4 | MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
World
Britain and the United States have often
seemed lashed together in the populist
storms of the last few years — Brexit
and the Trump White House echoing
and amplifying each other across the At-
lantic. But in one respect they have radi-
cally diverged.
In London, rebels in the Conservative
Party staged a dramatic insurrection in
the past week against Prime Minister
Boris Johnson, blocking his plan to with-
draw Britain from the European Union,
even without a deal.
In Washington, scarcely a handful of
Republicans have stood up to President
Trump, even when he has flouted party
orthodoxy on issues like trade, immigra-
tion and the deficit.
The Tory party’s revolt against Mr.
Johnson and his ruthless purging of the
rebels are reverberating through
British politics, threatening his hold on
power. For dispirited Republicans,
though, this British revolution has be-
come an object lesson in how a center-
right party can stand up to a wayward
leader.
The Conservative rebels “showed
courage and principled concern about
the impact of bad policy on the U.K.
economy,” said Daniel M. Price, who
served as an economic adviser to Presi-
dent George W. Bush. “This contrasts
with congressional Republicans here
who have mostly been meek, mute or
complicit.”
The uprising in Westminster came
even though British political parties en-
force discipline far more strictly than
their American counterparts. Mr. John-
son punished the 21 renegades by
throwing them out of the party. Mr.
Trump can ostracize Republican dissi-
dents and dry up their funding, but he
cannot expunge them from the party
rolls.
Much of the difference, experts said,
has to do with a magnitude of the crisis
on each side of the Atlantic. The Tories
who broke with Mr. Johnson regard his
vow to take Britain out of the European
Union on Oct. 31, come what may, as so
reckless that it poses a dire threat to the
nation — one that would wreak eco-
nomic havoc and sunder both their
party and British society.
Analysts warn that a no-deal Brexit,
one in which Britain abruptly leaves Eu-
rope without transitional arrangements
on trade or borders, will lead to short-
ages of food and medicine, trucks
backed up on both sides of the English
Channel, and the threat of violence in
Northern Ireland, where a hard border
could reignite the sectarian troubles
that all sides thought they had left be-
hind.
“To deliver Brexit like this is to create
a poison pill which for 40 years will di-
vide this country straight down the mid-
dle,” Rory Stewart, a rising star of the
Conservative Party, said in a BBC Radio
interview.
Mr. Stewart, who challenged Mr.
Johnson for the Tory party leadership in
June, learned of his expulsion from the
party via a text message on Tuesday just
minutes before GQ magazine honored
him as its politician of the year.
While many Republicans deplore Mr.
Trump’s divisive language and erratic
conduct, few accept the argument — at
least publicly — that he poses a compa-
rable threat to the United States. How-
ever distasteful they find him, Republi-
cans largely back his agenda, whether it
is the appointment of conservative
judges, the passage of tax cuts, or dereg-
ulation.
They are even willing to tolerate his
overturning of traditional Republican
priorities like free trade, in part because
of the damage they fear a vengeful Mr.
Trump could do to them personally at
the polls. The president has thoroughly
taken over the Republicans, remaking
the party of Lincoln in his image and in-
stitutionalizing policies that only a few
years ago would have seemed extreme
to them.
Mr. Johnson wants to engineer a simi-
lar takeover of the Conservatives, puri-
fying the party of Winston Churchill and
Margaret Thatcher so that it can repel
challenges from the hard-core pro-
Brexit movement, which now has its
own competing party. If he clings to
power, a more radicalized Tory party
could yet emerge.
But Mr. Johnson offers little to sup-
porters beyond a promise to leave the
European Union next month. His other
policies — tax cuts, more money for the
police, tighter immigration rules — are
standard-issue Conservative fare. Sev-
eral of his rivals for the party leadership
this spring ran on substantively similar
platforms.
“There’s not much of a quid pro quo
there,” said Tim Bale, a professor of poli-
tics at Queen Mary University of Lon-
don.
