Jul 20th 2022

The Pathologies of Long Boris 

by Chris Patten

Chris Patten is a former EU Commissioner for External Relations, Chairman of the British Conservative Party, and was the last British Governor of Hong Kong. He is currently Chancellor of Oxford University and a member of the British House of Lords.

 

LONDON – We know that people who are infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 may suffer from symptoms that last for weeks or months after the infection has passed. Similarly, the fall of disgraced British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and the election of his successor by the Conservative Party in the coming weeks, will likely have serious lingering effects. Call it Long Boris.

The United Kingdom is already dealing with “Long Brexit” – the corrosive long-term effects of Britain’s departure from the European Union on both the economy and the language and conduct of our politics. Now, this illness is being compounded by the corrupting and debilitating impact of Johnson’s premiership on British politics and government.

Johnson had no respect for the standards of governance, the integrity of institutions, or the crucial importance of making rational choices between often incompatible public-policy objectives. His legacy of populist mendacity cannot be buried by the naming of a new Conservative Party leader. On the contrary, Long Boris is shaping – and distorting – the election process.

We know that Brexit has badly hurt the United Kingdom’s economy – probably knocking 4% off our potential GDP in the long term – and diminished our international influence. We also know that, contrary to the claims of Brexit supporters, it has not given Parliament more control over Britain’s destiny. Instead, a populist government has gained more power to do what it wants, without much regard for parliamentary accountability. The notion that Brexit has enabled the British to “take back control” over their own lives is a chimera.

At this point, most people – even those as strongly critical of Brexit as I am – probably accept that the referendum decision, now six years old, cannot be undone or reversed in the near future (one day perhaps, but not yet). At the same time, as UK exports plummet and our trade deficit soars, even adamant Brexiteers should want to cultivate a positive relationship with our European neighbors, which represent our largest and most important market.

Yet, while that might be the case in a more rational and calmer political environment, it is not true today. The EU is now treated as an alien influence and even an enemy. Any reference to strengthening UK-EU relations – no matter how pragmatic – is taken as heresy.

This is apparent in the current race to succeed Johnson. Even candidates who once expressed support for remaining in the EU would run a mile before creating the impression that they would take a constructive approach to our future European relationship. Meanwhile, some dyed-in-the-wool Brexiteers are now thought to be insufficiently ideological on the subject. There is no real debate about Britain’s best interests.

Discussions of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland exemplify this failure. The Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, committed the British government to maintain an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Protocol, part of the UK’s EU withdrawal agreement, was devised to protect this peace: by allowing Northern Ireland to function almost as if it were still a part of the EU’s single market and customs union, it allowed for a nearly open border.

Hardline Brexiteers now want to scrap the Protocol. No matter, apparently, that this would mean violating our withdrawal agreement with the EU, risking our membership in EU research programs (which have offered tremendous value to our best universities), and jeopardizing the Good Friday Agreement.

If one so much as suggests re-examining the Northern Ireland question, they risk being treated as an ideological apostate. So, we drift on a tide of foolish prejudice that has nothing to do with what is best for Britain. Thus, Long Brexit menaces our future prospects, and Long Boris corrupts the debate about what should be done to minimize the risks.

We need leaders who will be honest about our problems in the short, medium, and long term. We are becoming poorer than our neighbors, with our per capita growth and productivity lagging behind theirs. We confront surging energy prices, soaring inflation, and public-sector strikes. Our fiscal deficit is uncomfortably high. Our influence is diminished.

Far from recognizing these challenges, let alone proposing sensible solutions, the candidates to succeed Johnson are trying to win votes with reckless proposals like ever-larger tax cuts. They ignore the fact that, without responsible spending reductions, the only way to afford across-the-board tax cuts would be to plant what conservatives used to denounce as a “magic money tree.”

Such cuts would not address soaring inflation, either. They would, however, lead to further downward pressure on the pound, higher interest rates, and financial turbulence. By proposing them, the principal candidates to lead the Tories have shown an utter disregard for the fiscal responsibility that has long been regarded as a core Conservative principle.

There is one exception. Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak refuses to abandon the notion that expenditure should bear some relationship to revenue. A one-time Johnson supporter and a long-time Brexit advocate, Sunak is now being targeted by Johnson’s supporters over the tax issue, largely because he helped to ensure Johnson’s eviction from high office.

The UK needs a government that is pragmatic, internationalist, responsible, and capable of delivering some semblance of stability and certainty at a time of upheaval. But it is difficult to imagine how such a government could emerge from the escalating dogmatic delinquency now underway.

 


Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is Chancellor of the University of Oxford and the author of The Hong Kong Diaries (Allen Lane, 2022). 

