In a speech in early 2019, then-British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt extolled Singapore as a model for the UK post-Brexit. This idea has persisted throughout the Brexit campaign and the debate over the future direction of post-Brexit UK. Implicit in these models is a vision of Singapore as an economically liberal, “low-tax, low-spend, low-regulation” environment that appeals to many anxious over Brexit. This is underpinned by a myth of Singapore having successfully transformed itself from a small fishing village into a gleaming, modern, cosmopolitan, and prosperous society while uplifting its people from poverty into a country with one of the world’s highest per capita GDP. But how accurate is this vision of Singapore? In this talk, given at Oxford on 21 November 2019, Dr PJ Thum unpacks the common myths and misunderstandings surrounding Singapore, explains the economic, political, and social mechanisms used by the ruling People’s Action Party to achieve its aims, and offers potential lessons for a Britain searching for its role in post-Brexit world.
