Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss (L) and former chancellor to the exchequer Rishi Sunak, contenders to become the country's next prime minister, arrive to take part in the BBC's 'The UK's Next Prime Minister: The Debate' in Victoria Hall in Stoke-on-Trent, central England. - AFP PIC
Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss (L) and former chancellor to the exchequer Rishi Sunak, contenders to become the country's next prime minister, arrive to take part in the BBC's 'The UK's Next Prime Minister: The Debate' in Victoria Hall in Stoke-on-Trent, central England. - AFP PIC

Britain is in a sorry state. Soon it will be in a sorrier state when either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss gets to be the prime minister.

Here is why. With integrity on the wrong side of his character balance sheet, Boris Johnson was never good for Britain. He had developed a personal brand of lying: no, yes, sorry, in that order. This finally did him in, although why it didn't happen earlier is anybody's guess. Britain isn't the only country where character blemish is given a calculated miss by political parties and voters.

Like the insular nation, Malaysia, too, has a recent history of the sort Johnson suffers from. No, do not go blaming our colonial master for our character flaws, tragic or otherwise. To the extent God has willed, we are the masters of our own destiny. Flaws remain with us because we do not choose the straight path. Johnson not only didn't choose. He was an unrepentant repeat offender.

We can't say this about the future Sunak, but we can declare a thing or two about the past chancellor. Partygate, the fun and frolic that went on behind the world's most famous black door at 10 Downing Street, had Johnson as the lead actor. Sunak was one of the dramatis personae. Both got away with fines. While it was a lockdown for ordinary Britons in Covid-19-hit London, it was festivities for Johnson and gang. It didn't stop there.

In April, the chancellor's wife, Akshata Murty, finally revealed that she was a "non-dom", meaning she was not paying tax on all her worldwide income. Not after a media blitz on the scandal. A chancellor's wife a "non-dom"? Murty, an Indian billionaire's daughter and shareholder in his IT company, has now agreed to pay the taxes, but not past taxes beyond last year. In some countries, finance ministers' wives get to choose which taxes to pay. Or not to pay at all. According to an estimate of The Guardian, she may have saved herself £20 million in taxes from foreign earnings.

It gets worse. Sunak, it turns out, was an American green card holder for more than six years, 18 months of which he was the chancellor. A finance minister with migration on his mind? What loyalty.

If Sunak is a small chip of Johnson (scandals and racism, that is), the "I'd send more migrants (of colour) to Africa" Truss is all of Johnson and more. It will be Johnson's Rwanda we guess for the poor refugees. Small wonder, she didn't join Sunak and gang to force him out.

Like Johnson, she will be a dangerous prime minister for Britain. And a menace for the rest of the world. For Britain, it will be racism till January 2025, when the general election is due, unless called earlier.

For the rest of the world — make it the rest of the non-White world — it will be a "civilisational" battle between the so-called "free world" of the West and the "unfree" non-West. This isn't our invention. It is Truss's language of choice. Call it the diction of dictators of the "free world". Power has its own prejudice.

Sunak or Truss as prime minister is not the way for a serious country to run itself. Perhaps Britain is no longer a serious country. Britain must prepare for chaos after September. So must the rest of the world.