I WAS in Germany last week, visiting Berlin and Leipzig. One of the best things about travelling abroad is working out what makes the locals tick, and within hours of arrival it was clear that Berliners and Leipzigers alike were consumed by two issues that go to the very heart of what it is to be European in the 21st century: football and Brexit.
Both of these matter deeply to the German people. And while there was joy on the streets and in bars and cafes as Germany progressed in Euro 2016, the reaction to Brexit couldn’t have been more different. There was grief, anger and sadness. Incomprehension and derision. Trying to explain what had happened was a nightmare – especially when you’re Scottish and voted to Remain. But I tried my best with German pals, bar staff and waiters, shop workers and train conductors, gallery owners and journalists. And, as is often the case in this most contemplative of countries, the discussions on the future of Europe, the UK and Scotland were deep and thoughtful.
Something interesting immediately struck me about these conversations. The same three names kept cropping up again and again as the key figures that would determine our continent’s future: Merkel, May and Sturgeon. And most extraordinarily of all, gender was hardly mentioned. No-one seemed to bat an eyelid that it will be the decisions, strategies and leadership qualities of three women that will decide what sort of relationship the UK will have with Europe, and, arguably, whether the UK will continue to exist at all.
Obviously we don’t yet know for sure whether Theresa May will win the Tory leadership and become the next Prime Minister, but it’s looking that way. Her main rival, Andrea Leadsom, is less well known, but whatever happens one of these two Englishwomen will become PM and lead the UK’s Brexit negotiations. What sort of deal the EU agrees to will ultimately be decided by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, the most powerful woman in the world for the last decade and perhaps the most consummate politician of her generation.
Sturgeon, meanwhile, already increasingly influential UK-wide, has seen her European stock shoot up exponentially over the last 14 days; she was on the front of as many German newspapers as Boris Johnson over the weekend of the latter’s downfall, with Scotland’s democratic plight – and the likelihood of another independence referendum – being surprisingly high on the German agenda. Thanks to Sturgeon, Scotland is on the mainstream European radar as never before. Her strategy over the coming months will have significant influence on whether Scotland becomes an independent country.
Elsewhere, the story is the same: women are tantalisingly close to holding the sort of real power feminists have been craving for generations, whether that be Hillary Clinton’s candidature for US President or Angela Eagle being mooted as the next Labour Party leader. In Scotland, of course, we already have women leading all three main parties.
So why, at this particular juncture, are so many women coming through? Has the feminist movement won the day at last? Is the modern world really more gender-balanced? There is perhaps an element of truth in both of these suggestions. But I also believe the chaos and fluidity of the current situation has taken us, without even noticing it, into a new political moment. In the space of a fortnight, the veneer of British political competence has been stripped bare to reveal confusion, mayhem and division at every level. During the same 14 days Prime Minister David Cameron and former prime minister Tony Blair – have had their legacies destroyed by the same fatal flaw: arrogance. Cameron always assumed he’d win a referendum on EU membership, Blair thought his war in Iraq was just. Both were hideously wrong. The UK Labour Party run by Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, is becoming scarily irrelevant.
Maybe all this offers some sort of explanation for the lack of brouhaha over women taking the lead. Perhaps in trying to process all this, in attempting to work out where we go from here, we have simply reached the point where gender is the least of anyone’s worries. Perhaps something positive, progressive and, in its own way beautiful, has quietly come out of the strange and hideous events of recent weeks. If this is the case, then it is both welcome and important. And a blessed relief, surely, for both women and men.
But let’s not shout too loud about it, in case this is a blip rather than a breakthrough; lest we forget the testosterone-fuelled pride and arrogance that has brought so many men down in recent weeks.
Maybe the real test will be when history comes to judge Merkel, May and Sturgeon, the triumvirate in whose hands the future of Europe now rests. One can only hope they avoid the fate of Blair and Cameron; I have a feeling they will.
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