Sowing discord among the enemy is a dangerous game. As Donald Tusk may well learn.
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In 1924, a young French army officer published a book entitled La discorde chez l’ennemi (“discord among the enemy”). He had written it during the three years he spent as a prisoner of war in Germany. He intended it to show how the intrigues within the German government and conflicts with the military had caused them to lose the war. But he also hoped that the French would learn from the mistakes of their foes — a vain hope, as it turned out. His name was Charles de Gaulle.
De Gaulle’s title, la discorde chez l’ennemi, still resonates in Europe today. The spectacle of opponents falling out among themselves is as gratifying now as it ever was. And despite the existence of an institution — the European Union — expressly designed to banish such Schadenfreude from the Continent forever, both enmities and discord persist to this day.
Consider, for example, the Franco-Italian relationship: two Latin countries who share a border, a culture and, at least nominally, a faith. They are both founder members of the EU and Nato. Yesterday, however, the French ambassador was recalled from Rome in an unprecedented diplomatic protest, following weeks of increasingly acrimonious exchanges between Emmanuel Macron and the Italian populists.
The dispute revolves around the support for the French gilets jaunes (“yellow vests”) offered by Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini, two leaders of the governing coalition in Rome. This support is seen in Paris as hostile interference in French internal affairs — which it undoubtedly is. On Tuesday, Di Maio made a clandestine visit to meet Christophe Chalençon, a leading gilet jaune, and had himself photographed with other members of the protest movement who are standing in the European elections in May. Chalençon is on the extreme right wing of the protesters, having called for a military coup d’état to overthrow Macron.
The French President is infuriated by such open attempts by an Italian deputy prime minister to sow discord in a neighbouring country. He has in turn described populist parties such as the Five Star Movement and the League in Italy as Europe’s “leprosy” and described their defeat as the mission of the EU.
But the Italians too have their grievances. Salvini, the League’s hardline interior minister, claims that France is breaking EU rules by refusing to allow migrants to cross the border from Italy. He has also raised the issue of the French refusal to extradite terrorist fugitives from Italian justice. An election is imminent and the row with Macron plays well among supporters of Di Maio and Salvini. They are not called populists for nothing.
Sowing discord among the enemy is not, however, a tactic that is limited to populists. The European Council President, Donald Tusk, has been playing the same game this week — with the British on the receiving end. First he consigned Brexiteers to a “special place in Hell”, while standing next to a visibly delighted Leo Varadkar. The Irish Taoiseach was then overheard to say: “They’ll give you terrible trouble in the British press for that,” to which Tusk replied: “Yes, I know.” The two men laughed and shook hands, as if to say: job done.
Sure enough, the British press reacted as they predicted, with hostilities over Brexit renewed and a former prime minister, Sir John Major, weighing in to support Tusk. A protest duly followed from Theresa May about Tusk’s “unhelpful” remark, the row over which had overshadowed her visit to Brussels. But while she was there he was at it again, claiming that Jeremy Corbyn’s latest Brexit proposal had “merit” and might be “a way out of the impasse”. By voicing public support for Corbyn’s cunning plan for a “UK-wide customs union” with the EU, the President of the European Council was meddling in British politics, stirring up trouble inside both the Government and the Opposition.
Sowing discord among the enemy is, however, a dangerous game — and one that can easily backfire. By undermining an already weak British government, Tusk may imagine that he can prevent Brexit ever happening. But the one thing that might reunite the Tories right now is for Corbyn’s plan to gain traction. They fear a Marxist-led Labour government more than no-deal. The ultimate outcome of Tusk’s meddling might well be what he would call a “disorderly” Brexit.
