Taoiseach’s leadership in question - Mr Kenny’s FG future in doubt

OVER the coming years European democracy and politicians face a far greater challenge than any posed since the Second World War ended. 

At that moment millions were destitute or orphaned, many countries had been razed, economies were to all practical purposes dead. With determination, patience and the support offered by America’s Marshall Plan today’s Europe was created. The Brexit vote means all of that must be reimagined in a way that preserves European solidarity but recognises the sad reality of Britain’s vote.

For all its difficulties — mass immigration, dangerous, unsettling levels of unemployment among young people, uncertainty around the euro and growing instability in Italy’s banks — Europe today is incomparable to Europe in 1945. There are clouds on the horizon though. The rise of the right in France, resurgent nationalism in England and Poland, and the possibility of a far-right administration in Austria. The possibility that America might elect the appalling Donald Trump to succeed Barack Obama, once thought to be the stuff of fantasy, can no longer be discounted so easily. Russia’s reassertion of its hegemony in Europe’s eastern borderlands strains international relationships too.