Election gamble blows up in the face of British PM Theresa May. Or how settling for an insecure coalition cabinet with a stronger opposition could become a blessing in disguise for the UK as a whole.

British Prime Minister Theresa May of the conservative Tory party had it all figured out: with the extremely tough Brexit negotiations with the European Union ahead and with the Labour party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, seemingly flat on its back, it seemed like an appropriate time to organize national elections in the United Kingdom.

According to her plan, these national elections would act like a two-edged sword.  When she would indeed have the sound victory based upon an absolutely majority that she anticipated, she would acquire a stronger mandate with respect to the EU negotiations and it would also rub her adversary Jeremy Corbyn deeper in the dirt of his own incompetence, she figured.

With the Tories as absolute majority leaders in parliament and Labour lying in tatters, she would be energized to take the tough stance against the EU that she deemed necessary to carry out the best possible results from these negotiations.

Things went... a little different:

The Tories won the elections by a small and non-decisive majority of  58 seats (319 seats against 261 for Labour, according to the latest polls) and they saw Labour gain a quite impressive 29 seats, in comparison with the last elections.

When one takes into consideration that Labour under the “clumsey leader” Corbyn seemed a lost cause  and that May seemed on her way to a landslide victory only a few weeks ago, it is clear that things went horribly wrong for Theresa May.

And the remarkable thing is that neither the Brexit nor the terrible terrorist attacks of the last few months in the United Kingdom seemed the direct smoking gun, with respect to this strongly disappointing election result.

The terrorist attacks – terribly brutal and vicious as they were – were of course condemned by all parties and it was not that the policy of either the Tories or Labour would have led to a different outcome. Besides that, all three attacks (i.e. the two in London and the one in Manchester) were executed by people living in the UK for a long time or even all their lives, so even the most restrictive policy regarding immigration would not have stopped these terrorist attacks at all.

To put it even stronger: the perpetrators were perhaps all part of the United Kingdom’s colonial heritage and not a consequence of the unhindered immigration of the recent years.

And the Brexit was not even the elephant in the room in the prelude to the elections. As Bernard Hammelburg, the savvy Dutch correspondent for Foreign Affairs of BNR Radio stated (if I recall him correctly): “the Brexit itself as an event hardly played a role in the British elections. The Brexit was a thing from the past, upon which all the important, gamechanging decisions were already taken. It was especially the unclear economic outlook and the feeling that not all would be hunky dory within the British empire after all, that drove the people – especially the youngsters – towards Corbyn’s Labour party”.

BNR Newsradio Foreign Affairs journalist Bernard Hammelburg
Picture copyright of: Ernst Labruyère
Click to enlarge

Whatever the reason was: fact is that the whole plan of Theresa May to improve her position via these elections blew up in her face.

Instead of having an absolute majority of at least 326 seats, she ended somewhere south of 320 seats. In order to find a workable majority directly after the elections, May called in the help of a Northern Irish splinter group: the Unionist Democratic Party. This party is far more populist and conservative than even the Tories would like to endorse. Nevertheless, calling in the help of this party seemed the only way in which she could continue her governmental plans at short notice.

This means that due to this UDP party participation her hands could be tied with respect to all kinds of political hot potatoes, like the Brexit (the difficult choice between a soft and hard Brexit), the open border with Ireland, immigration and the economic development in all the countries within the United Kingdom.

And on top of that she seems to have lost the confidence of many youngsters in the UK, in favour of Labour with its leader that initially “nobody wanted” and that really nobody among the powers-that-be took serious in the beginning.

Corbyn was considered a basket case, with a totally outdated political view that came straight from the Eighties of last century: a political Catweazle [Catweazle was the name of a fictious wizard from medieval times, who was transported to the 20th Century by a failed spell – EL]. 

But the tides have turned for both PM Theresa and Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn...

So what can Theresa May do, now it is probably not possible to maintain her tough stance against the EU (i.e. “a Brexit on our terms or else... no deal!”), as she is now stuck somewhere between the desires of a now very powerful Northern Irish splinter group, a strongly divided Tory party and a Jeremy Corbyn with much more power than before and with the momentum going his way?

