Select, behead, repeat. That’s now the playbook of Britain’s governing Conservative Party, as they cycle through one sacrificial lamb after another to immolate on the altar of Brexit. What a strange turn of events. This is, after all, the country whose self-conceit was to run stable, pragmatic governments while others lost their heads around it. Instead, today, as one American journalist put it, Britain resembles a banana republic.
Even if most people first experienced relative decline only after the 2008 financial crisis, it started decades ago. In retrospect, it was inevitable. Essentially, the West got too rich. For two centuries, the global economy had been heavily tilted in its favour, with the net flow of resources working their way back into the economies of the Western world.
Come the turn of the millennium, therefore, for the first time in two centuries, the net flow of global capital stopped heading towards the core of the global economy, and began going to the periphery. Average annual growth rates in the developing world now surpass those of the developed countries by some margin. The West has not stopped growing. But like an ageing runner facing a youthful challenger, the huge lead it started out with is being closed.
The problem was, for those people who’d come of age in rich, monochromatic societies, this wasn’t what they’d bargained for. They wanted to both eat and have their cake, the cake being a society which looked and functioned as it always had, without all these dark-skinned newcomers. And there were always politicians only too happy to sell them that very product – the ways of the past but the incomes of the future.
By then, the British establishment had largely resigned itself to the loss of its empire and had turned its gaze eastwards, to Europe. In 1973, Britain joined what would later become the European Union. For men like Farage, this was the great betrayal. To them, Britain had turned itself from overlord of the world to a secondary partner in a union.
When Theresa May took over from the ill-fated Cameron as prime minister, she could have enumerated those devils. She could have pointed to the slender majority for Brexit, the lack of consensus on what it meant, and thus proposed a compromise that tried to give everyone a little bit of the pie. But she was not that kind of a leader. Rather, she took Farage’s bait and said “Brexit means Brexit.’ She also perpetuated the false claim made by Boris Johnson that Brexit would be all gain, no pain.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Op-Ed: Xenophobia erodes South Africa’s leadership potentialPresident Cyril Ramaphosa’s inauguration, scheduled to coincide with Africa Day on 25 May this year, intends to highlight ‘government’s commitment to advancing the African agenda and to strengthening ties between South Africa and its neighbours’, according to The Presidency. However, the xenophobic outbursts in April a month before the national elections – and the challenges to responding appropriately to the crisis highlights the difficulty of fully integrating this message into government policy.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
OP-ED: Called by G-dPresident Cyril Ramaphosa has been called to restore morality and integrity to government and beyond. The last 10 years have seen one of the most brazen and iniquitous attempts in history to steal an entire country – all in broad daylight. The project of state capture unleashed and endorsed a feeding frenzy of corruption at every level, which has impoverished and denuded every aspect of life for 50 million South Africans.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
OP-ED: A response to Ronnie Kasrils’ response to meIn the wake of the Zuma years, it is naïve to believe it would have been possible for the SA Communist Party to run a principled but independent anti-corruption, pro-socialist electoral campaign in 2017-18 and still have an effective impact on the critical challenge of the time. That challenge was to pull the country and our hard-won constitutional democracy back from the brink upon which we were teetering in 2017 and early 2018. Kasrils wins the argument on the SACP being wrong to support Zuma. He loses it on SACP contesting 2019 elections. Cronin convinces me on the SACP's key role in propping up Ramaphosa leading up to Nasrec. A win for Cronin but it's stained by failure to loudly admit the Zuma error.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
OP-ED: Mutharika gets re-elected in Malawi’s Tipp-Ex electionThe results of Malawi’s May 21 election have been clouded in controversy and legal theatre. The three-way fight between Vice-President Saulos Chilima, Reverend Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party, and the incumbent Arthur Peter Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party was, according to the official results released on 27 May 2019, resolved in favour of Mutharika who won by 38% to Chakwera’s 35.4%.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
AFRICA: OP-ED: Tanzania is anything but ‘a beacon of democracy’Contrary to the apologist views expressed by Dr Darius Mukiza, Tanzania under President John Magufuli has become a country where the brutal suppression of dissent has become routine. Freedom of speech is a distant memory and the legacy of founding president Julius Nyerere has been betrayed. State-sponsored thugs don’t hand out business cards Rubbish That's the contemporary tansaniA, full of official thuggery moves.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
OP-ED: Study the data: Imports are not threatening local chicken productionThe imposition of further duties on imported chicken could see a staple food vanishing from consumers’ plates, warns the Association of Meat Importers and Exporters.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
OP-ED: Zambia: When you get to the bottom of the hole, stop diggingLast week, the Zambian government applied to place Konkola Copper Mines, the country’s largest private employer, into provisional liquidation. Is this a sign that an increasingly desperate government, starved of resources to pay the salaries of a burgeoning civil service and of cash to meet the international debt it has rung up in record time, is thinking of nationalising the mines? After all, Zambia has been here before — and with devastating consequences the last time around.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
OP-ED: Early education faces a steep learning curveThere are clear benefits to South Africa’s approach in implementing Grade R more widely, but also several challenges that we need to overcome in order to improve the effectiveness of this crucial stage of development. Great move!
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
OP-ED: Unravelling the complexities of land reform in South AfricaLand reform is a broad social challenge that requires the commitment of every South African to ensure the sustainability and prosperity of an inclusive South African economy. The land question is not only an agricultural land problem, but it also relates to urban and peri-urban land.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
Op-Ed: Ramaphosa’s New Dawn is here — but what it will take to bring the civil service back to life?A new president, a new Cabinet, but the same old civil service. The compliance culture that has evolved since 1994 has all but killed the developmental state. Deeply fearful of making mistakes in an environment where it is impossible not to make mistakes, officials minimise risk and maximise compliance. If they can just tick the boxes, they will be safe. Result: Zero experimentation and innovation.
Source: dailymaverick - 🏆 3. / 84 Read more »
CAROL PATON: The Cat lurks as ANC’s chickens come home to roostDavid Mabuza debacle shows that there can be no substitute for proper accountability politicsblahbla Excellent writing. Has the bar not being raised? If DDs appointment was subject to integrity committees green light, surely the same standard must apply to national office bearers of the ANC? I sense this presents a difficulty and predicament for Ace
Source: BDliveSA - 🏆 12. / 63 Read more »