Greg Hands

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This article is written in the 'future' (2022) and thus does not reflect the state of affairs in the present day, 1954. It does however represent a premonition of what is to come.

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## Politics

### Ranks held

Foreign Minister 2020-Commerce Minister 2017-2020 Deputy Education Minister 2015-2017

**Gregory William Hands** is a British politician who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Union of Britain since 2020. Formerly a member of the United Democrats, he was a part of the first wave of defections to the breakaway New Union Party in 2008. He has served as Member of the Common Assembly for Chelsea and Fulham since 2004.

Born in 1965 in New York, Hands's parents were forced to return to Britain when he was only a year old, amidst new leader Richard Nixon's hardening stance against British immigrants in the aftermath of his fallout with Oswald Mosley. Hands studied Modern History at Cambridge National University, and was chairman of the Cambridge Parliamentarian Society, supporting John Smith's reformist wing of the Labour Party. He graduated in 1989, and spent ten years after university in banking, working in the City of London.

Joining the United Democrats amidst the Counterrevolution, Hands stood as a Councillor for Hammersmith in 1999, and served in that position for five years, becoming Council Leader in 2001. In 2004, he stood successfully for the Common Assembly as the UD candidate for Chelsea and Fulham. He served on the Economic Select Committee and briefly on the International Development Committee, before joining the defections to the New Union Party in 2008. In the brief period of Opposition before the 2009 snap election, he served as Shadow Minister for Banking, before being appointed as PPS to George Osborne in the New Union-Millennium Party coalition.

Alongside David Gauke, Hands emerged as one of Osborne's top lieutenants, and was promoted to his old position of Banking Minister in March 2011 after the incumbent Sajid Javid's resignation. After the 2011 snap election, he was shuffled to the Foreign Office as Deputy Minister for Europe, taking a leading role in Britain's involvement in the ongoing democratisation of Western Europe. He remained chiefly loyal to the Treasury however, and was seen as Osborne's man in the foreign office.

Hands played a major role in Osborne's campaign for the leadership of the New Union Party, following Alan Duncan's resignation in 2015: it was he who nominated Osborne as candidate (David Gauke seconding). After Osborne's victory and subsequent elevation to Minister-President, he raised Hands to Deputy Minister of Education, a position entitling him to attend Cabinet. Following the 2017 general election, he was promoted to a full Cabinet position as Minister of Commerce, which saw him deeply involved in the process of negotiating the EUROCOM Accords.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hands was responsible for steering British trade policy amidst the effects of the global shutdown caused by the pandemic. Amidst the Partygate scandal, surrounding Foreign Minister Al Johnson holding a birthday party during lockdown restrictions, Hands attracted controversy by first refusing to condemn Johnson's breaking of the law and then attacking his United Democrat cabinet colleagues for doing so. Following Johnson's resignation, George Osborne promoted Hands to Minister of Foreign Affairs: the decision was criticised by the Opposition and by some in the UD for the perception it gave of rewarding Hands's refusal to criticise Johnson.

Hands today is often touted as a possible successor to Osborne as leader of the New Union Party, though his fierce loyalty to the Minister-President precludes any speculation as to whether he would ever move against him. Such a scenario also rests on whether Hands remains in the Common Assembly; he holds only a slim majority over the United Democrats in his constituency, with current projections showing he would lose his seat in an election.