The Daily - Political Mayhem in Britain and Italy

Episode Date: August 30, 2019

Two battles over the meaning of democracy are now playing out in Europe. We look at the political power maneuvers this week in Britain and Italy. Guest: Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background coverage: Facing a furious backlash over his decision to suspend Parliament next month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain promised to speed up Brexit negotiations with Brussels.In Italy, two political parties that had been sworn political enemies struck a deal to form a new government that sidelined Matteo Salvini, the hard-right leader.Listen to “The Battle for Europe,” a series from “The Daily” with Katrin Bennhold about the future of liberal democracy in the European Union.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. Today, two battles over the meaning of democracy are now playing out in Europe. Correspondent Katrin Benhold on the political power plays in Britain and Italy. It's Friday, August 30th. So, Catherine, previously on The Daily, you told us the story of populism in Europe over five parts,

and now it feels like that story is very much back in the news. I know. So we've got news out of the UK. We've got news out of Italy. I'm sort of just waiting for the other countries to sort of implode. Yeah, it's been quite a week. So let's start with the UK. Remind us where we were when this week started. Good evening from Downing Street, where Boris Johnson, one of the most controversial politicians of modern times, has taken over as Prime Minister from Theresa May. Standing in Downing Street for the first time as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson promised the British people that Brexit will be dealt with in 99 days. And he's promised to take Britain out of the EU on October 31st, with or without a deal.

I and all ministers are committed to leaving on this date, whatever the circumstances, and to do otherwise would cause a catastrophic loss of confidence in our political system. Okay, so the situation is that Boris Johnson needs to deliver Brexit finally. We've got a deadline, October 31st. You know, the deadline was extended twice.

This now seems to be the hard deadline. And he's got nine weeks to deliver this promise to take Britain out of the European Union. Basically, there are two ways of doing that. Either you cut a deal with Brussels, with the other 27 countries in the European Union, and figure out a way to make this kind of work seamlessly. Or you don't cut a deal, in which case you kind of crash out of this block, meaning that you have a situation of total chaos. This no-deal Brexit scenario is basically something that most lawmakers want to avoid. Right. And that's why there were scenes of Theresa May trying and failing to pass a deal

Brexit through Parliament over and over again in these really embarrassing stumbles. Correct. She failed three times and then she resigned. And now Boris Johnson has made it very clear that he stands for a Brexit on October 31st, do or die, as he put it. And we're going to fulfill the repeated promises of Parliament to the people. Deal or no deal. And come out of the EU on October 31st. That's his objective. No ifs or buts.

So this was kind of the situation we were in. Everybody was wondering, what's he going to do with this? And then he did something that nobody expected. He suspended Parliament. It is a move that will make it easier for Johnson to force the country's exit from the European Union without a deal in place. Critics say this is a constitutional crisis, but supporters say it's standard practice.

What does that actually mean? So he's dealing with a parliament that not only hasn't been able to agree on anything, there's no majority for any deal that has been proposed. He's dealing with a parliament that tried to oust him at one point. And he's dealing with a parliament where various opposition parties are now finally making common cause to basically pass legislation to stop a no-deal Brexit from happening, which would limit his options and basically risk for him not to be able to deliver on his promise, which is Brexit come what may. So there's this thing called proroguing. It's a very British thing. If you prorogue parliament, you basically suspend it temporarily. And he's basically cut down the time that parliament has in session to debate Brexit from five weeks to less than three weeks. By cutting the timetable, Johnson is making it much less likely that these people will actually come to an agreement.

And get in his way. And get in his way. In a way, he's made it almost impossible for anyone to challenge his promise to leave the European Union on October 31st. So Johnson is trying to severely limit the role of the legislative branch of the British government in what is arguably the most consequential process it has gone through in decades. How on earth is that possible? The crazy thing is it's totally possible. Most people think it's entirely within the bounds of Britain's famously unwritten constitution. And he got it approved by the Queen and that allowed him to go ahead. So that's all it takes. Ask the Queen, suspend Parliament. That's all it takes. So does that mean the Queen supports this plan? No, it doesn't mean that she supports it. It's

basically a formality in Britain. That part is normal. But what isn't normal is the timing and the way that he sort of did this in a way that looks very much politically motivated. And, you know, this is not necessarily illegal. There may be legal challenges, but a lot of people think he'll get away with it. But it's sneaky. And it's kind of undermining trust in the institutions and reinforcing the sense that democracy is not working. And that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So he's kind of playing with fire. It's extremely brazen. And I wonder how people, especially people who serve in Parliament,

have responded. They're not happy. People basically accuse him of staging a coup. Shutting down Parliament in order to force through an Odeo Brexit, which will do untold and lasting damage to the country, against the wishes of MPs, is not democracy, it's dictatorship. They say he's acting like a king. He's taking away fundamental democratic rights and disabling Parliament. Suspending Parliament is not acceptable. It's not on.

