Have you looked across the Pond lately? They just tossed off a Prime Minister (for cause), and the temperature rose above 100 in a country without air conditioning. It’s not just that they are stiff upper lips and all that. No, it doesn’t usually get that hot, so they’ve gone without. House fans might not be enough to cool off the Brits, particularly in Parliament!
Now that Boris has finally vamoosed 10 Downing Street, they set about the task of finding a replacement. Unfortunately, the British process of selecting a new prime minister bears little resemblance to America’s selection of a president. We may find out in short order if this is better or worse, but Americans have been stuck on what we refer to as “the democratic process” of voting leaders into office, not depending on a select few to choose for us.
Just four people remain in the race for prime minister in Britain, standing up on a stage in London for a televised debate format. (Two of them served in Boris’s cabinet, but bailed ship in the final days and weeks.) No primaries will winnow these candidates down to two. It’s a different process that American media seem not too bothered to cover.
Ah, it’s just the crazy Brits. Well, they are still our greatest ally in Europe. The Ukraine War is also getting scant reference over here, despite its long-term impact on Europe and grain resources around the world (though I understand there is a compromise of sorts to allow shipments to Africa and other starving parts of the world). Money spent on that war will not be available to meet different needs. Yet Putin seems eager to move on to other parts of Eastern Europe; he covets to return to a long-gone empire he craves to become czar over it before his demise.
If you think back to the time of Ronald Reagan, you might remember Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, who teamed with him on the takedown of the Berlin Wall. And Maggie told George H.W. Bush after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990: “Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.” Well, so the advice goes both ways!
Boris put the weight of his country behind Ukraine, and his party is more populist than in Maggie’s time. For better or worse, he did get Brexit across the plate, though maybe Prime Minister May ahead of him got it up the hill but could not get it over (and got sacked for it, too.) He rushed his country out of the European Union, but the decision is out on that one.
Ah, but back to the election in Britain. But it isn’t what we Yanks would think of as a genuine election—just the five Tory members of the British Parliament. The choice here is before the 650-seat House of Commons, with 358 Members being Conservatives. Generational change will take place in Britain. All four candidates are under 50. In America, many key members in Congress and the president are over 75. We could get a lesson in what younger leadership could accomplish or that experience counts.
The selected prime minister could rule as long as Thatcher—eleven years from 1979 to 1990. So the impact on the future of Britain, Europe, and the US could be substantial, certainly well beyond the amount of coverage this selection is receiving in the States. First, the British lawmakers, not the public, will whittle down the list of candidates to two. It will be up to 200,000 official members of the Conservative Party to select the person who will be the next leader of Britain.
The decisions made across the Pond in the next two to ten years will determine if the Brits experience a renewal moving forward or a decline. Take no joy in a poor decision. Our future also rises and falls with that of our European neighbors. But none more than the Brits, who were once the Mother Country, now are partners in growing a responsible world to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Past Becomes Present.Blog 