THE US ELECTION – WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

By Bethan Laughlin

It is safe to say that 2020 has been quite a year for the United States.

Joe Biden has been announced as the projected winner of the 2020 US Presidential election. The final votes continue to be counted, but with the highest voter turnout in 120 years and the incumbent President Trump claiming the race to be fraudulent, without substantive evidence of any kind, this election is showing itself to be one of the most significant in living memory.

This election has shown the highest voter turnout since the election of 1900, with an estimated 160 million people voting and a turnout rate of 66.9%, up from the 56% in 2016. This high turnout has resulted in Biden receiving the highest numbers of votes in US history, with over 76 million votes and counting. An incumbent President losing re-election has only happened ten times since the creation of the Office of the Presidency in 1789. This fact, along with the scale of turn out, Biden swinging Pennsylvania back to blue, and the first female Vice President who is also from a minority background, makes it clear that both this election and the ticket that won it is a truly historic moment.  

Naturally, much of the coverage of the election has been focused on Biden’s steady gains towards victory through a commitment to a hopeful future, one that aims to undo the harm created by Trump. Vitally however, it is imperative to remember that President Trump received the second highest number of votes in history, currently standing at over 71 million. This is 8 million more than voted for him in the 2016 election. All of this amid a pandemic that continues to ravage the USA with over 10 million cases recorded so far.

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The last four years have been home to a Presidency filled with legal cases, Twitter storms, conspiracy theories, extreme partisanship, allegations of Russian interference, over 200,000 Covid-19 deaths and a racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd that swept the nation. Tumultuous to say the least.

From a UK perspective, it was thought sensible to assume that Biden, with his message of reconciliation, hope and a ‘united’ less divisive United States would lead to an obvious victory. The scale of voter turnout in support of President Trump paints a different picture to this idea and what was projected in the Polls.  

Throughout his campaign Biden has strived to be seen as a moderate counterweight to the extremism in language, tone and policy that has defined Trumps term. Consequently, he became the anti-Trump vote. Was this unexpected? No, and fundamentally it was successful. However, the importance of the scale of the Trump turnout should not be minimised. With over 71 million people turning out to not only support the continued Presidency of Trump, but a Republican party that has seen a gradual but vivid shift towards policies that align with Trump’s vision for America, those labelled as ‘fringe’ voters for supporting Trump in 2016 have shown themselves to be anything but.

Moving forward, the grievances and political beliefs of Trump voters should not be overlooked by a victorious Democratic Party in the coming years. Any future success from a Democratic candidate rests on those Americans who identify as Republicans feeling that their lives, hopes, fears and grievances are being respected by the President across policy formulation and debate.

The reality remains that for tens of millions of Americans, the arguable chaos of the last four years was not enough to vote for Biden. This makes one thing perfectly clear, ‘Trumpism’ and the politics it champions is by no means defeated or going anywhere fast. In fact, it shows the immense task at hand for Biden in trying to bind and unify a country that has seen itself fracture over political divides more than ever in the last four years. It almost goes without saying that this will be a difficult task. It is highly likely that the Senate will be majority Republican - although the votes are still being counted - and with a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, President Elect Biden will have a fight on his hands in his quest for reconciliation.

Bethan Laughlin

Bethan Laughlin

IT’S TIME TO FALL BACK IN LOVE WITH OUR RAILWAYS

By Ian Kelly

If there’s one industry which has weathered the coronavirus crisis, it would be the railways. Far from weakening them, COVID-19 has strengthened Britain’s railways and proved just how important they are – not just to our daily lives but also to our resilience as a country. Yet we seem to have fallen out of favour with railways, so the pandemic offers us a great opportunity to re-imagine our relationship with them, at both a local and national level.

Let’s first address the current climate of opinion. As the pandemic took hold, many of us suddenly became terrified at the thought of using public transport, preferring instead to work from home using remote means of communication such as video calls and messaging services to stay in touch with our colleagues. This practice also extended into our social lives. The idea of meeting up at the pub or at a restaurant with friends or family was replaced by multi-person Zoom calls, and soon it became impossible to ignore our social media feeds filling up with screenshots framing this new pastime.

This new lifestyle has now morphed into a pervasive attitude of hostility towards public transport, with many questioning the need for railways at all. They claim that, with video conferencing now the backbone for hundreds of thousands of businesses up and down the country, there’s no point in taking the train, let alone building new ones.

This fundamentally misses the point of what railways are for. Britain’s railways are the backbone of our economy, enabling millions of people to reach work and school, as well as moving millions of tonnes of freight not just domestically but also to and from Europe. They keep us connected to our friends and loved ones; a function needed now more than ever. They bring communities together and promote a strong sense of stability and security for the people they serve. From young people to the elderly, railways remain a lifeline and fulfil the need for personal freedom and exploration.

