The Week at Chatham House: UK General Election, Crisis in the Gulf, What Next Post-Trump’s Paris Pull Out?
The latest international news and analysis this week.
UK General Election 2017: May Looks to Carry On
Prime Minister Theresa May has today announced that the Conservative Party will try to form a minority government with the support of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists, following a disappointing night for the Tories, which saw the party lose its majority in the House of Commons.
The EU negotiations are set to begin in just 10 days and Chatham House Director, Robin Niblett, argues that the election result may lead to a more democratic and accountable Brexit. However, continued antipathy towards immigration means free movement and membership of the single market will remain off the table.
Crisis in the Gulf
This week Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, alongside others, announced that they were again cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing Qatar’s government of backing terror groups, including Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Peter Salisbury explores the rivalries between the countries preceding the crisis and argues that the rift in the Gulf region between the small oil-and-gas-rich nation and its larger neighbours threatens to expose the murkier side of British and US involvement in the Middle East leaving the West in a potentially tight spot.
Neil Quilliam and Peter Salisbury also sat down to discuss why the crisis is so ‘mind-boggling’ as Saudi Arabia and Qatar both boast ‘close’ relationships with the US.
Donald Trump’s Paris Pull Out: What Happens Next?
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement, signed by more than 190 countries in 2015.
Rob Bailey spoke about what this now means for domestic and international efforts to combat climate change and why the US is likely to be the biggest loser out of it all.
Similarly, Robert Falkner argues in the latest issue of International Affairs that Paris can survive Trump but world leaders need to fill the void left by the US if it is to avoid dangerous levels of climate change. He argues that although the green energy revolution may be underway, it still needs a helping hand by Europe and other major emitters, who will have to provide effective climate leadership.
The World Today: Reshaping a Europe That Can Work
The latest issue of the The World Today magazine covers a range of the hottest topics from the international political scene.
Brunello Rosa Macron’s argues that although Emmanuel Macron’s French presidential election victory was met with sighs of relief around Europe, there is much to be done to prevent the European Union from falling apart.
Elsewhere, Ian Black explores how the Six-Day War reshaped Israeli politics on the 50th anniversary of the Middle Eastern conflict while Loren DeJonge Schulman analyses the US military’s dominance in Trump’s White House.
