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THE world, as we know it, is going through a seismic shift with political developments in the two superpowers set to define the global agenda in the not so distant future. It is frightening that the British and American people are veering more and more to the far right due to a plethora of factors.The rise of Donald Trump, an eccentric conservative businessman cum politician in the Republican Party has fascinated and alarmed Americans in equal measure with his extreme policies on immigration torching frenzied debate. Trump is the presumptive Republican Party nominee for US president in elections slated for November and his slogan, “Let’s make America Great Again”, is resonating with white America, particularly those people who feel their country needs to take its “rightful” place in the world.

In Trump, they see a man who will protect white interests, curb the influx of immigrants, particularly Muslims, and assert America’s superpower status to check the rise of China and Russia. The real estate tycoon’s style is abrasive and direct and in doing so he has appealed to Middle America – those blue collar workers in rural and suburban states who have seen their status gradually whittled as they lose jobs and access to social amenities such as health care.

Despite a barracking in the mainstream US media and from his own Republican Party top honchos, Trump has emerged unscathed and is marching straight to the White House against all odds. This suggests that he is speaking for the majority of the people of America even though they will not come out publicly to back his policies.

On Friday, across the pond in Britain, the country was rocked by the results of a referendum which saw the majority of the people voting to leave the European Union. Fronted by Conservative Party former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, the leave campaign largely played on the insecurities of older, uneducated Britons who yearn for the good old days of the British Empire.

So passionate were the leave proponents that they were even prepared to kill for their cause. Jo Cox, the British Labour Party Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen, died after being shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall, West Yorkshire, England, shortly before she was due to hold a constituency meeting. Her attacker, Thomas Mair, a right winger, shouted “put Britain first” before killing her.

Despite the obvious adverse ramifications of the referendum outcome, far right politicians like UKIP leader Nigel Farage are celebrating the victory, even branding it Britain’s “Independence Day”. The world should be alarmed at the latest turn of events in the US and Britain. Two far right conservative governments at the helm of the world’s two foremost powers can only mean more heartache for smaller weaker nations like Zimbabwe.

Trump can only make “America great again” by reasserting its global dominion in all spheres of life. In the same vein, a Conservative government led by Johnson, as it looks increasingly likely, can only mean London retracing its steps back to the Empire complete with iron grip control over its territories. Immigration was also a big issue for the leave campaigners who saw an influx of migrants from Eastern Europe and the Middle East as a threat to their quality of life.

Conservatives are also the party with a strong connection to colonial Britain and some of their members are still land barons in overseas territories, Zimbabwe included. Britain’s exit from the European Union means that there will be direct engagement between Harare and London and given the frosty relations currently in play, prospects of a breakthrough look grim.

Land has been at the centre of the dispute between Zimbabwe and Britain and with President Mugabe having declared that the agrarian revolution is irreversible, chances of a normalisation of relations are bleak. We can only hope that since the Conservatives are the ones who negotiated the Lancaster House Agreement under Margaret Thatcher, they might see sense in re-engaging Zimbabwe as they are privy to the clause which enjoined Britain to fund the land redistribution programme.

However, given the manner in which the UK has internationalised a purely bilateral dispute with its former colony, it will be hard to see it making a volte face and admitting the error of its ways. Given the above scenarios, we would advise against celebrating Britain’s exit from the EU and urge authorities to continue monitoring developments as they unfold.

What is clear though, is the imminent radical shift from moderate policies of Democrats and Labour in the US and UK respectively to the far right regimes fronted by Trump and Johnson. We can only pray for a miracle to stop these individuals from assuming the levers of power at a time when anti-American and British sentiment is running high particularly in the Muslim world.