Perhaps the best solution would be to grind off the sharp edges of her current Brexit-related policy by diluting it here and there with a dash of mildness and a spoon of compromise and humility. She knows that she has to take three totally different opinions into account (Labour, Tories and UDP) in order to get anything through the parliament in the coming years. 

She can’t always trust the hardliners within her own party for automatically voting in her favour, so she must be able to find a broader compromise than she did before.

In other words, she has to take Labour’s desires also into account to a certain degree and stick out a hand towards the man that she probably dislikes more than anyone else: Jeremy Corbyn. Will she be able to do that? Who knows?!

I think the best she can do, is creating a compromise that nobody loves, but nobody hates either. A compromise that is in the best traditions of Dutch politics with its outrageous number of (small) parties and its long, long history of coalition cabinets, that were always a difficult marriage between sense and emotion.

And probably, when Theresa May grinds off the sharp edges of her Brexit policy, the EU is also willing to abandon their plans to punish the UK for trying to leave the EU.

The toughest nut to crack will be the immigration issue, as well as the free traffic of capital, citizens and goods and services. However, even in these formerly non-negotiable areas of EU policy there might be a small opening.

Immigration already has turned into the hottest potato within the EU itself and the member states are already discovering that unlimited free traffic of citizens (i.e labour) has a series of serious drawbacks that cannot simply be ignored by the powers that be.

Politicians start slowly to discover that the EU citizens become more and more fed up by the EU’s neoliberal policy of the last thirty years, because it largely ignored the sense of security and financial / economic stability that almost every citizen requires, in order to have a decent living and raise a family in relative prosperity. That could mean a chance for the UK in the coming negotiations.

However, the most important factor will be whether Theresa May is able to sing a different tune or not? Will she be able to show the EU negotiators a little more humility than before, when she made it seem that she held all the cards and the EU leadership had to sing to her tune in the Brexit negotiations.

Even though the UK is still very much a stronghold in the financial and commercial services industry and not all financial companies are automatically choosing to leave London after the Brexit, May must understand that the UK still needs the EU more than the EU needs the UK after the Brexit. It is simple as that.

The UK is in my opinion quite vulnerable in the areas of agriculture, manufacturing and heavy industry, as well as the exports of manufactured goods, as the island cannot and will not be self-supporting in the coming years.

In some industrial areas, like the steel industry, the country still suffers from obsolete and hopelessly inefficient plants, that are no match for the cunning and efficient German industries or the heavily subsidized Chinese industries with their dumping of steel and other semifinished products. And nobody can eat or drink financial services alone.

So finding a viable and feasible compromise in the prelude to the Brexit can be a lifesaver for the UK in the end. The decision to start the Brexit can probably not be withdrawn without a massive British loss of face, but the way that it happens is very much in the capable (?) hands of PM Theresa May.

And then, this outcome of the elections, even though it will be a tough lump to swallow, could be a blessing in disguise: both for Theresa May and for the United Kingdom as a whole. And they can be a good chance for the EU to show a more friendly and humane face as well. 

A British mandate that takes the interests of more people into account is probably a better mandate in the end.

Does the Euro survive the ignorance and superficiality of the European populist politicians, but even more the moderate goverment leaders and politicians who increasingly follow in their footsteps?

Suddenly the odds for the survival of the European Union seem considerably higher in 2017 than during the catastrophic year 2016, in which the future for the European Union was very bleak indeed.

2016 was the year of the Syrian and African refugee crisis, in which the usual solidarity and good relations between the European countries came under fierce pressure. Many European countries, not lying in the front line of refugee arrivals like Spain, Greece and Italy do, refused to accept their fair share from the influx of refugees numbers. This left especially Italy and Greece in problems, as they were stuck with large numbers of desperate refugees, with nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.

It was also the year in which the authoritarian voices of Viktor Orbán (Prime Minister of Hungary) and Jarosław Kaczyński (leader Law and Justice Party of Poland) sounded more shrill than ever in their battle against the free press and other vital ingredients of a democratic structure. Already this behaviour led to steadily mounting animosity within the European Union

On top of that, 2016 was the year in which the Dutch referendum about the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement ended in a blatant loss for the pro-agreement government of Dutch PM Mark Rutte. This forced PM Rutte to kick the can down the road with respect to the Association Agreement and play a game of hide and seek with the people from the anti-agreement coalition.

