Britain’s Domestic Raw Deal and Its Consequences

One hundred days into the premiership of Rishi Sunak and on the third anniversary of fully leaving the European Union, Britain is now in the global reanimation ward of the world economy.

The recent efforts about trying to patch things up with the EU in Brussels, though welcome, make no difference to the homemade wave of misery.

A perilous future

Britain’s future looks more and more perilous. Just consider these facts: The IMF celebrated the third anniversary of the UK leaving the EU by saying that, based on its forecast for UK GDP growth in 2023, Britain would place below Russia. Moreover, Brexit Britain would be the only member of the G7 with a negative growth rate this year.

The UK government’s own Office of National Statistics followed up by saying that in 2022 insolvencies had risen by 52% – the largest increase since the global financial crisis 14 years ago.

Add to that the fact that one-third of all small and medium-sized companies in the UK have stopped exporting to Europe. It is even difficult to get books sent from Europe as customs duties or extra VAT, administered in a very cumbersome manner, have to be paid.

Not focused on the people’s needs

The death of the Queen has lifted the veil on some deeper rottenness at the heart of the British state. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, has just had to dismiss the Conservative Party chairman for telling lies about his tax returns.

And Boris Johnson is in trouble after it was revealed the man he made Chairman of the BBC, the most important media post in Britain, had helped arrange a loan of £800,000 for then Prime Minister.

These are seedy, sleazy examples of a political class which believes in its entitlement and ignores all the old traditions requiring ministers to be honest and accountable.

They underscore that the Tories’ promises to look after the well less-off people – remember Boris Johnson’s statements about the industrial north? – are only political rhetoric aimed at protecting the Conservative Party’s prospects to remain in power.

Striking for survival

The country is gripped by a strike wave not seen in Europe since the Great General strikes in favor of the Communist revolution in Russia 100 years ago. In mid-March, all schools in England will be closed due to teachers going on strike. The great railway termini of London are barricaded up. Buses don’t run.

Doctors, surgeons, nurses and ambulance drivers go on strike as do civil servants who staff border control crossings or deliver driving licenses.

The current wave of strikes gripping the UK reflects the raw deal that is at the heart of Britain’s still very class-based economic set-up. They are notably not a reflection of union militancy or a left-wing anti-Conservative sentiment.

They are simply the logical consequence of the fact that for the last 12 years so much of national wealth has been taken away from public service and transferred to the rich and the better off in Britain via tax cuts and other grants.

Greed, fear, lies, intellectual corruption as well as bending state power to personal enrichment now are rife in much of the British ruling class.

The height of Tory lunacy

The height of Tory lunacy is their preposterous claim, underpinning Brexit, that leaving Europe would unchain Britannia and send it soaring into a 21st century future as a reborn world-beating economic Superman.

Statements by British commentators arguing that EU membership held back the animal spirits of UK capitalists have proven to be a complete and utter fantasy.

As a result of all that preposterousness, Britain is lacking scientists who can’t come and work here anymore because of new regulations. It is lacking 300,000 EU-trained doctors, nurses and dentists who were de facto expelled from Britain because of new regulations.

In a strangely self-defeatist move, series of nationalist Tory governments were gunning hard to make Britain “Europafrei” (free of Europe).

Even the one-time umbilical cord, the Eurostar train service, is impacted. Extensive delays and controls mean it is no longer profitable to run a full set of passenger trains to Paris or Brussels.

No royal rejuvenation

There won’t be any respite on the royal front, either. The King has no authority. Prince Charles is 75 years old this year and looks every day of his many years. He insists on having a coronation in May – the only Royal family or monarchy in Europe that still bothers with full-blown medieval pomp and grandeur.

It doesn’t help that it is not clear at this juncture whether his son Prince Harry will be invited. It is very clear that the next in line for the monarchy, Prince William, does not like his little brother.

And the whole royal household has made it as awkward as possible for Prince Harry‘s African-American wife to be fully made welcome in the all white upper reaches of the British ruling elites.

Little wonder then that, with Australia about to issue a new $5 note, the Australian government, for the first time in that nation’s history, will no longer have the head of the monarch on its currency. This change has been warmly greeted, as Australians no longer see any real connection with Britain or the Commonwealth, according to BBC interviews in Australia.

Politically misguided and empty

Since Brexit in 2016, the decadence and irresponsibility of the ruling elites in Britain has been exposed.

It fits into this picture of disdain that Vladmir Putin poured resources into Brexit as he shared with Rupert Murdoch an abiding hate of the European Union with its partnerships and common rule book.

Brexit gave us three of the worst prime ministers in British history, a hapless Theresa May, a consummate liar in Boris Johnson, and a “here this morning, gone this afternoon” Liz Truss.

Richie Rishi

In Rishi Sunak, the UK now has an Indian-origin prime minister,  a strict Hindu. While that in itself is a refreshing sign of the country’s openness, his family wealth is as big as that of King Charles. Sunak has led significant parts of his adult life outside Britain, becoming as rich as Midas not least by dint of marriage.

Whatever he tries to project in terms of dynamism and economic competence, Sunak has no idea of the day-to-day problems of British people. Although he is trying hard, under his leadership the Tory Party is facing its lowest poll ratings in decades.

Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, may well emerge as prime minister next year.

Uncertainty reigns

Britain has never felt so uncertain, so lacking in leadership, so contemptuous of its institutions – government, judges, the police. It has an army so weak that a U.S. general said Britain could not put a division into the field. Its rundown schools, hospital and other public services are similarly stressed.

The decision to leave Europe only further aggravates these weaknesses. Alas, there is no sign on the horizon of new people or new ideas that can stop the decline.

Without the EU to blame, British leaders will finally have to deal with the decline and home-spun problems Britain faces and take appropriate remedial measures.

Like the Habsburgs

However, there is not the slightest evidence that is happening. Britain, like previous imperial powers (think of the Ottomans and the Habsburgs), is settling down to a long era of genteel decline.

It won’t be a happy genteel decline but an unhappy never-ending “Brexiternity” – a country caught in quarrels and blame games, new hates against refugees, immigrants and anything with the word “European” as a describer.

Britain is the sick man of Europe, with no cure on the horizon.