, it should pay more. That is how market forces work. What is wrong is the Ponzi scheme of bucking the market by importing cheap labour from abroad, which you end up paying for in benefits and housing for the families. Perhaps we should pay more for fruit and veg so that the pickers can get better wages. Money can be saved by getting rid of the overpaid parasitic jobs like ‘Diversity Officer’.
September 26, 2021
If you want people to do long hours in poor conditions, you have to pay them well Nig(e)L.
If you don’t, people simply won’t do this work and the job doesn’t get done. You can keep importing cheap labour for a while but you still need to house and look after them. When conditions in their own countries improve, they will want to go home to friends and family. I know families who came to UK when times were tough elsewhere but have now returned home because wages have improved there – nothing to do with Brexit, just a simple change in circumstances for the better (from their point of view). By the way, I’d have been delighted if they had stayed here, they worked hard and are a nice family group.
So the cost of labour has been kept low by allowing this workforce migration and other costs have been kept down by exporting work/jobs to the Far East. But as conditions improve elsewhere, things will change here and costs will go up. The solution is to be more productive as a nation and then we can afford to pay ourselves more. Importing cheap labour and exporting UK jobs isn’t g0ing to work any more, so get used to it.
September 26, 2021
Good morning.
She was in the right place at the right time, coming from the former East Germany and being selected as Chancellor Kohl’s successor. She was the kind of person Emperor Napoleon would have loved – LUCKY !! But she made damned well in her time that any potential rival was either placed nowhere in power or, if they were, given a position that would eventually ruin them.
Both she and Germany benefited from France, the traditional leader in the EU, from dropping the ball and thereby gaining considerable influence in that organisation as a result. From here she skillfully cemented her position as the unwritten leader of the EU.
Germany’s modern foreign policy has been to secure its position via the EU through economic and political means, the same as France has in the past. They tried to control the nations and their wealth through military matters, but found the EEC / EU a better method through legally binding treaties. Remember, the EU started life as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Coal and Steel being the main ingredients in armament, but also in peaceful manufacture.
But all political life ends and so too is it with her. She is going just at the right time. With the UK stymied through the Withdrawal Agreement a potential rival to Germany has been removed. Perhaps this is her greatest foreign policy achievement ?
There is going to be a power vacuum in Germany, the EU and the Western World. Pitty, we really could have done with a PM with the vision, will, ability and political acumen of Chancellor Merkel. Unfortunately we have someone who can only do embarrassing impressions of a long since departed elder statesman.
What bad luck !
September 26, 2021
MB,
Your second para has it right I think. The question is why has she so completely commited Germany to the EU project. Without a doubt, Germany is the money that props up the Euro and the free cash spent by the Commission. Control of the EU power levers is almost total. Will the Commision get its instructions from Berlin openly? The paymaster must surely want a return on investment.
A total takeover of the EU might have to wait to see who are the new encumbents in Berlin and Paris.
September 26, 2021
Peter
To answer your question one has to both look at the geography and the history of Germany. Germany is, although not quite, a landlocked country. Yes is has some access to the North Sea and the Baltic but, the Baltic is a closes sea much like the Mediterranean was before the Suez Canal, and its ports such as Kiel can be blockaded in time of war much like it has been in the past. It has a very envious and powerful neighbours to the west, east and south of it and, it is still very much a new country. To this end Germany feels the need to secure both its borders and economic access to the rest of the world, where their markets lay. This is done primarily through the EU. So Germany, her politicians and business, who have always enjoyed very close relationships, will act in their interests and, currently, EU membership is in their interests. And when it is no longer, they will leave.
September 26, 2021
While we witnessed her “…allow or be unable to stop massive Quantitative easing programmes, the issue of EU debt and general large overshoots of the German inspired Maastricht debt and deficit criteria by many countries” all that of course occurred only after Mrs. Merkel saw Greece humbled and traduced in a manner and to an extent that would normally surely make even evil empires blush with shame.
She may have realized a repeat performance against another member state was not on when the alternative is just making reassuring noises to the German taxpayers while the Evil Empire is permitted to overlook the Weimar experience.