These people demanded an immediate withdrawal from the whole agreement by The Netherlands – including the trade parts of it that were outside the scope of the Dutch government. This was a demand that PM Mark Rutte could never meet, without causing enormous commotion in Europe and everybody and their sister knew that.

And last, but not least, 2016 was the year of the British referendum about their membership of the European Union. A referendum, that had been dreaded and cursed in advance by most continental politicians and that left many British citizens and almost all European leaders in shock and awe, when the British population voted in majority in favour of a Brexit, thus making the British exit from the EU inevitable.

This referendum made an immediate end to the political career of British PM David Cameron – as I accurately predicted a few days before the referendum took place – and it showed that the Brexit camp did not even have the slighest hint of a plan, when they would indeed win the referendum. The ideological leader of the Brexit camp Nigel Farage (UKIP’s ) left the British ravage for others to clean up and PM Theresa May – who was in fact against the Brexit herself – was appointed as ‘volunteer’ to clean up the mess, which she did in a very decisive and even reckless way.

At these very moments it seemed that the European Union was ‘a dead man walking’. The union, of which the raison d’etre and usefulness had never been in doubt in the previous 50-odd years of its existence, came under heavy crossfire from the populist movements everywhere in Europe, as well as from the middle-of-the-road politicians. These moderate politicians closely followed in the populists' footsteps in order to not lose their own grassroots to them, leading to an ubiquitous movement in more populist directions.

Except from the influx of African and Middle-Eastern refugees for which nobody seemed to have compassion, solidarity and understanding anymore, the main targets of these relentless attacks against the European Union by both the right- and leftwing populists and the moderate rightwing politicians were the open borders (i.e. ‘Schengen’) and… the Euro.

The mantras of these politicians were: the borders must be closed again, to stop the dangerous influx of refugees, as this creates havoc in the open and rich societies of Europe.

And especially the euro was “the most dangerous and crazy experiment” in their views, as:

• It started without a proper financial, economic and monetary union, which all are necessary as a foundation for a sound financial system;
• There was generally a Europe of two speeds, with the “frugal, conscious and successful” countries in the North of Europe (according to politicians in a.o Germany and The Netherlands) and the “wasteful, inconsiderate and backwarded countries” in the South (according to the same politicians in these two countries);
  
• Countries like Greece and Italy should never have been allowed in the Eurozone in the first place, as they were financially and economically unstable and they ‘had lied about their financial and economic situation’ by rigging their national statistics and national, financial reporting;

Summarizing, at the end of 2016 things seemed very dire for the European Union, with populism on the rise – also among moderate politicians – and the EU under general crossfire from right- and leftwing politicians, for the alleged mistakes that it made in past and present.

And with general elections soon to be held in The Netherlands (Party for Freedom (PVV) – Geert Wilders), France (Front National – Marine le Pen) and Germany (AfD – Frauke Petri), it seemed that the situation could only turn more awkward for the EU.

But look now in the first half of 2017: even though Geert Wilders of PVV has gained five more seats in parliament, it wasn’t by far the landslide increase in seats that everybody thought he would gain, according to earlier polls.

And in France, the social-democrat candidate for the presidency Emmanuel Macron seems a trustworthy and undisputed opponent for the anti-EU stance of Marine Le Pen.

Instead of protests against the European Union and the Euro, there is a growing number of protests in favour of the EU and the Euro, as many people now consider what they have and how valuable it is.

On top of that, everybody can nowadays see the ‘ultralarge-scale sociological experiment’ that is the Brexit; everybody can see how the British government is struggling to bring it to a good end. And how clueless the victors of this referendum were, when they had won it.

Perhaps is 2017 indeed the year of the turning point in populism. As many people have seen that he European populists are masters in asking the right (or wrong) questions, but utterly fail in addressing these questions in a structural, legal and acceptable way. And populists are also extremely poor in binding a nation together in a way that everybody can have a decent life in peace and prosperity.

In order for populists to be successful, there must be groups available to suffer for them: the scapegoats, on which anything being wrong in society can be blamed. This blame game is only successful when everybody (i.e. nearly the total lower and middle classes) is suffering from difficult economic circumstances, which can be blamed on these groups under fire. 

