Britain as Singapore-on-the-Thames is fantasy
Singapore-on-the-Thames (Image created in Shutterstock)
As Donald Trump declares economic war on the world, the proposal that Britain should turn itself into Singapore-on-the-Thames resurfaces once again. At the weekend the former Brexit Party and Conservative Party MEP Lance Forman, owner of the East London smoked salmon family company that bears his name, suggested the idea on Talk TV. So did Jeremy Hunt, the former Tory Chancellor.
Then on Monday Mohamed El-Erian — a grand figure of establishment economic punditry and President of Queen’s College, Cambridge — told Nick Robinson on the Today programme that Sir Keir Starmer should look at idea of creating an English version of Singapore-on-the-Thames. He proposed a free market, low-tax paradise to attract firms to come to Britain, as other OECD members reel under the taxes on trade, jobs, and profits the US president has gifted the world with his tariffs.
Singapore is a remarkable city-state to visit. I went to it regularly, along with Hong Kong, when I worked in Asia in the 1980s. I preferred the bustle, noise, smells of Hong Kong before Chinese communism took over, but Singapore was a friendly, clean well-run place after the scruffier chaos of Malaysia or Indonesia.
But with the best will in the world, the idea of turning Britain into Singapore is borderline batty.
The city state was founded by Lew Kuan Yew. He broke with the Malaya Federation that said goodbye to British imperialism after a 12 year insurgency led by Chinese Malayans with links to communist China. In the course of that insurgency Scots Guards murdered 24 unarmed civilians at Batang Kali in December 1948. Quietly written out of national history, which has preferred to avoid the stupidities of ministers and the military in handling the end of empire, the British also carried out extra-judical killings of trade union organisers and unarmed villagers.
Lee Kuan Yew was allied with the Singapore Indian trade union leader, Devan Nair, in the People’s Action Party. He was inspired by the Fabian Society from his student years in Cambridge in Cambridge immediately after World War 2.
Today the Singapore state is involved in running the economy in a way that is closer to British Labour party wish-lists, if not practice. No-one owns land in Singapore which belongs to the state with tenancies allocated as needed.
Margaret Thatcher famously missed a golden opportunity to create a giant sovereign wealth fund using proceeds from North Sea oil, instead preferring to cut taxes to buy votes. The government of Singapore has two sovereign wealth funds. Government nominees sit on the boards of companies. Singapore exports semi-conductors and pharmaceutical products to America. So, like Britain, it faces only 10 per cent tariffs. But Britain’s car and steel industries face 25 per cent tariffs, which have led Jaguar Land Rover to suspend all US bound exports — despite the claim that Brexit Britain was shielded from Trump.
The Singaporeans point out that their free trade deal signed with the US was based on complete tariff-free trade. So the fading hopes that British ministers can sign a free- trade deal to shelter British exports with Trump in his present rage and fury against imports seem optimistic.
It is not clear if advocates of Singapore-on-the-Thames know that the trade unions in Singapore have seen their leaders sitting on the boards of companies, or that general secretaries of the Singapore TUC have been members of the cabinet.
It is a corporate, controlled model of city-state capitalism which works for the 6 million strong Singapore population, 2 million of whom are immigrants – again, not a prospect welcomed by any party in Britain.
There is no media freedom in Singapore according to all global bodies that rank the free press status of the world. A government licence is needed to print a newspaper or magazine.
However, there are some aspects of Singapore life which might indeed appeal to the more outré members of Reform and the Badenoch-Jenrick supporters in the Tory party. Singapore canes prisoners, foreign workers and illegal immigrants who overstay more than 3 months. The government argues that this is necessary to deter would-be immigration offenders, as Singapore remains an attractive destination for illegal immigrants. One can sense this might indeed send a shiver of excitement down the spines of ageing rank and file Reform members — but the erudite head of a Cambridge college?
Singapore hangs people if caught with hard drugs, which might worry the Osborne-Cameron generation coke-sniffers, or the endless list of high-profile journalists who are no stranger to the recreational use of hard drugs.
Singapore has internment without trial, often used to imprison political opponents of the ruling PAP party.
In a nod to British traditions, there is a Speakers Corner. But if you want to say something there you have to register personal details with the National Parks Board before speaking or protesting at the Speakers’ corner which is ringed by surveillance cameras.
It is easy to see why Singapore appeals to the Right, even if its managed, state-owned and directed economy surely runs counter to every nostrum put forward by the Financial Times-Economist-BBC media establishment.
Singapore works on its own terms. But the idea that Britain can become a 21st century Singapore is a fantasy which serious people should leave well alone.
Denis MacShane is a former Minister of Europe.
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