September 26, 2021
Apparently in german, there is a slang verb âmerkelnâ. The word comes from a previously coined adjective used to describe Frau Mâs style of politics âmerkelschâ, suggesting a ponderous approach to decision making which some attribute to her scientific training.
I may be wrong but the only other political name I can think of that is used in this sort of way is quisling.
September 26, 2021
Merkeln: to default to a delivery mode so deadpan and convoluted that it is impossible for the locutor to be pinned down.
September 26, 2021
+1
Exactly!
September 26, 2021
So we have gone past blaming Junker and Carney and are now on about Merkel
The old woman said as the troops marched past – they are all out of step except my son John
September 26, 2021
Mrs Merkle was slowly losing the plot in the last few years, but take nothing away from her, she put Germany first for years, which is exactly what any leader should do with their own Country, something members in our Parliament should re-learn.
September 26, 2021
and the world blames US Presidents for the policies they have!
September 26, 2021
I still wonder how a committed communist from East Germany could rise so easily and quickly in the political ranks of a recombined German state.
Merkel certainly used the EU to achieve her own ends, which frequently benefited only Germany. She filled most of the top EU jobs with Germans, and one way or another ensured that the EU went her way.
As a schoolgirl friend of May, she conspired with her to produce that famous but awful BREXIT (in name only) proposal, allegedly contributing far more than May. In that, and so many other ways Merkel showed her true colours.
Merkel led the call for Europe to be overrun by immigrants to change the shape of the West. She was never a friend to Britain, nor indeed to the good people that make up the EU countries.
She will not be missed, but the clones she leaves behind will make no major change in policies, and indeed, there will be no respite for those already suffering from her lockdown policies and so much more.
September 26, 2021
She has channeld Germany’s fuel needs to dependency on Putin’s Russia. Something that Germans will live to regret.
The fact that she failed to assist May in achieving a May style deal with the EU I look upon as a real positive. Enabling anything May was up to would have been a disaster for the UK.
I know that the political future of Germany is of great importance to us, but lets analyse it six months after todays result. We are then discussing fact.
More important today is the current shambles in the UK. I am not going to get repetitious on the detail of how and at what cost. As the CPC does not allow full participation from delegates, they are only there to clap, I do not expect anything positive to emerge. You may disagree, if so tell us when you are addressing the conference from the platform rather than some venue down the road that your “Swampy” inclined leader will not go anywhere near. I would also like to hear from your fifty or so like minded colleagues expressing their views on the future of the UK and the conservstive party. I do not think it has one while the current direction is persued.
September 26, 2021
Stupid if you think 10,000 foreign workers are going to interrupt their lives to come here in October only to be thrown out in December.
September 26, 2021
Pieter, foreign workers come here for three month contracts all the time, what they can earn in the UK in three months is often equivalent to a near full yearâs salary at home. This enables their families to get a boost. What this government needs to get on with is identifying the skills of the current unemployed in the UK and get them trained for the work available in the UK instead of spending too long on benefits and getting used to this way of life.
It also needs to look at long term sickness when people are being paid sick pay by their companies (so the government doesnât care) and arenât getting one hours treatment or even attempted to make fit for work right now.
We keep asylum seekers in free accommodation with free food and expenses without expecting anything in return. Whilst British people are expected to stump up more and more tax in fiscal drag frozen allowances, national insurance rises, sneaky new taxes, tolls and parking charges of ÂŁ3 to get a blood test. These poultry farms must have accommodation nearby to accommodate all the foreign workers they want to bring over, why donât we put asylum claimants to work, it canât be good for mainly men to be idle for months, if not years on end while paperwork is being processed. If they leave their work and accommodation they need to be deported without any consideration to asylum from that moment on, just make it an offense to skip.
September 26, 2021
a- tracy I have a feeling they are not going to come this time
September 27, 2021
Pieter, well we are told there are shortages of HGV drivers in their own Countries and elsewhere in the EU and their pay is more attractive now closer to home. If we import less then we have less empty return space on vans.
There are already thousands of people in the UK that should be working.
September 26, 2021
They may well if currently unemployed and our pay rate buys rather a lot in their countries.
September 26, 2021
Whatâs all this about an EU vaccine passport ( to make introducing a domestic passport easier) all about then?
