Andy Burnham’s fatal show of weakness

It is commonly understood that when dealing with those who wish to harm or exploit you, that you never show weakness. This basic survival strategy is grasped by those who live closer to nature, who counsel that displaying fear to angry or predatory animals can be fatal. It was also a principle inherent to the political philosophy of Niccolo Machiavelli, who took humans to be animals similarly governed by amoral, self-interested instincts, creatures who were ‘pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders.’

Our hopelessly people-pleasing Prime Minister has failed to take heed of this advice Machiavelli used to be mandatory reading for aspiring politicians who needed to know that in order to climb the greasy pole, much cunning, craftiness and dissimulation was required. Alas our hopelessly people-pleasing Prime Minister has failed to take heed of this advice, and, as a consequence, has once more issued a string of airy, careless words that may come back to haunt him.

On Saturday, Andy Burnham, who will be in the Caribbean this week for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, told the Guardian that he wanted to offer a ‘structured dialogue’ with politicians and senior figures on the renewed subject of Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, many of whom are pursuing reparations for that historic crime. ‘Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process.

I am open to them,’ he said. And while he added that he was conveying only personal ‘sorrow and regret’ and rejecting demands for reparations, the damage had already been done. Declaring himself ‘open’ has only emboldened those who wish to cynically exploit us for the sins of our ancestors. Most popular Sam Leith The celebrity accused of sexual misconduct must be unmasked Ross Clark The pro-EU camp aren’t living in the real world James Heale Tories tool up for economy scrap The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, immediately took his statement not to signal the closing of the reparations debate, as Burnham had intended, but as giving the green light for the next stage.

She thanked him for ‘breaking new ground and recognising that this is the right thing, and the moral thing, to do by ensuring that we move to the next stage of engagement on this difficult and emotional issue.’ The prime minister of St Lucia, Philip J. Pierre, likewise added: ‘No British prime minister has gone this far…We are ready to engage’. Burnham has already gained a well-deserved reputation for vacillation. His inability to make firm decisions derives both from a character flaw that is fatal in politicians, an unwillingness to be disliked, and from irreconcilable forces he has to manage in his present predicament: keeping his cohort of economically illiterate backbenchers placated while trying to halt this country’s slide into bankruptcy.

His people-pleasing impulses continues to take him into dangerous territory. This statement will not only encourage heads of state in the Caribbean who have been pushing for reparations, will inspire states elsewhere in Commonwealth to do likewise – and, who knows, set avaricious thoughts stirring in Ireland, for those who might think it timely to demand recompense for the Potato Famine – it won’t go unnoticed on the global stage. Such weakness and spinelessness will not go undetected by the amoral strongmen throughout the world.

It will be noticed by the all-seeing and unforgiving regime in China which last week even used its weight to punish a French footballer who failed to show due deference to Chairman Mao. It will appear on Vladimir Putin’s radar, the Russian leader who has a strong sense for sniffing out weakness in the West and using it to make an opportune gambits, first in the invasion of Crimea in 2014 and then the full-blown invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s naval incursions into the North Sea and Atlantic and its drone forays over Nato states on the Baltic are both are designed to gauge the resolve of the West and the backbone of its leaders.

Most immediately, a willingness to please that now borders on impotence and cowardice will be noticed in the higher echelons of the European Union, an inherently authoritarian institution that has never forgiven Britain for having the audacity to leave it. That is why it gave us the harshest exit conditions it could manage, and why it has continued to seek to punish and penalise us when it can. This is why it has sought to suffocate dissent in countries showing the remotest sign of following our example – notably Hungary – and why it will give us the hardest re-entry terms possible should we rejoin it or take steps in that direction.

While Burnham is a nice guy, the fanatics inspired by hyperliberal racial dogma demanding reparations are not. Neither are the ideologues who run the EU. Not only does he not possess the character required for dealing with that bullying organisation, he doesn’t recognise the nature of the beast, one that can already smell his fear. It will eat him alive.