Late last year a book was published in Britain that should be essential reading for every Caribbean prime minister, minister of foreign affairs and senior official. Importantly, it provides clues about why the United Kingdom cares little about the Caribbean and suggests how the region might be better able to move policy to its advantage.
The book, The Triumph of the Political Class* by a leading British political commentator, Peter Oborne, has as its central theme the emergence of a political class that has ceased to serve the country: one that has lost touch with the people and largely acts not in their interests but to maintain its own power and privilege.
He argues that the British political model has changed. Politics has become a profession unleavened by the experience or practicality of periods working in normal employment. The rise of the career politician in all political parties has brought with it a desire to retain and exercise power. This has led to centralisation and the subversion of the traditional values of integrity and duty that characterised British public life. The UK has in effect become a post-democratic society with a political class that is dedicated to maintaining a position of supremacy.
When it comes to foreign policy Mr Oborne suggests that the decline in the influence of the Foreign Office has occurred precisely because it had integrity and was an independent and powerful voice in government.
For the Caribbean with government models and thinking largely based on the British system all of this is significant. It explains not only why it has become ever more difficult to attract the attention of senior British ministers and officials, but also suggests that the reason the region no longer has a policy space in the EU is because the problems of the Caribbean hardly ever relate to the maintenance of domestic power.
What the book implies is that to have a place in the agenda of the UK government and by extension similarly motivated governments across Europe, it is necessary to adopt one of two approaches. That is to say that it is now necessary to find either a way to threaten the power base of the new elite or to identify approaches and policies that elevate their political or personal status within their class.
This is an important if depressing message for a Caribbean, sometimes left wondering why when it continues to do much of what the world requires of it, few take any notice.
Put bluntly the Caribbean is still playing on a field of history that all of Europe – save perhaps Spain for geopolitical reasons – deserted some ten or more years ago. Indeed if it were not for the security situation in Guyana and Jamaica, Trinidad’s oil and the consular problems arising from burgeoning visitor arrivals, the Caribbean would by now have all but been forgotten.
The reality is that while the UK government claims that its interest in the region remains undiminished, the constant downgrading of the level of resource for the Caribbean across all departments suggests otherwise. A further revamped British foreign policy now seems likely to give priority to terrorism, climate change, the Muslim world and globalisation, rather than any of the issues that previously drove policy towards the Caribbean. This move away from geography coincides with increasing uncertainty as to whether in Whitehall, policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean is led by political, economic or development thinking.
Some Caribbean governments have recognised this. Two now regard relations with Britain as a matter of foreign policy rather than forming a part of a special relationship. In addition Prime Minister Golding and President Jagdeo have identified specific policy issues on which they can relate at the highest level their national interests to Britain and the EU’s interests.
But sadly the influential giant in the room, the diaspora, largely continues to sleep.
In the last few days a small but important step towards its awakening occurred when a meeting took place in London at which, perhaps for the first time ever, senior figures from the Caribbean diaspora in the United Kingdom met with a government minister to discuss aspects of British policy towards the Caribbean.
The meeting was an initiative taken by the Caribbean Board that advises the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office on its policy towards the region, largely from the perspective of the Caribbean community.
The specific focus of the meeting was on security, climate change and economic transition, but many present were forthright about the deterioration in government interest and resources for the Caribbean and the absence of any holistic approach.
What they said pointed to the emergence potentially of a new voice in British politics. Crossing three generations the thirty or so individuals present from the Church to the legal profession, the private sector and the arts, took Caribbean reality into a UK context and joined up the relationship in a practical and essentially political manner.
One comment summed up the strength of feeling. Why was it, one participant asked, that ministers did not talk to the community after they visited the Caribbean?
While the diaspora desperately needs detailed information, organisation and leadership there is now a real opportunity for it together with Caribbean governments to make its voice heard.
By common consent the next general election in Britain will be close and will take place within the next two years. Research conducted in 2006 shows that in sixteen constituencies the number of individuals self declared on the national census as ‘black British Caribbean persons’ exceeds the majority of the sitting member of parliament. It also suggests that in another fifty-five seats, some of which are held by ministers, there are sizable Caribbean communities where the Parliamentary majority is below 10,000 votes.
Despite this almost all MPs on this list take no interest in Caribbean issues.
This suggests that if the region truly wants to exercise influence in the UK and give it a political reason to fight for its interests in Europe, governments must actively work with the diaspora on a sustainable basis.
This also requires the region to have coherent and forward looking demands that the UK can support – a total shake-up the European Commission’s disastrous development delivery mechanism would be a good starting place – and to understand Mr Oborne’s central message: sentiment and history are irrelevant; political self-interest now rules.
* Peter Oborne The Triumph of the Political Class (Simon and Schuster, 390p.)
Previous columns can be found at www.caribbean-council.org