We are supposed to be on the brink of joining.
Oh surely not?
The âCome on back inâ door creaks open a little more!
September 26, 2021
SorryâŠthat was not meant to be a reply.
September 26, 2021
How many lorry drivers are working on HS2 ? I note that a lot of building projects are being held up because of a shortage of timber and cement too.
September 26, 2021
They must be stockpiling a lot of resources and materials as their monthly cost are up month by month in the millions
September 26, 2021
Thats the answer – scrap HS2 now.
September 26, 2021
Germany did exactly what was good for Germany.
Mrs Merkel talked Green but has left Germany reliant on coal and diesel.
The Greens and ER want “zero carbon” but they like to ship in their protesters in their 4wd Kubelwagens and organise them with their iPhones.
They’re just chancers begging a few quid off idiots while stopping workers earning money to pay the taxes to fund their benefits.
September 26, 2021
Off topic, the Ulster Unionist Lord Empey has called for medicines to be removed from the Irish protocol:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/health/ni-protocol-uk-and-eu-must-remove-all-medicines-from-protocol-threat-as-litmus-test-of-sincerity-says-peer-3395910
which I think would need amendment of the core withdrawal agreement as well as the attached protocol, but then this morning the Irish EU Commissioner Mairead McGuiness was on Andrew Marr and she said:
“We have an agreement, it will not be renegotiated”.
So that’s that, then, it will have to be Article 16.
September 26, 2021
Regarding the solution to this, I would like to link back to this comment on March 4 2021:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/03/04/invest-in-import-substitution/#comment-1213933
which in turn refers to the fallacy Theresa May accepted and propagated in March 2 2018, that because:
â⊠businesses who export to the EU tell us that it is strongly in their interest to have a single set of regulatory standards that mean they can sell into the UK and EU markets ⊠â
those EU standards should be imposed on all businesses in the UK, or as it is now on all businesses in that part of the UK which has been left behind still partially under EU control.
September 26, 2021
Listening to Mairead McGuinness at least the Europeans are sticking to the agreement not like our side huffing and puffing blowing hot and cold
September 26, 2021
Here she is, gabbling on but carefully avoiding the main question asked by Andrew Marr:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09x047g
September 26, 2021
Somewhere above, it has been asserted by Mark B, that countries only have interests, not friendships. I would agree that in international relations: trade and political negotiations, it is the duty of each country to be as hard-nosed as necessary to defend and advance the interests of its own population. This primary responsibility has been brushed aside by many of our politicians in recent decades (and probably earlier as well).
But we do have friends. This arises from historical association, similar or common culture, trust, language, law and heritage, as well as familial relations. The strongest friendships are rather naturally with those who seem to think in the same manner and with similar outlook; such as may be found with many Commonwealth countries.
Some of our leaders (eg Heath, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and Johnson) have failed to comprehend the need for extreme vigilance in handling international affairs, forgetting that when dealing with other countries there is no room for sentiment even with friends or where there is a notional âspecial relationshipâ (ugh). Too many UK governments (all since Thatcherâs) have been a soft push-over.
September 26, 2021
“Many Commonwealth countries”?
Are you sure?
You apparently forget that only 3% of its people are in Aus, NZ and Canada.
On the other hand, a billion-and-a-half are in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, etc.
Oh sorry, does anyone have any smelling salts handy?
September 26, 2021
The Labour Party conference green motion passed today included support for Small Modular Reactors, however the majority of the motion described retraining & re-education, decarbonisation and the introduction of a National Climate ServiceâŠ.sounds all a bit North Korea to me
September 26, 2021
Labour and their proposals are simply sinister with a veneer of morality to deceive those into action in the belief they are doing good when in fact they are simply Labour’s useful idiots. While the Tories have become utterly ruthless in their determination to protect themselves from the organised left by giving way to them and allowing them to smash our noses in the dirt.
The civil population has become the unwilling and unwitting victims of the brutal Tory-Labour duopoly that has no intention of letting go of the reins of power
September 26, 2021
Off topic.
Interesting article on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph this morning, written by Edward Malnick their Sunday Political Editor.
