The Japan Times Wednesday, June 15, 2016 9

opinion

next week, the united Kingdom votes on whether or not to leave the european union. More important than a general election, the outcome of the referendum will influence Britain’s political and eco-nomic fortunes for a generation. as the long and increasingly bitter referendum campaign nears its conclusion — and with opinion polls showing the result too close to call — British voters face an onslaught of progressively more prepos-terous claims from both camps.

a vote for “Brexit” would have huge political and economic ramifications for the u.K. and its former partners in the eu. Britain’s exit threatens to amplify demands for similar referendums in other eu states, where insurgent anti-eu parties are gaining ground, boosted by public anger at the political establish-ment after almost a decade of economic insecurity and intermittent crisis.

Victory for the Leave campaign would usher in years of protracted exit negotia-tions, with uncertainty negatively effect-ing financial markets, investment and the value of the pound. The inevitable weakening of the eu following a British withdrawal would be detrimental to the world. The eu’s emphasis on “soft power” diplomacy, social democracy and human rights, makes it an impor-tant counterbalance to the united states’ neo-liberalism and China’s authoritarianism in today’s multipolar and interdependent world.

although public opinion surveys sug-gest the outcome of the referendum is on a knife-edge, a poll of political experts found a strong agreement that Remain will prevail. In the survey con-ducted by the Political studies associa-tion (Psa), 87 percent of experts predicted that Britain will vote to stay in the eu on June 23, with only five percent convinced Leave will triumph. even if Remain does win, the referendum debate is exacerbating political tensions, both within the u.K. and between Brit-ain and its european partners, that will not be easily reconciled after voting day.

Media coverage of the referendum campaign is focused on divisions within the governing Conservative Party. Per-haps inevitably, Prime Minister david Cameron is the main face of the Remain campaign, while his Cabinet colleague, former London Mayor Boris Johnson, is the central figure in the Leave camp.

division over europe has been an open wound for the Conservatives for decades, contributing to the downfall of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and undermining the premiership of her successor, John Major. By capitulating to demands for a referendum, Cameron

hoped to definitely settle the issue of Britain’s eu membership, and in the process to stem the hemorrhaging of Conservative supporters and activists to the anti-eu uK Independence Party.

But in the heat of the referendum campaign, Tory-on-Tory attacks have become increasingly personal, with pro-eu former Conservative chancellor Ken Clarke, for example, referring to John-son as “a nicer version of donald Trump.” In Britain, as in many other places, comparisons to Trump are shorthand for bigoted, illogical and pop-ulist nonsense. Win or lose on June 23, some of Cameron’s backbench MPs are calling on him to resign, accusing him of lying about the economic cost of Brexit.

anger at what are seen by some Con-servatives as Cameron’s scare tactics could cause a backbench backlash even if Britain votes to stay in europe. It would take the support of only 50 Con-

servative members of Parliament to trig-ger a challenge to Cameron’s leadership. The sunday Times quoted one rebel Tory MP as saying, “I don’t want to stab Cameron in the back — I want to stab him in the front to see the expression on his face.” Far from healing divisions within his party over europe, Cameron has deepened wounds by calling a refer-endum.

Labour, the main opposition party, would enjoy the current Tory death match over europe if the eu referendum had not intensified the already wide ide-ological and cultural gulf between Labour’s leadership and the working-class voters whom the party was founded to represent. Labour’s elite is largely London-based. But the capital is economically and culturally detached from the rest of the country, especially from the less affluent areas that make up Labour’s core constituency. London’s vibrancy in part rises from its diversity. But many Labour voters are worried about immigration — not because they are xenophobes, but because of fears over jobs, wages and services.

The votes of marginalized working-class voters will be the determining fac-

tor in next week’s referendum. although Labour’s leaders are almost exclusively backing Remain, a youGov survey finds that among voters classified as working class, 50 percent support leaving the eu and only 36 percent support staying in. For voters deemed middle class, the fig-ures are opposite. When asked to vote for the status quo, it’s not surprising that those with no stake and no influence feel unmoved. Predictions of economic apocalypse following Brexit do not reso-nate in communities where economic insecurity is already endemic.

