Britain’s New Government – Which Lane will it be Taking?

Myanmar must have got the most ridiculous driving system in the world. Its cars are mainly the right-hand drive varieties, yet, they have to drive on the right-hand side of the road. Try it out yourself and see how awkward the experience can be for you. I thought the world is also shaping up this way. 

* * * * * * * * *
61-year-old Keir Starmer has become the UK’s new prime minister. His Labour Party commands a solid majority. We all know Labour carried the country not because it was hugely popular but because, like everywhere in the world where hope for the incumbents has fast faded, it is a case of “let’s give the other party a chance to see if they can do better” hope!

Boris Johnson plunged the UK’s stock into deep ravine. His strong advocacy for Brexit was really not a bad idea. But he screwed up his country. On one hand, he pretended to be “professional” (on Huawei as a case in point); on the other, he tried to bootlick Donald Trump, when the latter clearly thought he was not in his league. We can see how the pseudo leaders in the EU are wrecking Europe’s fortune today. By abdicating their sovereignty over trade matters, Germany and France are forced to go along with some of the silliest policies just because Ursula von Leyen wants to please Joe Biden (or the Deep State in the US).

His successor Liz Truss must be the dumbest blonde Britain has ever produced. She had absolutely no idea about economics. Naturally, she could last only a couple of weeks. (Incidentally, she was not able to keep her seat in the recent election.) As if the Tories were determined to be booted out, they voted Rishi Sunak to be her successor.

Sunak personifies the worst or the best of Indian-ness, depending on which side of the fence you are sitting.

(I have often used the term Chineseness in my blog. A friend wrote to ask if it was grammatically correct or even appropriate. I just did not feel necessary to explain, after all, he is also Chinese ethnically. Having said that, I thought I should say something about it here. It is simply my way of stereotyping without wanting to write what is obvious but subtle. I have often used Chineseness to epitomize certain aspects of our ethnic cultures, characteristics, behaviours, and way of life, which can be either good or bad to beholders. The good aspects of our Chineseness are of course, our propensity to slog hard; and the bad aspects are some of our kinsmen’s lack of etiquette in public behaviours.)

Sunak was born in the UK to parents of Indian descent who originally hailed from East Africa, went to Winchester College, and later studied PPE at Oxford. He did his MBA at Stanford. He was certainly an outstanding scholar. He is pretty short and the complex in him must have made him determined to be more “high-nose” than an English “gentleman”. This is borne out in the way he carries himself and speaks. But he forgot that he was not one of them. And he and his wife have also exhibited several self-serving and ethical shortcomings for the British public to notice.

There are already too many non-British people in the UK, thanks chiefly to their sense of guilt developed from their hundreds of years of rule of many parts of Africa, West, South and Southeast Asia, and Hong Kong. (I flew into Birmingham a year or so before the COVID19 pandemic and thought I had landed in an Indian airport!)

There is always some racism in everyone of us. We hide it to be socially correct. If the person performs to our expectations, we are happy to accept him or her as one of “us.” Otherwise, prejudice will soon rear its ugly head again.

This is precisely what has happened to Sunak. He installed several South Asians as his key Cabinet colleagues. And instead of doing the right thing, he got sucked in and acted in manners that predecessors had been accused of, and worse. The cost of living in the country deteriorated further and most British felt miserable financially. On the international front, it is a pathetic shade of its former self.

Starmer’s victory speech was delivered without much pompousness. He appears to be more down-to-earth. Indeed, he lacks the type of charisma that is normally present in political leaders in Britain. However, looks are deceiving. China should not count on him to be more friendly. Starmer has visited Taiwan on two occasions. It is said that as a human rights lawyer, he went there principally to lobby against death penalty. However, I am a little skeptical of his true purpose. (That noble?) Nonetheless, Britain’s economy is in such a dire state now and any attempt to poke China’s eyes will only hurt the country further. (Former prime minister David Cameron was said to be China-friendly when he was in office, but the day he returned to become Britian’s Foreign Secretary, he claimed China had changed and had to be dealt with accordingly. Who has caused China to change in the first place?)

We are going into a very unpredictable time. Joe Biden has vowed to fight on. Short of a miracle, Donald Trump will be the emperor of the United States of America again. India’s Modi has already understood he will no longer have a high pedestal to sit on when he joins any G7 summits. He is now feverishly courting Putin. (And in his typical Indian-ness, he did not see fit to attend the recent SCO Summit at Kazakhstan. How did the Central Asian leaders feel? The reasons? Your guess will be as good as mine!) Ukraine’s Zelensky is likely to be sacrificed. As for Taiwan’s William Lai, South Korea’s Yoon and the Philippines’ Marcos, Jr, Trump is going to ask, “You folks, what’s in it for me to help you?”

Putin has just given Biden the kiss of death in suggesting the latter is a “better” president for America. What is emerging in the world is most confusing. Trump is supposed to personify the Neo-Con Right in America. Much of continental Europe has swerved to the right. And Labour is supposed to be a left-wing party, and it is now tasked with Right Wing mission to curtail immigration and protect its middles class. All very “right wing” in European talk, indeed.

Global South leaders are increasingly aware that the way to navigate in the stormy world ahead is to work with or count on China. It is the only country that does everything with long-term considerations and philosophical thoughts (which may look undemocratic to the shallow lot in many parts of the world). Even Argentina’s “rock-star” President Milei knows that he cannot dollarize his currency without earning dollars (or to be more exact, Chinese Yuan)!!!