Greg Hands: If Trump is so obviously bad news where are the ‘rent-o-mob’ of the European left?
Every delay has consequences.
Greg Hands is a former Chairman of the Conservative Party, and a former MP for Chelsea and Fulham.
Twenty-three years ago, on 15th February 2003, some 750,000 demonstrated in central London against George W Bush and the imminent US-led invasion of Iraq. The number was the police estimate; the BBC said 1,000,000; the Guardian 1,500,000 and the organisers 2,000,000. Using any of those figures, it was comfortably the largest demonstration in British history. Similar demonstrations occurred across Europe.
Just over ten years later, in October 2015, some 250,000 demonstrated in Berlin against Barack Obama and the proposed US-EU trade agreement, TTIP. There was even a significant demonstration against Barack Obama personally, on his visit to Hanover in April 2016.
I remember all of this quite well.
I accidentally ended up in the Iraq War demonstration for half an hour, having emerged from Embankment station with German visitors, having somehow forgotten it was taking place. I remember my German visitors being shocked at some of the anti-semitism on display in the demonstration, but that is moving away from the point of this article, which is about the European Left’s perception of the United States. On the German demonstrations against Obama and TTIP, I was there in Karlsruhe for the CDU Party Conference in December 2015, when even someone was mild as Chancellor Angela Merkel bemoaned the fact that the largest demonstration that year in Germany had not been against Putin or Iran or even against Climate Change, but against Obama’s TTIP trade agreement.
The history of European demonstrations against US foreign policy much predates these two events.
West Germany saw huge demonstrations against the deployment of Pershing and other cruise missiles in the 1980s. Indeed, this was one of the events marking the origin of the (then pacifist) Green Party. Over a million West Germans participated in those demonstrations on one day alone, 22nd October 1983.
Back even further, in the 1960s, there were regular, large demonstrations outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, against the Vietnam War. A young, Rhodes scholar called Bill Clinton attended one of them in 1968.
All of these demonstrations had common features – organised by Leftist groups, but often attracting people with a variety of political views, or citizens not very political at all. They obviously featured hostility to the United States, often against alleged imperialism, idealistic adventurism, war-mongering and capitalist profiteering, frequently involving oil.
Fast forward almost 60 years, and with US action in Venezuela; an explicit desire to take over the world’s largest oil reserves, achieve regime change,; whilst meanwhile there are huge US tariffs on British and European goods; …
Every delay has consequences.
Greg Hands is a former Chairman of the Conservative Party, and a former MP for Chelsea and Fulham.
Twenty-three years ago, on 15th February 2003, some 750,000 demonstrated in central London against George W Bush and the imminent US-led invasion of Iraq. The number was the police estimate; the BBC said 1,000,000; the Guardian 1,500,000 and the organisers 2,000,000. Using any of those figures, it was comfortably the largest demonstration in British history. Similar demonstrations occurred across Europe.
Just over ten years later, in October 2015, some 250,000 demonstrated in Berlin against Barack Obama and the proposed US-EU trade agreement, TTIP. There was even a significant demonstration against Barack Obama personally, on his visit to Hanover in April 2016.
I remember all of this quite well.
I accidentally ended up in the Iraq War demonstration for half an hour, having emerged from Embankment station with German visitors, having somehow forgotten it was taking place. I remember my German visitors being shocked at some of the anti-semitism on display in the demonstration, but that is moving away from the point of this article, which is about the European Left’s perception of the United States. On the German demonstrations against Obama and TTIP, I was there in Karlsruhe for the CDU Party Conference in December 2015, when even someone was mild as Chancellor Angela Merkel bemoaned the fact that the largest demonstration that year in Germany had not been against Putin or Iran or even against Climate Change, but against Obama’s TTIP trade agreement.
The history of European demonstrations against US foreign policy much predates these two events.
West Germany saw huge demonstrations against the deployment of Pershing and other cruise missiles in the 1980s. Indeed, this was one of the events marking the origin of the (then pacifist) Green Party. Over a million West Germans participated in those demonstrations on one day alone, 22nd October 1983.
Back even further, in the 1960s, there were regular, large demonstrations outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, against the Vietnam War. A young, Rhodes scholar called Bill Clinton attended one of them in 1968.
All of these demonstrations had common features – organised by Leftist groups, but often attracting people with a variety of political views, or citizens not very political at all. They obviously featured hostility to the United States, often against alleged imperialism, idealistic adventurism, war-mongering and capitalist profiteering, frequently involving oil.
Fast forward almost 60 years, and with US action in Venezuela; an explicit desire to take over the world’s largest oil reserves, achieve regime change,; whilst meanwhile there are huge US tariffs on British and European goods; …
Greg Hands: If Trump is so obviously bad news where are the ‘rent-o-mob’ of the European left?
Every delay has consequences.
Greg Hands is a former Chairman of the Conservative Party, and a former MP for Chelsea and Fulham.
Twenty-three years ago, on 15th February 2003, some 750,000 demonstrated in central London against George W Bush and the imminent US-led invasion of Iraq. The number was the police estimate; the BBC said 1,000,000; the Guardian 1,500,000 and the organisers 2,000,000. Using any of those figures, it was comfortably the largest demonstration in British history. Similar demonstrations occurred across Europe.
Just over ten years later, in October 2015, some 250,000 demonstrated in Berlin against Barack Obama and the proposed US-EU trade agreement, TTIP. There was even a significant demonstration against Barack Obama personally, on his visit to Hanover in April 2016.
I remember all of this quite well.
I accidentally ended up in the Iraq War demonstration for half an hour, having emerged from Embankment station with German visitors, having somehow forgotten it was taking place. I remember my German visitors being shocked at some of the anti-semitism on display in the demonstration, but that is moving away from the point of this article, which is about the European Left’s perception of the United States. On the German demonstrations against Obama and TTIP, I was there in Karlsruhe for the CDU Party Conference in December 2015, when even someone was mild as Chancellor Angela Merkel bemoaned the fact that the largest demonstration that year in Germany had not been against Putin or Iran or even against Climate Change, but against Obama’s TTIP trade agreement.
The history of European demonstrations against US foreign policy much predates these two events.
West Germany saw huge demonstrations against the deployment of Pershing and other cruise missiles in the 1980s. Indeed, this was one of the events marking the origin of the (then pacifist) Green Party. Over a million West Germans participated in those demonstrations on one day alone, 22nd October 1983.
Back even further, in the 1960s, there were regular, large demonstrations outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, against the Vietnam War. A young, Rhodes scholar called Bill Clinton attended one of them in 1968.
All of these demonstrations had common features – organised by Leftist groups, but often attracting people with a variety of political views, or citizens not very political at all. They obviously featured hostility to the United States, often against alleged imperialism, idealistic adventurism, war-mongering and capitalist profiteering, frequently involving oil.
Fast forward almost 60 years, and with US action in Venezuela; an explicit desire to take over the world’s largest oil reserves, achieve regime change,; whilst meanwhile there are huge US tariffs on British and European goods; …
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