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Britain’s railways have also been essential in our national response to COVID-19. They’ve enabled key workers to continue their jobs day and night, facilitating the delivery of life-saving equipment, and allowing businesses to restart after the period of national lockdown earlier this year. As industry after industry shut down in late March, the national railway network and London’s transport network remained open, keeping essential businesses running and hundreds of thousands of people employed.

We must now channel this recognition and spirit of unity into our future relationship with railways. The Government has made a good start with the Restoring Your Railway Fund, which allows local authorities and community groups to bid for financial packages aimed at reinstating mothballed lines. The first successful bids were announced in early September. With further rounds of funding available next year, it is hoped that this scheme will revitalise investment from the private sector in local railway projects, and in turn help deliver the grand plan of ‘levelling up’ the national economy.

Our transport network, with railways as the centrepiece, will also be key to a successful Brexit. Railways are the perfect showcase for British ingenuity and skill, from engineering and design to data management and alternative technologies, all of which make the UK an attractive place to invest in as we forge new alliances and partnerships around the world. Railways also represent a key element in achieving our Net-Zero emissions target by 2050, most notably through growing interest in hydrogen technology as well as the introduction of tri-mode trains with Great Western Railway next year.

Railways represent a key part of our economy, society and national identity. We invented them and championed them, grew rich off them, went into war with them and now celebrate them in the form of heritage lines scattered across the land. It is ridiculous to think that we can somehow abandon railways as one would abandon their car in favour of walking everywhere. We need to recognise not only how much our railways contribute to today’s Britain, but how much potential they offer for future growth and prosperity at both a national level and local level.

It’s time to fall back in love with our railways.

Ian Kelly

Ian Kelly

IS THE WORLD WAKING UP TO CHINA?

By Christine Wallace

It is difficult to pick up any newspaper today and not read a story on China. Whether it is over China’s encroachment on Hong Kong’s independence, the ever-increasing naval tests around the South China Sea or the Human Rights infringements against Uighur Muslims. Rather than asking why China is in the news so much lately, it seems more appropriate to ask why has it taken this long for the news to catch up with China? China’s global influence is not new by any means, but it appears that China’s more riskier policies are only now coming in to play or at least becoming so visual to the rest of us. One could argue that the lessened secrecy of China’s actions come as they become more settled in their enhanced global positioning and the likeliness that will not face severe consequences.

With the projection of becoming world’s biggest economy by 2024, having the largest navy in the world, and the third largest foreign investment balance sheet of $117.2 billion in 2019, is China now becoming so powerful it cannot be stopped? With so many countries depending on energy, resources, technology, investment and labour from China, are they willing to pay the economic or possibly even confrontational price of standing up to China?

It is only as China begins to slowly increase testing its hard power that the world seems to have become aware of how entrenched and far reaching China’s soft power is. This leaves the question of what can really be done to prevent China from acting without consequences? The Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, stated to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee recently that the UK has not ruled out boycotting the Winter Olympics over the human rights abuses of Uighur Muslims in Tibet and Xinjiang. Yet these sorts of actions seem almost trivial when in relation to the atrocities being committed.

In June this year, 20 Indian soldiers were killed by Chinese forces for supposedly crossing the ‘Line of Actual Control’. The Indian Government’s response however was almost non-existent, especially when comparing it to the air strike India sanctioned after Indian soldiers were killed by a Pakistan based terrorist group. Ironically, territory crossing is a practice China regularly participates in around the South China Sea when holding naval practices in Taiwanese waters. This practice alone has cost the Government of Taiwan almost $900million as they have had to scramble their air forces almost 3,000 times this year alone.

Are the words of Ai Weiwei true, has China’s influence become so great that it cannot now be effectively stopped? The optimist in me would like to say no. In an age of globalism and with multi-nation organisations such as the UN, WTO, NATO and Five Eyes, surely a single nation cannot overpower a joint response. I am not naïve in thinking it will not come at some cost. The U.S. trade war with China is said to have cost U.S. companies $1.7 trillion in stocks, whilst the U.K.’s ban on Huawei 5G kit by 2027 will delay infrastructure and bring about additional expenses. However, should a U.K. provider seize the opportunity and step up and provide 5G infrastructure it would create jobs and add to the economy. With companies such as H&M and Sony moving production out of China, they lessen China’s economic hold and create economic opportunities in competing countries. As awareness spreads and the private and public sectors begin to diversify their dependence on China it creates an opportunity to put pressure on China’s current Human Rights infringements and actions in the South China Sea. As more join the call to hold China to account, the thinner the burden will spread.

Christine Wallace

Christine Wallace