UK mustn’t lecture others on democracy: Official

The UK should be careful in “lecturing” other countries about democracy due to its own undemocratic colonial history, Britain’s shadow business secretary warns.

Chuka Umunna made the remarks in an interview with the parliament’s The House magazine, British media reported on Friday.

Umunna (pictured below) argued that London cannot pose as a “saint” because Britain turned a blind eye to democracy in the past.

“We just went into places and had complete disregard for any kind of notions of democracy; we thought we would take resources and the wealth of other countries,” Umunna added.

The shadow secretary continued by saying that he will always promote democracy; however, “we have to be quite careful when we seem to go around lecturing the rest of the world about these things.”

In addition, Umunna spoke of a recent trip to China, in which he told his hosts that he felt “nervous” criticizing the Chinese government “given my country’s history.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Umunna called for a “dramatic” reduction by up to a third in the number of British ministers, saying, “it seems to me having a central government of 80 ministers is a complete anachronism.”

The shadow secretary also called for devolution of government powers saying “there’s a problem with statism when you impose everything from the center.”

“Given there isn’t as much money around, how do we have a much smarter, more nimble enterprising state that is spreading opportunity and spreading wealth? In a way that’s what modernization is all about,” said Umunna.