No. 160 - Boris Can't Have his Dumpling and Eat it!

Dear James, 

Boris Johnson once characterised his policy on cake as “pro having it and pro eating it.” Now it is China’s favourite dish, the dumpling, which he aspires to have and consume. But Boris cannot kick Huawei out of the UK 5G system and simultaneously have China as a major new trading partner to counter the loss of EU trade. This time he will have to choose.

Back in 2016, when Boris uttered his famous aphorism, the world was a very different place. Covid 19 has since delivered the biggest economic shock to our economy since 1932 and Donald Trump has attempted to destroy the American Constitution. At the moment the first of these events towers above everything, demanding our total attention and leaving the bevy of sub-optimal ministers making further fools of themselves as they scramble for the next ‘fix’. Today our nation is in a semi-daze, half-depressed and totally confused about the future. No one has the energy left to resist what is coming next. But what is coming next is another tsunami of bad news. And this one is self-imposed. Despite a 25% reduction in our GDP over the last two months, Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and Michael Gove – that tawdry Downing Street triumvirate – persist in ignoring reality and steering us towards the further calamity of a poor deal Brexit or worse.   

But looming behind both of the above events is a much more worrying picture. It is the collision of values between the democracies and the burgeoning autocracies of our world and is summed up by what’s happening in Hong Kong. Democracy is a tradition and needs to be learned and the people of Hong Kong have learned it well. Yet today they are being suppressed by secret policemen who ‘disappear’ dissidents and hang others by their feet. That bodes badly for the world. It could lead eventually to war.

China, determined to erase the memory of the unforgivable humiliations exacted upon it by Britain and others in the 19th century, is intent on translating its current economic success into political hegemony. Its aim is to win the eternal Chinese search for stability through the dominance of the Chinese Communist Party and to do this it has created a police state that threatens Hong Kong and Taiwan, suppresses Uighurs, holds down Tibet, grabs the Spratly Islands and attempts to subvert the West by cyber warfare. We have one thing in common however. Once proud nations will do anything to stand tall once more.  While China powers into its future, Boris is trapped between the past and his own distorted view of our destiny. He and his sorry crew have offered the Hong Kong people a fast track into the UK and but are now moving towards a policy of excluding Huawei from the UK 5G system. He can’t have both. The Chinese won’t let him. To paraphrase Boris, ‘He can’t have his dumpling and eat it’!

Brexit was predicated upon doing major deals with the USA and China to counter the loss of trade with the EU and both those targets are now in question. Michael Gove, he of the ventriloquist doll’s face and the delivery of a local solicitor, is about to launch the ‘Get Ready for Brexit’ campaign. Across the pond, Trump is in deep trouble. In the dying days of his disastrous presidency he has begun his ‘scorched earth policy’, typical of all cornered narcissists, by laying waste the WHO, declaring war on the watchdog system of Inspector Generals and filling an unprecedented number of judicial jobs with conservatives. And on Friday he commuted the sentence on his notorious pal, Roger Stone, a convicted felon, who lied to Congress about Russian interference in the 2016 election. When Trump is defeated in November, the new U.S. administration is much less likely to be sympathetic to this plucky little island standing alone, mired in delusions of a new Dunkirk and in the midst of the coming battle between East and West. Boris is facing a massive dilemma but, still living in those long distant days of 2016, is determined to weaken our nation with its Brexit fantasies when it needs to be strong and united.  

The world is approaching a major reckoning James and yet our tiny nation is throwing itself into the ocean of inconsequence. We need to forget the dumplings and chlorinated chickens, abandon these half cooked dreams of deals with the USA and China and focus on rebuilding the West. For that we need sincere and energetic cooperation with our closest friends in Europe, not the huffy dismissal by another once proud nation, of our fellow originators and inventors of western democracy. Forget this false pride, James. Let’s, as a nation, get serious again! 

Kind regards,

BH - Your Concerned Constituent.