Names are synonymous but the policies?

Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister has made way for David Cameron. Tories are back in power in England after 13 years but yet it is a coalition Government with Liberal Democrats. On political ideology, the Liberal Democrats are closer to the Labuor than to the Tories and during the election campaign the Labuor Party officially promoted the Liberal Democrats as the next best alternative. The election results however gave no hope for Labuor- Liberal coalition and hence the Tories and the Liberals have now formed the new Government in UK.

The main concerns of both parties of the coalition in this 'trade off' is to ensure that they do not compromise on their specific political positions so that there is no loss of face with their vote bases in the likely event of another election in the near future. The Liberal Democrats, though their Parliamentary seat share is less than 10 percent in a House of 650 members, command voter strength of almost 25 percent of the national vote. Hence their main demand is for electoral reform for proportional representation in Britain as in many other EU member countries. The Tories however, have no such inclination and hence the coalition is bound to be volatile. Even in Foreign Policy the Conservatives are more pro US whereas the Liberal Democrats feel that the future of England is in integrating into the EU.

The concern for us in Sri Lanka however is not the political ideologies of this power shift in London but how this change in British politics would change the British attitude towards Sri Lanka vis a vis the Tamil issue.

It is a fact that the outgoing Labuor Government with David Miliband as its Foreign Secretary gave a hard time to Sri Lanka. Hence the Sri Lankan Government would be very anxious to have better relations with the new Government in London. This is specially so when considering the western world, and particularly the EU tend to follow the British lead when formulating their policies towards Sri Lanka.

By tradition, the Tory policy towards terrorism is more practical than that of the Labuor. It was Margaret Thatcher, the former Conservative Party Leader who once summed up life amidst terrorism thus, 'We, the civilians have to be successful all the time while the terrorists have to be successful only once'. But however, the recent campaign rhetoric at the British elections blurred this policy difference between the two parties holding out little hope by way of Britain's empathy towards Sri Lanka under a Conservative led Government.

MPs from all three parties attended the recent 'International Tamil Forum' held in London. Some British MPs demanded in Parliament that Sri Lanka should be suspended from the Commonwealth while some have demanded a 'Two State' solution in Sri Lanka. The Labuor Party in its manifesto called, 'to hold the Lankan Government and the LTTE both responsible for war excesses'. This, in a way, is akin to calling Hitler and Churchill both responsible for the atrocities of World War II.

David Cameron issued a personal message on the eve of the Sri Lankan New Year in April, wishing a happy 'Tamil new-year' and further he referred to 'Tamil British making a significant contribution to the British way of life' in his message as if he is oblivious of the fact that all Sri Lankans in Britain are not Tamils.

The mitigating factor is what is said by politicians during election time does not necessarily become binding on them when they form Governments. Generally the Conservatives are said to govern with their heads even though they may sometimes campaign with their hearts. Further there were 300,000 Tamil expatriate votes David Cameron had to woo in a crucial election that produced a hung Parliament.

If Conservatives and Liberal Democrats could get together after all that hostile campaigning, we could expect anything! Therefore Sri Lanka could look forward to with some optimism and in any case it simply could not be worse than what it was under David Miliband.

Britain, being the ex colonial master, has a special responsibility towards Sri Lanka in this 'Tamil issue' and hence comprehending this responsibility well would serve both countries well in their future relations.

When British East India Company conquered Ceylon back in 1796 there was no record of an ethnic conflict in this country. Even De Queyroz, the Portuguese historian who called the Ceylonese 'vile' in his tendentious writings has not written about a Sinhala - Tamil conflict at the time of Portuguese invasion of the Island in 1505. Even Robert Knox, the English sailor who was imprisoned in Ceylon for 21 years, in all his writings, makes no mention of a raging ethnic conflict in the Island during the 17th Century. Therefore the background to this conflict that devastated Sri Lanka in its post independence period has necessarily got to be built during the colonial rule that was symptomatic for its 'divide and rule' policies.

However let bygones be bygones. Sri Lanka stands to gain nothing by proving this fact and Britain too would not gain by justifying its colonial shenanigans. Past is now history and what matters is the future which in turn will be shaped by our actions of the present.

The reality today is that Sri Lanka is an independent nation and a member of the world community. Who takes power in London will do well to recognize this simple fact, at least after 62 years.

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