This past week has truly been a wild one in British politics. As in one of those weeks when you look back at the news and say, “wait what, that happened in the last seven days?!” Luckily for you it’s my job to go through the news of the past week and attempt to understand it, not yours. So, let’s start with the main points:

Theresa May Becomes the Final Member of Theresa May’s Government to Resign from Theresa May’s Government

On Friday UK prime minister Theresa May announced in a tearful speech  that she will quit as leader of the Conservative Party on the 7th of June, setting off a contest to decide the new PM.  In her resignation speech May described leading the country as “the honour of my life”, while also admitting that “It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit.”

A number of Conservative heavyweights – excuse the apparent oxymoron – have already announced their intentions to run in the leadership contest. Once two candidates are selected by Tory MPs, the 150,000 or so party members will vote to choose the winner. As of Sunday afternoon the declared candidates are: Jeremy Hunt, Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock, Andrea Leadsom, Esther McVey, Michael Gove and Rory Stewart.  

At the moment former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson remains the bookies’ favourite to become party leader, and thus the new prime minister, but the Brexiteer is already threatening further division within the party as DFID Secretary Rory Stewart has declared that he could not serve in a Johnson government. It is probably important to note that the MP for Penrith and the Borders is not adverse to making such statements, as he previously declared that he would quit as prisons secretary if violence and levels of drug use did not reduce within prisons across the UK. He never had the chance to act on this promise as he became DFID Secretary in the most recent cabinet reshuffle.

Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House of Commons, also made headlines in this past week when she quit the government over Brexit – becoming the 36th minister to resign under Theresa May’s leadership, with 21 of these resignations being over something relating to Brexit. Leadsom’s resignation came a day after the Prime Minister gave MPs “one last chance” to back her Brexit deal, which she had previously described as a “bold new deal”, but many MPs described as simply a rehash of existing plans. This “new deal” included a series of concessions specifically designed to win over to win over Labour MPs, Remainers, Brexit hardliners and the DUP, including a Commons vote on whether a Final Say referendum should be held before ratification. Leadsom stated that the government’s new approach would not “deliver on the referendum result”, and following her resignation it was announced that Theresa May’s withdrawal bill will not be published or debated until early June.

Lactose, meet intolerance

Speaking of Brexit, on Thursday of this past week people across the UK took to the polls to vote in the EU elections. In Northern Ireland turnout for these elections fell by more than 6% from the 2014 poll to 45.14%, with results expected to be released on Monday. Eleven candidates ran for three MEP seats in European parliament in Northern Ireland.

If you thought that a country taking to the polls to vote for a parliament that forms the main part of an establishment they are trying to leave would be weird, you are absolutely correct. According to the latest polls Nigel Farage’s Brexit party is likely to take 30% of the vote, but their opponents weren’t going down without a fight in this past week. Milkshaking became the latest weapon for opposing Brexit, with both Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage being targeted when campaigning for the EU elections. This new wave of protest has sparked debate over whether this constitutes as assault of a political candidate. At the request of the police, a McDonald’s in Edinburgh halted milkshake sales during a Farage rally in the city. The same level of public discourse oddly has not taken place over the violent threats that female MPs receive daily, or indeed, the actual murder of MP Jo Cox. No matter what you might think about milkshaking, there is no denying it has now delivered one of the greatest political headlines of our times:

With the prime minister stepping down, the Brexit party projecting to have massive success in the EU elections and a Conservative party leadership contest on the horizon as the clock ticks down to October 2019 when the UK is meant to leave the EU, it looks like things may get even more chaotic before they get better.

World’s biggest election ends

 Incumbent Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, won reelection on a Hindu nationalist platform.

The Indian parliamentary elections remain the largest democratic exercise in the world, with voter turnout at a record high of 67.1%. The voting lasted almost six weeks to accommodate nearly 900 million people who were eligible to cast their votes. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 303 of the 542 seats, up from 282 it had won in 2014, while it’s main opposition, the Indian National Congress (INC) won 52 seats. BJP winning a significant majority in the lower house of Indian parliament means that it will be able to form a government on its own. The INC was once considered an unbeatable political force in the sub-continent, having led India to independence in the 1940s.

Modi’s re-election campaign was took a multi-pronged approach, targeting various voter groups with different narrative while continuing to underline his commitment to empowering the Indian Hindu majority, which has raised fears in its Muslim minority. Media reports have noted a dramatic rise in hate crimes during the five years Modi has been in power. The biggest liability in this campaign was Modi’s failure to deliver on economic promises made when he initially ran for Prime Minister in 2014, when his slogan was “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas,” or “inclusive growth through collective effort.” He promised to wipe out corruption, improve infrastructure, and boost the economy. In February of this year it was reported that India’s unemployment rates had reached a 45-year high of 7.2%, while its trade deficit has widened to US$15.33 billion, a five-month high. However over his last five years in office Modi has established himself as a strongman on the international stage, having simplified India’s tax system, cracked down on corruption and overhauled India’s corporate bankruptcy system. When it became clear that he would return to power, India’s stock markets rose 2% to an all time high.

The ever-present question of Indian-Pakistani relations resurfaced with Modi’s re-election as Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan congratulated his Indian counterpart, adding that he looked forward to working with him “for peace, progress and prosperity in South Asia”.

