UK vaccine success can also strengthen Commonwealth – Bernard Ingham

MY cup runneth over. Anti-Covid vaccination is jabbing away merrily through the adult population. Spring 
– and some release from lockdown – is in the air. The snow will soon be gone.

The Bank of England is in bullish mood. The economy is just waiting for blast off after a year in quarantine. Dairy Milk chocolate is coming home to Bourneville from Europe where it is currently made.

And bang on cue for Yorkshire Pudding Day (last Sunday) Tesco tells us Yorkshire Pud is the nation’s favourite regional speciality.

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Why some of us, in the light of the EU’s vaccination failure, are turning our minds to truly becoming global Britain with the help of Trade Secretary Liz Truss’s 68 post-Brexit trade deals with countries outside Europe in the bag – and more to come.

Boris Johnson can use the Covid-19 vaccination programme to Britain and the Commonwealth's advantage, argues Sir Bernard Ingham.Boris Johnson can use the Covid-19 vaccination programme to Britain and the Commonwealth's advantage, argues Sir Bernard Ingham.
Boris Johnson can use the Covid-19 vaccination programme to Britain and the Commonwealth's advantage, argues Sir Bernard Ingham.

As I began thinking about our development as a free trader, I wondered just what the Commonwealth means to Yorkshire.

I write as one Yorkshireman who was tried beyond patience by the Commonwealth as the British spokesman during the battle in the 1980s over South African sanctions.

More aggravating still, it was not an argument over principles.

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Everyone wanted to see the end of apartheid. The passions it aroused were over method and, in the end, I suppose British persuasion rather than force in the form of sanctions won.

Boris Johnson needs to take advantage of Britain's chairmanship of the G7 and COP26 climate change summit this year.Boris Johnson needs to take advantage of Britain's chairmanship of the G7 and COP26 climate change summit this year.
Boris Johnson needs to take advantage of Britain's chairmanship of the G7 and COP26 climate change summit this year.

But, however trying the fight was, we had to keep our eye on one reality: it brought together more than a quarter of the world’s population in serious conclave. It still does.

Indeed, it has grown since then. It is now an association of 54 nations with 
one vote each on all the inhabited continents.

And two of them – Mozambique and Rwanda – were never part of the British empire out of which the Commonwealth has grown. That puts in perspective the ‘woke’ attack these days on anything colonial.

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As a matter of interest there 
are 19 African members; eight Asian (most vulnerable to the Chinese expansionist threat); 13 Caribbean and the Americas; 11 Pacific and three European.

Boris Johnson during a visit to a Covid vaccination centre this week.Boris Johnson during a visit to a Covid vaccination centre this week.
Boris Johnson during a visit to a Covid vaccination centre this week.

It is true that 32 are classed as small countries and that the four largest economies – India (with around half the Commonwealth’s population), UK, Canada and Australia – account for 78 per cent of its roughly £12 trillion (thousand billion) GDP.

But what does that spell for Yorkshire and the rest of the UK? In a word: opportunity. And that opportunity 
comes in three predominant forms.

First, it demonstrates the UK’s global reach in promoting freedom and democracy, encouraging trade and development and fighting such threats as climate change.

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Along with Canada, Australia and New Zealand, we have a wonderful opportunity to help liberate millions of people from poverty, disease and limited horizons.

And the immediate opportunity is to help the fight against Covid-19.

I suspect that Theresa May’s view of Boris Johnson’s moral compass would be modified if, on securing the home front, he devoted our aid budget to inoculating the most vulnerable Commonwealth members.

Second, there is in the 54 countries a wealth of resources that through development, trade and technological co-operation could help to satisfy our needs and give the impoverished a lift that would brighten their lives.

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It may be that to do that some grasping Commonwealth autocrats will have to reform.

And that brings me to my third crucial point. We can offer the people, through our way of life, freedom with responsibility.

All that China and Russia offer in their efforts to economically colonise the needy is oppression.

I suspect that an inventory of Chinese attempted colonisation of the Commonwealth would not make for comfortable reading.

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After all, a friend tells me they have even built a cricket ground (badly) in Antigua. And we all know that they are trying to squirrel their way into the UK economy.

Yorkshire cannot prosper unless 
the UK does. And the UK won’t if it 
does not seize the opportunity of 
Brexit and independence to work, particularly through the Commonwealth, to strengthen the resilience of developing states both economically and politically.

The time has come for Boris Johnson to present his plan for the UK’s post-Brexit (and Covid) world role. Ideally, he should set the agenda well before for this year’s G7 economic and UN climate change summits.

The world is crying out for responsible leadership.

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