Tuesday 27 August 2019 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 9

RUSSIA

Tony

Barber

Opinion

B

oris Johnson departed the G

meetings in Biarritz claiming

success. He’s not entirely

wrong: there were overtures

from his European counter-

parts that could, if he wanted, lead to a

deal with them on the UK’s exit from the

EU. To dismiss these possibilities would

be a mistake but, as the British prime

minister well knows, the chances of a

new deal are small.

That is why Mr Johnson’s earlier dec-

laration that there was a one in a million

chance of a no-deal exit has turned into

a reckoning that it will be “touch and

go” to avoid one. A no-deal exit is even

more likely than that, though, because

he has offered no clear solution to the

issue of the Irish border — the point

where his clash of views with the EU is

most direct, and where the most painful

effects of no deal are likely to be felt. The

prime minister wants to remove the so-

called backstop, intended to prevent the

return of a hard Irish border. But EU

leaders insist Britain must come up with

alternative solutions.

The coming weeks will show whether

the UK parliament can find a way to

block no-deal. But the assumption

made by spectators of this extraordi-

nary piece of theatre, in which the

nation’s future is being improvised from

cliffhanger to cliffhanger, must be that

no deal is the most likely outcome.

Mr Johnson’s cheerfulness after a

series of meetings with world leaders

might rest on his conversation with US

president Donald Trump, who prom-

ised a big and early trade deal. The

prime minister, knowing that failure to

manage public expectations has been

the curse of the Brexit drama, sensibly

warned that it might take longer.

But his upbeat tone might also be

derived from a remark made by Angela

Merkel, the German chancellor. She

noted that a deal would probably be

reached at some point in the coming

years, even after a no-deal exit — so why

could they not do so in 30 days?

Mr Johnson no doubt recognised the

political gift Ms Merkel had given him,

even if inadvertently. Her notional

timetable kicks the question beyond the

fortnight in which parliament will

return and then rise for the party con-

ferences. He can claim during this time

to be working on a deal, and so under-

mine support for the manoeuvres under

way to block a no deal in parliament.

Those include the opposition leader

Jeremy Corbyn’s bid for a no-confidence

vote followed by a caretaker govern-

ment, or various moves to find a way of

passing legislation to force the govern-

ment to ask the EU for another exten-

sion. But with scarcely more than a

week until parliament returns, those

opponents still talk of a “suite of

options” and have not united behind

any single plan.

Despite its value to Mr Johnson in

political terms, Ms Merkel’s point has a

tough kernel: it puts the burden of find-

ing a solution on to him. To misread it as

a German offer to make concessions

would repeat his predecessor David

Cameron’s mistakes in misinterpreting

Ms Merkel’s friendliness as concrete

support.

It does not, above all, represent an EU

concession over the backstop. The EU

intends what it always has done: to pre-

serve the single market and customs

union with an open border within the

island of Ireland if there is no deal.

The weakness of Mr Johnson’s

repeated demand that the EU should

scrap the backstop is that he has not yet

spelt out what could successfully

replace it. Musing by some in the UK

over keeping agricultural and food

standards the same as the EU’s, while

allowing the UK to diverge in other regu-

latory areas, could be the basis of an

eventual deal, coupled with checks that

are not on the border itself. But nothing

is clear enough to be called a plan.

The leaked details of Operation Yel-

lowhammer, the government’s contin-

gency planning for a no-deal exit, were

right to identify the Irish border as the

most difficult issue and the likely cause

of unrest in the event of no deal. UK offi-

cials are concerned that Northern Irish

farmers, seeing their milk and other

products subject to new barriers, while

farmers in the Republic continue to

send their goods north unimpeded,

might block the border within hours.

Images of improvised roadblocks of

burning tyres would not look good on

the six o’clock news on November 1,

they point out.

From the government’s perspective,

that might seem a long way off. It still

has to survive the manoeuvres by par-

liamentary opponents, and the pres-

sures — and incentives — for a general

election. But although Mr Johnson con-

tinues to say that he wants a deal, until

he has a credible solution to the Irish

border, that claim must be taken with a

pinch of salt.

It is no surprise, then, that the pros-

pect of no deal is taking all the oxygen in

government — all that is left, that is, by

the planning for a general election.