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
www.project-syndicate.org Chris_Patten.png

 


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Apr 13th 2022
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Apr 11th 2022
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Apr 8th 2022
EXTRACT: "Russian society has so far failed to stop Putin, just as German society failed to stop Hitler. And so, like a poisoned chalice, that task has fallen to the West, as it did in 1939. The West must now treat Putin and his regime the same way that Winston Churchill treated Hitler: Don’t talk to him, just defeat him. Dead-enders such as Putin are too fanatical and desperate to be reliable negotiating partners."
Apr 3rd 2022
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Apr 1st 2022
EXTRACTS: "Policymakers expected that the country would be able to secure its energy supply entirely from renewable sources, so they resolved to phase out coal and nuclear energy simultaneously. The last three of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants are set to be shut down this year." ---- ".... the share of wind and solar power in Germany’s total final energy consumption, which includes heating, industrial processing, and traffic, was a meager 6.7%. And while wind and solar generated 29% of the country’s electricity output, electricity itself accounted for only about a fifth of its final energy consumption." ----- "If Germany suddenly halted Russian gas imports, gas-based residential heating systems – on which half the German population, approximately 40 million people, rely – and industrial processes that rely heavily on gas imports would break down....."
Apr 1st 2022
EXTRACT: "For Putin, the past that matters most is the one the dissident author and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn exalted: the time when the Slavic peoples were united within the Orthodox Christian kingdom of Kievan Rus’. Kyiv formed its heart, making Ukraine central to Putin’s pan-Slavic vision. ---- But, for Putin, the Ukraine war is about preserving Russia, not just expanding it. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently made clear, Russia’s leaders believe that their country is locked in a “life-and-death battle to exist on the world’s geopolitical map.” That worldview reflects Putin’s longstanding obsession with works of other Russian emigrant philosophers, such as Ivan Ilyin and Nikolai Berdyaev, who described a struggle for the Eurasian (Russian) soul against the Atlanticists (the West) who would destroy it. ---- Yet Putin and his neo-Eurasianists seem to believe that the key to victory is to create the kind of regime those anti-Bolshevik philosophers most detested: one run by the security forces. A police state would fulfill the vision of another of Putin’s heroes: the KGB chief turned Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov."
Apr 1st 2022
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Mar 31st 2022
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Mar 26th 2022
EXTRACT: "Referencing past legacies as a justification for present-day political decisions is often effective – such appeals trigger emotional reflexes and contribute to thinking about politics in terms of rivalry and defence. The irony within the tragedy of the current situation is that Putin will assuredly go down in history as the figure that did more to unite the Ukrainian people (albeit against Russia) than any other in recent memory."
Mar 24th 2022
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Mar 21st 2022
EXTRACT: "As Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, China’s role has been thrown into sharp relief. Prior to the war, some commentators suggested that China would openly side with Russia or seek to act as a mediator – so far Beijing appears to have resisted doing either. As Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the US, wrote recently in the Washington Post, Beijing has nothing to gain from this war, arguing “wielding the baton of sanctions at Chinese companies while seeking China’s support and cooperation simply won’t work”. Ambassador Qin also stressed that Beijing had no prior knowledge of the conflict,...."
Mar 17th 2022
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Mar 17th 2022
EXTRACT: "An influential Shanghai-based academic commentator on international affairs, Hu Wei, recently advanced a cautionary argument that has been circulated widely in Chinese-language publications. In his commentary, which is unlikely to have been published without the approval of some of Xi’s senior courtiers, Hu wondered how Chinese communists would react if the war escalated beyond Ukraine, or if Russia was clearly defeated." ------- "For Hu, the answer for China’s leaders is simple. They should wash their hands of the relationship with Putin, ....."
Mar 12th 2022
EXTRACT: "Meanwhile, Xi seems to have realized that Putin has gone rogue. On March 8, one day after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had insisted that the friendship between China and Russia remained “rock solid,” Xi called French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to say that he supported their peacemaking efforts."
Mar 7th 2022
EXTRACTS: "........Russia has been isolated by draconian Western sanctions that could devastate its economy for decades,...." ---- "Russia’s prospects are bleak, at best; without China, it has none at all. China holds the trump card in the ultimate survival of Putin’s Russia."
Mar 3rd 2022
EXTRACT: "Although Ukraine’s armed forces are outnumbered by those of Russian President Vladimir Putin invading our country, we take heart from the growing support we are receiving from friends abroad. Nobody should forget that this is not just an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine; it is an assault on the free world. ---- Putin has been at war with the free world for decades. "
Mar 2nd 2022
EXTRACT: "Moreover, with China sharing the Kremlin’s interest in containing the advance of liberal democracy around the world, Putin could count on the Chinese to provide an additional economic lifeline by purchasing Russian gas. But this new relationship will not be costless. As the world continues to divide into separate technological and economic blocs, Russia will become even more dependent on China, implying a loss of strategic autonomy. Russia may have a powerful military; but with a GDP similar to that of Spain and Italy, it is far from being an economic power."
Mar 1st 2022
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Feb 26th 2022
EXTRACT: "Putin apparently assumes that China will back him. But while he launched the invasion just weeks after concluding something akin to an alliance agreement with Xi in Beijing, Chinese officials’ reactions have been very distant with calls for “restraint.” Given Putin’s near-total reliance on China for support in challenging the US-led international order, lying to Xi would have no political or strategic advantage. That is what is so worrying: Putin no longer seems capable of the calculations that are supposed to guide a leader’s decision-making. Far from an equal partner, Russia is now on track to become a kind of Chinese vassal state."
Feb 25th 2022
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