Brexit biggest blunder since Second World War — Bercow
John Bercow (above), the former House of Commons speaker who oversaw Britain’s bruising parliamentary battles over Brexit, says leaving the EU would be a historic mistake for the UK, but it’s not too late to reverse the decision.
Bercow retired last week after a decade running the daily business of the lower chamber. In that job he had to be neutral. But he now says that Brexit is the country’s “biggest foreign policy blunder” since the Second World War, an error that will leave Britain weakened economically and diplomatically.
“We’re in a world of power blocs and of trade blocs,” Bercow said. “And it makes more sense for the UK to be part of that power bloc called the EU and part of that trade bloc called the EU.” He said “if you add to that the civilising effect of some of the social legislation that has been ushered in by the EU that seems to be to amount to a virtuous combination of benefits for the UK.”
Days after a decorated Army lieutenant colonel offered damaging testimony about President Donald Trump’s conduct on a July phone call with Ukraine’s leader, Trump stood on the South Lawn and issued a vague but ominous warning.
“You’ll be seeing very soon what comes out,” Trump said on Saturday, referring to the officer, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.
Trump was not more specific. But an attack on Vindman’s character and motives was already making its way from the dark corners of Trump’s social media following to the front lines of the impeachment battle.
One day earlier, right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec had retweeted a lengthy thread by a Florida man — a fan of QAnon, a fringe conspiracy about the “deep state” — claiming to have witnessed Vindman “bash America” in a conversation with Russian officers during a joint military exercise in Germany in 2013.
That accusation was unsubstantiated and has been rejected by some of the colonel’s colleagues. Even so, Posobiec’s post was retweeted by Trump’s son and chief defender, Donald Trump Jr., driving it through conservative social media circles and onto pro-Trump websites,
whose stories the younger Trump promoted to his 4 million followers.
Organised response
“Anyone who’s been watching for the past three years is not at all surprised that this would be their ‘star witness,’” Donald Trump Jr. posted about Vindman, who had testified that he was concerned about the US’ linking of military aid to Ukraine with an investigation of Trump’s political rival.
While the White House has
scrambled to mount an organised response to the House impeachment inquiry — there is no consistent message from Trump’s team and little formal guidance to surrogates — Twitter has become the president’s war room. The president and his supporters, including his family, have used Twitter to frame his defence, torch his Democratic inquisitors and try to undermine public officials, like Vindman, who have testified against him.