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At last a shaft of light piercing the gloom. The Supreme Court has halted Britain’s slide towards banana republic status. Boris Johnson’s attempt to shut down parliamentary discussion about Brexit has been exposed as an abuse of power. The invigorating message from the 11 judges was simple: the rule of law sits alongside the ballot box as an essential pillar of democracy. The prime minister wanted to place himself above it. A politician with a smidgin of integrity would have responded to this damning verdict by resigning. In a matter of months his government has become a cacophony of chaos. Now Mr Johnson has been found out lying to the Queen and the nation in the attempt to suspend parliament. It was no surprise that he declined to take the honourable course. Mr Johnson is a narcissist. Humility, he thinks, is for “little people”. He has company. The judgment coincided with a display of mutual backslapping with Donald Trump during Mr Johnson’s visit to New York. The US president faces his own legal challenge. The Democrats have started an impeachment investigation into his contacts with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The television images were apposite: two demagogues united in contempt for democratic values. I am not sure this is what Winston Churchill had in mind when he popularised the idea of a “special relationship”. Mr Johnson and his fellow English nationalists style themselves guardians of national sovereignty against the supposed depredations of the EU. The delicious irony of the court’s ruling was that it was nothing if not a bold assertion of parliamentary sovereignty. The threat it identified came not from Brussels, but from an over-mighty prime minister. Mr Johnson likes to boast of an education in the classics. He should brush up on his English history. Many might have thought he could not sink any lower. Mr Johnson’s response is an ugly campaign to frame the court decision as the latest instalment in an imagined conspiracy against Brexit. Publicly, he says he will obey the law. The whispered message from Number 10 is that the judges have usurped the power of the people in order to thwart the referendum result. His aim is to mark out the ground on which he plans to fight an election. The Supreme Court has defended valiantly Britain’s democracy. It has not mapped a path to or from Brexit. The prime minister insists that Britain will leave the EU — “do or die” — on October 31. Real life points to a request for another extension of the Article 50 process. A general election is inevitable, but the timing is uncertain. Political incompetence has deprived Mr Johnson of a parliamentary majority and united the opposition parties against him. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a politician as personally hostile to the EU as many a Tory Brexiter, has adopted a wholly opportunist stance that leaves his party sitting on the fence. The return of MPs to Westminster will allow them to stiffen the legal safeguards they have already put in place against Mr Johnson’s threat of a no-deal departure from the EU. Most likely, they will also block an election until an agreement has been reached with the EU27 to extend the Article 50 process for a third time. None of this, however, maps a route to an agreement. The prospect of a deal at the October EU summit has receded almost to the point of invisibility. The government’s proposals to replace the arrangements for the Irish border — the so-called backstop — offered to Mr Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, fall far short of anything that would secure the open frontier required by the Good Friday peace agreement. There is the deeper question of trust. Other EU leaders know that this prime minister cannot be trusted to keep any promises he might make about the future relationship between Britain and the union. They can see that he commands neither sufficient respect nor enough votes to build a coalition in favour of a new accord. Who wants to do business with a politician with Mr Johnson’s record for mendacity? The options left on the table are the deal negotiated by Mrs May and a variation that would replace a UK-wide “backstop” for the Irish border with one confined to Northern Ireland. Mr Johnson has rejected both plans, and neither would be assured of a majority of MPs. This leaves Britain’s fate in the hands of the EU27. More than three years after the referendum, its partners could be forgiven for calling time. Britain bears the responsibility for Brexit. Other EU members have already paid a significant price. If British politicians cannot now find a way to leave, they can scarcely expect an indefinite series of reprieves. Yet however unreasonable the request, for the EU27 to refuse an extension would effectively be to expel Britain at a time of unprecedented political crisis. Beyond the immediate costs for European economies of a no-deal Brexit, the impact on long-term relations would be immeasurable. What can Britain offer in return for more time? Not much. Pushing back the deadline by another few months would provide the window for an election that might break the logjam. Just as likely it will not. The best that can reasonably be hoped for is that a new parliament finally would bow to the inevitable and call a second referendum. There are, though, no guarantees.

Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital and Ideology, appears in English translation next March. But I got a sneak preview by walking into my local Parisian bookshop and handing over €25 for the French edition. My conclusion: the 1,200-page tome might become even more politically influential than the French economist’s 2013 overview of inequality, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Helped a little by that book, inequality has soared up the left’s agenda, especially in the particularly unequal US and UK. Now Elizabeth Warren has a shot at becoming the most redistributionist US president since Franklin D Roosevelt, while an electable post-Corbyn Labour leader could achieve similar in Britain. Piketty explains why this could be the moment for a turn to equality, and which policies could make that happen. His premise is that inequality is a political choice. It’s something societies opt for, not an inevitable result of technology and globalisation. Whereas Marx saw history as class struggle, Piketty sees it as a battle of ideologies. Every unequal society, he says, creates an ideology to justify inequality. That allows the rich to fall asleep in their town houses while the homeless freeze outside. In his overambitious history of ­inequality from ancient India to today’s US, Piketty recounts the justifications that recur throughout time: “Rich people deserve their wealth.” “It will trickle down.” “They give it back through philanthropy.” “Property is liberty.” “The poor are undeserving.” “Once you start redistributing wealth, you won’t know where to stop and there’ll be chaos” — a favourite argument after the French Revolution. “Communism failed.” “The money will go to black people” — an argument that, Piketty says, explains why inequality remains highest in countries with historic racial divides such as Brazil, South Africa and the US. Another common justification, which he doesn’t mention, is “High taxes are punitive” — as if the main issue were the supposed psychology behind redistribution rather than its actual effects. All these justifications add up to what he calls the “sacralisation of property”. But today, he writes, the “propriétariste and meritocratic narrative” is getting fragile. There’s a growing understanding that so-called meritocracy has been captured by the rich, who get their kids into the top universities, buy political parties and hide their money from taxation. Moreover, notes Piketty, the wealthy are overwhelmingly male and their lifestyles tend to be particularly environmentally damaging. Donald Trump — a climate-change-denying sexist heir who got elected president without releasing his tax returns — embodies the problem. In fact, support for redistribution is growing even faster than Piketty acknowledges, especially in the US. Twice as many Americans now feel more distrust than admiration for billionaires, according to a HuffPost/YouGov poll. Millennials are especially suspicious of success. More American adults under 30 say they believe in “socialism” than “capitalism”, report the pollsters Gallup. This generation owns too little property to sacralise it. Centre-right parties across the west have taken up populism because their low-tax, small-state story wasn’t selling any more. Rightwing populism speaks to today’s anti-elitist, anti-meritocratic mood. However, it deliberately refocuses debate from property to what Piketty calls “the frontier” (and others would call borders). That leaves a gap in the political market for redistributionist ideas. We’re now at a juncture much like around 1900, when extreme inequality helped launch social democratic and communist parties. Piketty lays out a new redistributionist agenda. He calls for “educational justice” — essentially, spending the same amount on each person’s education. He favours giving workers a major say over how their companies are run, as in Germany and Sweden. But his main proposal is for wealth taxes. Far from abolishing property, he wants to spread it to the bottom half of the population, who even in rich countries have never owned much. To do this, he says, requires redefining private property as “temporary” and limited: you can enjoy it during your lifetime, in moderate quantities. He proposes wealth taxes of 90 per cent on billionaires. From the proceeds, a country such as France could give each citizen a trust fund worth about €120,000 at age 25. Very high tax rates, he notes, didn’t impede fast growth in the 1950-80 period. Warren (advised by economists who work with Piketty) is proposing annual taxes of 2 per cent on household fortunes over $50m, and 3 per cent on billionaires. She projects that this would affect 75,000 households, and yield revenues of $2.75tn over 10 years. Polls suggest most Americans like the idea. Paradoxically, the plutocratic US may be ideal terrain for a wealth tax. Mark Stabile, economist at Insead, points out that, first, rich Americans now have so much wealth that even if Warren captures just a small proportion, it could add up to a lot; second, Americans are taxed on their passports, so moving wealth abroad won’t save them (and Warren would slap hefty exit taxes on anyone giving up citizenship); last, thanks to SwissLeaks and the Panama Papers, we’ve learnt a lot about how the rich hide money. Advocates of inequality will come up with the usual justifications. But now is the redistributionists’ best chance.