Now that the economy is reluctantly, but steadily improving and joblessness is finally dropping, the feeding ground for populism is slowly disappearing. So perhaps, the worst in populism might indeed lie behind us. But that does not automatically apply to the Euro currency yet.

Due to the Eurozone’s inadequate strategy of kicking the can down the road with regards to especially Greece and Italy – temporary taking away the effects of the euro crisis without really solving the causes for the euro crisis itself – the confidence in the Euro, as the currency of choice for the European Union, is still at a low.

The debt level of Greece is nearly infinite until this day and the country is still in a very dire situation, without easy solutions. Instead of taking away the debt itself through a (partial) bail-out, the debt is rolled over to the future with yet again new loans, that will be as always very hard to pay back. In this way, the dire situation can last forever, as the tax collection in Greece, as well as the economic outlook for the country is still close to a disaster. And so the debt level of Greece remains a huge millstone for the future of the Eurozone and real solutions are still very hard to find.

And also Italy has still many rivers to cross before the country will be totally healthy, from a economic and financial point of view. In Italy there is always the difficult North-South situation with the rich and successful Northern provinces, against the poor and backwarded Southern provinces (‘according to many Italians, Africa starts directly under Rome’). On top of that there is the top-heavy political system and the still widespread corruption and extremely powerful organized crime that makes any change for the better very difficult in Italy.

Even though the economic situation in Spain and Portugal, and also in France, is slowly improving, the challenges ahead for the Euro as a unity currency are still enormous.

What does not help at such a moment is when the chairman of the Eurogroup, the rectilinear, ‘Calvinist’ swashbuckler Jeroen Dijsselbloem, states in an interview that the Southern European countries ‘have spent their emergency help money on "drinks and women" and now come begging for more’. This was not only a blatant lie, but leads to enormous anger in the Southern European countries, while diminishing the confidence in the Euro in the Northern European countries.

As this is the biggest danger for the Euro as a unity currency: the ignorance and superficiality (and sometimes sheer stupidity) of not only the populist politicians, but also the formerly moderate politicians, who all seem to do their best to weaken the position of the Euro, instead of reinforcing it.

It is not surprising that every now and then the same story comes around again that ‘Greece and Italy should be kicked out of the Eurozone’. This story is especially popular among more moderate politicians, as the populist politicians state that they and their countries want to leave the Eurozone themselves and return to their classic currencies.

The former, as well as the latter isn’t going to happen… at all! Forget it! Don’t even think about it!

The operation to reintroduce the old currencies in (some of) the Eurozone countries is the same, extremely expensive operation as the introduction of the euro between 1995 and 2002. And it will be equally difficult. 

One could think about all kinds of ‘paper drachmes’ and ‘paper lires’ for Greece and Italy, but the bottomline is that countries leaving the Eurozone would lead to economic havoc and ubiquitous uncertainty everywhere in Europe, with the extremely entangled financial and economic system that we have nowadays. 

There is absolutely no way to prevent that from happening!

We – the united people of Europe, represented by our own elected politicians and representatives – chose to introduce the Euro. Whether we like it or not, the Euro is here to stay and will never go away anymore, unless an economic cataclysm happens, like a war or a widespread and long depression in Europe.

You might ask: "Is the euro flawed?!" Yes, it undoubtedly is!

"Should the euro perhaps have started under different conditions?!" Perhaps, yes!

"But is there a better alternative available?!" No, there is not, in my humble opinion!

Every politician in Europe should accept that the Euro is here to stay and that replacing it for another currency is a nearly impossible challenge and - on top of that - a very dangerous one, from a political and economical point of view.

What politicians should do in order to save the Euro, is just stopping with weakening its position to begin with and instead looking for ways to improve it in its current, flawed, but yet unchangeable form. 

Just like the partners in an average marriage, the Euro is far from perfect, but just like the same partners, the Eurozone countries should try to make the best of it. That is what the European leaders should also try to do: make the best of it and lead it through the current, difficult crisis; hopefully towards a better and more prosperous future. That is in the interest of every European!

And of course the politicians should try to reinforce its foundations, by slowly, but surely working towards the monetary, financial and economic union as the best way to make the euro a more balanced currency. 

However, at this moment it will still be very hard to achieve that, under the still quite anti-EU stance of large groups in European society. Nevertheless, the leading politicians should hold on to this paramount strategy, as the best warranty for a more successful future. 

