UK’s arrogance of powerlessness

Nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as the prospect of a hanging in the morning. It's no wonder, therefore, that policymakers in Britain are sounding particularly lucid, faced as they are with an economy that is just one dark night away from the prospect of careening into a public-debt crisis. As they scramble to raise revenues and scale back expenses to pay off debts, they are exploring a range of proposals — from imposing a levy on bankers' bonuses to cutting up to 1 million public-sector jobs. Most of these measures are targeted at the domestic economy and polity and have little bearing on the wider world.

But in its desperation to balance its books through cost-cutting, the cash-strapped UK government is looking farther afield, and in so doing is stepping on India's toes. For instance, at the annual round of negotiations under way to finance the United Nations' budget, diplomats from the UK are pushing for emerging economic powers, including India, to contribute more.

For sheer audacity, that suggestion is hard to top. Ponder over this: one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which secured that place solely on the strength of its colonial plunder of its erstwhile colonies (including India), now wants India, whose case for a seat at the high table has been systematically scuttled, to foot a larger share of the bill for the UN to do as the five ‘super’ members bid it!

The sentiment underlying that suggestion reflects a throwback to a time when the UK's Industrial Revolution-driven prosperity and its colonial wars were underwritten by remittances from its colonies, particularly from India, the 'Jewel in the Crown'. The economically enfeebled empire of the 21st century feels overly burdened by the weight of 'global responsibility' and wants to pass the tab along, but not the privileges that come with it.

It would be tempting to dismiss this as the 'arrogance of power', except that today's UK isn't particularly powerful. Japan and Germany, the losers in the war that shaped the world power structure, are today economically bigger than the UK, even though they are not permanent members of the Security Council. In any case, even the UK's 'super member' status hasn't earned it much by way of privilege.

Still, permanent membership of the UN Security Council retains 'vanity trophy' value for many aspiring states, including Japan, Germany, Australia, Brazil, and South Africa. So analysts at the Lowy Institute in Australia recently suggested (half in jest) that a bankrupt UK could perhaps raise money to pay off its debts by 'auctioning' or leasing its permanent membership! And since Article 28 of the UN Charter even provides for Security Council members to "be represented by... some other specially designated representative", there might be a window of opportunity for the UK to monetise its seat and for an aspiring power to secure admittance to that exalted club.

But the unvarnished truth is that the power (including veto power) that comes with permanent membership has more often been invoked to 'legitimise' unilateral actions (such as the US war on Iraq), cover for friends (as China did for genocidal Sudan or the US for Israel), or strike deals. And, as we have seen with the US and the UK, it doesn't offer any immunity from crippling economic enfeeblement that acts as a drag on their standing in the world. So, really, who needs it?

If, however, the UK — the modern-day Atlas groaning under the weight of the world — wants to unburden itself, it could do one thing: it could cede its permanent membership, with all its rights and responsibilities, to India — free. We will be gracious and, as a concession to its economic plight, not ask it to contribute any more than it does to the UN budget. We will even consider it sufficient reparation for all those years of colonial plunder.