“The malign incompetence of the Brexiteers was precisely prefigured during Britain’s exit from India in 1947, most strikingly in the lack of orderly preparation for it. “
This is a scorching comparison of the incompetence of the British during UK’s exit from India and Brexit
This is a scorching comparison of the incompetence of the British during UK’s exit from India and Brexit
“The British government had announced that India would have independence by June 1948. In the first week of June 1947, however, Mountbatten suddenly proclaimed that the transfer of power would happen on Aug. 15, 1947 — a “ludicrously early date,” as he himself blurted out”
“In July, a British lawyer named Cyril Radcliffe was entrusted with the task of drawing new boundaries of a country he had never previously visited.”
Wow. This IS history repeating itself.
Wow. This IS history repeating itself.
“Given only around five weeks to invent the political geography of an India flanked by an eastern and a western wing called Pakistan, Radcliffe failed to visit any villages, communities, rivers or forests along the border he planned to demarcate. “
“Dividing agricultural hinterlands from port cities, and abruptly reducing Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs on either side of the new border to a religious minority, Radcliffe delivered a plan for partition that effectively sentenced millions to death or desolation”.
“while bringing him the highest-ranked knighthood”
“Up to one million people died, countless women were abducted and raped, and the world’s largest refugee population was created during the population transfers across Radcliffe’s border — an extensive carnage that exceeds all apocalyptic scenarios of Brexit.”
“In retrospect, Mountbatten had even less reason than Mrs. May to speed up the exit clock — and create insoluble and eternal problems. Just a few months after the botched partition, for instance, India and Pakistan were fighting a war over the disputed territory of Kashmir. “
“None of the concerned parties were pushing for a hasty British exit. As the historian Alex von Tunzelmann points out, “the rush was Mountbatten’s, and his alone.”
Here we have Johnson refusing extensions and pretending that a slam bam approach to negotiating will win through.
Here we have Johnson refusing extensions and pretending that a slam bam approach to negotiating will win through.
Utterly and arrogantly careless of the consequences for the citizens for whom he is supposed to foster a better life.
Lying. Still. Lazy. Wilfully Incompetent. Still.
And some commentators, bizarrely, seems to think these are conditions that should result in “unity”
Lying. Still. Lazy. Wilfully Incompetent. Still.
And some commentators, bizarrely, seems to think these are conditions that should result in “unity”
Winston Churchill gets it in the neck too.
There’s a reason why he isn’t highly regarded in Ireland...and in India.
There’s a reason why he isn’t highly regarded in Ireland...and in India.
Humiliations in neo-imperialist ventures abroad, followed by the rolling calamity of Brexit at home, have cruelly exposed the bluff of what Hannah Arendt called the “quixotic fools of imperialism.”