Like Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music sang in the Seventies: “Let’s stick together!”

Gibraltar and the domestic gains of old-fashioned, post-colonial sabre-rattling against a ‘vicious enemy’

I visited Gibraltar once in my life – in 1996 – during a fortnightly group roundtrip in a minivan in Spain. This roundtrip led us through the magnificent Spanish province of Andalucia and one day we visited indeed the most British part of Europe, located east of Dover.

I remember the beautiful view on the top of the mountain, the funny and energetic berber monkeys, the wonderful weather and the horrible British food – Shepherd’s Pie with overcooked carrots and greenpeas drowned in gravy –  which I suspect until this day gave our whole group a food poisoning that lasted for a minimum of two days for the lucky ones and among others much, much longer. But, to be frank, it could also be a fish dish in Spain itself, that caused our group’s discomfort.

And of course I remember how utterly British Gibraltar was, as a kind of open air museum crafted after the picture-perfect, proverbially British city that didn’t exist in reality. With red telephone booths, pubs, souvenir shops, restaurants featuring British ‘cuisine’ and other typically British paraphernalia for both tourists and anglophiles.

Now, twenty-odd years later, the same peninsula of Gibraltar is the subject of heavy, vocal sabre-rattling by both the Spaniards and the Britons.

Hardly the British government and diplomats delivered their Article 50-letter, effectuating the Brexit as a process, or the Spanish government smuggled a Gibraltar paragraph in the EU draft agreement that was the starting point for the orderly Brexit negotiations. The New York Times described the matter in the following snippets:

After it became clear Friday that the union’s remaining leaders might give Spain an effective veto over whether any deal applied to Gibraltar — a British territory long the subject of an acrimonious sovereignty dispute between London and Madrid — lawmakers in Britain and Gibraltar responded with defiance and concern.

Gibraltar’s chief minister, Fabian Picardo, made his anger clear on Friday, calling Spain’s tactic “disgraceful” and “predatory.” He said in a statement about the insertion of language on Gibraltar into the European Union’s draft guidelines for negotiating a British withdrawal: “This unnecessary, unjustified and unacceptable discriminatory proposed singling out of Gibraltar and its people was the predictable machination of Spain.”

In Gibraltar, which has a clear frontier with Spain, the fear is different. It is that once Britain is outside the European Union, which guarantees free movement of people, Spain could demand concessions or make the border with Gibraltar harder to cross, effectively isolating the territory.

Although the mounting emotions about Gibraltar are perhaps understandable with both the Spain and British views and background in mind, the Spanish action – to make the negotiations with the UK an effective hostage of the future British plans for Gibraltar – was not so sensible from a political point of view. Especially as Spain itself has two exclaves – Ceuta and Melilla – on Moroccon soil; two exclaves which Spain is not likely to abandon soon.

On top of that, the situation around Gibraltar never stopped both the Spaniards and Britons from actively working together for 40 years within the European Union and its predecessors. And it also never stopped the British elderly from spending their finest years in Spanish holiday resorts and second houses, at the same time that their youngsters spent their holiday money in Spanish discotheques and pubs, while drinking (much too much) Spanish beer, wine and cocktails.

So the question is valid “what the fuzz is all about”?!

And while the Spanish action was already quite erratic to these eyes, the British reaction – especially represented by former minister and current Tory official Lord Michael Howard, as well as a few warmongering British newspapers – was straightforwardly bananas, as the following snippets from the Guardian show:

Theresa May would be prepared to go to war to protect Gibraltar as Margaret Thatcher once did for the Falklands, former Conservative leader Michael Howard has suggested, in comments that were immediately criticised as inflammatory.

Lord Howard’s suggestion that the prime minister would be ready to follow in the footsteps of her predecessor 35 years ago came alongside a government pledge to protect the sovereignty of Britain’s overseas territory.

Downing Street said May had called Fabian Picardo, the chief minister of Gibraltar, on Sunday morning to say the UK remained “steadfastly committed to our support for Gibraltar, its people and its economy”.

Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, also used robust language. “We’re going to look after Gibraltar. Gibraltar is going to be protected all the way because the sovereignty cannot be changed without the agreement of the people of Gibraltar ,” he said.

