GIVEN what happened in 2016, the only thing certain about 2017 is uncertainty, writes Michael Settle.
After a snook was cocked at the Establishment with the Brexit vote and the Trump shock, the big question on the continent is: will there be a repeat performance?
In March, the Dutch go to the polls to elect all 150 members of Holland’s House of Representatives. Prime Minister Mark Rutte, head of the Liberal-Conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), is pitched against Geert Wilders, who leads the anti-Muslim Party for Freedom (PVV).
Recent polls have given the right-wing PVV a healthy 13-point lead although one just before Christmas had it edging ahead of the VVD by a single point.
However, while Mr Wilders will be banking on an anti-immigrant, anti-Establishment Trump effect – his manifesto calls for the closure of all mosques, a ban on the Koran, and an end to immigration from Islamic countries – the Dutch system means that to gain power he would have to form an alliance with one or more parties, which could prove difficult.
The key test for right-wing populist sentiment on the continent will come in May when the French go to the polls with a head-to-head clash expected between the Republican candidate Francois Fillon and the Front National’s Marine Le Pen.
Mr Fillon is a Thatcherite and so is likely to pick up not only centre-right votes but also those from the Left seeking to stop Mrs Le Pen at all costs.
This would seem to make Mr Fillon’s journey to the Elysee Palace irresistible. Yet the populist surge that saw Brexit defy the odds and helped carry Mr Trump to the White House on a wave of anti-Establishment sentiment could create a similar momentum behind the Front National leader.
If Mrs Le Pen were to win, then, given her pledge to hold an in/out vote on France’s EU membership, politics across not only the continent but also here at home would be thrown into uncertainty.
The Brexit process and any move towards a second Scottish independence referendum would be put on hold until the French decided their future.
By the autumn, it will be the Germans’ turn to vote for their next government.
Despite the uplift in support for right-wing populism, it had been thought Chancellor Angela Merkel, mother of the nation, would clinch a fourth term.
But the recent tragedy in Berlin and the support in local elections for the right-wing Alternative fuer Deutschland party based on the deep unease about the scale of immigration to Germany has thrown a large unknown element into the political equation.
While what happens in Europe is fraught with unpredictability, the same could be said of the new administration taking power across the pond in Washington.
January 20 sees the changing of the guard and the inauguration of the 45th president, one Donald J Trump.
Those critical of the commander-in-chief are hoping that he turns out to be different from the campaign candidate, who admitted assaulting women, who wanted to ban all Muslims from America, who branded Mexicans drug-pushers and rapists, who praised Vladimir Putin, who believed climate change was a Chinese economic conspiracy, who was protectionist on trade, who described Nato as obsolete and who wanted to scrap the Iran nuclear deal.
It may well be that Mr Trump’s first foreign foray is a state visit to Britain with a trip north of the Border to his “beloved Scotland” thrown in.
If the often ridiculed “special relationship” means anything, then it must show its value in persuading the new president that while on the campaign trail the world might seem a simple case of black and white, in reality, it is a range of greys and that practising the art of diplomacy is greatly helped by listening to and seeking counsel from trusted friends and allies.
With political change in America and it also possibly sweeping across Europe, the Age of Uncertainty is set to continue in 2017.
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