Forces on the political right are domi-nating Britain’s referendum debate. The choice presented is between the xeno-phobic right’s anti-immigration case for leaving, versus the neoliberal right’s trade-focused appeal to remain. In fail-ing to articulate a social democratic case for remaining in the eu, Labour’s lead-ers leave working-class voters open to the populist promises of Leavers. But it is working people who will lose most from Brexit. although limited, the eu guarantees British workers basic employment rights. By echoing the Tory establishment’s message of post-Brexit economic doom and ignoring working-class voters’ concerns about unlimited eu immigration, Labour risks losing the support of its traditional voters well beyond the referendum.

although the eu’s leaders are hoping Britain remains a member of the club after next week, even if victorious, Cam-eron will not receive a warm embrace from his counterparts at the next euro-pean Council meeting. By calling a ref-erendum out of political expediency at a time of multiple crises for the eu, Cam-eron has drawn the ire of his colleagues.

negotiations on Cameron’s demands for backing Remain took time away from dealing with more pressing matters such as europe’s refugee crisis, Islamic state-backed terrorism and the Greek bailout. Britain’s perceived self-indulgence will make it harder for Cameron to win allies in future intra-eu negotiations. In the past, British prime ministers have used the prospect of a referendum on eu membership as a tactic to extract con-cession from european partners. This tactic will no longer work.

Whoever wins on June 23, all parties have been bloodied by the referendum campaign. The flayed corpses of Cam-eron and the Conservatives are a disin-centive for future British governments to offer referendums, the most direct form of democracy. When the people speak, political leaders often do not like what they have to say. The most devastating impact of this referendum campaign may be that the people are never directly consulted again.

Tina Burrett is an associate professor of political science at Sophia University

Remain or leave, u.K. vote will inflict lasting damage

New York

Though it might not always seem like it, the news media is composed of human beings. Humans aren’t, can’t be, and possibly shouldn’t be, objective. still, there’s a reasonable expectation among consumers of political news that jour-nalists of all political stripes strive to be as objective as possible. at their mini-mum, media outlets ought to be straightforward about their biases. They certainly shouldn’t have, or appear to have, their thumbs on the scales.

unfortunately, all too often, it appears that the political system is rigged — and that the major media companies play an important role in gaming the system. That’s what has happened throughout this year’s democratic primaries, in which the vast majority of corporate media outlets appear to have been in the bag for Hillary Clinton, the estab-lishment candidate, against self-described “democratic socialist” insurgent Bernie sanders.

examinations of coverage have con-firmed the impressions of cable news junkies that sanders has been the victim of a blackout, thus depriving him of a chance to make his case to voters. When the chairwoman of the democratic Party, debbie Wasserman schultz, scheduled the first round of democratic debates at times the party hoped nobody would be watching — again, a seemingly obvious ploy to deprive sand-ers of exposure — corporate media out-lets had little to say about it.

Then there has been the media’s com-plicity in spreading Clinton campaign talking points that bore little relation to the truth. MsnBC and other dnC-aligned media outlets kept pointing out that Clinton won 3 million more votes than sanders. True, technically. But that’s pretending that caucus states

didn’t exist. sanders did better than Clinton in caucuses.

Most recently, they conflated pledged delegates — those won by a candidate based on votes cast — with superdele-gates, the democratic politicians and party officials who will be able to vote however they want at the convention in July. Back in november, an aP survey found that Clinton — unsurprisingly — enjoyed the support of the vast majority of the superdelegates. assuming that the superdelegates had not and will not change their minds, the aP called the democratic race for Clinton on June 6, the night before a set of important pri-maries, including California. does any-one doubt that calling a race over has the effect of depressing voter turnout?

It’s impossible to quantify that effect, to know how many people didn’t bother to show up at the polls because they were told it was all over. In California, however, Clinton won 56 percent of the vote in a state where polls showed the two candidates neck and neck. (Califor-nia’s state election officials also did their best to keep voters away from the polls.)

as a journalist, I’m reluctant to cate-gorically argue that the aP ought to have held its statistical analysis of the race until after Tuesday’s vote. news ought not to be suppressed. When you have it, you ought to report it. similarly, I’m not sure that the new york Times was wrong to report the aP story. However, I do question the editorial wisdom of run-ning it as a banner headline.

The united states is a democracy. We elect our leaders based on votes actually cast by real people, not polls. even after the June 7 vote, Clinton still didn’t have enough pledged delegates to claim the democratic nomination. since those superdelegates aren’t going to vote until July, she won’t be able to really claim the nomination until then.

agreed, it’s a silly system. But it’s the system they have. They — and the media — ought to abide by it. Besides which, think how embarrassing it will be if the Justice department indicts between now and July. There’s a lot to be said for

leaving things hanging.The thing that disgusts me most about

this system — besides the perpetual state of war, the manufacturing of mass poverty, the prison industrial complex, the miserable state of the justice system, the fact that it’s impossible to make a decent living working 40 hours a week — is that it doesn’t even pretend to fol-low its own rules in a consistent way.