The highly provocative picture of a British aircraft 
carrier at full steam in the British Telegraph newspaper
Picture courtesy of Telegraph.co.uk
Click to enlarge

And the Telegraph put things in overdrive, with a picture of a British war vessel and the following bragging lines about the British military strenght in a possible war with Spain:

Britain's Royal Navy is substantially weaker than it was during the Falklands War but could still "cripple" Spain, military experts have said.

Rear-Adml Chris Parry, a former director of operational capability at the Ministry of Defence,  has called on the Government to "appropriately" invest in Britain's military capacity if it wants to "talk big" over Gibraltar.

It came as a former Tory leader suggested that Theresa May would go to war with Spain to defend the sovereignty of the peninsular just as Margaret Thatcher did with the Falklands.

Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom quickly downplayed the situation in the media, reputedly by “laughing off the Spain war talk”, but the tone was definitely set.

As this incident shows, a toxic combination of aggrieved pride and an inferiority complex, as well as unhealthy nationalism and an uncertain future under influence of arguably the biggest and most uncertain, economic step in recent British history, could quickly lead to mounting anger and dangerous envy among the British population. And this by itself could lead to irreversible steps on the path towards war: hence the Falklands war, with its massive bloodshed and skyrocketing emotions about a few dry and almost deserted islands in the South Atlantic Ocean.

By focusing on a mutual enemy – Spain in this case – the British officials can distract the attention from the mounting political and economic uncertainty and the quite unfavourable outlook, emerging from the inconsiderate, to these eyes even reckless Brexit that the United Kingdom entered into.

The promise of a war against a ‘vicious enemy’, who threatens a country’s social, economic and political interests, is a catalyst for exploding nationalism and national pride. It will probably lead to a population that stands behind the government as one man, more than willing to chew through a dozen economic, sour apples on behalf of the greater good and the national interests being at stake. That is the reason that I am not absolutely sure that the situation between the United Kingdom and Spain will not escalate further, before coming to a timely end (or not).

Is the current British escalation strategy a dangerous strategy? It is very dangerous!

Is it effective? Oh yes, it is very effective for domestic purposes, as it overcomes political differences within the population and leads to ‘one people united against the enemy’!

And might the British government – perhaps with Lord Howard as a straw man – have deliberately (ab)used this Gibraltar crisis as a powerful weapon of government mass deception and nationalist demagoguery?! 

Well, to answer that question I gladly turn to what Sir Francis Urquhart, the main political vilain from the (far superior) British ‘House of Cards’, would have stated in this situation: “You might very well think that! I could not possibly comment!” 

Theresa May kept the right ones out and let the wrong ones in and is now reluctantly ‘best friends forever’ with Donald Trump, who – by the way – does not want to see Prince Charles at their official engagement party.

I kept the right ones out

And let the wrong ones in

Had an angel of mercy to see me through all my sins

Aerosmith - Amazing

Everybody understood that PM Theresa May stood in the starting blocks to visit the American president Donald Trump, almost immediately after his inauguration. There was hardly another option than to become even better friends with the United States, if the UK did not want to sink into economic oblivion.

Where the special relationship had traditionally been very important to the eyes of the United Kingdom, it became paramount when the UK decided to go its own way and leave the European Union.

The negotiation process with the EU – as a consequence of the hard Brexit that Theresa May advocated – would be long and painful and May was to expect hardly one inch of leeway during the whole process. And when finished eventually, this would only be the beginning of an even longer and more painful process of negotiating bilateral agreements with a huge number of countries, that earlier had business relations with the EU as a whole.

This whole negotiating process might take a decade and will be a long and winding road, with no guarantees in the end. It could even mean that the UK could end up in a worse position than at the start of the negotiations.

So even though PM May was not yet allowed to sign a deal with the American president – the UK is still a member of the EU at this moment – it would be a darn good feeling for her to leave the US with a letter of intent and a few rockhard promises regarding trade agreements, in the best interests of both countries.

Therefore standing at the stairs of the White House would be a huge ego boost for Theresa May and it might even lend some street credibility to Donald Trump, as he was off for a very shaky start in which he offended almost everybody and their sister, except for his “friend” Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

But May was soon to find out that her glorious pose at the White House, holding hands with President Trump, was a Pyrrhic Victory and would actually lead her away from the United Kingdom’s goal of wanting to be taken serious as an economic powerhouse after the Brexit.

