the tories had a fantastic victory, no doubt. a triumph for the tories. but they are going to be quite a weak government i think because their majority is very, very small. and if you have a very small majority, you are incredibly beholden to your mps to keep that, and they have a lot of very, very kind of euro-skeptic, tricky mps who are not going to be willing to toe the party line. so i don t expect this to be an easy ride for david cameron at all. he s done amazingly well far better than anyone expected but it s going to be a weak government with a lot of tough things to do. there s going to be some uncertainty going forward. for me watching from this side of the atlantic, what was striking is this was an election a british election in which foreign policy almost didn t figure at all. not only britain s role in afghanistan and iraq, the middle east, but not even really much about europe. it became more about immigration. is britain turning inwards?
the british voters looked at the kind of future that ed miliband laid out and said they didn t want it. let s not exaggerate too much tories had a fantastic victory, no doubt a triumph. they are going to be quite a weak government, i think, because their majority is very, very small. if you have a very small majority you are incredibly beholden to your mps to keep that and they have a lot of very very kind of euro-skeptic tricky mps who are not going to be willing to toe the party line. i don t expect this to be an easy ride for cameron. he did very well, better than expected, but it s a weak government with a lot of tough things to do. there will be uncertainty going forward. for me watching from this side of the atlantic, what was strike something this was an election a british election, in which foreign policy almost didn t figure at all. not only britain s role in afghanistan and iraq, the middle east, but not even really much
as we got closer to polling day that ukit vote would slip away. well they re not going to form a government. not going to have more than two, three, mps. am i wasting my vote. interesting that the conservatives have brought forward today the former leader, ian duncan smith. right-wing. euro skeptic. long time opponent of much europe does to appeal to ukit voters say, look a suicide note. their big aim is to get briton out of europe. david cameron promising a referendum. in or out of europe. no other party is. if utip skopd. they will lose their policy plank. trying to take the wind out of the sales. pledging to have the vote by end of 2017. there are questions, you know, a bit of a fire brand.
position in parliament to change those policies. you see this with the uk independence party even though the british economy is doing better. across europe you have the growth of these parties that are fundamentally nativist. they re also very euro skeptic. i wouldn t say they re working together, they all focus on the national basis. but this is really making it much more difficult to govern europe. and it s not as if they re doing well economically they need more political cohesion between germany and the periphery to deal with their broader economic challenges. this year is the year it precisely will not happen. and the headlines we see coming out of france today make it much harder. ambassador is there any facet of u.s. policy that can help to address what is an emerging crisis in europe over the immigration tension? it s interesting because the muslim population in the united states is so much better assimilated as ian just said in france or in sweden or in britain. and there
get tourism there would be all hell breaking out, a lot of turmoil. you know the old skit when someone has a string, you have a string and pull it entire suit falls apart, that would probably be the initial reaction. heather: okay. ultimately i happen to be a euro skeptic. i think all these countries should be independent on their own, printing their own currency, calling their own shots. some of them have become so dependent on this relationship it would be havoc and there would be desperation as least initially and it would be a dangerous time for everyone for a period of time. heather: so you don t see a reinvigoration happening? there won t be reinvigoration. but a lot of people will say, whew, if cyprus cuts some sort of a deal. our market will open a bit higher. the prevailing wisdom the leaders of cyprus having voted down the deal initially will vote some sort of a deal. they will cut some sort of a deal within the next 24 hours, maybe even sooner and they will stay in the e