The writer is director of the Institute for

Government, a think-tank

With scarcely more than a

week until parliament

returns, opponents have

not united behind a plan

G

ermany is faced with a

conundrum. It appears to

be heading into its first

recession in six years and

most investors believe it

and the rest of the eurozone need some

kind of economic stimulus.

The European Central Bank is poised

to respond at its September meeting,

probably with rate cuts and asset pur-

chases known as quantitative easing.

But Berlin has long criticised QE as a dis-

guised bailout to profligate southern

European countries that ultimately will

be paid by German taxpayers, and push-

ing interest rates further into negative

territory will hit hard-pressed German

savers and financial interests.

However, there is another way. There

are growing signs that Berlin is prepar-

ing a fiscal stimulus package, as it did

after the 2008 financial crisis, including

measures to prompt investment and cut

carbon emissions. Nothing has been

decided yet but Europe could be on the

threshold of some very important pol-

icy changes.

Outgoing ECB president Mario Draghi

has already warned that monetary pol-

icy may not be enough to boost the euro-

zone economy. He and the rest of the

central bank leadership should offer

Berlin a grand bargain — if Germany

pushes ahead with fiscal stimulus, the

ECB would forgo its monetary stimulus

package as long as Europe’s inflation

picture does not further deteriorate.

The deal would give the ECB invalua-

ble breathing room: monetary policy is

being stretched to a breaking point by

having to bear the entire burden of

fighting Europe’s faltering economy and

too low inflation. A grand bargain would

bring much needed balance to Europe’s

demand management policies, a suita-

ble finale to Mr Draghi’s tenure.

From Germany’s point of view, side-

stepping a possible new round of QE and

further interest rate cuts could be worth

it, even if they are ordinarily sceptical of

using fiscal policy to boost economic

growth.

Without concessions by the ECB, it is

an open question whether there would

be enough political support in Germany

for a fiscal stimulus even with the loom-

ing recession. But with the grand bar-

gain and the ECB’s promise to hold off

on monetary stimulus, the fiscal stimu-

lus would be virtually guaranteed.

Together they would lead Germany to

provide the boost that it and Europe

need.

Another advantage of this grand bar-

gain for Germany is that it could help

defuse US president Donald Trump’s

protectionist threats against the nation.

He has been openly critical of Mr

Draghi’s plan to provide monetary stim-

ulus. If such a package causes the euro to

decline against the dollar, it could fuel

possible retaliation from the currency

warrior in the White House.

A grand bargain based on fiscal stimu-

lus might well be looked on with consid-

erable favour by Mr Trump, if it

increased US exports to Europe without

causing the dollar to appreciate. The

deal could be portrayed in Washington

as a victory for Mr Trump. At best it

would lead the protectionist president

to delay threatened tariffs on German

cars and other exports that experts are

convinced are coming in the next sev-

eral months.

At the same time, if the fiscal stimulus

works, the German economy will be

stronger and better able to deal with Mr

Trump’s protectionist tariffs, should

they come.

Even though the case for a grand bar-

gain is convincing, there is an important

caveat to be kept in mind. Mr Trump

has been pushing the US Federal

Reserve to cut American interest rates

aggressively. If it does so while the US

economy is relatively strong, Europe

might need a new monetary stimulus

package to protect itself from a skyrock-

eting euro.

The more the US engages in “beggar

thy neighbour” monetary policies, the

less attractive a grand bargain in Europe

will become.

The writer is a senior fellow at Stanford

University’s Hoover Institution

A grand bargain

would benefit

both the ECB

and Germany

If Berlin pushes ahead

with fiscal stimulus, the

central bank would forgo

its monetary package

No-deal Brexit is more likely than ever

suspicion, injustice and intimidation.”

Still, the passage of time matters in

Russia, as in any society. The genera-

tions that recall the economic and social

collapse of the early post-communist

period are fading out, making way for

younger Russians who have known no

ruler but Mr Putin. At least some of

them are thirsty for change.

There have been phases like this

before in Russian history: in the 1850s,

towards the end of Nicholas I’s long,

autocratic rule; after the dictator Josef

Stalin’s death in 1953; and in the 1980s,

as the so-called “era of stagnation”

under Brezhnev and his gerontocratic

successors drew to its close. In some

respects, the story of Russia since Peter

the Great has been one of alternating

cycles of reform and reaction.