In fact, Mr. Bale noted, a few of the
rebels — notably Philip Hammond, who
advocated a policy of austerity as chan-
cellor of the Exchequer in the previous
Conservative government — were put
off by Mr. Johnson’s profligate spending
plans.
While Mr. Johnson’s flamboyant im-
age and populist appeals bear a surface
similarity to Mr. Trump, he has not mo-
bilized a grass-roots political movement
anywhere near that of the president.
Nor does he enjoy the prerogatives of a
presidential system with a fixed four-
year term.
This past week, he wasn’t even able to
call an election without the assent of the
opposition Labor Party.
“Trump got elected; he got through
the fires,” said Alan K. Simpson, a for-
mer three-term Republican senator
from Wyoming who served as his par-
ty’s whip. “Unkempt Boris just showed
up on the scene. You can rough up a guy
like that.”
Mr. Johnson’s first foray into Parlia-
ment as prime minister was an unmiti-
gated disaster. He lost four key votes in a
row and faces the specter of having to do
something he vowed he would never do:
ask Brussels for an extension of the date
when Britain will leave the European
Union.
Until last week, Mr. Johnson, as a new
prime minister, would at least have had
the reliable backing of his party.
“There is a very strong sense of party
loyalty,” Mr. Bale said. “Most M.P.’s rec-
ognize that they owe their seats to the
party, not to themselves. It is a measure
of the depth of feeling that so many of
them stood up.”
The only precedent for this kind of re-
bellion came in the 1990s when a group
of Conservative renegades opposed
Prime Minister John Major’s attempts
to implement the Maastricht Treaty,
which tightened the bonds of the Euro-
pean Union.
It was essentially the reverse of the
current civil war: a cabal of Euroskeptic
lawmakers defying a moderately pro-
European government.
Mr. Major survived the challenge, but
his party was weakened by the infight-
ing and lost a general election in 1997.
That is a worrisome precedent for to-
day’s Conservatives given the stature of
those who rebelled against Mr. Johnson.
In addition to Mr. Hammond and Mr.
Stewart, the group included Kenneth
Clarke, the most senior member of the
House of Commons; David Gauke, a for-
mer attorney general; and Nicholas
Soames, the grandson of Churchill.
Even Mr. Johnson’s brother, Jo Johnson,
resigned, saying he was “torn between
family loyalty and the national interest.”
Amber Rudd, the work and pensions
secretary, on Saturday became the lat-
est to quit.
A comparable uprising on Capitol Hill
would require Senators Chuck Grassley
of Iowa, the most senior Republican;
Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who
served in Mr. Bush’s cabinet; Tom Cot-
ton of Arkansas, a rising star on the
right; and Mitt Romney of Utah, whose
father ran for the Republican presiden-
tial nomination and who himself was the
party’s candidate in 2012.In Brexit uprising,
a contrast with U.S.
Rory Stewart, a rising star who challenged Boris Johnson for the Conservative leader-
ship, learned of his expulsion from the party via text message last week.
VICTORIA JONES/PRESS ASSOCIATION, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESSLONDON
Republicans back Trump,
while Conservatives rebel
against his counterpart
BY MARK LANDLER
“Trump got elected; he got
through the fires. Unkempt Boris
just showed up on the scene. You
can rough up a guy like that.”
In the hours and days after Hurricane
Dorian tore through the Bahamas’ Aba-
co Islands, the first government rescu-
ers many residents saw were American.
Coast Guard helicopters cut through the
sky to evacuate the sick and wounded.
The distribution of emergency sup-
plies of food, water and medicine has
been mostly coordinated by an ad hoc
network of volunteers from Bahamian
and American nonprofit groups. But Ab-
acos residents say their own govern-
ment, whose resources were largely
wiped out, has been notably absent in
the six days since the Category 5 storm
struck and killed at least 43 people.
Also, the Bahamas and other small is-
land nations work through a regional or-
ganization, the Caribbean Disaster
Emergency Management Agency, to co-
ordinate emergency response and relief
and their help is not always clearly visi-
ble to people struggling on the ground.
