Across the globe, it’s time to pull back

Here’s looking forward to a year in which things will be pulled back.

There is a lot of pulling back required right now.

Pulling back from Brexit, from the emerging world order, from the road down which the planet is embarked.

The most urgent pull-back as far as this country is concerned is in the Brexit debacle.

Observing the British political system have a nervous breakdown would be one part amusing, two parts sad, were it not for its direct impact on us.

Right now, the British body politic continues to grapple between the fantasy of what Brexit was sold as, and the reality of what it is.

Trading in your most comforting dreams for a grey dawn is painful, but there is no easy way out.

All this talk about British prime minister Theresa May’s “bad deal” demonstrates the level of delusion that exists.

May got the only deal that was available.

The notion that somebody else — a man with an expensive education perhaps! — could do better is laughable.

As the clock hurls towards B-Day on March 29, there is, as yet, still no sign that the Conservative Party gets it.

You can have a realistic Brexit but neither you nor anybody else in global trade can have their cake and eat it.

The impasse over the Irish border backstop also exposes another truth about Brexit.

The border was practically never discussed during the referendum campaign.

It simply didn’t feature as an issue, and with good reason.

For Brexit is not about throwing off the shackles of an overbearing EU, retaking democracy, or even securing borders.

It is about nothing more than English nationalism, and in that context what does a piddly little border across the Irish Sea have to do with restoring Saint George to his horse.

Let’s hope that the light seeps in over the next three months.

Let’s hope there is some pull-back towards reality.

On the broader scale, we could do with a little pull-back from the drift from liberal democracy.

The terrifying cartoon antics of US president Donald Trump over the last year in particular have disguised the trend that is taking hold.

Take The Donald’s most recent foray into the surreal.

In the week before Christmas, he pulled US troops out of Syria, against all advice and to the horror of US allies and the delight of its enemies.

The move prompted defence secretary Jim Mattis, widely regarded as the last remaining adult in the Oval Office, to resign.

And why did Trump make such a drastic move?

A reasonable assumption would be that it was a tactic to distract from a blizzard of bad publicity, including his payment of monies during the last election to women not to talk about sexual liaisons, and the declaration from New York prosecutors that his so-called charity was a ruse to funnel money back to his own family interests.

What do you do when you’re breaking campaign fund laws and siphoning money from an alleged charity?

You point to the Middle East and say: “I’m bringing the boys home.”

As with all his actions, it’s not about putting America first but putting Trump first.

Despite that, there is a large cohort of US citizens still willing to vote for him, despite knowing exactly how unfit he is for office.

What does that say about the state of American politics?

More than anything, it says that politics is no longer delivering for a large swathe of people who feel left behind.

The group are willing to endure a buffoon in charge of the country who at least makes the noises they want to hear rather than succumb to more of the same old, same old.

This is not a uniquely American phenomenon.

The rise of the strongman leader in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and Brazil, as well as the rising popularity of kindred spirits not yet in power, is a direct result of disaffection with the economic world order.

Throw in the ascent of China to the top of the world power order and the expected fallout from Brexit, and it becomes obvious that centrist politics, as expressed through liberal democracy, is under major threat.

In that regard, this country remains an outlier in the evolving order.

The centre, despite the savage recession, has largely held.

There are some major social problems — and an emergency in housing — but had the country lurched to the right or left as others have, things would, in all likelihood, be worse.

This conservatism reflected in the failure to seek radical, and usually dangerous, solutions may well be down to this country’s history.

In most of the countries that have looked to a strongman to sort out their ills, there is a pining for the past.

For instance, the past is golden in the rustbelt states of the US where jobs have disappeared, or the former industrial heartlands of England where globalisation and technology have wreaked havoc.

This country has no such past for which to pine.

We were late coming to the top table of developed nations.

We remember a time not when immigration was low, but when emigration was a way of life.

Maybe we are not taken in by delusions that the past is attainable because we have no past to aspire to retrieve.

Notwithstanding our oasis of relative sense in that regard, there is a desperate need for a pull-back from the drift from the centre.

As of yet, there has been precious little recognition that the disaffected must be wooed back by real promise that life will improve.

However, all of the above will be largely redundant if we don’t have a planet on which to live.

Last October, the world’s leading scientists warned that we have only 12 years in which to ensure that global warning is kept to a maximum of 1.5C.

The report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change pointed out that if the warming goes even a half-degree beyond that, it will significantly worsen the risks of drought, flood, extreme heat, and thrust hundreds of millions of people into poverty.

Yet there persists a mentality across the globe that this is all about the never- never, when today’s leaders will have left the stage, when it will be somebody else’s problem.

This country has a particularly woeful record in facing up to the reality.

Last month, it was reported that we have the worst record in the EU in tackling climate change.

There is a reluctance to make difficult choices, to tell the populace that climate change is going to effect standards of living at least in the short term.

There is an urgent need for a pull-back on the political cowardice on climate change.

As far as the future of the planet is concerned, today’s leaders will reap a major legacy for generations to come.

Whether that is positive or negative is entirely in their hands today.

Happy New Year. Here’s hoping for a good one.