What the prime minister is doing is a sort of smash and grab on our democracy. People have been marching in the streets. The bottom line of all of this is that people are saying this is deeply undemocratic. It's not for an unelected prime minister to shut down the elected parliament to ram through a no deal for which he has no democratic mandate. I mean, the scale of what he's doing strikes me as the equivalent of the president of the United States in the middle of the immigration debate, for example, something as divisive as Brexit, just somehow suspending Congress and putting his plan for a border wall in action and saying,

I don't need you. You're in the way. It's not a bad analogy because Johnson is saying, I'm not undemocratic. You guys are. And I suspect that's probably what Trump would say. He'd say, the people voted for me. I promised a wall. So this is democracy. Well, Johnson is basically saying the people voted for Brexit, so I'm the man to deliver it. And if parliament is going to stand in the way, then parliament is undemocratic. It has become clear that there are pessimists at home and abroad who think after three years of indecision that this country has become a prisoner to the old arguments of 2016. And in this home of democracy, we are incapable of honoring a democratic mandate. It's pretty classic populist stuff, actually.

You know, the evil elites, they're not standing for the people. But here I am, the man to represent the people. And so I am standing before you today to tell you, the British people, that those critics are wrong. The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters, they are going to get it wrong again. The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts because we're going to restore trust in our democracy.

So Johnson is saying, you're calling it undemocratic for me to block Parliament's ability to do my job. But I say it's undemocratic for Parliament to get in the way of me realizing what the people voted directly for, which is Brexit. Exactly. And ultimately, that's kind of where we're at. It's like, what's your definition of democracy? Is it democracy? People voted for Brexit and nobody's been able to deliver it. Is it democratic to disable temporarily a legislative chamber that is sort of at the core of representative democracy, right?

The people vote for these representatives to stand for their interests. But there's this rift right now, and this is kind of at the heart of this issue of rising populism across Europe that we touched on in June as well, is the people don't trust their representatives anymore. There's this crisis of representative democracy. And in Britain, the oldest democracy in the world, this tension has now really come to a head. Right. It's one of the reasons that the British people voted to get out of the EU in the first place. This idea that the European Union was not properly representing them. And this is where, in some ways, the irony lies. Because Boris Johnson argued in favor of Brexit precisely with the argument that it would reinforce the British Parliament.

They say we have no choice but to bow down to Brussels. We say they are woefully underestimating this country and what it can do. It would repatriate powers. It would make the British Parliament more powerful and more democratic. It would repatriate powers. It would make the British Parliament more powerful and more democratic. I mean, he basically argued, when he was arguing in favor of Brexit, that Brussels was dominating too much, that Brussels was dictating to Britain,

that Brussels was sort of curtailing British sovereignty and the sort of ability of the British Parliament to legislate. And now he is curtailing the power of the British Parliament to legislate. And now he is curtailing the power of the British Parliament to legislate. If we vote Leave, we can take back control of our borders, of huge sums of money, 10 billion pounds a year net, of our tax-raising powers, of our trade policy, and of our whole law-making system, the democracy that is the foundation of our prosperity. And now he's suspending it.

So Katrin, what are we expecting to actually happen now as a result of this move by the prime minister? So right from the start, Brexit has been an incredibly complicated issue, super fraught and impossible to predict the outcome. I would say that in the broadest possible terms, what Boris Johnson has done has significantly increased the chances of Britain leaving the European Union on October 31st. And it has probably also increased the chances of it leaving without a deal.

Now, he is gambling, and it's a high-stakes gamble, that he will terrify everybody so much about his utter intention to leave without a deal if necessary, that the European Union might just give him that concession that eluded Theresa May, and that Parliament will pass whatever deal he presents to them just to avoid the incredibly damaging and disruptive scenario of a no-deal Brexit.

But if a no-deal Brexit happens, then that might be not just a big blow to Britain's economy, but given what Boris Johnson just has done, to Britain's democracy too. We'll be right back. Okay, Katrin, we were just talking about the messy situation in the UK. What is happening in Italy? So this is fascinating. Basically, we have kind of an exact inversion of the situation that we just talked about in the UK. We have a situation where it's kind of parliament taking control in order to keep a populist from taking power. So recall that in Italy, there's this hard right figure.

Matteo Salvini. Prima di italiani. Who has become enormously popular for being anti-immigrant and stopping migrants from landing on Italy's shores. He's been part of a coalition government. He was interior minister. And during his time in government, has become even more popular.

So he had this idea. He basically wanted to force the collapse of his own government in order to force a new election and then become prime minister. prime minister. So he thought that he had become so popular while in this position that if there were to be a new election, he would win it and become prime minister. Exactly.

