Once the UK Conservative Party lost its majority in the House of Commons as a result of the recent parliamentary elections, a fact that can be largely attributed to a string of failed policies pursued by the Conservative government, the Labour Party demanded the sitting Prime Minister Theresa May to resign. Ever since, the head of the British government has been operating in panic mode.
Most British media sources agree that Prime Minister Teresa May will be forced to leave her post no later than by the summer of 2019, citing various sources within parliament. To somehow escape the shameful image of a PM “that is just about to be removed”, in her response to the former chairman of the Conservative Party, Grant Shapps, announced that she had no plans to step down.
This is not the first time that Teresa May has dodged criticism and allegations, as she’s been able to dodge far more serious political blows over the course of her career. For instance, quite recently May was forced to swerve out of the way of a giant ceremonial mace during the procession at the Guildhall. This is not the first time good reaction saved the British prime minister, as she would also dodge Black Rod’s staff last June in a similar fashion.
Today, the situation for Theresa May is obvious – her government is collapsing after proving to be a train wreck from day one, as the Brexit negotiations turned from bad to worse. In this situation May needed an excuse for a radical overhaul of the policies pursued by her government. And she provided one at the above mentioned procession at the Guildhall by subjecting Russian authorities to the strongest criticism during her time in office yet. May would go as far as to accuse Moscow of “undermining free societies.” Thus, she decided that Russophobia would be her fallback since a great many other Western political figures have managed to get away with it.
However, if we take a closer look at the history of Great Britain, we would learn that May hasn’t been all that original with this political trick, since throughout its history London has often used but two approaches to saving face in dire situations; getting involved in some military adventure abroad, or jump onto the Russian bashing bandwagon.
Britain has always been fairly confident that it could not establish global hegemony through the natural and human resources of the British Isles alone, since, for instance, at the beginning of the 18th century, there were only 11 million people inhabiting them, while the kingdom would try to control more than 750 million people across the planet. To create a colonial empire, London would adopt the policy that was tried and tested in Ancient Rome, known as “divide and conquer”. First, it would sow conflict between neighbors across the globe, then pit states against each other, and once conflict consumed them, the British Empire would simply enslave them. In order to provoke internal conflicts, London would refuse to occupy conquered territories. Instead, various lands would be patched together into artificial states where ethnic conflicts would be arranged to intentional consume human lives for decades.
Examples of such policies are not hard to find if you take a closer look at the history of various regions.
Just take a look at the Burmese Union that would be later known as Myanmar, where more than 500,000 people perished in the fire of the 70 year long civil war orchestrated by London. This conflict alone produced more than a million refugees.
There is also the British Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 that resulted in the artificial fracturing of the Middle East. The sad consequences of this agreement is witnessed today by the world as the region is plunged into a perpetual state of war.
However, Eurasia has always been a special attraction for British imperialists, since it not only had greater resources than other regions, but also had a much larger population. As for economic potential, Eurasia has always been far ahead of the rest of the world, since out of a total of the 15 most developed economies, no less that 12 are located in Eurasia. While being unable to compete in any way with the three main political and economic opponents in this region, namely Russia, China and India, London has been actively engaged in creating conflicts along the borders of BRICS countries. The plan was old and simple: to aggravate existing tension that exists within Eurasia and unleash a whole series of regional wars only to draw Russia, China and India into them.
As for Russophobic manifestations in Britain, it should be recalled that London has not just repeatedly used Russophobia in its policies over the past centuries, but has also waged wars against Russia.
It is enough to recall the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), although there was no direct large scale warfare between the countries.
It is believed that the conspiracy against the Russian Emperor Paul I that resulted in his murder in 1801 was sponsored by the British government while trying to avoid a war against Russia for the control of Malta. According to the testimony of Russian and British sources, the British Ambassador Charles Whitworth was heavily engaged in the staging of a palace coup in Russia.
Britain fought against Russia from 1807 to 1812 during the Russo-British War, and during the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Russia and Britain were rivals in the late 19th century during the Great Game in Central Asia.
After the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, Britain took a direct role in the occupation of Russian territories.
Moreover, as is a well known fact, it was Britain that was behind the creation of the Gladio terrorist network in Western Europe, the main task of which was to organize terrorist attacks in any Western European country threatening to move toward closer ties with the Soviet Union (USSR). It was this network that organized numerous assassinations of leftist activists and politicians who advocated cooperation with the USSR or could come to power as a result of popular support.
So, even a brief glance at the history books shows that it is not Russia, but Britain that is guilty of “undermining free societies”, a fact which Teresa May tries to keep buried beneath the political fever she has found herself promoting.
It should also be remembered that it’s the sitting British government that is trying to play the Russophobe card to draw public attention away from its own utter failure in its social policy, listing “Russia”as a so-called first-level threat instead.
But given the utter political confusion Therese May is involved in, it is unlikely that her dodging skills will help her get away with either her government’s shortcomings, or the scapegoats she’s using to excuse them.
What will help the British government cure its historical amnesia and its deep-rooted Russophobia?
Valeriy Kulikov, expert politologist, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
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