Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe suggest that to find where we are going, we should look at the world as it is in the children’s books depicting the characters Frog and Toad. That we go there together and apart with Britain, and what happens in Britain happen to us as well. These past few weeks appear to play that out as Boris Johnson, until recently mayor of London, appeared on the scene to advance Brexit.
{mosads}It was an absolute success on his part if you look at it from a rising perspective; a gaze through the glass darkly of where we are heading rather than where we have been. It seems one of those random archetypal and unexpected events, like the Beatles landing at Kennedy airport. Events which seem insignificant when they occur but mark history’s turnings, events from which there will be no turning back, no looking back, no rewrites, no do overs. Events which must be grasped without hesitation lest they grasp up and leave us in with only our memories.
First off, regarding the arrival on the political scene of the enigmatic Johnson is that — big hair, boisterous and flamboyant — he tends to resemble presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. First off, regarding Brexit, it must be said that new British Prime Minister Theresa May, who opposed Brexit, will certainly advance it now, as within hours of first taking office she appointed Johnson as foreign secretary. George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer under previous Prime Minister David Cameron, wanted and expected the job. In his last few days in office, Osborne had been writing op-eds and tweeting that Britain’s first job now that it had left behind Europe was to quickly prove to America that Britain was committed to trade first with the United States and NAFTA.
“The question now is not what Britain is leaving; it is what Britain will become,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal on July 10. “I am determined that — on the contrary — we now set out to build a more outward-looking, global-facing Britain, with stronger links with its friends and allies around the world. That must start with a closer economic relationship with North America.”
It appeared indeed that Osborne, who, with Cameron, engineered Britain’s historic connection to China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in March 2015, appeared to be hoping to join in with the “Three Amigos,” the nickname for historic meeting of President Obama in Ottawa with Canadian President Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Osborne had hoped to shift under the May administration from chancellor of the exchequer to foreign minister. But even as the ink was drying on his The Wall Street Journal piece, he was sacked by May. And the foreign minister post, to the apparent surprise of everyone, went to Johnson.
With Osborne it seemed clear that what was happening in Britain was most auspicious for the United States and that in the interpretation of Osborne — who, like May, did not support Brexit — Britain appeared to be leaving Europe behind to join in with North America and thus link Britain’s fate with the Anglosphere.
But I would say that with Johnson — born in Manhattan but, according to reports, as a “one-state Tory,” has given up his American citizenship — that that might not be the case. In Brexit, Britain’s had a choice that may be seen as a choice between Queen Elizabeth II and the Commonwealth or the European Union, America and a President Hillary Clinton. There are suggestions that Johnson sees the world of trade ahead as opportunity for Britain, following in the footsteps of Cameron’s linking up with China in March last year, but likewise unbeholden of the wishes of the United States. A good review of the mercurial Johnson appeared last week in Financial Times, in which he claims to have taught his children Mandarin. And he appears to have been ahead of Cameron and Osborne in suggesting Britain deal with China without awaiting U.S. approval.
Followed a weeklong visit to China in 2013, they report, “when Mr Johnson said Britain could negotiate its own trade deal with the country, if the EU failed to agree one. He also said all British school children should be taught Mandarin: ‘My kids are learning it, so why not?'”
It brought to my mind varied interviews in which legendary investor Jim Rogers left his home in New York City to raise his daughters in Singapore, so they may learn Mandarin and become accustomed to the rising East, China in particular. Rogers then also commented that the investor should look beyond New York and London for Asia.
Perhaps Johnson feels he might retrieve London, but I doubt there will be forthcoming first commitments to the United States. My guess is that India, as a Commonwealth country with more than 1 billion people, has his interest and will find a closer relationship with the new foreign minister.
This might be the difference between Johnson as champion of the “Leave” group and those who wished to stay: Johnson looks out across the Atlantic and sees as far as China and India. Perhaps hoping over the United States entirely. Cameron and Osborne look first to the European Union, then to the United States, then elsewhere. The “Stay” group advances an American-instigated post-war agenda of “the West.” Johnson suggests a reanimation of the Commonwealth nurtured by Queen Elizabeth II, a perspective which tracks all the way back to Elizabeth I who granted the rights to trade in India to the East India Company.
The “Stay” people see Britain and America as first cousins. But the longer tradition initiated by Elizabeth I, which precedes England’s presence in Virginia and Massachusetts, might find the perfect marriage of archetypes and opposites for Britain to be with india, which found its glory days in the Raj.
“Britain will be able to have a greater commitment to its relations with India once the economic constraints of the EU are removed,” said Swapan Das Gupta, a member of Parliament in India’s upper house, according to reports in the Financial Times on overseas reactions to the Johnson appointment.
So the Trump suggestion may be an illusion; a political ploy to gain attention. Johnson did say that Hillary Clinton looks “like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital,” suggesting Nurse Ratched from “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which has suggestions on his thinking about America as well. But the rise of Johnson could mean to us Americans that Britain will pull away and follow its own initiatives, as it did last year when it defied American authority to join the Asian bank.
And when — not if — Johnson does in time find his way to 10 Downing Street, that theme will continue.
Quigley is a prize-winning writer who has worked more than 35 years as a book and magazine editor, political commentator and reviewer. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and four children. Contact him at quigley1985@gmail.com.