Consider, for example, how the new york Times couldn’t wait to report its “Hillary Clinton becomes first woman nominee from a major political party” story until after the primaries in Califor-nia et al. Would one or two days have made a big difference? (Well, yes. sand-ers might have won California.) If the idea is to get the story out first, no mat-ter what, even if it suppresses the vote, I can respect that. But then they ought to be consistent.

It was a very different story back in 2004. a few weeks before the general election in november, the new york Times researched and came to the con-clusion that President George W. Bush may have cheated in at least one of the presidential debates against sen. John Kerry. Photographs of the debate clearly showed a suspicious bulge in Bush’s shoulder; the Times did report the story as a light he-says-she-says piece. But then experts concluded that tongue-twisted Bush had been using a receiver and earphone to get advice and retorts from an unknown co-conspirator.

editors at the paper decided to hold a serious expose until after the election so that its coverage would not affect the results. Then they killed it. Four more years of Bush followed.

actually, the corporate media’s policy is brutally consistent. If holding a story benefits the forces of reactionary con-servatism, it gets held. If releasing it does so, it gets released. Time after time, the system exposes itself for what it is.

Ted Rall is the author of “Bernie,” a biography of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Media gamed democratic primary

Robert J. ShapiroWashington The GlobaliST

On June 23, Britons will hold a referen-dum on whether to stay in or leave the european union and surveys point to close vote. “Brexit” also would produce serious challenges for the united states, and possibly for democratic presiden-tial candidate Hillary Clinton. The eu represents much of what Republican candidate donald Trump is campaign-ing against. so, a Brexit vote will give him an opening to lace his smack-downs of Clinton with talk on trade, immigration and naTO.

If Britons say “no” to europe, the first fallout will hit when global investors pull back from europe and Britain, driving down the euro against the dollar and, by 2017, driving up the u.s. trade imbal-ance with Britain and europe. Britain has also been a big advocate of the Trans-atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and Brexit could well dis-rupt those talks. Trump will call these developments proof that wide-ranging trade pacts don’t work and that Clinton doesn’t appreciate how they weaken countries.

In fact, wide-ranging trade deals have been key factors in europe’s recovery in the 1960s and ’70s, the developing world’s rapid modernization since the early 1990s and america’s leadership in information and internet technologies.

and if Brexit ends up strengthening the dollar, it will show that global inves-tors still see the u.s. as the world’s stron-gest and most stable economy.

If Brexit happens, the u.K. also will have to restore its border controls with eu countries, including new limits on inflows of european workers to Britain. Those moves could also trigger new calls by right-wing european politicians to close eu borders to new immigrants from Turkey and syria, which in turn could mean more refugees seeking asy-lum in the u.s.

Trump will likely see these develop-ments as proof that europe is lining up behind his draconian plans to tighten borders and bar Muslims, and turning its back on Clinton. In fact, every major leader in europe, including Britain, has condemned Trump’s anti-Muslim stance. Moreover, these new develop-ments won’t change the eu’s distinctive policy of very light controls at the con-tiguous borders of eu countries — and Britain’s new approach would merely apply america’s current border regime to the u.K.’s borders with the eu.

a vote to leave by Britons also will cost the eu its largest military power, weakening the eu’s security and defense initiatives and its plans for european-wide defense cooperation.

as a result, concerns will increase about europe’s capacity to be an effec-tive geostrategic partner to the united states, and about naTO’s future value.

Trump will likely call these develop-ments proof that the u.s.’ 67-year old commitment to naTO, backed up by 67 years of investments, has gone bad, and that Clinton mismanaged u.s.-european relations. In fact, if Brexit pulls Britain out of the eu-wide defense policy and

weakens eu security plans, those devel-opments will enhance naTO’s role and importance, especially as a bulwark to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to weaken european resolve, and sow trouble between the u.s. and its most important allies.

The downside for Trump in using Brexit as evidence of his own canniness is that his criticisms line up pretty closely with Putin’s. They both say that the multilateral trade agreements of the last half-century have undermined the traditional economic arrangements they favor. They both also see Muslims as threats to the values and order they have each sworn to restore.

On naTO and the u.s.-european alli-ance, Trump’s views also align more closely with Putin than with u.s. strategy under every president since World War II. and why not — after all, Trump and Putin are equally committed to “Make america (or Russia) Great again.”

