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Hawaii Pacific Model United Nations Conference 2018 Government of the United Kingdom- Background Guide Government of the United Kingdom Hawaii Pacific Model United Nations Conference TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR 3 LETTER FROM THE PRIME MINISTER Error! Bookmark not defined. BACKGROUND GUIDE PURPOSE 5 THE UNITED KINGDOM IN THE TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES 6 An Empire in Decline 6 The Welfare State Under Attlee Error! Bookmark not defined. “Suez Syndrome” Under Eden-The Beginning of the End of the British Empire 7 The Iron Lady- Margaret Thatcher and her Legacy in British Society Today 8 Blair and New Labour Error! Bookmark not defined. Brexit Means Brexit- Theresa May 11 ISSUES FACING THE UNITED KINGDOM TODAY 12 Brexit 13 The Middle East 16 The Israel-Palestine Conflict 16 The Scottish Question Error! Bookmark not defined. Health and Education Funding 17 THE ISSUE OF SYRIA 18 Protests in Damascus 18 Organised Armed Rebellion 18 Russian Involvement 18 American Involvement 19 British Involvement 19 French Involvement 19 Turkish Involvement 20 The Refugee Crisis 20 CLOSING REMARKS 22 Appendix A- Character List (as of 1 August 2018) 23 Appendix B- British Intelligence Community 25 Domestic Agencies 25 Foreign Agencies 25 1 Government of the United Kingdom Hawaii Pacific Model United Nations Conference Appendix C- Rules of Procedure 27 Appendix D- Award Philosophy 30 Appendix E- Position Paper Guidelines 30 Basic Requirements 31 Appendix F- Glossary of British Political and Parliamentary Terms 32 Appendix G- “God Save the Queen” 33 Appendix H- Bibliography 34 Appendix I- Recommended Further Readings 35 British Government and Politics 35 Current Party Policies and Proposals 35 “Great Man/Woman History” 35 International Relations Theory 36 Other Readings 36 2 Government of the United Kingdom Hawaii Pacific Model United Nations Conference LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR Dear Delegates, It is my pleasure to welcome you to the British Government committee at the 2018 Hawaii Pacific Model United Nations Conference. It is my hope that you are excited for this year’s conference, and that you will find this committee challenging and intellectually stimulating, as I found each of my previous committees both at this conference and around the world. Please allow me to introduce myself. I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, and graduated from ‘Iolani School this past June. My next four years in university will entertain a change in scenery, trading the sunny beaches of Honolulu for the distinctly more overcast beaches of the Scottish Lowlands. I am a first-year student at the University of St Andrews where I am pursuing an undergraduate degree in International Relations and Economics. My Model United Nations career began some six years ago in the seventh grade, and continues to this day. I remember the first PacMUN of only two committees, which I attended as my very first conference as Germany in SOCHUM. It fills me with pride as I look at what PacMUN has become now, and appreciate the small roles that all of us have played through the years to develop this conference. Those of you who attended PacMUN last year will remember me as the Undersecretary- General of Committees/Crisis Director, where I speed-walked into committees delivering briefings as “Jack from the FBI,” “John from the CIA,” and, on one occasion to the U.S. Senate, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, gaining some 20,000 steps per day in the process. It is a distinct honour to be invited to return form halfway around the world to participate yet again at this conference. The British Government Committee represents a summary of my observations of this activity in Hawaii over the past six years. I hope this committee will help delegates to develop the skills that are vital both for Model UN but also for the wider world, such as critical and independent thinking, researching, collaboration, and oral argumentation. I expect each delegate in this committee to be an active participant throughout the entire committee, and that each delegate will have prepared to do so by thoroughly researching the issues which face British Government today, even some which are not presented in this guide. I further expect a very high level, nuanced debate for the entire conference, where we will work through many of the problems that Theresa May’s Ministry faces in the real world. Onwards and upwards, Jake Steiner [email protected] LETTER FROM THE PRIME MINISTER 3 Government of the United Kingdom Hawaii Pacific Model United Nations Conference 10 DOWNING STREET The Prime Minister 16 Nov 2018 My Right Honourable Friends It is my pleasure to welcome you to this meeting of the cabinet as we endeavour to tackle the important issues facing the United Kingdom today. The United Kingdom today is at a crossroads, in many