Predictions for the unpredictable political year ahead
This year wasn’t so hot for crystal ball gazers.
About this time last year I reported on various prophecies about the year 2016 that I received from a mysterious figure at midnight cross roads. In exchange, I was required to give up my immortal soul.
It is fair to say that I am now entitled to a full refund. The very first prediction, that Richard Mccaw would be knighted, was also the first to be proven false.
And while some of the prophecies were vindicated – the outcome of the Brexit vote being a big one – too many big-ticket predictions failed, such as Trump not winning the Republican nomination, Hillary Clinton winning the presidency and John Key announcing his desire to fight another general election.
So this year, I won’t be relying on any Faustian bargain to formulate my preview for the coming year.
Instead, I’ll use my own skill and judgment as a news consumer to make my forecast. And, to ensure that I am not unnecessarily exposed as a charlatan, I’ll try to limit myself to talking about the things we’ll be talking about in 2017.
The Trump presidency
It doesn’t take a modern day Cassandra to predict what the biggest story in the year is going to be.
On 20 January, Donald Trump will become the first person to have the American presidency as the entry-level position on their political curriculum vitae since Dwight Eisenhower – assuming that winning the Second World War doesn’t count on that score. Whether you like him or loathe him – and when it comes to New Zealanders, the odds are with the latter – there is little doubt that this is going to be a historic presidency.
Will his life experience as a property-developer-turned-realitytv-star leave him totally unprepared and out of depth when it comes to leading the US government and the free world? Or, against all expectations, will he actually prove to be an effective leader?
The Brexit rubber hitting the European road
In the lead-up to Britain’s vote in June, we were promised social and economic Armageddon if Britain did not vote to remain part of the European Union. To date, the doomsayers have been proved wrong, with the British economy continuing to defy the prognostications of the liberal and media elite. So far, that is.
2017 is going to be the year that we’re going to get an idea of what Brexit is actually going to look like. The British government has set 31 March, 2017, as the deadline for its giving formal notification of the British withdrawal, which will then trigger a two-year countdown for the resumption of full sovereignty. While the courts have complicated that timetable somewhat, it’s unthinkable that the will of the British people will be thwarted entirely.
The European bureaucracy has just suffered a brutal rejection at the hands of Italian voters and will not be keen to set any kind of precedent that would encourage or embolden further secession.
Against that, it is clearly in the interests of European national governments to preserve fairly open trade with a strongly performing British economy. It’s going to be an ugly fight.
How high will the populist tide rise?
It seems that for many urban liberals, 2016 was the year from hell. The Brexit and Trump elections have shattered the idea of Left-wingers as tribunes of the people. Apart from Canada, where Justin Trudeau remains very popular, Social Democrat and Labour parties are down and out for the count.
Will 2017 be even worse? The French presidential election this year is shaping up as a contest between Marine Le Pen, leader of the deplorable National Front and Franc¸ ois Fillon, the Margaret Thatcher-admiring, staunchly Roman Catholic leader of the Republicans. The Socialists, which currently hold the presidency, looks like it will fail to make the second round of voting.
Elections in the Netherlands, Germany and a number of other countries present further opportunities for voters to express their displeasure with political elites.
Perhaps the fever will break one day. I doubt that will happen in 2017, though.
Is Bill English the real deal?
New Zealand politics has been positively boring by comparison. Almost every foreign tumult in 2016 brought forth hot takes on what the local equivalent might be. To the disappointment of many commentators, Kiwis have proven remarkably resistant to the populist bug. More than a few have blamed the disarming geniality of former Prime Minister John Key.
Next year will see that thesis put to the test. If the polls in late January and February show the Government with a clear lead over the Labour-green opposition, we can probably expect National to romp home in the general election. If the news is bad for the Government, then there’s every chance it will get worse as the year wears on. But whatever 2017 brings, people will endure. They always do.