Robert J. Shapiro is chairman of Sonecon, LLC, which advises U.S. and foreign businesses, governments and nonprofit organizations. © The Globalist 2016

If the ‘Brexit’ side wins, so do Trump and Putin

amir handjaniLondonReuTeRS

Last week, Hillary Clinton made history by becoming the first presumptive female nominee for president of a major u.s. political party. In doing so, she fended off a serious threat from Ver-mont sen. Bernie sanders, a self-pro-claimed socialist who has become a titanic force in the democratic Party.

sanders has challenged democratic orthodoxy on free trade, Mideast policy and the scope of executive power to conduct unlimited military campaigns under the auspices of the war against terrorism. In doing so he has exposed one of Clinton’s greatest vulnerabilities in a general election: Her judgment in conducting foreign affairs.

Clinton’s record as a military hawk is well-known. she voted for the Iraq War as a senator. as secretary of state, she pushed for u.s. intervention in Libya and lobbied President Barack Obama to take military action against Bashar assad in syria. she was lukewarm about the nuclear deal with Iran. With respect to Israel, in March she gave a major pol-icy speech to the american Israel Public affairs Committee without so much as mentioning the plight of the Palestin-ians — a point later highlighted by sanders, a son of Jewish immigrants, during their debate in Brooklyn.

Progressives, independents and lib-eral democrats who have been voting in large numbers for sanders hold the keys for Clinton to defeat donald Trump. If Clinton is to consolidate her support among these constituencies, she must reassure them that despite her record, she is willing to follow in Obama’s foot-steps and not seek military solutions to every vexing foreign policy problem.

To be sure, Clinton’s hawkish instincts fall within the mainstream of the foreign policy establishment. yet in this election year she faces two problems. First, in the past two national elections, the demo-cratic base has embraced Obama’s for-eign policy doctrine, loosely defined as emphasizing negotiation and collabora-tion rather than confrontation and uni-lateralism. sanders has projected a similar view of the u.s.’ role in the world.

second, Clinton’s opponent in the general election, Trump, has consis-tently conveyed a message that america is taking on too much of a burden in providing global security for its allies and not receiving enough of the com-mercial benefit. This argument has gained traction in a Republican Party that increasingly sees endless military campaigns in the Middle east as a drain on american blood and treasure. Thus, Clinton’s reliance on hard power as a means of advancing american interests is a tough sell in an election year where voters seem to prefer retrenchment rather than military adventurism.

Rather than embrace Obama’s foreign policy of military restraint, Clinton sig-naled in a major foreign policy address last week that she would be doubling down on the conflict in syria by impos-ing a no-fly zone — something the Obama administration has ruled out for fear of deepening america’s involve-ment in the syrian civil war and risking escalation with Russia and Iran, the assad government’s main patrons.

Furthermore, Clinton has proclaimed that she would reaffirm her “unbreak-able bond” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin netanyahu. Fidelity to Israel’s security is a staple of all presidential campaigns, but Clinton has gone on record embracing an Israeli prime min-ister who repeatedly embarrassed

Obama, tried to torpedo his signature foreign policy achievement — the Iran nuclear deal — and paid only lip service to the peace process with Palestinians.

such positions put her at odds with sanders’ supporters, who, like Obama, are committed to Israel’s security but also recognize the tremendous toll the occupation and continued expansion of Israeli settlements take on american security interests in the Middle east and on Palestinian society. They would like to see the united states play a more evenhanded role. so far, Clinton has not shown any willingness to confront more hard-line Israeli policies that make peace harder to achieve.

To defeat Trump, Clinton must not revert back to the u.s. foreign policy sta-tus quo, which is grounded in the theory that military force and intervention hold the key to peace and prosperity — and has brought little in the way of either. during the more than two decades that u.s. forces have been engaged in mili-tary action in the Middle east, militancy and instability have increased.

Obama, to his credit, charted a differ-ent course. His insistence on negotiating with Iran, a longtime adversary, pro-duced a landmark nuclear agreement — something that seemed inconceivable when George W. Bush occupied the White House. Clinton needs to show that she is equally comfortable exercis-ing restraint, and that she understands the limits of u.s. power as well as its effectiveness — an understanding that forms the bedrock of the world view embraced by sanders and Obama sup-porters.

Amir Handjani is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project and Board Member of the Atlantic Council.

Hillary Clinton has a foreign policy problem

TED RALL

TINA BURRETT

The flayed corpses of Cameron and the Conservatives are a disincentive for future British governments to offer referendums, the most direct form of democracy.

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