Parliament “misled” on net zero target cost.
Suggests that information presented to Parliament from the Climate Change Committee is both flawed and out of date.
It suggests the new Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Conservative back benchers, has described the situation as “Scandalous”
Seems like we have yet another expensive fiasco on the way, as if most of us did not know that already, just by using our common-sense.
September 26, 2021
Alan Jutson: What can MPs expect, from a ‘climate change committee’ made up of Baroness Brown (Non-Executive Director of the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult), Professor Nick Chater (Behavioural Science), Professor Piers Forster (one of the UN IPCC’s coordinating lead authors), Paul Johnson (Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies), Professor Corinne Le QuĂ©rĂ© (committed climate alarmist at the UEA) and Professor James Skea (Professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College London). The last-named assured the public a few years ago that ‘the risk of blackouts is overhyped’, as is ‘the effect of the intermittency of renewables’ on energy supply.
With that kind of advice, I’m not surprised MPs are concerned they might need to be much better advised.
September 26, 2021
Merkel “helped the EU lose our membership”. For that we should be eternally grateful.
September 26, 2021
Was listening to ” the life scientific ” on R4 the other evening. Good Prog.
(This has nothing to do with Mutti btw )
The woman who came up with the idea of coloured stickers for fridges denoting their
energy efficiency went on to apply the same sticker idea to houses.
This is now on all house sales.
(I see GP is morphing into TCW )
September 26, 2021
How revealing that a long item by Constanze Stelzenmueller (Brookings Institution, Washington DC) in the May/June 2021 edition of Foreign Affairs magazine âThe Singular Chancellor: The Merkel Model and its Limitsâ has only one line on the UK: âA succession of British Prime Ministers, from David Cameron to Boris Johnson, have been dismayed by Merkelâs polite refusal to pay any price to stop them from divorcing the EUâ.
And thatâs it.
Proof if one more was required that pieces like Sir Johnâs today are missing their aim. Brexit was something discussed between the UK and the EU, not with the individual EU27 countries. As described numerous times in Barnierâs book (now available in English), the successive SoS for Exiting the EU (Davis, Raab, Barclay) and the last negotiator (Frost) kept on trying to involve the individual countries, but to no avail.
That might have worked for the English in the 17th to early 20th centuries, with various natives. But (un)fortunately the world has changed
September 26, 2021
Yes, I agree. The EU is Germany and Germany is the EU. No other EU nation is of consequence
September 26, 2021
@ hefner – which were the transnational organizations that the English should have been speaking to instead of individual countries in the 17th to early 20th centuries then?
Also, it is not a stretch to infer that the brevity of Constanze’s reference provides the proof you seek? There were numerous meetings between member states’ heads of government. Or do you not recall T. May jetting off to various far away places to meet Merkel, Macron and others?
September 26, 2021
PM May indeed visited a lot of EU countries but did not return with any sizeable results. She was essentially told that the interlocutor was M. Barnier. Attempts at playing âdivide and ruleâ just failed.
September 27, 2021
Good illustration of who wields real power inside the EU.
September 27, 2021
Yes, I acknowledge, but May did have various one to one meetings with personalities from some member states and it is hard to imagine that Barnier was not working in tune with the requirements of those same people. After all, one feature of the Merkel era has been her wish always to keep the Commission in check.
September 26, 2021
Everything is a RED HERRING.
September 26, 2021
My brother has a saying, âwhatever a politician says⊠flip it 180â
September 26, 2021
…not the strongest of Inductive Reasoning, perhaps.
September 26, 2021
Parliament did not get more in line with public opinion” it fixed on an extreme version of Brexit taking out of the EU , the EEA and in every way the hardest Brexit imaginable . At least half the country did not what Brexit at all and as far as we can tell , generally a slight majority wanted none of this.
Not for the first time I wonder what country |Sir John lives in , clearly not the same one the majority of his constituents inhabit.
This weekend I have travelled across the country , much of it seems to be closed to due poorly planned road works , diversions are muddled and delayed by endless petrol queues . Shortages of all kinds are predicted while we suffer vast cheap ugly development designed to kick start the economy to make up for the Brexit slow down.
