...and how they were covered

What next?

Is it really too late to stopano-deal Brexit? “Not necessarily,” said Sean O’Grady in The

Independent. When Parliament returns on3September, Labour is likely to call foravote of

no confidence, and with sufficient cross-party support suchavote could pass. Under the terms

of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, there would then bea14-day period in which to find an

alternative government capable of securing the confidence of the Commons. In theory, a

government of national unity could be formed, headed byaRemainer such as Labour’s

Margaret Beckett or the Tories’ Philip Hammond. Legally, however, Johnson would not have

to quit during that 14-day period, and if no new administration were in place at the end of it,

it would fall to him to decree the election date.

Parliament hasn’t run out of options to stopano-deal Brexit, said Stephen Bush in the New

Statesman. The problem is that Remainers need to coalesce aroundasingle strategy, which is

something they’ve never managed. “The pattern of parliamentary votes has been very clear: big

majorities to deplore the idea ofano-deal Brexit, and slim or non-existent majorities to actually

prevent one.” Even if MPs did manage to cobble together some Remainer alliance, it’s hard to

see what they would do next, said Tim Stanley in The Daily Telegraph. They could delay Brexit

abit, but to what end? They could “call an election, but Boris might win”.

“Revolutions, once started, are hard to stop,” said James Kirkup in The Spectator. Brexit has

so subverted political norms that we’re at the point where Johnson’s aides are suggesting he

could defy convention afterano-confidence vote by squatting in No. 10, “effectively daring the

Queen” to sack him. That would trash Britain’s reputation and setaterrible precedent. These

threats may all beabluff, said Robert Shrimsley in the FT, but Johnson will struggle to back

down now. He has long maintained that the EU will fold at the last minute. “The worry, for

all but the true disciples, is that the EU sees notaBritish lion butapaper tiger, knowing it can

allowanodeal and make the terms of May’s agreementaprecondition to future trade talks.”

What the commentators said

Dominic Cummings is

reportedly planning to frame

afuture election asa“people

vs. politicians” battle, pitting

Leave voters against

Remainer MPs, says

Sebastian Payne in the FT.

“Johnson would hope to

attract most of the Leave vote

–limiting the impact of the

Brexit Party–while the

Remain vote would be split

between the other parties.”

But the success of such a

strategy, were the election

held in early November, soon

after ano-deal Brexit, would

rest on howano-deal Brexit

panned out. “If there is major

disruption, it could prompt a

backlash against [Johnson’s]

Government. Should it be

manageable, the Prime

Minster could say he has

proved the naysayers wrong.”

What next?

“Trump’s presidency has been leading up to this moment,” said Carli Pierson in The

Independent. He described the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville as “very fine people”. Atarally

in May, he asked of Latino migrants: “How do we get rid of them?” And he smiled when

someone in the audience yelled: “Shoot them!” Of course Republican resistance to gun

control is an underlying problem. But Trump’s normalisation of racism has had terrifying

consequences. There is nowaglobal white supremacist movement, said James Palmer in

Foreign Policy. The El Paso shooter seems to have chosen the anonymous “politically

incorrect” message board of the website 8chan to post his manifesto–like the perpetrator

of the Christchurch massacre. It isa“cesspool of anti-Muslim conspiracies and neo-Nazism”.

The copycat nature of these killings is very clear. “In general,” wrote the El Paso killer, “I

support the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto.”

What links many of the zealots isasingle “deadly” theory, said Rosa Schwartzburg in The

Guardian. From his manifesto, it seems that Crusius subscribes to the “Great Replacement”:

the thesis, which originated in France, that Western elites are deliberately replacing people

of European descent with non-white immigrants. That puts him in line not only with Anders

Breivik, the Norwegian right-winger responsible for the murder of 77 people in 2011, but also

with the Christchurch shooter, who entitled his own manifesto “The Great Replacement”.

Some way must be found to inoculate the vulnerable againstatheory that is “spreading like a

virus”. What’s extraordinary is how much this “violent paranoia” resembles that of Islamist

terrorists, said Brendan O’Neill in Spiked. All of them believe that they are under some form of

“siege”: that their identities are in danger of being replaced or wiped out. What all such acts of

savagery point to are the “dangers inherent in the persistent politicisation of personal identity”.

What the commentators said

Mexico has demanded

better protection for its

citizens and for all

Mexican-Americans in

the US. Foreign Minister

Marcelo Ebrard said his

government could request

the extradition of the El

Paso killer on terrorism

charges, and might also

bring legal action against

whoever supplied his

weapon. Some 80% of the

population of El Paso are

Hispanic people.

Prosecutors in Texas say

they will press for the death

penalty against Crusius. In

recent decades, the state has

accounted for more than

one third of all executions

in the US.

We’re good at beating ourselves up in this country. Wheneveranew

infrastructure scheme runs into trouble, our first instinct is to see it

as evidence of Britain’s unique uselessness atGrands Projets.An

efficient nation such as Germany, we assume, would never get itself into suchamuddle. But that’s

not true–asthe fiasco of the new Berlin Brandenburg airport amply illustrates. The project was first

mooted in 1992, got under way in 2006 and was due to be completed five years later. But the 2011

inauguration was put off until the following year, and cancelled again then, just three weeks before

the opening ceremony. Another five missed opening dates followed, thanks to bureaucratic foul-ups

and budget problems. Nowasecond terminal, added to the original plans, has been completed, and

we’re told the airport will open in October 2020. Alas, many experts think even that is unrealistic.

To printalist of the project’s recent problems, noted Henrik Böhme in Deutsche Welle last week,

would require the felling of “a medium-size forest”. Escalators were installed that turned out to be

afew steps too short. If the wind blew in the wrong direction, rainwater flowed into the ventilation

shafts.Athousand trees were planted in the wrong place and had to be dug up again. Around 4,

doors were incorrectly numbered. Monitoring devices installed six years ago reached the end of their

lives and had to be replaced. In comparison to this litany of failures, the budget

overruns and delays plaguing Crossrail and HS2 in Britain don’t look half so bad.

THEWEEK

Harry Nicolle

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