UK Politics - Where Whataboutery Does Not Work

British politics is rather fickle and unsparing, but very fair. The politicians there know when it is time to pack their bags and bid a cheerio, without much fuss. No ‘ratting’ (shifting parties), no cursing or swearing, just a simple fade away with no serious plans to manipulate their steps back to 10 Downing Street, ever again. Boris Johnson could be a dishonourable exception to the ambition-check correctness a la Donald Trump.

It is unthinkable in the Indian context for a political party to stay in power for well over a decade as the Conservatives have ( since 2010) and have five different Prime Ministers since. Incredulously, the previous four ‘stepped down’ after losing the dynamic confidence of their own colleagues (they were not voted out by the Opposition but by their own rank and file, who had voted for him/her, initially), and then got disillusioned. A healthy form of accountability and responsibility, from within.

All (except of course, the incorrigible Boris Johnson) moved on in life and purpose, and none commands any ‘faction’ or plausible political ambition, anymore. Even more importantly, their ‘stepping down’ was not legally mandated but perhaps morally and practically warranted. No one within a party leadership is considered over important or even irreplaceable. The support is always performance-based, issue-based and also, time-based. In short, the culture of deification or individual-cults, is simply disallowed.

It is the same culture in the United Kingdom's Opposition ranks where no one takes their leadership position for granted or as a matter of defendable right. No insincere or condescending remarks of the sort that are made in the Indian context like, “My constituents want me to stay on” are ever made to justify intransigency, and if any leader does want to continue their political journey then they have to state their personal ambitions and purposes, accordingly.

There is never a god-like attribution of infallibility, irreplaceability or perpetuity, ever made. Current leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer, has taken over from Jeremy Corbyn, who had been a Labour leader for nearly five years, but had lost the 2019 General Election for the Labour Party even though he won his own seat of Islington North witha 64.3% vote share.

Later, Jeremy Corbyn was indicted by an internal fact-finding report of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission towards purported anti-Semitism – not only was he suspended and put under a scanner, but it has been recently resolved by the Labour Party that it would no longer endorse Jeremy Corbyn in the next elections.

Corbyn, though upset with his own party, has not joined any other party (doubtful if any party would accept such an ideologue – though no such issues or constraints are ever relevant in India), and as the Right Honourable Member of Parliament, he bides his term, as an Independent.

Such is the brutal assessment and holding-to-account in Britain, and not some divinity adorned ‘lordship’, authoritarian control, or the complete suppression of internal dissent.

Even as the repeated winner in the poll as the ‘Greatest Briton Ever’ Winston Churchill, who led the United Kingdom to a great victory in World War 2 was booted out soon after, and shockingly had to make way for the opposition Labour Party with Clement Attlee as the Prime Minister.

On his ascendancy to the post of Prime Ministership, a cheeky and rather young Tory, David Cameron, had faced his predecessor, Tony Blair, across the aisle during the Prime Minister’s Question Hour with, “I want to talk about the future. He was the future once”.

Six years later, at the still very young age of 49 (read again, 49 years!) David Cameron walked out of 10 Downing Street – but this time, more graciously and self-deprecatingly, said on his last Prime Minister’s Question, “I was the future once”.

Today, he is cooling his heels as the Chairman of the National Citizen Service Patrons and President of Alzheimer Research, with no posturing or manipulation to snake back to political relevance. He even delayed the launch of his memoir, ‘For the Records’, to avert a clash with the General Elections.

In India, books, movies, inaugurations and events are made to coincide with elections in mind!

David Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, lasted for just over three years. Facing a potential no-confidence vote of her own party, she had conceded, “it is now clear to me that it is in the best interests of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort”. Like Cameron, she too slid away from the public gaze like a ship at night.

In a spectre that cannot even be imagined in our Lok/Rajya Sabha narrative, the recently retired British Prime Minister took her place in the ‘backbenches’ of the Parliament and remains a Member of Parliament ‘to devote her full time’ to her constituency of Maidenhead, Berkshire. Without much fanfare or ado, she allowed her successor, Boris Johnson, to drive the political/partisan agenda without any public bitterness or rancour, just as her predecessor, David Cameron, had for her.

It is not that outgoing Prime Minister’s would have liked to resign or personally liked their successors – but it is just that UK politics and the public at large demand accountability at all times. Even the political parties demand that their senior leaders deliver – while in India, cadres don’t question, they only defend (even the indefensible acts).

Meanwhile, Theresa May’s successor, Boris Johnson, is clearly a very different kettle of fish. Like his hero, Winston Churchill, Boris is a quintessential and indefatigable politician who hopes to make a comeback after spending ‘time-out’, unwillingly and grumpily.

Like Churchill who won the war, but lost the confidence – Boris too won the General Elections on his watch as Tory leader but a string of irrefutable scandals and derelictions were to prove his undoing, within his own party.

There was almost a mass exodus of resignations from his own cabinet to express a lack of confidence in his leadership and a reluctant Boris had signed off his last Prime Minister’s Question in his trademark flamboyance and cavalier style by signing off, “Hasta La vista, baby”!

Boris Johnson was followed by Elizabeth Truss, who emerged as the shortest serving Prime Minister and barely enjoyed the confidence of her own party for a few weeks. So intense was the expectation and the pressures of accountability from within that on the forty-fifth day she accepted, “given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party”.

Yet another leader was done-in by her ‘own’ and had to make way for the fifth Tory leader, on her fiftieth day i.e, Rishi Sunak.

While Truss has slipped away from public memory and is just another ‘backbencher’ in the House of Commons, as is the par for course in the highly demanding turf of UK politics - her predecessor, Boris Johnson, has perhaps unreconciled to his own ambitions and those of the traditions of accepting that his time is perhaps over, gracefully. Johnson remains a veritable thorn in the side of the current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.

Now, having resigned from his Parliamentary membership in anticipation of the damning report of lockdown-breaking parties during pandemic (ultimately voted 354 to 7), Johnson is on the backfoot (at least temporarily) as far as his return plans are concerned.

But perhaps the most pertinent remark about Boris Johnson’s defiance (which seemingly can be countered with simple fact-finding reports) came from Labour’s shadow leader of the House, Thangam Debbonaire, who posited in a tongue-and-cheek manner, whilst twisting, Churchill’s words, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is,”.

That is how the Parliamentary system (still far from perfect but impressive, nonetheless) works in the UK. Meanwhile in India, the leaders and their die-hard cadres genuinely believe that the leaders can do no wrong and are worthy of nothing short of deification – a sad and costly affliction that infects all regional and national parties, without exception whatsoever.

We don’t question and are content with whataboutery, deflections, distractions, manufactured-hate and even sheer falsehoods masquerading as truth. Democracy in the UK starts ‘within’ political parties, whereas all norms of democracy in India are reserved for the shortcomings of the opposing party, be it in opposition or in government.

Lt General Bhopinder Singh (Retd), is the Former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. Views expressed are the writer’s own.