‘Stand up for Europe: it’s the strongest challenge to Trumpism’

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If it won’t be Europe, then it will be Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It was this stark choice that Europeans had before them, and which presented a challenge for them to uphold the values of the EU. “Let’s defend the EU, because it if it’s not the EU, it’s Trump and Putin,” sociologist Michael Briguglio, a former Green Party chairman, told an audience at a Times debate on Brexit and Trump election.

In an exchange of ideas on a panel that included former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi, former Labour foreign minister Alex Sceberras Trigona, blogger Wayne Flask and former Nationalist MP Josie Muscat, questions on the crisis of political values, the state of the left, and Europe’s future direction were key issues discussed.

Perhaps the most pointed argument came from Briguglio, who argued for a stronger EU that could counter ‘Trumpism’: “Democracy is the best game in town,” he said, echoing an earlier argument by Gonzi. “And we also need a strong common defence and security policy… the EU needs to be more assertive, speak out and defend its values and ‘borders’.”

Briguglio said Europe was facing a challenge from a political divide that was not drawn across classical ideological differences, but between ‘all or nothing’ parties like Le Pen’s FN or Grillo’s M5S movements – “antagonists” – and politicians of different hues who sought compromise. “Even in Malta, we need a coalition of the willing, people of different ideologies coming together to negotiate and compromise.”

Gonzi defended the role of EU prime ministers when asked by MaltaToday whether the Council should allow greater scrutiny on its decision-making, and the European Parliament accorded greater decision-making powers.

“The prime ministers taking these decisions are the singular heads of state elected by the EU [peoples]. Let’s stop blaming them for taking decision,” he replied to a question of how member states had treated Greece during its financial crisis and whether this austerity was turning people to the far-right. “There is room for improvement for the EU, to be more transparent and accountable, but let’s not forget it’s the best thing that has happened in Europe for 100 years.”

Briguglio referenced Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, who suggested a two-speed Eurozone for single currency member states, a point that branched the discussion out on the crisis of the left.

“The left has to propose something better, and it has much to blame also for neoliberalism. Even in countries with strong social programmes in Sweden, people are also voting for the far right.”

Other speakers focused on the importance of bread and butter issues and job creation for Europeans. Sceberras Trigona said “jobs, jobs, jobs” would always remain a priority in a security environment that was threatened by proxy wars, and societies threatened by long-term unemployment becoming ripe for Brexit-type scenarios.

Josie Muscat, founder of the defunct Azzjoni Nazzjonali, was less alarmist of right-wing revanchists: he hailed Trump, Brexit and Narendra Modi, saying their election was “not the end of the world… what matters is what the people want and feel, give them what they want, responsibly.”

In a more localized issue on the debate, blogger Wayne Flask launched a scathing critique of the Maltese political system. “I cannot understand that two political leaders like Muscat and Busuttil are ‘anti-establishment’: the PL has close links with the business class, and the same problem exists with the PN, a legal class that defends construction developers. Dozens of interests in the House of Representatives are left undeclared.”

Sceberras Trigona shored up support for his Labour government: “Muscat is not the establishment. He is ‘only’ the government, but unlike the PN’s network of old boys, he is not inside the judiciary, the media, the church, or the financial and business class. Even extending voting suffrage to 16-year-olds, serves to challenge the establishment.”

The typical Times audience present disagreed much with him. “Muscat is the establishment now.” And as the dying minutes of the conference ended in a cantankerous duel between ‘AST’ and the audience on the sale of Maltese citizenship, it seems everyone had forgotten about the original question being asked about democracy propelling Trump to the forefront.

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