Emmanuel Macron made a diplomatic overture last month that left many in Berlin speechless. Receiving Vladimir Putin at his summer retreat in Fort de Brégançon, the French president called for a new security architecture between the EU and Russia. Despite the “misunderstandings of the past decades”, he said Russia “is profoundly European . . . We believe in a Europe that stretches from Lisbon to Vladivostok”. Diplomats in Berlin fumed. “Who gave him the mandate to negotiate a new European security architecture with Russia?” asked one official. “We’re quite happy with the one we have right now, and he shouldn’t be calling it into question.” Days later, Mr Macron launched a new diplomatic offensive on Ukraine, calling the first summit of the so-called Normandy Four — the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine — since 2016. He insisted he was working in close co-ordination with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. But the impression given was that he was muscling into an area of policy that has traditionally been Germany’s preserve. It was, after all, Ms Merkel who spearheaded western sanctions against Russia after its 2014 annexation of Crimea and brokered a ceasefire between government troops and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. “Macron is stealing Merkel’s show,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily commented. For some in Berlin, the French leader’s gambit reflected a broader trend — Germany’s waning influence on the international stage. There was a sense that Paris had simply stepped into a diplomatic vacuum once occupied by Berlin. “Macron can only be this active because Germany has become so passive,” says Omid Nouripour, foreign affairs spokesman for Germany’s opposition Greens. Emmanuel Macron, right, hosted Russian premier Vladimir Putin at his summer retreat in Fort de Brégançon. The French president has called for a new security architecture between the EU and Russia © EPA-EFE Ms Merkel, in her twilight as chancellor, embodies this perception of decline. As her last months in power tick away, her ability to set the political agenda appears to be diminishing fast. Domestically, too, she is weaker. Her coalition with the Social Democrats, which has ceded its status as Germany’s leading left-of-centre party to the Greens, is fragile. With a recession looming, critics complain of a sense of drift and purposelessness, and a government that is out of ideas. “The coalition is just too self-absorbed, focused more on the tensions between the partners than with the big challenges facing Germany,” says Steffen Kampeter, head of the BDA employers’ association and a former state secretary in the finance ministry. “There’s a tendency towards provincialism . . . and that means Germany is unable to play a role in Europe.” It was all so different five years ago. Then, Ms Merkel was at the height of her powers. Germany’s economy was booming, with surging employment, healthy exports and a bumper budget surplus. Her deft stewardship had helped the eurozone withstand its worst-ever crisis. Germany and the US formed two pillars of a transatlantic alliance that seemed unbreakable. Then things started to unravel. Her decision to keep Germany’s borders open in 2015 and the subsequent influx of more than 1m refugees exposed deep faultlines in the EU and turned German politics upside down. Her Christian Democratic Union bled support to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, which became the biggest opposition party in the Bundestag. After inconclusive parliamentary elections in 2017, she was forced to form a grand coalition with the SPD that, from its inception, has been plagued by internal strife. And the once robust German economy, buffeted by the US-China trade war and fears of a hard Brexit, is contracting. Ms Merkel no longer dominates German politics. Last year, she stepped aside as CDU leader after 18 years, and said she would exit politics once her fourth and final term as chancellor ends in 2021. All eyes have been on the party’s new leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, and her hapless attempts to establish herself as Ms Merkel’s heir. Angela Merkel with Mr Putin, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mr Macron. The chancellor's multilateral approach has suffered in a political climate dominated by the likes of Erdogan, Putin and Trump © Maxim Shipenkov/EPA-EFE “Merkel is too distracted with domestic problems — the instability of her grand coalition and the rumblings within her own party about the succession” to launch any big new foreign policy initiatives, says Mr Nouripour. Ms Merkel’s personal approval rating remains surprisingly high. She is easily Germany’s most popular politician. But despite that, many crave a change. “We live in an age when people want someone to give them direction, and they won’t get it from her,” says Andrea Römmele, professor for communication in politics at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. “I admire Merkel’s authenticity, her calmness and composure. But in many ways, Germany now needs a new political style.” Nothing has damaged Germany’s confidence more than the constant attacks by Donald Trump, who has turned Berlin into his favourite punch bag. Ms Merkel has endured a torrent of abuse from the US president over everything from Germany’s weak defence spending to its huge current account surplus and reliance on Russian natural gas. “The link to Washington was always critical to German foreign policy, and now it’s been severed,” says Ulrich Speck, senior visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. “Merkel has been cut off by Trump and that leaves her in the dark.” It is not just that relations with Washington are bad — Mr Trump has assailed all the values Ms Merkel holds dear. “She cares deeply about multilateral institutions, but how can they function properly in a world dominated by Trump, [Vladimir] Putin and [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan?” says the official. “She is all about forging alliances, and that is now harder to do than ever before.” Germany is going through a difficult phase with another close ally, too — France. Mr Macron initially hoped Ms Merkel would join forces with him in a push to reform the EU and eurozone, and slow the rise of rightwing