“It’s ridiculous. Ridiculous,” said Mar-
tin McCafferty, a contractor based here
in Marsh Harbour, the biggest town on
the Abaco Islands. “This is a catastro-
phe, and they should be here in num-
bers.”
Governments, large and small, often
need several days to mobilize after a
major disaster, especially as local re-
sponders often fail to show up because
their own homes have been demolished.
For example, after Hurricane Maria
struck in 2017, Puerto Ricans waited
several days for food to start flowing be-
cause air and seaports were closed.
When the goods were finally sent in, the
island lacked truck drivers to pick up
and distribute them. Puerto Rico was
left paralyzed.
But since Dorian carved a path of de-
struction across the Abacos and Grand
Bahama islands last week, residents say
the seeming absence of the Bahamian
government has been glaring. And
when the roads between isolated settle-
ments needed to be cleared of broken
trees and downed power lines, the work
was mostly done by ordinary citizens.
Foreign governments, mainly the
United States and British, have a nota-
ble presence. That’s because a tiny
country like the Bahamas — its popula-
tion of 330,000 is roughly 0.1 percent of
that of the United States — is easily
overwhelmed by a catastrophe on the
scale of Hurricane Dorian.
The Caribbean relief agency, made up
of 18 countries, has been working behind
the scenes on a response plan. It en-
listed the assistance of foreign govern-
ments, the United Nations and aid orga-
nizations, said Elizabeth Riley, the orga-
nization’s deputy executive director.
“One country does not have sufficient
assets,” she said. “We look to sister na-
tions to provide them.”
Additionally, some aid is bypassing
government distribution channels alto-
gether, arriving on private planes and
boats from people in South Florida and
elsewhere who frequently visit the Ba-
hamas to fish or vacation there. Cruise
lines and airlines have also stepped in.
Glen Rolle, a Freeport resident, wasone of nearly 30 civilian volunteers who
borrowed Jet Skis and tractors, fighting
through raging winds and storm surges
to pull stranded people down from their
roofs.
A fire truck went by and they flagged
it down, Mr. Rolle said. They were told
the crew could do nothing to help.
“We said, ‘Come on, man, what you all
mean y’all can’t help? Y’all are supposed
to be first responders,’” he said. “I just
don’t understand. Where are our first re-
sponders?”
Since the storm, an increasing sense
of desperation has taken over the
streets of Marsh Harbour. People have
broken into stores and businesses, some
to take food and critical supplies, but
others to steal nonessential goods, in-
cluding washing machines and truck
tires.
In the absence of a strong, visible law-
enforcement presence, some business
owners took matters into their own
hands, posting armed guards on their
properties.
“Our armed forces, they fell down.
They fell down on the job,” Mr. Rolle
said. “They are here to protect and
serve, but they weren’t up to the task.”
The National Emergency Manage-
ment Agency, known as NEMA, said in a
statement to The New York Times that
the government was doing everything it
could.
“Hurricane Dorian turned into a mon-
ster hurricane overnight,” it said. “We
deployed security, food, water and other
resources as quickly as was possibleonce the all clear was given so that first
responders were not put at risk.
“We are continuing to deploy more re-
sources to stabilize Abaco and Grand
Bahama in the wake of one of the most
powerful hurricanes ever in the Atlan-
tic.”
A Bahamas Defense Force official,
who requested anonymity because he
was not authorized to speak on the
record, said that while the Bahamian
government was involved in the relief
effort, appearances might be different,especially when the public only sees for-
eign helicopters. The Defense Force was
not flying helicopters in the disaster
zone for a simple reason, he said: It did-
n’t have any.
The United States Coast Guard had
evacuated 290 people by Saturday
morning. Another American agency, Ur-
ban Search and Rescue Virginia Task
Force 1 out of Fairfax, Va., sent 57 rescu-
ers to find people who were trapped in
debris. They arrived early Thursday
with four dogs and 50,000 pounds of
equipment such as saws and torches.