And his opponents in parliament thought he was right. They thought he would probably win it. Italy's government has descended into chaos. Which is why... Giuseppe Conti abruptly tendered his resignation today after days of political infighting. Two very unlikely partners.

Italy's opposition Democrats in the Five Star movement have been scrambling to try and forge a viable coalition. Two parties that have been kind of sworn enemies until just a few days ago wanted to make sure

that this election would never happen. Two rival parties, the five-star movement and Democratic Party discussed who should get what ministerial post.

So they kind of negotiated a new coalition government that would not include his party. A seismic shift in Italy's political landscape. The established centre-left Democratic Party and Italy's anti-establishment Five Star Movement have agreed to put aside their differences and join forces to form a government.

So he's been sidelined by his own maneuver. Salvini is furious, accusing Brussels, Berlin... But also by a parliament that, as it would argue, in a bid to save Italian democracy from a populist who was going to go into coalition with an even more populist far-right party would basically prevent a new election. They would prevent giving the Italian people a vote at this moment.

The new coalition is united against a common enemy. It will need to hold firm to keep Salvini at bay. So this is kind of wild political bed-hopping. And did it work? It worked. At least for now. So basically we have a situation where Salvini has been sidelined.

He's no longer in government. He has lost his ministerial post. And a powerful platform to sort of do this continuous campaigning that he's been doing. You know, his opponents hope that this will basically reduce his popularity and that come the next election, which is formally scheduled in three years, he won't be as powerful and popular as he is now. powerful, and popular as he is now. Of course, there are a lot of wild cards in this because his narrative, of course, is the establishment is afraid of the people.

The establishment is afraid of new elections. The establishment is afraid of democracy. That is what Matteo Salvini would say. Right. In his mind, he was the most powerful leader with the people of Italy, and he was just ousted by the politicians in Parliament. That's the story he tells, and it's a powerful story. And so the question is, how does this play out?

Is he going to be a kind of political has-been who, deprived of his ministerial platform, will indeed lose popularity and kind of vanish from the scene? Or will he turn into this populist martyr? You know, this guy who, more now than ever before, will represent the kind of frustrated ambitions of the people to have their voice heard.

And therefore, in three years, could be even more popular than ever. It's possible. So again, there three years could be even more popular than ever. It's possible. So again, there's two ways of looking at what's democratic here, just as there was in the UK. One is that Italy's parliament protected democracy by blocking the ascent of a populist with authoritarian leanings. The other is that that leader, Salvini, is the man of the people, and that Parliament this time staged a kind of undemocratic coup. Exactly. So Parliament would say, they did this to save Italian democracy. But another way of looking at it is that they saved themselves. So Katrin, what do we make of these two stories unfolding in the exact same week?

Yeah, so who would have thought only two weeks ago that we'd be talking about a situation in Italy that is actually relatively calm? You know, you've got a social democratic party, a pro-European sort of establishment party in power instead of this kind of hard right firebrand. And who would have thought that the prime minister of Britain would subvert parliament in, you know, the world's oldest democracy?

But this is kind of what the battle looks like, right, between the establishment and the populists. And it's playing out everywhere, in every single country in its own way, at different levels, in different intensities. And everybody thinks they're on the right side of democracy. That's kind of the striking thing, right? Everybody thinks they're representing democracy. And where we will end, where we will land in the end, is kind of the big question of Europe right now. Catherine, thank you very much.

Bye, Michael. On Thursday, as fallout from Boris Johnson's suspension of Parliament intensified, two of his government allies resigned. Ruth Davidson, the head of the Scottish wing of the Conservative Party, and George Young, the government whip in the House of Lords. In his resignation letter, Young made clear he could not tolerate Johnson's maneuver, writing that it, quote, We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, the Trump administration laid out a plan to reduce the regulation of methane emissions, a major contributor to climate change. The White House has proposed eliminating federal requirements that oil and gas companies, proposed eliminating federal requirements that oil and gas companies, which generate methane, install technology to detect leaks of it from wells, pipelines, and storage facilities. But the Times reports that many energy companies oppose the change. Like several car companies, they have spoken in favor of existing environmental rules and are resisting attempts by the president to dismantle them. And forecasters are warning that Hurricane Dorian,

a Category 1 storm now south of the Bahamas, could reach the east coast of Florida on Monday as a Category 4 storm with winds of at least 130 miles per hour. The hurricane has spared Puerto Rico and could still stall out or change course before Monday. The Daily is made by Theo Balcom, Andy Mills, Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lindsay Garrison, Annie Brown, Claire Tennesketter, Paige Cowan, Michael Simon-Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Doerr, Chris Wood, Jessica Chung, Alexandra Lee Young, Jonathan Wolfe, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Michaela Bouchard, Stella Tan, and Julia Simon.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Tuesday after the holiday.