aspects of our ministry. This government must choose whether to become fully independent of the European Union to conduct our own deals, or we can choose to remain partly in the EU and be subject to EU regulations and institutions. In particular, we must decide the best course of action for Northern Ireland. This government must decide a course of action in the Middle East and Africa. Due to British colonial involvement in the regions in decades before, I feel that the United Kingdom is responsible for assisting in whatever way the cabinet sees fit. We must continue to encourage unity within the United Kingdom, and to that end, we must appropriately deal with the current situation in Scotland. In all of these matters I welcome a warm, lively debate among ministers, as we determine the paths that this great nation will take into the future. To the continued prosperity of the United Kingdom, The Rt. Hon. Theresa May The Prime Minister 4 Government of the United Kingdom Hawaii Pacific Model United Nations Conference BACKGROUND GUIDE PURPOSE This guide will provide general background information for the committee. It will not provide answers to the questions that the information poses in the hope that delegates will be capable of critical thinking to derive their answers through additional research. This guide is unfortunately insufficient to fully prepare for this committee. The inadequacy of this guide is purposefully designed, as a guide that does somehow provide all the information necessary for this committee would rob delegates of one of the most important skills of Model United Nations: research. Therefore this Background Guide should not be the only thing a delegate reads prior to the conference, but should serve as a springboard into further research into the issues that the Background Guide outlines. This is set in the present day, and delegates should be able to find a wealth of information at their fingertips, therefore no excuses will be accepted for unpreparedness. 5 Government of the United Kingdom Hawaii Pacific Model United Nations Conference THE UNITED KINGDOM IN THE TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES It was once said that “the sun never set on the British Empire,” as it stretched from a home in the British Isles to Africa, the Caribbean, India, and Asia. The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries saw the United Kingdom enter as the greatest colonial empire in the world and one of, if not the dominant force in the world, and leave a shadow of its former self. Rocked by two world wars and a fight against communism, we can trace the decline, and re-emergence of the United Kingdom through a number of key events and leaders, which have shaped the new role that the United Kingdom plays in the world today. The United Kingdom was considered the dominant force in the world, with an unparalleled navy feared by all. London was the hub of international finance, and the Pound Sterling was the dominant currency throughout the world. As a result, Governments were able to exert a considerable amount of hard power, both in the form of direct influence over colonies, and use of the financial and military resources available to it. One such example of the latter form of British hard power came in the Great War, as the British Empire declared war on the German Empire, due to the German invasion of Belgium, a neutral country. The British Empire had previously extended a security guarantee to Belgium for it to remain neutral, and gave the Germans an ultimatum to vacate the nation. By declaring war on Germany, the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was seen by the British public as standing up to the bullying Germans and defending righteousness and decency. This use of hard power by the United Kingdom was not uncommon in this time, and was used to further her goals of regional and, historically, world hegemony. An Empire in Decline The Second World War and the following decade presented the preeminent world power with two new rivals, one friendly and one hostile, in the United States and the Soviet Union. The reliance on the US first seen in the first World War in the Lend-Lease scheme, was extended further in the Second War due to the massive industrial complex that was set up in the United States following the bombing of Pearl Harbour. As a result of the massive economic and military might of the United States, the British Empire effectively ceded hegemony over the course of the war to the United States. As a result, the British Empire naturally experienced a period of decline for the remainder of the twentieth century. 6 Government of the United Kingdom Hawaii Pacific Model United Nations Conference The Welfare State Under Attlee The British public rewarded Winston Churchill for winning the war with defeat at the polls, as the United Kingdom voted for Clement Attlee and the Labour party in 1945.

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