You despair utterly with this useless country , nothing works , one stupid decision after another, submerged in debt ,taxed until the pips squeak . Why would any young person want to stay here .
September 26, 2021
@ Newmania “Why would any young person want to stay here .” – three top grade ‘A’ levels in return for no effort!
September 26, 2021
As young andy keeps saying…we left get over it.
September 26, 2021
“Why would any young person want to stay here .”
Ask the six and a half million Europeans who have signed up for residence in the UK.
September 26, 2021
Agreed: the whole country seems to be grid-locked by contractors building crappy little houses. My teenage children will be old enough to get out of here in five years’ time: I hope there’s an english-speaking country somewhere else where they’ll be able to make decent lives by then.
September 26, 2021
A very good summary of a very long political career which started in the East German Communist Party. In short she was a disaster for her own country and the EU, but the best friend to the U.K., without her obduracy we would never have left the calamitous EU.
September 26, 2021
Totally agree Lynn.
September 26, 2021
An article pointing out that Boris Johnson is just too timid and reluctant to deliver a genuine Brexit. Here’s a for instance: “Lord Frost has announced a new commission to examine every line of ‘Retained EU Law’ copied over after Brexit, this is a move which has taken over nine months to announce and has no timeline for coming into effect or producing results.”
Another perfect example of the government’s timidity, incompetence and inability to take decisions relates to energy production – particularly relevant at this time of crisis. The Times today reports that: “State support for SMRs … was revealed in the prime ministerâs ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution, released last November. The government has pledged to take a final investment decision on at least one new nuclear power plant by 2024.” FOUR YEARS??!! It takes the government FOUR EFFING YEARS to go from initial policy decision to final practical decision? And even that is for just one, single, solitary. pathetic, power station, when in reality we need at least 20!! This is complete madness. Truly, as long as Boris remains PM, we are completely screwed.
September 26, 2021
I suspect that the EU is quite pleased Mrs Merkel “… helped the EU lose our membership.” As far as the EU27 is concerned, the UK membership was a pain in the arse from day one.
Yet again, you Brexiters just can’t leave it alone. We have left the EU. You leave voters should be the ones “sucking it up / getting over it”. Your children and your grandchildren, will be aghast at the colossal mistake you made and dumbfounded by your level of stupidity. As ever with the English electorate particularly, education would have been a wonderful thing.
September 26, 2021
Yet here you are again acorn whinging about it.
September 26, 2021
Poor Grant Schapps, he realises that he might huff and puff but âthe stiff upper lipâ British people might not be as stolid in adversity as he thought: what a bunch of wokes easily panicked by yesterdayâs front pages of newspapers as left-wing as the Daily Mail (âhuge jams at forecourtsâ), Times (âchaotic scenesâ), Daily Telegraph (â5000 temporary visas to ease the threat of fuel and food shortagesâ).
September 26, 2021
Both the Times and Mail are pro EU and pro remain
Did you not know heffy?
September 26, 2021
Mrs. Merkel was no friend of the rest of Europe either. For her it was always to put German industry first.
Having said in 2010 that multiculturalism was a failure, saying that the idea of people from different cultural backgrounds living happily “side by side” did not work, she then proceeded in 2015 to invite a million people from âa different cultural backgroundâ into Germany because German industry said they needed more (cheap) workers.
In fact in 2018 Mrs. Merkel outlined her immigration policy at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin saying :
âSovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.â
However, when German industry found they could not use these imported workers Mrs. Merkel then insisted that the rest of the EU should take their share and in fact have been deporting 20,000 migrants per year until Covid struck.
Mrs Merkel, whilst instructing other countries via the EU to close their fossil fuel power stations, has done the reverse by closing Germanyâs nuclear power stations, building coal fired power plants and constructing a massive gas pipeline direct from Russia.
Germany is the biggest breaker of EU rules making sure they take full advantage of being the last to implement any economy damaging EU rules, regulations and directives.
The German car industry benefited enormously from the massive diesel emissions testing scam which defrauded millions of car owners around the World and for which there have been as yet no German criminal convictions.
