Visions of Britain Sweden, Norway, Dubai, Little England… What will Britain be most like after the elections?

LONDON — Behind the sturm und drang of an election campaign, the leaders of Britain’s parties offer strikingly different visions.

Ed Miliband wants a Swedish Britain

Labour want Britain to be fully European — but outside the eurozone — more active in Eastern Europe and less beholden to Washington. His vision at home is constitutional reform and constrained capitalism. He’s keen on Scandinavian social democracy, and travelled to Sweden and Denmark in 2013, in contrast to the American visits of David Cameron and Tony Blair.

Labour’s little-read manifesto is thin on policy but high on Scandi-rhetoric. “We are the battle of equality,” claims the document, promising to preserve the welfare state. Labour’s most dramatic policy is a “mansion tax” on homes worth £2+ million. The party has chosen not to campaign on the issue.

Miliband’s signature is political reform. He has committed to a “people-led Constitutional convention”: fiscal autonomy for Scotland, autonomous English cities and the House of Lords replaced by a Senate. He’s also positioned Labour as the party of Brussels. Read his lips: Britain’s in the the EU.

Miliband will be a “post-Iraq PM.” He believes military action alone will not defeat ISIS. He’s supportive of “stronger” sanctions on Russia and laments Britain’s absence at the EU negotiations with Putin on Ukraine.

Boris Johnson wants a United British Emirates

Not all Tories share a vision. Boris Johnson, London’s mayor — who could be leader if Cameron bombs — has the clearest. He wants Britain to be a free-market island, entirely hospitable to foreign capital. If Miliband made his hajj to Scandinavia, Boris went to Dubai. His world is that of trading city-states, of which he sees London as one. In Dubai, he described himself as “mayor of the eighth emirate” and boasted that “London is to top billionaires what the jungles of Sumatra are to the orangutan.”

Open to foreign billionaires, Johnson isn’t wedded to the EU, whose social regulations he views as a drain on profits and the public purse: He’d leave if renegotiation on social policy and immigration couldn’t be achieved. His vision of a British free market includes immigration. “I’m probably the only politician I know who is actually willing to stand up and say that he’s pro-immigration,” he’s boasted, and is alone among leading politicians to support amnesty for illegal immigrants after 12 years’ residence.

Boris’s Britain could be a less active US ally. Washington has been irritated by London’s attraction to the Chinese AIIB, a World Bank “wannabe.” Johnson travels frequently to China and sees London’s financial interests as primary. He’s candid about being business-first: “I don’t walk into a meeting and say ‘I say, you chaps, how’s freedom doing?’”

Nigel Farage wants a Fortress England

The populist leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party commands a hyperactive following, and a stark vision: exit the EU; halt immigration; end multiculturalism. He wants to keep Britain ethnically and culturally British — no matter the cost for business.

Farage dismisses the Conservatives and Labour as “the same.” He’s more right than polite society cares to admit: both parties are committed to globalization and an infusion of foreign capital.

UKIP supporters are fearful of a demographic transition that could see Britain become 30 percent non-white by 2050. England was only 79 percent white-British in the 2011 census. White-British are now the minority in London, and the same will soon be true of Birmingham.

Farage rarely talks of a British role in the world. He’s an English nationalist, uncommitted to retaining Scotland. “We’ve had a lot from Scotland,” he said, “but the tail cannot go wagging the dog any longer.” He accused the SNP of “the biggest racism is British politics...” His supporters would be happy to see Scotland go, believing a breakup would be UKIP’s moment.

Nicola Sturgeon wants a Scottish Norway

Polls suggest the SNP could take every Scottish seat in Westminster. Nicola Sturgeon, its leader, is a committed European, also committed to a leftist state. “Take Norway,” Sturgeon has said, pointing to the country’s 1905 secession from Sweden, “it’s successful because it is independent.”

The Scottish Independence referendum — defeated last year — allowed the SNP to create a movement. It has 115,000 members: 2 percent of all Scots. This makes Scotland a place with popular, engaged politics, in contrast to Britain’s diminishing old parties. The SNP claims it is “the better Labour Party” that will “keep Labour honest”; but in reality, it is working toward sweeping Scotland’s national elections in 2016. After that, it would press for a new independence referendum.

The SNP talks of a “northern arc” of prosperity stretching from Iceland through Scotland to Scandinavia. But the party is accused by Labour of political fancy footwork: it governs in Edinburgh with fiscal prudence and no socialist revolution — whilst campaigning for seats in Westmister as the socialist alternative, repressed by the British system.

David Cameron offers none of the above



Cameron’s is a pragmatic rescue-operation, saving the UK from a deficit, nationalist urges and irrational promises. The Conservative campaign has been dominated by slogans like “A Better More Secure Future.”

Cameron’s “anti-vision” for Britain stems more from his unvarnished view of a country outcompeted by foreign business than of a state challenged by foreign powers. Accusations of becoming a foreign policy irrelevance over Ukraine move him little. With Germany and Poland taking a greater responsibility for their own security than ever before, Cameron sees no need to grandstand. He prefers to focus diplomacy on trade, pushing to become China’s No. 1 investment choice. He believes Britain’s economic future lies increasingly outside the EU and devotes much heavy lifting to making Britain “the partner of choice” for an increasingly wealthy elite in India.

The Conservative Party Manifesto in 2010 was called “An Invitation To Join The Government Of Britain”in sharp contrast to “A Clear Economic Plan, A Brighter, More Secure Future” of 2015. However, Cameron has tended to shy from big visions. Asked why he wants to be PM, he said, “Because I’d be good at it.”