Tensions between the two nuclear nations remain high after a military stand-off earlier this year. Imran Khan said he was ready to cooperate with the government as it resumed office.

Don’t Bahrain on my parade

The White House announced that it will unveil the first part of Jared Kushner’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan at a meeting in Bahrain next month.  In Bahrain the United States will be hosting an ‘economic workshop’ to produce strategies to invest in the Palestinians. In other words, what US President Trump has previously described as the ‘deal of the century’ is going to partially include buying peace from the Palestinians in the hope that they will buy political concessions later. The “Peace to Prosperity” workshop is slated to take place on June 25 and June 26 in Manama, Bahrain. This summit will not deal with the political issues surrounding peace in the Middle East, such as Jerusalem; borders; refugees; holy sites etc. That will come at some unspecified future date following the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Following decades of failed US-backed efforts to achieve peace in the region, this announcement has been met with scepticism – especially as White House officials could not confirm the attendance of Israelis or Palestinians at the summit at the time of the announcement. Representatives of the Palestinian Authority are expected to boycott the event, with Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh stating that no one consulted with him or with the rest of the leadership in Ramallah over the summit. It is therefore likely that Palestinian businessman Ashraf Jabari from Hebron – who does not support a two-state solution to the conflict and has close ties to both the Trump administration and Israeli settlers – will be the lone Palestinian at the Bahrain summit. Jabari’s views are regarded as far outside the Palestinian mainstream, and thus not representative of public opinion in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.

It appears that this attempt at achieving ‘economic peace’ before moving on to political negotiations has underestimated the power of Palestinian nationalism among Palestinian businesspeople. However the US has successfully persuaded other states to attend the conference, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Whether the attendance of the Gulf States is a sign of their commitment to achieving peace between in the region through economically empowering Palestinians or to making secret ties with Israel not-so-secret will be revealed at the summit next month.

Grand, so.. what about the Irish elections?

Counting has begun for the Irish local elections that took place on Friday.

A total of 1,977 candidates ran in 31 local authorities, for a total of 949 seats, A surge in Green Party support is predicted, although the party is still likely to remain behind the governing party Fine Gael, the main opposition party Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin. Reportedly Fine Gael is tied with Fianna Fáil at 23 per cent each in the local elections, while Sinn Féin and Labour’s share looks set to decrease. Live results will be updated over the weekend.

In reaction to this ‘Green wave’ Taoiseach Leo Varadkar plans to fast-track the introduction of radical climate change policies, stating that “The public have sent us a message which is that they want us to accelerate action on climate”. The Green Party was set to win a record number of local authority seats and was also well placed in all three European Parliament constituencies across the Republic of Ireland.

In addition to these local elections a divorce referendum took place in Ireland this past Friday, with voters  being asked to make two changes to the constitution with regards to divorce – the first is to remove the required separation period before being granted a divorce as enshrined in the Constitution, and the second is to allow for the recognition of foreign divorces. Polls are predicting support of restricting the current laws that require couples seeking a divorce to live separately for four of the past five years. Divorce in the Republic of Ireland was only legalised via a referendum in 1995, with 50.3% of voters backing the legislation.

Ruairi McCallan wrote about Irish voters’ rejection of populism here.

UN tells UK: Go and get out of Chagos

In this past week the United Nations voted to return control of the Chagos Islands from the United Kingdom to Mauritius.

In the non-binding vote 116 states were in favour and only six against. Fifty-six states, including France and Germany, abstained. The defeat has been described as “humiliating” for the UK, marking an escalation of international disapproval of its control of overseas territories as it was urged to “unconditionally withdraw its colonial administration” from the Chagos archipelago and return control of the islands to Mauritius within six months. The vote came after the International Court of Justice declared British control of the Chagos Islands illegal in February.

You can be forgiven for never having heard of the tiny islands in the Indian Ocean, that are  situated some 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from Mauritius, before now. What we do know is that Britain evicted about 2,000 people from the Chagos Archipelago in the 1960s and 1970s so the U.S. military could build the air base on Diego Garcia. Many resettled in the U.K. and have fought in British courts to return to the islands. Britain says its sovereignty goes back to 1814 and points out that the decision in 1965 to divide it from other territory was agreed with Mauritius in return for fishing and other rights. The UK retained possession of the Chagos archipelago after Mauritius gained independence in 1968, effectively paying Mauritius more than £4 million for the islands. Mauritius has long claimed it was forced to give up the islands. Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth of Mauritius spoke to the UN General Assembly before the vote, stating that rejection of the resolution “would be nothing less than an endorsement of colonialism.” Although this vote by the UN is non-binding it does put pressure on the UK to return the islands, however UK ambassador to the UN Karen Pierce warned that the vote would set a precedent that should be of concern to all member states with their own sovereignty disputes.

And finally: “less of a political point, more of a comment…”

In this past week Northern Slant’s very own Deputy Editor Jamie Pow successfully defended his PhD on citizens’ assemblies and deliberate democracy at Queen’s University Belfast. Jamie is currently a postdoctoral fellow at KU Leuven, where he’s trying to fix democracy to meet the expectations of citizens. A huge congrats from the whole Northern Slant team to the new Dr Pow!