September 26, 2021
A quick check suggests that no-one so far has mentioned Wirecard. This was a âŠ..German financial fraud, involving (possible Ed) criminal activity, false accounting, fake bank accounts, bribes, corruption and embezzlement. (The work of Ed) higher officials at Bafin, the German financial regulator (was widely criticised Ed)
And through the whole scandal, which was denied for years, the German Government consistently took the side of the criminals, denying the evidence, banning short selling of Wirecard shares, and even going so far as to threaten to prosecute UK journalists who investigated the story.
One less mentioned aspect of Brexit is that we no longer have to fear EU Governments trying to shut down UK journalism using the EU’s cross-border extradition powers.
Although it is interesting, to say the least, that Remainers have done their best to retain the power of the EU to interfere in the administration of policing and justice in the UK. That makes me wonder just who, exactly, the organizers of Remain really work for.
September 26, 2021
So the exit polls show a dead-heat between SPD and CDU. This is hardly the voice of a population that is seizing the moment to throw off the mantle of the old regime. While our host seems to be more than tired of Mrs Merkel, the German people seem to be thinking a different way, one that prefers continuation to revolution.
Reply. The polls show very low levels of support for every party
September 26, 2021
I’m not really sure what point our host believes he is making with his reply. Perhaps the only prediction I would feel comfortable making at this point is that a “continuity coalition” seems like the most likely outcome of coalition talks. That’s probably the only voice one can discern in today’s election.
September 26, 2021
Maybe if people could just rank their “acceptable” candidates in order of preference it would give a clearer picture.
September 26, 2021
Actually, the SPD are 2 percentage points ahead of the CDU, which has lost a whopping 9 percentage points since the last election. This is most definitely a rejection of the ancient regime!
September 27, 2021
Well, since perhaps a majority of commenters here claim that they are both completely full of “Marxists” – like everyone else whom they don’t like is claimed to be – you seem to be wanting it both ways.
September 26, 2021
Reply -Reply
…”low levels of support for every Party”
Getting a bit like that over here as well John.
People Voting for the least worst, what a situation Politicians have got themselves into.
September 27, 2021
alan jutson :
“People Voting for the least worst, what a situation Politicians have got themselves into.”
It is a great pity we did not vote for AV when we had the chance in the 2011 referendum.
It enables a single MP to be directly elected for a particular constituency but only when they have received 50% or more of the votes from the first and, if necessary, second preferences.
It enables the voters to vote for new parties without the danger of a split vote resulting in the unintended election of an MP who definitely does not represent the constituencyâs views.
September 26, 2021
Six German parties are likely to have some representatives in the Bundestag. In the European elections ten UK parties had MEPs (TBP 31.6%, LD 20.3%, Lab 14.1%, Green 12.1%, Con 9%, SNP 3.6%, PC 1%, SF, DUP, Alliance). Do these results register as âlow levels of support for each partyâ given that the election system is different?
If I had the choice as in the German federal election, my vote in the party list might go to the Conservative Party, but my direct candidate vote would not be for my present CUP representative. There are limits to the level of meaningless comments I can swallow from him.
Reply A low level of support is true whatever the cause. The two old main parties used to be far more popular under this voting system
September 28, 2021
Sir John,
She denied Cameron and May negotiating wins, but she also denied Johnson negotiating wins too. Look at the deal: 1) full access to Britain for EU goods with no tariffs (an EU win, as they dominate in goods). 2) Britain technically has the right to set its own regulations, but has to negotiate on this with an EU committee that can impose tariffs (an EU win, as it is likely the Conservative Party will always say “we can’t set our own regulations in case of tariffs; effectively we are stuck with EU regulations). 3) No deal on financial services or other services (an EU win). 4) No deal on energy flows (an EU win, likely to be deployed to prevent Britain from regaining our fisheries in a few years’ time). 5) Northern Ireland left run by the EU (an EU win, likely to destroy the UK). 6) A financial settlement that includes many billions we didn’t really owe (an EU win, promised on the basis of a financial services agreement by mid-2020 that, surprise, surprise, didn’t materialise). Britain gained precisely nothing from the negotiations. Are we stuck forever with this negotiated result, because the EU sought to negotiate with Bercow and the Remainers in Parliament and not with the UK government?