Britain's Turmoil: A Warninng to Those Planning to Vote Republican

In 2016 a slim majority of British voters voted for Brexit - the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.  The vote outcome - in addition to being a result of lazy anti-Brexit Britons who failed to vote at all - was fueled by populist slogans and the delusions of many, especially in rural areas, of restoring the British Empire as the country charted a future alone.  The result has been an economic disaster and political instability.   In 2016 American engaged in similar behavior and made a similar mistake with the resut being four years of Trump in the White House and GOP voodoo economics that benefited the very wealthy and large corporations.  Although Americans seemingly never are willling to lear from the mistakes of others, Britain is again a loud alarm bell of what votetrs should not do: fall once more for populism and GOP slogans that mask the reality that Republicans have no solution for the current inflation and supply chain problems.  Instead, a Republican controlled Congress would likely push the same policies that brought disaster to Britain this week (along with heavy doses of racism and culture wars).  A column in the Washington Post looks at what Britain should tell American voters NOT to do:

“I am a fighter and not a quitter!” British Prime Minister Liz Truss thundered Wednesday in the House of Commons. “I am resigning,” she said Thursday, in a less bombastic tone of voice. Let’s hope conservatives here and around the world learn a lesson about both policy and populism.

Truss’s announced departure after just 45 days apparently marks the shortest residence ever at 10 Downing Street. She made so many mistakes in so little time that it’s hard to list them all. But the most needlessly self-destructive was trying to impose simplistic right-wing economic policies that work only in theory, never in practice.

To a nation suffering through 10.1 percent inflation, alarmed by the war in Ukraine, worried about energy shortages this winter and struggling with myriad disruptions caused by Brexit, Truss offered massive tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and the biggest corporations. Her brief tenure should be remembered as the hyphenate premiership: all-in on supply-side, laissez-faire, trickle-down economics.

The only way to pay for this huge giveaway was through equally massive borrowing. She and her first chancellor of the exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, gambled their futures — and the well-being of the country — on their blind faith in the wisdom of free markets.

Those markets immediately decided Truss and her cabinet were nuts. The British pound plummeted, investors lost faith in Britain’s debt, the independent Bank of England had to raise interest rates — utter chaos reigned in one of the world’s biggest and traditionally most stable economies.

Truss began rescinding her radical policies one by one, but it was already too late. On Oct. 11, a column in the Economist said Truss had “the shelf-life of a lettuce.” . . . . That same day, the Daily Star newspaper started running on its website a livestream of a picture of Truss next to a wilting head of lettuce, with a banner asking which would last longer. “Lettuce Wins,” the paper crowed Thursday after Truss announced her departure.

Truss never had a popular mandate in the first place — fewer than 100,000 members of the Conservative Party backed her in the vote to succeed the buffoonish but cunning Boris Johnson — and made grievous political errors as well.

In a larger sense, however, even if you leave aside her political ineptitude and her embrace of voodoo economics, Truss was in an impossible position. So was Johnson before her, and so will be her successor. The Conservative Party is in power because it embraced populism, which turns out to be a good way to win elections but an impossible way to govern.

In British politics these days, all roads lead back to Brexit. Like many in the Conservative Party, Truss originally opposed the idea of Britain leaving the European Union. But after voters narrowly voted for Brexit in 2016, she did what Johnson and many other Tories did and became a fervent Brexit supporter, bashing the E.U. and demanding that then-Prime Minister Theresa May move more quickly to finalize the divorce.

Today, none of the promised benefits of Brexit have materialized. In fact, Britain is having a harder time than E.U. countries in dealing with the economic shocks of the covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. There are long lines at ports of entry that even stoic Britons find hard to endure. The country faces labor shortages, especially in areas such as agriculture and home health care — relatively low-paying jobs that used to be filled by workers from Poland, Romania and other E.U. countries.

Likewise, the Conservative Party decided to encourage populist anger about immigration. In April, Johnson’s government announced a deal to send refugees who seek asylum in Britain to faraway Rwanda instead. Truss appointed a home secretary, Suella Braverman, who not only supported the Rwanda plan but wanted to go much further and see legal immigration from all sources dramatically reduced. However, Braverman resigned Wednesday.

When you hear Republicans in this country say “secure the border” or “crack down on crime” or “America first,” keep in mind how easy it is to write a bumper sticker and how hard it is to actually govern in a complex, interconnected world. GOP leaders, pay attention: Britain’s Conservatives have pandered their way into ruin.

Sadly, too many lazy and/or simple-minded Americans will likely not learn from Britain's continuing mistakes.