‘Singapore on the Thames.’ Unless you’ve been under a rock, such fantasies of UK 2.0 have been a constant throughout Brexit.
Nevermind, of course, that Singapore is a former British colony. It’s the turbocharged, hypercapitalist city-state bit that matters.
Once a part of Malaysia, Singapore superseded Hong Kong as the leading Asian financial centre. Singaporeans now enjoy a Western European standard of living.
As impossible as this sounds, given the UK’s downward economic trajectory since the 1970s, the Singapore option is still worth unpacking.
It’s often talked about as if the UK is about to embark on a very radical experiment in free-market policies.
Especially now that it has been freed from ‘socialist’ Europe, and its planned economy.
The truth is that the UK has been anything but socialist for the last four decades, and in fact helped transform EU economic policymaking to play along.
But, right-wing forces want to finish the process and turn the UK into a fully market-driven society, with even lower tax rates and state regulation.
This article can be read in full at The Battleground.
Joshua White 