FPI / September 21, 2022
Geostrategy-Direct
With the global media fixated on the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, Great Britain was simultaneously coming under a new prime minister committed to fundamental policy transformation.
In one of her first acts as UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss and her new Conservative Party government opened the exploitation of shale oil and gas reserves in areas where there is local approval.
In so doing, Truss reversed the energy security policy of her predecessor Boris Johnson.
Truss also made it clear that the question of illegal migration would be addressed as Britain re-asserts sovereignty and law and order.
The new prime minister also stressed that the dominance of the “mandarins” of the Treasury and other departments was at an end.
The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, immediately on taking office, dismissed the Permanent Secretary of the Treasury, Sir Thomas Scholar.
“It was a bid to end the stale orthodoxy which had constrained the UK economy, allowing a massive restructuring of Government management. It was far more than just a move to allow the Truss Government to stimulate the economy through the reduction of taxes,” Gregory R. Copley noted in a Sept. 16 analysis for GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs.
It was a move by Truss and the Conservatives “to slim down the dominance of the Civil Service. They had, rightly, been compared over the past century to the mandarin class of bureaucrats which essentially dominated much of China’s imperial era,” Copley wrote.
The present situation was sparked by Brexit — the UK’s withdrawal Dec. 31, 2020 from the European Union (EU).
“It is possible that September 2022 saw the start of the emergence of a new, ‘slimmed down’ strategic power as Great Britain changed its head-of-state, its head-of-government, and its approach to statecraft. At least the possibility is there,” Copley wrote.
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