populism. But the chancellor, distracted by months of coalition building after the 2017 election, stayed silent. “When Macron presented his reform proposals, Germany wasn’t even able to say whether they were good or bad — it didn’t say anything at all,” says Marco Buschmann, a senior MP for the opposition Free Democratic party. “Germany doesn’t even articulate its own interests any more.” Yet teaming up with Mr Macron on a big reform drive would have been beyond Ms Merkel’s powers. The CDU’s conservative wing was already furious with her for pushing the party towards the centre — phasing out nuclear power, abolishing compulsory military service and keeping Germany’s borders open during the migration crisis. She had “severely tested the patience of her party with her liberalism, and the price she paid was that she had much less freedom to act in other important areas”, Sigmar Gabriel, the former Social Democratic leader and deputy chancellor, recently told German TV. The refugee crisis in particular took its toll. “You can see it really wore her out,” says one CDU MP. “Now she can’t seem to bestir herself to do anything.” Frustrated by Germany’s passivity, Mr Macron has tended to go it alone. Ms Merkel with European Council president Donald Tusk at the G7 meeting in August. The summit in Biarritz saw the German chancellor take a backseat to Emmanuel Macron © Markus Schreiber/EPA-EFE This new approach was clearly in evidence at last month’s G7 summit in Biarritz, where he posed as the world’s number one problem-solver, dedicated to tackling crises from Yemen and Libya to Iran and the Sahel. Biarritz was not the kind of G7 meeting Ms Merkel is used to. “Before, they were all about patiently negotiating with like-minded leaders, something she’s very good at — but now it’s more like a prize fight,” says Josef Janning, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. “These days the G7 is about jockeying for position, preening and showing off. And that is not Merkel’s world.” Mr Macron’s attempt to usurp Ms Merkel’s role as chief mediator in the Ukraine conflict was particularly galling. “She can’t approve of that, because Germany’s special relationship with Russia is one of the most important assets that she has as chancellor,” says Mr Janning. “Western leaders know we Germans can talk to the Russians in a way no one else can, not even Macron.” Germany’s global heft has long been on the wane, say critics. Some blame foreign minister Heiko Maas, who they say lacks leadership qualities and a clarity of purpose. Under Mr Maas, German foreign policy has become more “dithering, vague and halfhearted”, says Mr Nouripour. He compares Mr Maas to previous foreign ministers and the intense shuttle diplomacy they engaged in to solve global crises — Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Ukraine in 2014, Joschka Fischer in Israel and Palestine in 2001, and Hans-Dietrich Genscher throughout the cold war and in the run-up to German reunification. Mr Maas, he says, could have engaged much more in trying to end the war in Yemen and the crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Critics say the rot in German diplomacy set in when Christoph Heusgen, Ms Merkel's former foreign policy adviser, left the chancellory in 2017 © Guido Bergmann/EPA Others say the rot in German diplomacy set in when Christoph Heusgen, who had served as Ms Merkel’s foreign policy adviser for 12 years, left the chancellery in 2017 to become Germany’s ambassador to the UN. Mr Heusgen played a central role in the Minsk peace process, which established a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and is a “key part of Merkel’s legacy”, says Mr Speck. “The risk is that Macron and Trump will now take this policy over.” There was consternation in Berlin when the US hinted that Russia should be readmitted into the G7 — a development that, if it ever came about, would mark a big defeat for Ms Merkel. It is not the case, though, that she has disengaged entirely from Ostpolitik. She was one of the first western leaders to host Volodymyr Zelensky after his surprise victory in the Ukrainian presidential election in April. Berlin was also the venue for a crucial meeting earlier this month between representatives of the “Normandy” powers — Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France — to prepare for the next four-way summit. Yet in the transcript of a conversation between Mr Zelensky and Mr Trump released by the White House on September 25, the US president says Ms Merkel “doesn’t do anything” for Ukraine. Ms Merkel has also thrown her weight behind other big diplomatic initiatives. She has been at the forefront of European efforts to ease poverty in Africa, and to reduce the instability and violence that have prompted hundreds of thousands to seek a better life in Europe. In May, she travelled to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to push the policy. Ms Merkel has also floated the idea of hosting an international conference on Libya, which would be Germany’s first big diplomatic offensive since the Minsk peace process. The chancellor aims to act as an honest broker in a conflict that has destabilised the Sahel region, and has sought to win round Mr Macron and Mr Trump to her push for peace. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the Christian Democratic Union leader, has struggled to establish herself as Ms Merkel's heir © Clemens Bilan/EPA Also, Germany will hold the rotating presidency of the EU next year: that could be crowned by a big investment protection agreement between the Europeans and China, which has long been in the works. But with the clock ticking, some say Ms Merkel will struggle to achieve anything lasting in her remaining 730 or so days in power, especially in 2021 when there will be few opportunities for grand political gestures in an election year. Already, says Mr Kampeter, the signs do not augur well. “Next year Germany will be in the driver’s seat on all the fundamental decisions in the EU, setting the agenda for the whole bloc,” he says. “And right now, it’s focused on marginal issues, like whether to ban plastic bags and oil-fired heating systems.” But even her staunchest critics say Ms Merkel is no “lame duck”. The FDP’s Mr Buschmann says: “She is very power-conscious. You should never underestimate her.”