During the Brexit campaign Singapore was held up by economic liberals as a potential model for Britain’s future. More recently the idea that the UK could become the ‘Singapore of the West’ has operated as a veiled threat to be waved in the direction of EU politicians: Conservative Party shorthand for saying we might row back on money laundering regulations and use the weak pound and lower corporate taxes to steal your foreign investment. Their vision of Singapore is a caricature, but what would it mean if the UK did actually want to learn from Singaporean example?
‘You can’t just say you’re going to be like Singapore,’ argues Parag Khanna, Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, ‘It has experienced quantum leaps in government performance and nothing about Britain could match that, other than competitive regulation of financial services, inherited architecture and aspects of literary culture.’
Content from our partners
