Bill Carmichael: We're better off with Theresa May than Angela Merkel

THERE'S's no end of excitable chatter around Westminster of how Theresa May's days are numbered because of '¨the instability and chaos at the heart '¨of government.
Theresa May and Angela Merkel - who has the tougher job?Theresa May and Angela Merkel - who has the tougher job?
Theresa May and Angela Merkel - who has the tougher job?

Meanwhile, in her own quiet way, the Prime Minister puts her head down and tries to get on with the task at hand – and judging by the opinion polls there is some evidence that approach is resonating with voters outside the Westminster bubble, with the Corbynite surge blunted and the Conservatives slowly rebuilding support in the country.

But if you take an even wider view, the British government is the very model of stability when you compare it with what is happening elsewhere in the EU.

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Italy, for example, is just over a week away from crucial elections and, if the opinion polls are to be believed, the anti-establishment and Eurosceptic parties are on track for some dramatic gains, which would have the potential to destabilise the entire EU.

However it is in Germany, the EU’s industrial and political powerhouse, where the more significant drama is unfolding.

Five months after a bitterly-fought general election, there is still no government running Germany, and Chancellor Angela Merkel is now on her second attempt to stitch together some kind of workable coalition.

The woman the Germans call “Mutti” (mummy) once reigned supreme over the country’s politics, but her rash decision to throw open Europe’s borders to millions of refugees in 2015 – without a single security check – severely damaged her political standing.

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Amid terror attacks and soaring violent crime – 92 per cent of the rise in Germany is attributed to recently arrived male migrants – Merkel’s party, the CDU, suffered huge losses in September’s election, while the Eurosceptic, anti-immigration party, the AfD, saw big wins.

Merkel’s first attempt to build a coalition, with the Greens and a small pro-business party, collapsed amid recriminations, and now she wants to recreate a “grand coalition” with the centre-left SPD.

Normally when Merkel is in trouble, the rival SPD benefits, but that hasn’t happened this time. Instead the SPD has also witnessed a disastrous hemorrhaging of support.

Its former leader, the former European Parliament president Martin Schulz, initially rode high in the opinion polls and he was widely tipped as the heir apparent ready to step into Merkel’s shoes.

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But his policies – open door immigration, higher taxes and more centralised control by Brussels – repulsed voters and he led the SPD to their worst ever election result last year. Schulz quit as party leader last week.

Now SPD supporters are voting on whether to back plans to enter a coalition with Merkel’s party. The results will be announced a week on Sunday. If, as expected, they back the plans, Merkel will get her coalition and the AfD will become the official opposition – a remarkable achievement for what was seen as a small, fringe party only a few months ago.

What is clear from all of this is that there is a huge anti-establishment surge sweeping across Europe – not just in so-called fringe countries such as Poland and Hungary, but also in the EU’s western heartlands of Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands.

Ordinary voters are rejecting in increasing numbers the orthodoxy 
that has been stuffed down their throats for years – increasing centralised control and unlimited immigration, whether you like it or not.

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Instead, like the Brexit voters in the UK, they want to restore some democratic control over their borders and their economy.

Good luck to them. I’d like to think someone in the EU could see these big changes in public opinion and act accordingly, but I am not holding my breath. The EU’s record on making much needed reforms – as we saw during David Cameron’s ill-fated “renegotiation” – is nothing short of abysmal.

And you have to wonder what kind of future the EU will have if it continues to resist the genuine aspirations of more than 500 million citizens? But that is their problem.

As for Theresa May, despite all the turmoil and the plotting against her, I suppose it is small comfort for her to know that compared to many of her fellow leaders in Europe, she has got it easy. And it will become easier still once we are properly out of the EU.