Hardly 24 hours after this glorious event, President Trump by executive order deployed a ban against travellers from seven countries who wanted to enter the USA: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. In vernicular this ban was called the Muslim Ban. And this ban was valid for all travellers coming from these countries and even for people born in one of these countries, irrespective of the fact whether they carried a visa and a greencard or not.

On top of that, this fate also struck people with a double passport, who carried the second one from a country not present on this list. It did not matter: they did not get in the country. Period.

And even though this ban was watered down slightly the next day, when a justice of the Supreme Court stated that people with a valid Green Card and a visa could not be refused access to the United States, the damage had already been done for Trump and May. Especially, when thousands and thousands of alienated and furious American citizens in cities with large airports scurried to the terminals to protest and express their outrage about this Muslim Ban action. An action that damaged thousands of travellers from one of these countries and made them (temporary) prisoners of the terminal on the airport where they landed, while others were not even allowed to enter the plane in their home countries.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this Muslim Ban were the countries NOT on this list of banned countries: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, among others.

Especially Saudi-Arabia was undoubtedly the biggest “perpetrator” in sheer numbers of hijackers participating in the events during 9/11 and also the United Arab Emirates has allegedly a far from clean sheet, with respect to sponsoring of and participating in terrorism. Mudslingers stated that these voids on the list were caused by the fact that Trump owned massive commercial real estate participations in those countries and did not want to offend his hosts overthere.

For PM Theresa May the sh*t started to really hit the fan, when British citizens found out that under the new circumstances the British MP Nadhim Zahawi, who was born in Iraqi capital Baghdad, would not be granted access to the United States anymore for the duration of this ban. Her unemotional reaction to this ban – in order not to offend Trump directly after her visit– outraged her countrymen even more.

And soon a new opportunity for British outrage will occur, as PM May did not come empty-handed to her new, political ‘best friend forever’ in the United States.

She carried an invitation for an official state visit of President Trump to the United Kingdom. And reputedly this state visit contained the ‘Full Monty’ in British hospitality, in the form of President Trump visiting the Royal Palace, having a guided tour through London in the royal stagecoach and playing golf on the royal golf links. And probably dozens of other privileges, reserved for only the most important visitors to the country.

Of course President Donald Trump was more than willing to visit the United Kingdom, but – “by the way, Prime Minister” – he was adamantly against meeting Prince Charles.

The prince is not only a long-term environmentalist and deeply involved in the battle against climate change, for which President Trump does not give one rat’s behind, but he is also gifted with a very effective ‘royal bluntness’ that bows for nobody and leaves no important subject untouched, as Chinese president Xi Jinping can confirm first hand.

Meeting Queen Elisabeth and the Princes William and Harry? No problem. But Charles? Forget it!

And now PM Theresa May comes into a perfect storm.

She must sweet-talk to a rude and unfriendly President, who made a ‘historical event’ of his first week after the inauguration, by desecrating more people than probably any president before him, including Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. A person whom she probably (?) dislikes and who is hated by a substantial share of her own people for being the rude, angry and xenophobe person that he is. And she does so, almost continuously standing in the cross-fire of Scottish PM Nicola Sturgeon, who is absolutely not pleased that Theresa May is going for the hard Brexit and who on top of that blames May for her weak conduct against the Muslim Ban of late.

Besides that Theresa May must beg Donald Trump for mercy, with respect to a future trade and partnership deal between the United States and the United Kingdom, after she finished the painstaking negotiations with the European Union upon the exit criteria.

And to make things even worse: Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany almost immediately took a firm and crystalclear stance against the Muslim Ban by President Trump and was hailed and praised for that. Not only by other Europeans, but even by May’s own countrymen, who saw in Merkel’s appearance the backbone that Theresa May so dearly lacked in their eyes.

Of course it is solely to the British to decide whether May indeed ‘kept the right ones out and let the wrong ones in’ or that they still stand firmly behind her and the political choices she made.

However, few people will deny that a. President Trump made an absolute disaster of his first week as president and that b. Theresa May had just left him, when he deployed his despised and unfair Muslim Ban.

And that is something that PM Theresa May has to live with for the rest of her political career.