Decay in the United Kingdom

Let us count the ways in which the British government is revealing decay, both in its domestic and foreign policies.

The British nation has just gone through a most painful separation from its nearest neighbors with its exit from Europe on the basis that Britain wanted to be free of the influence of other countries, wanted not to be beholden to any other jurisdictions but its own. It is supremely ironic that in doing so it has jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, landing in the welcome embrace of the United States. There is no clearer evidence of this than the looting of the Venezuelan gold held in the Bank of England. 

The Bank of England, an institution that, up to now, has been considered a pillar of probity, indeed a symbol of the economic order, astonishingly has taken it upon itself to appropriate 31 tons of Venezuelan gold entrusted to their vaults by the Venezuelan Central Bank many years ago. Even more surprising, this suspension of the customary contractual arrangements between two central banks, has been validated by British courts by their refusal to recognise that Nicolás Maduro is the duly elected President of Venezuela. Mr. Maduro’s credentials have been formally recognized by the Assembly of the United Nations and specifically by 177 of its 193 members.  He is not some self-declared, unelected pretender with no legitimate claim to the presidency. This was purely political expediency on the part of the courts, not international law nor contractual law. It smacks of sheer piracy, one of the less savory features of British history.

The USA has been waging a hybrid war against the government of Venezuela for many years now. It starts with oil. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves on the planet, and ever since the Venezuelans decided that its natural resources belong to them, not the oil companies, and demanded an equal share, the gloves were off. How dare they? Even more galling to the USA is Venezuela’s declaration that it would build a “socialism of the 21stcentury” (which in fact has more in common with a social democracy than any communist apparatus). How dare they?

For a long time, both in the USA and Britain, the governing elites have shown an endemic imperialist and racialist discrimination against Latin American nations, considering them inferior players who have no right to any sovereignty that can challenge their interests. In the USA the prevailing thought is that the region is their “backyard” and no socialism of any kind will be tolerated. Every dictator and despot in the region has been backed by the USA. Through the decades they have attacked left leaning or reform-leaning governments in Central and South America and the Caribbean.  In the UK, ideology is compounded by ignorance of the region since Latin America is rarely studied in school, and the governing elite of upper class “Eton boys” is steeped in delusions of past imperial glory and the arrogance that goes with it.

After years of the USA’s failed attempts to overthrow the Venezuelan government with coups d’etat, financing the opposition, devastating economic sanctions , promoting targeted assassinations, backing Colombian paramilitary attacks, carrying out cyberattacks to infrastructure, sabotage, fake “humanitarian” invasion, street violence, mercenary invasions, and even an assassination attempt on the president by drones, the USA came upon the idea of not recognizing the legitimate government of the country and launching  a completely insignificant member of the legislature as president.  Enter Juan Guaido, venial, uncouth, a friend of the most notorious, butchering paramilitary gang in Colombia, and now a known thief.  No election was needed. The USA then stole Venezuelan assets in the USA – counted in the billions – including CITGO its oil company and handed these assets over to Guaido.

Yet Britain in its hubris, parrots the USA. Disregarding Venezuelan votes, the Supreme Court declares it must follow the British government’s lead. Whatever happened to the supposed independence of the Judiciary which is now evidently pandering to the political trickery of both Johnson and Biden? What government in their right mind will now entrust the Bank of England with its assets?  Britain has sunk very low into the mire through this political trickery!

But this looting of Venezuela’s gold is no isolated incident of one disreputable UK government. Its historical roots are in the Eurocentric prejudices against people of the South, whose territories and resources have been “fair game” to the colonialist mentality and capitalist rapacity of the North. For example, Britain drained India of nearly $45 trillion from 1765 to 1938. The pirate sir Francis Drake sailed his warship down Venezuela’s Orinoco River looting and spreading terror along its shores. John Maynard Keynes traced the beginning of European capitalism and British foreign investment to “the treasure which Drake stole from Spain in 1580”.  And the wealth that Spain extracted from Latin America with widespread, macabre, genocide is incalculable. The results are still present in the hubris of alleged superiority and racism in the UK, Europe and North America towards the peoples of the South.

The present UK government, led by a very privileged upper-class elite, has been described by reputable journalists as full of “arrogance, incompetence and bad judgment” as chaos and scandal seem a daily occurrence. Another author states that, “Boris Johnson’s own record of duplicity in word and deed is…unrivalled in British politics.” Does Britain’s own record justify it in judging the democratic credentials and performance of another country such as, for example, Venezuela? Let us then consider the British government in relation to some following seminal issues.

It is universally accepted that the most important duty of a State is to protect its people. Although the pandemic is not an armed invasion, it is an external force, and it kills. The British government will be judged, now or later, but with certainty History will judge it on this account, on how it has dealt with the pandemic. It does not look good.  A major report of the British Parliament by a cross-party committee has concluded that the UK government’s failure to contain the pandemic is “one of the most important public health failures in British history”.

The government was late in introducing lockdowns and other needed restrictions, its vaccine rollout was slow, uncertain, often chaotic, it did not recognize the lack of capacity of its health system, and thus “many thousands of deaths could have been avoided in care homes”.

The Legatum Institute found that during the pandemic almost 700,000 more people were driven into poverty which includes 120,000 children. “The predicted long-term effects of the pandemic include high unemployment that pushes many families into poverty at a scale 10 times greater than the 2008 financial crisis.”

Endemic inequality and racial bias are evident in the UK in that 46  per cent of children of black and minority ethnic groups are poor compared to 26  per cent of white children.  75  per cent of children growing up in poverty live in a household where at least one person has a job, which is proof of the poor working conditions and low wages.  Two main costs that are the hardest on the poor are childcare and housing.

It is truly outstanding that Venezuela, often accused of being a “failed state”, many times less wealthy than Britain, by 2010 had reduced inequality by 54  per cent and poverty by 44  per cent, having lifted more than 20 million people out of poverty and for 19 years now has had free public childcare throughout its territory. Poverty levels have today increased due to the criminal economic embargo of the USA and its allies including the UK. And as for housing, Venezuela is perhaps unique in the world in providing public housing. In the last seven years it has built over 3.9 million homes despite the economic sanctions against it.