By Owei Lakemfa
The British are known masters of diplomacy and politics. This is exemplified in the quote by its former Prime Minister Winston Churchill who said: “’Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.”
*Sunak and CameronThat was how Britain, an island in the North Atlantic Ocean ruled the waves and the world before its sun began to set from the injuries of the Second World War. Britain and its allies won that war, but it lost its position as the world power.
It has, however, fared better than its sister, France which in the
process of colonial rule had preferred direct, brutal rule while Britain had
settled for the subtle indirect rule, but which was equally brutal.
Same tactics in the
de-colonisation process; France had preferred to drown its colonies like
Vietnam and Algeria in rivers of blood rather than allow them go. In contrast,
Britain had realised the inevitability of the colonies gaining independence and
had rather, concentrated in subverting such independence.
In fact, British Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan had on February 3,1960 travelled to Africa and in his address
to the South African parliament proclaimed the “Wind of Change”. It is a
monument to British diplomacy, that for the three decades after that historic
speech, it resisted the wind of change in that country by stoutly supporting
Apartheid.
In post-colonial international
relations, while France forced its former colonies in Africa into nakedly
subservient Francophone clubs, Britain floated a “Commonwealth” which today,
far from being under threat, has actually attracted even former French colonies
like Cameroun, Rwanda, Gabon and Togo.
Britain in joining the European
Union, EU, tried to play its usual politics of eating its cake and having it.
It refused to join the common Euro currency, preferring its own Pound, and
declined to join the common Shengen visa, preferring its own individual visa.
When it played other politics such as wanting to stop citizens from other EU
countries from free access and work, its cup was almost full. Then it took the
gamble of Brexit and found itself out of the EU.
Prime Minister David
Cameron whose gambit backfired leading to Britain’s exit from the EU on
February 1, 2020, quietly threw in the towel in 2016.
A sort of instability has taken
root since then. His successor Theresa May spent three years, the quite
boisterous Boris Johnson who presented himself master of the game, was seen off
under disgraceful circumstances, including a penchant for falsehood.
Liz Truss, who came next, spent
some two months before being replaced by incumbent Rishi Sunak who has tried to
demonstrate publicly that he can stay the course.
But Britain that had ruled the waves, has been struggling to keep its
ship of state steady. Sunak entered into unprovoked and unnecessary attacks on
China which has generally ignored him. He has tried stoking the fires in
Ukraine, perhaps to demonstrate that Britain is, once again, ready to lead
Europe. The son of migrants, he has tried to demonstrate that he is very tough
on migrants even if it means violating their fundamental rights by forcing them
into open prisons in Rwanda.
To worsen internal matters, he
weighed his government down with an intemperate, bullish and undiplomatic Home
Secretary, Suella Braverman, who attracts controversies like an open sore
attracts flies.
Braverman, of Indian-African
parentage, like Sunak, had relished in the plan to seize alleged illegal
immigrants who are mainly African and Indian, and dump them in Rwanda. She
characterised the arrival of asylum seekers as “the invasion on our southern coast.”
In April 2023, she told Sky News that almost all British-Pakistanis “pursue,
drug, rape, and harm vulnerable English girls”. To her, the homeless sleeping
on streets, are doing so as a “lifestyle choice”, and that the British police
favour pro-Palestine protesters at rallies, implying it should have dealt
harshly with them.
Britain which seemed to be in
some state of confusion in an increasingly unpredictable world, decided to
reset. The establishment decided to reduce tension internally by tossing out
Braverman. She was replaced by the Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly.
However, its most surprising
decision is its choice of the seventh Foreign Secretary in seven years, the
same David Cameron seen off by Brexit seven years ago. First was how Sunak was persuaded
that Britain at this point needs Cameron who has divergent foreign affairs
opinion. For instance, while Cameron seems at home with China and dined with it
as Prime Minister, Sunak came to power threatening China. The second surprise
is how Cameron as former Prime Minister was persuaded that he can work under
Sunak. Thirdly was that the whole idea seemed unthinkable given the fact that
only Members of Parliament and the Lords could by Britain’s unwritten
Constitution, be appointed a Minister, and Cameron was neither.
However, once the British
establishment had decided that Cameron with his wealth of experience,
pro-Remain politics, strong connections in world power circles and respect as
former British Prime Minster was the right choice, it went to work. The main
challenge was to make him eligible. Apparently, the establishment approached
King Charles III to make Cameron a Lord and he obliged. So he became eligible
and was pronounced the Foreign Minister.
Part of the challenge is that
since he is not an MP, he would not sit in parliament like other Ministers
under Britain’s parliamentary system. So, he may not be directly responsible to
parliament nor be questioned like other Ministers, including the Prime
Minister.
Nigerians would remember Cameron
as the world leader who in May 2016 poetically described Nigeria as a
“fantastically corrupt” country. They may also remember the shame when the then
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a regular patient in British hospitals
said he would neither demand an apology nor was he embarrassed by the
description. Perhaps lacking in basic understanding, when the Sky News
Diplomatic Editor, Dominic Waghorn, asked Buhari: “Is Nigeria fantastically
corrupt?” He answered: “Yes”.
David Cameron’s return may be
good for Britain, but not for Africa where he was engaged in the March 2011
criminal bombing of Libya and turning that fantastically rich African country
into a basket case. When two years later, he tried to do the same thing in
Syria, he was roundly resisted by the British.
As the new British Foreign
Minister, Cameron is confronted by the unending war in Ukraine, the on-going
genocide in the Palestine, near impotency of the United Nations, the rise of
the BRICS, a world of vast inequalities and the low esteem of Britain in
foreign relations.
Cameron’s return to international politics may be good for the
conservative British establishment, but not so for humanity.
*Lakemfa is a commentator on public
issues
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