I was asked this question on the blog this morning:
I agree that the power here lies with Europe to formulate a coordinated, strong response. But my question for you and other readers is: what is the most effective, tangible first step for ordinary citizens in the UK and across Europe to pressure our own governments to adopt this kind of “politics of care” strategy and stand up to these threats, rather than offering the weak platitudes we've seen so far? Where does the public pressure need to be focused?
This was my response (lightly re-edited for use here):
The first step is to stop treating this as theatre and start treating it as a contest over political and geographic power and resources. Current neoliberal platitudes flourish precisely because they cost nothing. A politics of care only emerges when elected politicians believe their survival depends upon it.
So public pressure has to be aimed where it bites on consent, money, and legitimacy. In practical terms, that means three early priorities.
First, force political clarity. Citizens should demand that their MPs and MEPs (where relevant) state, explicitly, whether they support practical European defensive independence, including coordinated procurement, energy security, digital resilience, and the fiscal capacity to fund it, and not just by standing with allies, but through concrete commitments. The point is to remove the option of hiding behind slogans.
Second, a focus on financial leverage is needed. Most European governments are still mentally captured by bond-market mythology. So the pressure point is the insistence that defence and resilience must not come at the cost of care, and that Europe should be willing to use the tools available, which are coordinated central bank action, public banking, capital controls if required, and the taxation of surplus wealth. In other words, there can be no resort to austerity.
Third, organise locally but target nationally. The effective pressure does not come from online rage. It comes from coordinated constituent action, including letters, surgeries, party motions, union engagement, local press comment and letters, and relentless repetition of the same demand that security includes care. If enough marginal-seat MPs hear that their voters will not trade hospitals for missiles, the political calculus changes.
The public pressure needs to be focused on one message, which is that Europe must become power-ready without becoming cruel. That is the dividing line, I think we need to emphasise.
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this poem keeps coming back to me. The Dane-geld ( money paid to the Danes during the 10th and 11th centuries, not to invade us
Not a reference to modern Denmark but the principle.
It ends
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
5
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:–
6
“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”
Agreed
Simply said – If we don’t stand up to bullying and blackmail, we will be destroyed.
If everyone in the UK sent a present with a value >$100 to a US individual, then thanks to the tariffs, that person would face a hefty tax bill, something of the order of one to three billion dollars.
Wotsit face has a big birthday in June!
In all seriousness, I am writing to MP and MSPs, about solidarity with Europe and choosing the politics of care at this opportune moment.
Thank you, Richard.
There’s a US machine ready to be mobilised to oppose any loosening of the Atlantic alliance. Most European politicians are Atlanticist. In the UK, once Heseltine resigned over Westland, the Atlanticists were in the ascendancy. It was the same at the Foreign Office. The Arabists were driven out by zionists. That same machine got France’s industry minister Arnaud Montebourg fired for resisting the sale of Alsthom to General Electric and the prosecution of some of Alsthom’s executives.
A clear out of the US machine is needed. That must be a public campaign.
Europe will also have to overcome its distaste and start treating the BRICS, Mercosur, African Union, ASEAN etc. as equals and pay more than lip service to multipolarity, including reform of the UN.
Part 2
What Colonel Smithers said