The problem with Britain is that it doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t control its borders, it doesn’t enforce its laws, it doesn’t build anything. It’s not only a British problem or even Britain’s only problem, but there is something essentially British about it. On the Left and the Right, government apparatchiks, political parties, and lawmakers are all conservative—in the worst sense of the word. Given a free hand, the Leftist gender radicals and the right-wing Tories would have us living in the same sprawling favelas, bulging obscenely with ever-growing human capital and dominated by a small number of American corporations. But in recent times an unlikely figure, the president of El Salvador, has remade the rules on getting things done—and he should be looked to for inspiration.
Nayib Bukele, the 42-year-old President of El Salvador, came to power in June 2019—just six months after Boris Johnson won a landslide victory in the UK promising to reduce immigration, freeze taxes, and boost the NHS. Bukele’s problems were of a different sort. He inherited the responsibility for one of the most dangerous countries in the world, ravaged by gang violence, plagued by poverty, and riddled with corruption. But his approach to taking issues head-on, and winning, should be instructive.
Within days of his inauguration, Bukele initiated his ‘Territorial Control Plan.’ It began almost immediately with the deployment of thousands of soldiers and police officers to problem areas. An organised crime think tank called InSight Crime said at the time that Bukele’s policies would result in “few successes” and “gangs becoming stronger.” Think tanks shouldn’t be listened to. Bukele’s forces would eventually surround and extract the gang members from their strongholds, in a series of mass arrests which have seen more than 76,000 people thrown in jail.
By 2022 the murder rate had fallen from 38 in 100,000 to just 7.8, and in 2023 it fell a further 70%, to just 2.4 murders for every 100,00 citizens—half the homicides per head than occurred in the United States in the same year. But it wasn’t easy for Bukele to get this done. He had to battle the usual suspects—overly cautious, flat-footed legislators, nose-poking globalists, and do-gooder NGOs who are always keen to warn of the ‘grave dangers’ of doing things.
The crackdown, Bukele had argued, needed more money. He sought to borrow $109 million, which would fund better equipment for the army and police, including new vehicles and surveillance equipment. When opposition lawmakers voted it down, sending it for consideration at that most dreaded of places—a committee—he summoned them to their seats. Arriving in the legislature, the opposition parties found themselves surrounded by heavily armed soldiers. While they cried ‘coup’ Bukele’s popularity soared. Reporting on the incident at the time, The Washington Post noted: “Bukele is popular with the people but not with lawmakers.” The howls of Amnesty International were soundly ignored.
Earlier this year, Bukele was re-elected with more than 80% of the vote. After years of being condemned as anti-democratic, Bukele proved beyond any doubt that his policies were the expression of his people’s will—a scary prospect to some. Now he prepares to take on challenges of a new sort, as he sets about tackling inflation and boosting living standards. While Bukele makes good on his promise to make history, our guy, Boris, is already composting in the dustbin of history.
Both men were elected at the same time, both marked a nominal departure from their predecessors, both were opposed by the elements from the Left and Right and both promised big things. But unlike Bukele, Boris bottled it. What is now a flood of illegal migration began as a trickle under his watch. The prime minister was content to put as many Africans as could cross the Channel in hotels at taxpayer’s expense. Not until 2022 did he emerge with the Rwanda Plan—a proposal which remains in stasis—blocked by unelected Lords who would no doubt win the favour of those who chide Bukele as anti-democratic.
Boris won historic support in Labour heartlands, in part because of his pledge to ‘level up.’ Today Britain’s roads are the envy only of the fourth-world. His major infrastructure schemes, HS2, the Oxford to Cambridge expressway, the Irish Sea Bridge, have all been scrapped. NHS waiting lists skyrocketed, prices soared and employment remained stagnant. Far easier than making good on his promises, Boris decided, was to spend his brief spell as ‘Big Dog’ lecturing foreign leaders on LGBT rights and currying globalist plaudits at COP.
It is all the worse because Boris Johnson was the first prime minister for some time who promised to do something. David Cameron openly declared “there is no choice” but to impose austerity. Blair claimed his vision of the future was inevitable. But after Brexit, the cross-bench consensus of doing nothing became untenable. People had voted in historic numbers for something, anything, to happen.
Those happenings, the Bukele Option, might in the British context involve deploying the army to safeguard the border. It could be mandatory life sentences for those caught carrying knives. It would be billions spent on infrastructure, rather than migrant hotel bills. And it would be a thorough clearout of the institutions, and the replacing of key figures with allies. But such an option requires such a man, and Boris was never that man, because the system cannot reform itself. In this sense, ‘politics’ can’t solve Britain’s problems; it is the problem, or at least the politicians are.
The solution to every problem is simple. Criminals should be arrested, migrants stopped, subversives booted, disorder smashed. All that is required for these things to happen is for a leader with some gumption to sign a bit of paper telling the chief of the army or the police or the BBC to do it. And if they refuse, someone else who wants their job will step up.
Those same democrats who would screech at such a proposal, giddily fall over themselves on each occasion the King—yes, the King—makes a remark understood as critical of the government. They applaud Lords and Ladies who block bills, cheer on MPs who blocked Brexit and idolise Blair’s Supreme Court. Look no further than the recent unappealable decision from the ECHR, that Switzerland should pay compensation for the gendered impact of heatwaves—resulting, the court agreed, from climate inaction on the part of the country. In their ruling they said:
[D]emocracy cannot be reduced to the will of the majority of the electorate and elected representatives, in disregard of the requirements of the rule of law.
The only thing that matters to them, and any with eyes to see, is power, and how to wield it. It should be taken, and used. That’s what taking the Bukele option means. Britain just needs someone willing to push the button.