“We may be the first folks from a gov-
ernment agency this population has
seen,” said John Morrison, the Virginia
group’s spokesman.Once the storm had faded, a group of
seven men in Treasure Cay, a settlement
on Great Abaco Island, used chain saws
and machetes to clear the road to Marsh
Harbour. It took them four hours.
The government was nowhere to be
seen, said Deangelis Burrows, 47, a
building contractor who lives in Treas-
ure Cay and was part of that volunteer
work crew.
He said that normally the govern-
ment would immediately deploy work
crews to clear roads, and security forces
to safeguard the population. But not this
time, he said Saturday.
“I haven’t seen them,” he said. “I don’t
know if they’re somewhere else on the
island but they’re certainly not here. It’s
unreal.”
The airport in Marsh Harbour has be-
come a critical hub for incoming relief
supplies and personnel and for storm
refugees trying to flee. But the job of re-
opening the airport last week fell, at
least in part, to an American civilian
group, G.S.D.
Since then, the group’s members have
been serving as the airfield’s air traffic
controllers.
HeadKnowles, a Bahamian nongov-
ernmental relief organization, is coordi-
nating the flow of evacuees through the
airport. Since Wednesday, the group has
overseen the evacuation of at least 1,
people, all by private plane, said Dayl-
land Moxey, 27, who has been helping
lead HeadKnowles’s effort at the air-
port.
Several police officers have been su-
pervising the terminal entrance and
members of the Royal Bahamas De-
fense Force have been providing some
security around the perimeter. But oth-
erwise, Bahamian government officials
have been scarce.
Throughout the day, hundreds of
storm refugees waited at the airport for
a chance to secure a seat on an outgoing
plane.
Many were clustered inside the termi-
nal, which was cast in semidarkness be-
cause of an island-wide blackout. Others
were bunched up behind a security cor-
don outside, hoping to get a chance to
move into the building and closer to a
plane leaving the island.
Several private planes had come
throughout the day, unloaded relief sup-
plies and filled seats with storm sur-
vivors, whisking them to Nassau, the
capital.
At least one large aircraft belonging to
the government-owned Bahamasair
had touched down. But it had taken only
employees and their families.
Spotting a reporter walking through
the terminal, several people took the op-
portunity to complain.
“The government hasn’t sent one
plane!” yelled Reynon Ferguson, 31,
who had been waiting at the airport all
day along with hundreds of others.
“Lousy government! Lousy prime
minister!” Jerusha Williams shouted,
referring to Hubert Minnis.
Another man, Delano Hart, 41, joined
the bitter chorus.
“Private jets, private jets, private jets
with four or five seats — and we have
multitudes here!” he hollered.
Desperate people carrying backpacks
and suitcases have also been swarming
a dock on the harbor hoping to board
boats to Nassau. On Thursday, some 15
private boats — ranging in size from
small yachts to large ferries fitting sev-
eral hundred passengers — took storm
refugees off the island.Waiting in Marsh Harbour, the Bahamas, to be evacuated to Nassau, the capital. Residents say the government has been largely absent since a hurricane devastated the islands.DANIELE VOLPE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES‘They fell down on the job’MARSH HARBOUR, THE BAHAMASBahamians losing patience
with their government’s
response to the hurricaneBY KIRK SEMPLE,
FRANCES ROBLES,
RACHEL KNOWLES
AND ELISABETH MALKINA family cleaning their home in McLean’s Town. The distribution of emergency supplies
has been mostly coordinated by American and Bahamian nonprofit groups.MERIDITH KOHUT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESA fishing guide in McLean’s Town. A tiny country like the Bahamas — with a population
of 330,000 — is easily overwhelmed by a catastrophe on the scale of Hurricane Dorian.MERIDITH KOHUT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESAzam Ahmed contributed reporting from
Mexico City.When roads needed to be cleared
of trees and downed power lines,
the work was mostly done by
ordinary citizens.