Perhaps it is premature to detect in

the Moscow demonstrations and the

environmental protests the first stir-

rings of the next cycle of liberalisation.

The Putin system is not yet in serious

trouble. But nothing is forever, not even

in eternal Russia.

[email protected]

as there was a chance of change, which

arose in the partly free elections of 1989,

Sakharov and other reformers won

sweeping victories.

In Mr Putin’s case, matters stand

somewhat differently. He was indeed a

popular leader from 2000 to 2008,

partly for having ended the social tur-

moil of the Boris Yeltsin era, and for pre-

siding over a rise in incomes and wellbe-

ing that was lifted by high energy export

prices. Even if the elections of this

period had been freer than any in Rus-

sian history — which they were not — he

would surely have won them.

In recent years, economic grievances,

environmental concerns and com-

plaints about abuses of power have

eroded Mr Putin’s standing with the

Russian public. To be clear, his hold on

power is not weak. After all, he has over-

whelming force at his disposal to crush

dissent, and an entourage that depends

on him for its wealth and survival. Nina

Khrushcheva, a New York-based profes-

sor of international affairs and the

granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev,

the late Soviet leader, observes: “Putin

has perfected a system of corruption,

from Russian society, even if his popu-

larity has fallen from the heights

attained after the 2014 annexation of

Crimea and military intervention in

eastern Ukraine. However, opinion

polls that purport to measure the

popularity of a semi-authoritarian

ruler, who imprisons opponents and

blocks all ways of replacing him in

free and fair votes, must be interpreted

with caution.

An opinion poll taken in 1980, when

Leonid Brezhnev had ruled the Soviet

Union for 16 years and Andrei Sakharov,

the dissident physicist and giant of the

Soviet human rights movement, was

arrested and sent into internal exile,

might well have shown Brezhnev to be

more popular. How else are people sup-

posed to answer, when they see no pros-

pect of changing the system? Yet as soon

embraced by Mr Putin’s most vocal crit-

ics. True, weekly demonstrations in

Moscow in support of free local elec-

tions have drawn larger numbers than

at any time since the winter unrest of

2011-2012. The outcry against the arrest

of Ivan Golunov, an investigative jour-

nalist, on trumped-up drugs charges

underlined public indignation at the

high-handedness of the police and intel-

ligence services.

At a time when representative

democracy and the rule of law are under

strain in western countries, and even

derided by politicians who should know

better, the Russian protests — like simi-

lar events in central and eastern Europe

— are a useful reminder that the human

desire for justice, dignity and freedom is

irrepressible. However, the political

demonstrations in Moscow do not have

the mass character of this year’s protests

in Hong Kong, Algeria or Venezuela, or

for that matter 1917 in tsarist Russia or

1989-1991 in the former Soviet Union.

One reason for the limited impact of

the Moscow protests is that they have so

far failed to integrate the complaints of

Russian society about, say, environmen-

tal degradation and the cost of living. In

their call for genuinely competitive elec-

tions, they resemble last year’s protests

in Poland against government-imposed

changes to the judicial system aimed at

tightening political control of the courts.

Both are worthy causes, but both lack

the broad appeal that comes from artic-

ulating the public’s rawest concerns.

Another argument, espoused by Mr

Putin’s sympathisers in the west, is that

the president still commands support

I

n an episode that would be hilari-

ous if one read it in the works of

Nikolai Gogol or Mikhail Saltykov-

Shchedrin, but is actually a grim

illustration of Russia’s environ-

mental sickness, officials in a Siberian

town were reprimanded last year for

painting snow white. Pollution in the

coal-mining region is so horrendous

that the snowfall is thick with soot and

ash. The officials responded, in the

time-honoured manner of provincial

Russian bureaucracy, by painting over a

problem they felt helpless to solve.

Environmental protection is one of

several fronts on which lines of confron-

tation are emerging between an increas-

ingly restless Russian public and the

power apparatus of President Vladimir

Putin. Dozens of protests have been held

across Russia against plans to build vast

landfills in the countryside for rubbish

from the Moscow metropolitan area and

other cities. Simmering sources of dis-

content include inflation, stagnant liv-

ing standards, rising retirement ages,

new road fees for long-haul truck driv-

ers and efforts to control social media.

