Fading Britain

Jul 25, 2010 Editorial

The news that Tate & Lyle has sold its European sugar operations to American Sugar Refining is another signal of Britain’s increasingly weakened relationship with its former colonies and by extension, the world. Not many would dispute that the “Great” in Great Britain grew out of the fact that when “Britannica ruled the waves” she did so because of the wealth generated by its sugar colonies of which British Guiana was one.
For a century, Tate and Lyle had been the recipient of most of British colonial sugar for its refineries – and even before that, by its constituent companies. WWII, of course, was the watershed event that marked the rupture of the “Great” from Britain – and not so coincidentally also, the loss of its colonies.
Coming out of that war tremendously indebted to the US, Britain was humiliatingly forced to acquiesce in the supremacy of the American dollar and the latter’s control of the Bretton Woods International Financial Institutions – the IMF and the World Bank. Who remembers the supremacy of the sterling today?
Churchill – and his successors – attempted to save face by declaring that it had a “special relationship” with the US. The British were not only supported financially but also militarily by the US in attempting to forge neo-colonial relationships in the lands where they could no longer deny independence.
It should be known by all Guyanese that in 1963, President Kennedy imposed his views over British Prime Minister Macmillan that the electoral system in British Guiana should be altered to remove Dr Cheddi Jagan’s PPP Government by reverting control over some airstrips back to Britain. But the deterioration of Britain was inexorable and the “special relationship” with the US increasingly meant that Britain would reflexively do the bidding of the latter.
By the 1970s Britain was derided as the “sick man of Europe”. The neo-liberal revolution inaugurated by Thatcher and Reagan, however, revived the fortunes of Britain as London recaptured some of its former financial glory on account of outdoing even the US in the excesses of its financial deregulation and “innovations”.
But since it was built on an excess of what Keynes had called the “wild spirits” undergirding capitalism (not to mention raw, unadulterated greed) it all crumbled by 2008. By then the “special relationship” had degenerated into almost open contempt: “Yo Blair! I need some troops in Iraq!” Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s once quipped that Britain’s much-touted relationship with America was so special that “only one side knows it exists.”
Earlier this year Westminster Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee suggested that the phrase be dropped. In a classic example of British understatement, its chairman noted: “Over the longer-term, the U.K. is unlikely to be able to influence the U.S. to the extent it has in the past.”
The new Prime Minister Cameron has conceded that he sees Britain only as America’s “junior partner.” He was being optimistic.
With its privileged linkages to the US unravelling, some in Britain have been once again seeking to develop closer ties with Europe. However, its historic rivalries with Germany and France – both of which have developed larger economies that Britain – seem to make a majority of Britons quite skittish of developing firmer linkages with that bloc, where they will have to tailor their ambitions to the realities of more powerful partners.
So where does that leave a Britain that still hankers for the good old days when even if they don’t rue the waves, their voice will still be heard in foreign affairs?
Well there is always the Commonwealth, where they still command some respect – or more probably, members such as India that are fast becoming superpowers. British Prime Minister David Cameron is set to visit India soon, maybe as early as next week, seeking the “enhanced” relationship that was mentioned by their Queen in her throne speech earlier this year.
No one is quite sure what the “enhanced” relationship actually means but if history is any guide we can hazard a guess that it will certainly serve to burnish the credentials of the old, fading “mother” country.

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