The UK's new Cabinet began by taking the knee outside Westminster Abbey
“British Prime Minister Bell Ribeiro-Addy presented her new government Monday. The government is a coalition between the UPA and the SDP. The Deputy Primeministership has gone to Sadiq Khan, who's portfolio covers social rights. The SDP leader is a former lawyer and one of the only Cabinet members to have before held a government position. The other three Great Offices have gone to senior UPA politicians. Bell's right hand woman Caroline Lucas has been appointed Chancellor, Alternative Leader Richard Burgon has been named Foreign Secretary and People's Party Deputy Owen Jones will oversee Justice. Lucas promised to “reposition UK finances in the EU and the world”. Burgon pledged to strengthen links with Latin America and the Caribbean. Defence will be the responsibility of Rachel Shabi, a counter-terrorism expert.” - The new faces in the UK’s coalition government, Jack Blanchard, Politico.EU (2019)
Bell Ribeiro-Addy Cabinet 2020-
- Prime Minister - Bell Ribeiro-Addy (PP)
- Deputy Prime Minister - Sadiq Khan (SDP)
- Chancellor of the Exchequer - Caroline Lucas (PP)
- Foreign Secretary - Richard Burgon (SA)
- Justice Secretary - Owen Jones (PP)
- Defence Secretary - Rachel Shabi (PP)
- Home Secretary - Rachel Reeves (SDP)
- Development Secretary - Kate Osamor (PP)
- Education Secretary - Rebecca Long-Bailey (PP)
- Industry, Tourism and Trade Secretary - Frances O’Grady (SDP)
- Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Secretary - Shami Charkrabarti (PP)
- Public Administrations Secretary - Clive Lewis (PP)
- Culture Secretary - Lisa Nandy (SDP)
- Health Secretary - Manuel Cortes (PP)
- Environment Secretary - Mhairi Black (PP)
- Housing Secretary - Wes Streeting (SDP)
The most surprising thing about Ribeiro-Addy’s cabinet, wasn’t that she’d appointed a majority woman Cabinet, or that she had a record number of BME Ministers - but that no one had stopped her. Bell spent her first week in Downing Street, then her first month, and still no one acted against her. Columns of tanks didn’t roll down Whitehall, she wasn’t shot by a Civil Assistance paramilitary or taken down by an internal party coup. Her Cabinet certainly didn’t lack targets, her Chancellor was a radical feminist europhile, her Foreign Secretary a member of the Communist Party and her Justice Secretary a proud gay man. Yet aside from protests and the old egging they were left alone. For the first time in years Britain had a semi-stable government.
Pardoning separatist leaders had brought an uneasy truce to Scotland, but many questions were left unresolved
It was a testament to Britain’s newly matured democracy, the military had been leashed, the paramilitaries had been quashed and the five party system had stabilised - at least for now. This wasn’t to say Britain was a utopia, spats within the coalition government were already beginning to show on the surface as the coalition’s first budget only passed by three votes - but pass it did, the first budget to pass Parliament on its first try since 2016. It was one of the most radical budgets in British history, including nearly 200 billion euros of extra state spending into schemes such as an expanded NHS, as well as granting extra spending money to local and provincial governments.
In Scotland, an easy quiet had set in, with their leaders released and a more sympathetic government in place the separatists had entered a truce with Westminster - with their fingers hovering over the no-confidence button. A newly freed Harvie had a mandala style reception when arriving back to Edinburgh airport. The condition for their leader’s pardon was for RISE and the SNP to openly reject illegal referendums and most in those parties now accepted a unilateral referendum wasn’t the way to go, slowly building up connections with the establishment to ensure one in future. SNLA attacks still occurred but were infrequent as tensions cooled north of the border. The pardons weren't without strings, Harvie and Brown were both banned from holding UK level office, neutralising one of the nationalist's most effective performers, but Harvie was enjoying life as an elder statesman MEP.
“Bell Ribeiro-Addy has called for a new “era of dialogue” as her government pardoned Scottish independence leaders. Announcing the pardons on Tuesday, Ribeiro-Addy said the decision had been taken in the interests of national unity. “The Government has taken this decision because it’s the best one for Scotland and Britain. The decision will honour the spirit of coexistence and harmony set out in the Cardiff Accords,” she said. But, while Ribeiro-Addy stressed that those convicted would remain banned from UK public office. She added the pardons would be conditional on their recipients not committing serious crimes over a given period of time. “The pardons directly affect a handful of people, but this government of is thinking of the thousands who support them,” she added.” - Government pardons jailed Scottish leaders, Sam Jones, The Guardian (2020)
A new generation of soldiers were loyal to democracy
The barracks were quiet, officers privately complained about the socialists in Downing Street, but political actions were a lot softer, critical interviews in the press, or refusing to salute the Prime Minister - rather than any more hard, direct actions. What remained of Britain’s Mountbattenite officers were all old men, bearing down the mandatory retirement age. They smoked, drank and complained but that was all they did. They told each other the People’s Alliance would fail, Soon the people would be begging them to take charge once again. Only time would tell if they were right, but the military had nowhere near the power they had twenty years ago - the soldiers of the past wouldn’t care what the people thought - they would march on London whenever they pleased.
Mountbatten would be removed from Westminster Abbey early in 2020, and a new truth committee was established to investigate the atrocities of the Junta. Finally the families of the disappeared and the repressed would get some justice. Instead of keeping a stiff silence like the political class of the 2000s and 2010s - the coalition openly talked about the Junta, they talked about justice, not just progress. Old wounds were opened to finally be treated for a society that had defined itself on a pact of silence. All the pain and trauma came pouring out over hundreds of interviews across six months that shook the nation. Prime Minister Ribeiro-Abby pledged never again, never again would the British people submit to authoritarianism or tyranny. A painful but necessary message.
Most historians defined 2020 as the end of Britain’s transition to democracy, the election of a black radical leftist to Downing Street, and the peaceful transfer of power that followed proved the power of the Juntistas had well and truly broken. Mountbatten’s exhumation was a literary and symbolic end to the transition. Britain’s problems were by no means over, Scottish nationalism was still a powder keg, they owed billions to the EU and a strange new pandemic began to travel across the nation. Britain was now a thriving multi-party democracy, political violence was mostly a thing of the past replaced by lively debate in the Commons chamber. Britain was once again a true democracy - a very British democracy.
“The British government approved on Tuesday a draft bill aiming to erase the legacy of Louis Mountbatten's dictatorship. The bill allows the shutting down of associations and civil groups that still glorify Mountbatten's memory. The text also declares null all “summary trials” during the four decades of repression under Mountbatten's regime. The new legislation aims to honour those who suffered persecution or violence and cover a wider range of victims related to the Junta. It will also promote the search and exhumations of victims buried in mass graves. If passed into law, the bill will create two official remembrance days to honour the victims, and an official registry of the victims will be set up. Government estimates point to 161,000 civilians who disappeared throughout the dictatorship.” - UK's Memory bill to honour dictatorship victims, Reuters (2020)
Hopefully the Junta's ghosts could finally receive peace