The Bukele Option
Nayib Bukele in 2022. Photo by Casa Presidencial El Salvador, CC BY-SA 1.0, via Flickr.
The problem with Britain is that it doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t control its borders, it doesn’t enforce its laws, it doesn’t build anything. It’s not only a British problem or even Britain’s only problem, but there is something essentially British about it. On the Left and the Right, government apparatchiks, political parties, and lawmakers are all conservative—in the worst sense of the word. Given a free hand, the Leftist gender radicals and the right-wing Tories would have us living in the same sprawling favelas, bulging obscenely with ever-growing human capital and dominated by a small number of American corporations. But in recent times an unlikely figure, the president of El Salvador, has remade the rules on getting things done—and he should be looked to for inspiration.
Nayib Bukele, the 42-year-old President of El Salvador, came to power in June 2019—just six months after Boris Johnson won a landslide victory in the UK promising to reduce immigration, freeze taxes, and boost the NHS. Bukele’s problems were of a different sort. He inherited the responsibility for one of the most dangerous countries in the world, ravaged by gang violence, plagued by poverty, and riddled with corruption. But his approach to taking issues head-on, and winning, should be instructive.
Within days of his inauguration, Bukele initiated his ‘Territorial Control Plan.’ It began almost immediately with the deployment of thousands of soldiers and police officers to problem areas. An organised crime think tank called InSight Crime said at the time that Bukele’s policies would result in “few successes” and “gangs becoming stronger.” Think tanks shouldn’t be listened to. Bukele’s forces would eventually surround and extract the gang members from their strongholds, in a series of mass arrests which have seen more than 76,000 people thrown in jail.
By 2022 the murder rate had fallen from 38 in 100,000 to just 7.8, and in 2023 it fell a further 70%, to just 2.4 murders for every 100,00 citizens—half the homicides per head than occurred in the United States in the same year. But it wasn’t easy for Bukele to get this done. He had to battle the usual suspects—overly cautious, flat-footed legislators, nose-poking globalists, and do-gooder NGOs who are always keen to warn of the ‘grave dangers’ of doing things.
The crackdown, Bukele had argued, needed more money. He sought to borrow $109 million, which would fund better equipment for the army and police, including new vehicles and surveillance equipment. When opposition lawmakers voted it down, sending it for consideration at that most dreaded of places—a committee—he summoned them to their seats. Arriving in the legislature, the opposition parties found themselves surrounded by heavily armed soldiers. While they cried ‘coup’ Bukele’s popularity soared. Reporting on the incident at the time, The Washington Post noted: “Bukele is popular with the people but not with lawmakers.” The howls of Amnesty International were soundly ignored.
Earlier this year, Bukele was re-elected with more than 80% of the vote. After years of being condemned as anti-democratic, Bukele proved beyond any doubt that his policies were the expression of his people’s will—a scary prospect to some. Now he prepares to take on challenges of a new sort, as he sets about tackling inflation and boosting living standards. While Bukele makes good on his promise to make history, our guy, Boris, is already composting in the dustbin of history.
Both men were elected at the same time, both marked a nominal departure from their predecessors, both were opposed by the elements from the Left and Right and both promised big things. But unlike Bukele, Boris bottled it. What is now a flood of illegal migration began as a trickle under his watch. The prime minister was content to put as many Africans as could cross the Channel in hotels at taxpayer’s expense. Not until 2022 did he emerge with the Rwanda Plan—a proposal which remains in stasis—blocked by unelected Lords who would no doubt win the favour of those who chide Bukele as anti-democratic.
Boris won historic support in Labour heartlands, in part because of his pledge to ‘level up.’ Today Britain’s roads are the envy only of the fourth-world. His major infrastructure schemes, HS2, the Oxford to Cambridge expressway, the Irish Sea Bridge, have all been scrapped. NHS waiting lists skyrocketed, prices soared and employment remained stagnant. Far easier than making good on his promises, Boris decided, was to spend his brief spell as ‘Big Dog’ lecturing foreign leaders on LGBT rights and currying globalist plaudits at COP.
It is all the worse because Boris Johnson was the first prime minister for some time who promised to do something. David Cameron openly declared “there is no choice” but to impose austerity. Blair claimed his vision of the future was inevitable. But after Brexit, the cross-bench consensus of doing nothing became untenable. People had voted in historic numbers for something, anything, to happen.
Those happenings, the Bukele Option, might in the British context involve deploying the army to safeguard the border. It could be mandatory life sentences for those caught carrying knives. It would be billions spent on infrastructure, rather than migrant hotel bills. And it would be a thorough clearout of the institutions, and the replacing of key figures with allies. But such an option requires such a man, and Boris was never that man, because the system cannot reform itself. In this sense, ‘politics’ can’t solve Britain’s problems; it is the problem, or at least the politicians are.
The solution to every problem is simple. Criminals should be arrested, migrants stopped, subversives booted, disorder smashed. All that is required for these things to happen is for a leader with some gumption to sign a bit of paper telling the chief of the army or the police or the BBC to do it. And if they refuse, someone else who wants their job will step up.
Those same democrats who would screech at such a proposal, giddily fall over themselves on each occasion the King—yes, the King—makes a remark understood as critical of the government. They applaud Lords and Ladies who block bills, cheer on MPs who blocked Brexit and idolise Blair’s Supreme Court. Look no further than the recent unappealable decision from the ECHR, that Switzerland should pay compensation for the gendered impact of heatwaves—resulting, the court agreed, from climate inaction on the part of the country. In their ruling they said:
The only thing that matters to them, and any with eyes to see, is power, and how to wield it. It should be taken, and used. That’s what taking the Bukele option means. Britain just needs someone willing to push the button.
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