Friday 13 November 2020

Knowing their place

 

Dominic Raab is apparently very unhappy with the Chinese government. They signed a formal treaty with the UK a mere 36 years ago and, now that it no longer suits them, they are unilaterally acting in breach of it. The UK’s response is to seek the support of all of its partners and friends to act jointly to hold China to the terms of the agreement, because it seems that that is what happens when one party to a formal international treaty deliberately acts in contravention thereof.

Some unkind people might be wondering how Raab can say any of this with a straight face given the UK’s decision to unilaterally breach the terms of an agreement which it signed a mere 8 months previously, but that is to miss the point. The situation is obviously entirely different. Firstly, the Chinese are foreigners who live a very long way away. Secondly, they just don’t understand their proper place in the world. The UK, on the other hand, is not only British, but a ‘global sovereign power’ (© Boris Johnson, 2019) to boot, and therefore uniquely entitled to do as it wishes. It is entirely proper that the UK should gather its friends* around it to enforce the terms of one treaty, but equally entirely outrageous that the EU countries should act in concert to enforce the terms of another.

How lucky we are to have government ministers who can see the distinction so clearly and can explain it in terms that even China should be able to understand. And if they don’t, well the UK can always send a gunboat or two…

*Any suggestion that this is a small and diminishing group is as unworthy as it is accurate.

1 comment:

dafis said...

Yet another manifestation of the madness that is endemic throughout this Tory government and much of that segment of the British electorate that blindly supports its ridiculous behaviours. I used to think that UK governments would not be reduced to Trump like behaviours. I now think that perhaps it was Trump that was an avid follower of Brit antics in politics. Plumbing new depths with each passing week.