If political change is to come in Russia,

it may arise from these strongly felt irri-

tations of daily life rather than from the

narrower cause of democratic reform

Putin should

heed the

warning signs

Lines of confrontation are

emerging between the

public and the power

apparatus of the president

I

s a robot going to steal your job?

Posed like this, the “fourth indus-

trial revolution” looks relentlessly

negative. We are all familiar with

the dystopian scenario. Mass

unemployment, accelerated inequality,

widespread redundancies and workers

left without purpose as the machines

take over. This bleak picture troubles

those who look beyond short-term

political cycles at how technological

trends will shape our society and our

economy in the decades to come.

But let me ask a slightly different

question. What mundane tasks would

you willingly pass off to a friendly robot

helper? What don’t you like doing at

work — organising your calendar?

Checking for meeting rooms? Filling out

forms? And what would dumping these

tasks — on to an artificial intelligence

underling — free you to do more of in

your work? The stuff you enjoy, proba-

bly, and the bits that are actually pro-

ductive.

The truth is that automation and AI

are coming (indeed, they are here)

whether we like it or not. We don’t really

have a choice. But that is not to say that

we lack all agency about when it comes,

how work will change or the impact of

the coming revolution. Whether the

inevitable robots replace us at work or

make our work happier and more

rewarding — that is in our hands.

At the Institute for the Future of

Work, we are not very interested in the

question of whether new technology is

utopian or dystopian — because it tends

to be what you do with it that really

counts. We are engaged in building the

tools and the processes to help employ-

ees collaborate in identifying how auto-

mation can make work better and more

productive, ensuring the jobs we have

are good for boss and worker alike.

This means designing the technologi-

cal augmentation of tasks with the expe-

rience of workers as the priority; asking

how automation can improve workers’

lives and enhance productivity, not how

it can simply replace human work or

create new processes that alienate

human beings from the world of work.

We think this will be crucial in helping

Britain cope with the double disruption

of Brexit and the AI revolution.

Companies that get this right have a

huge amount to gain. The Sony UK tech-

nology centre in Wales managed to

increase productivity by automating

some of its production lines and rede-

ploying workers to upskilled roles.

Research published last year by a team

led by Chris Brauer at Goldsmiths, Uni-

versity of London, showed that organi-

sations augmented by automation tech-

nologies are 33 per cent more likely to be

human-friendly, and have employees

who are 31 per cent more productive.

That’s an astonishing double-win: hap-

pier employees, assisted by technology

to get a third more done with their time.

All this requires a change of mindset.

If we are to harness automation for

human ends, and avoid driving people

out, we must think in systems from the

outset. This means looking at work

within organisations from all angles —

involving workers, employers and other

stakeholders, such as consumers, in

designing technological augmentation.

Recognising the inputs and outputs of

aparticular job, carving out elements

where automation would be welcome,

can set workers free to achieve more.

Conducting this process in reverse —

working out what we can automate

quickly and leaving the remainder for

humans to do — is a recipe for misery,

alienation and social decay.

We are focused on building the tools

to help employers do this right. Our

Good Work Charter helps to define the

principles of what a good job looks like.

Bodies such as EUnited Robotics — the

trade body for the European robotics

industry — are adopting the charter to

create practical guidance to help engi-

neers think about the impact of their

designs on people.

In the end, the fourth industrial revo-

lution will bring with it massive new

automation. It will not drive humans

from the labour market entirely. But the

choice will be between human workers

left to sweep up after robots and robots

who are there to boost happiness and

productivity for workers. This will not

happen organically; it needs us to be vig-

ilant and to design the tools and the

processes to tell the difference between

these two approaches. But the prize is

real and hugely exciting. I, for one, wel-

come our new robot underlings.

The writer, former president of the Institu-

tion of Engineering and Technology, co-

chairs the Institute for the Future of Work

The truth is that robots are

coming — but that is not

to say we lack all agency

about their impact

Automation can help humans enjoy happy, productive working lives

Naomi

Climer

BRITAIN

Bronwen

Maddox

Melvyn

Krauss

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