By Tom Fowdy
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the British Empire was a mercantilist Imperial superpower that backed up the global interests of its ruling classes through unmatchable naval supremacy. The world's first industrialised country which held an edge in scientific innovation, Britain was able to extend its rule over cast dominions in Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, Malaya and Hong Kong, extracting wealth from the resources of these own territories, all while it nurtured settler colony states in Australia, Canada and New Zealand that supported its cause.
Having evolved from the Kingdom of England into a Union state with Scotland, Britain espoused a universalist identity based on value supremacy and enlightenment, paving the way for it to evolve into a multicultural society. Britain's distinctly pragmatic form of governance contrasted sharply from the ethno-nationalist politics found in its emerging rival, Germany, and thus arguably the mantra of "fighting fascism" became a core element of the British identity following the events of the Second World War. To be fascist is un-British.
However, Britain has changed, and the world has changed. The year is now 2025, and the "last remnants of the British empire have been swept away." Britain's story since 1945 has been one of a progressively growing identity conflict, which retreating from global dominion, has failed to come to terms with its place in the world. Britain's own geographical distinctiveness and its exceptionalist history has produced a decades long political conflict over its "belonging" in Europe, which has produced to be politically and economically destabilising as shown by Brexit and its consequences.
Amidst it all, Britain has steadily economically declined since 1945, a trajectory that has started off slowly, but intensified since at least 2008. The demise of the Empire, combined with the rise of other industrial powers in the Post-War world, ultimately gutted Britain's industrial base, an outcome which was made progressively worse by the Neoliberal policies of the 1980s. To give just one example, as late as the 1960s, Britain made ships for the People's Republic of China, who makes those ships now? And is Britain's high-tech industries anything like those seen in China, Japan, or Korea?
It was the vision of the Margaret Thatcher government to try and "save" the country by destroying its stagnating industrial base and replacing it with a financial services economy premised around the City of London, an economy thus tied to the powerhouse of globalization. While these decisions decimated entire regions of the country and exacerbated inequality, it somewhat worked on paper until 2008, when the global financial crisis dealt a hammer blow to the British economy that it has never recovered from since. Further crises, such as Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the decision to derail an early peace in Ukraine, all spearheaded by Boris Johnson, have dealt another nail in the coffin.
The British economy now dwells in a lasting state of stagnation, with minimal growth which hardly exceeds 1% per year, falling behind the rest of the developed world progressively. Recent studies now compare living standards in Britain that of Slovenia, which is a milestone in how far the country has regressed. Amidst the decay, crime in the country has surged, with knife crime and stabbings amongst young people becoming skyrocketing and shoplifting reaching an all-time high, and amidst all the upheaval a shift from mere grievances about Europe to the rise of a highly vitriolic, ethno-nationalism. Conspiracy theorists have become the rulers of the day, who have been able to exploit the disdain for authority so greatly the country is teetering on the brink.
Therefore, with the erosion of the Imperial legacy, the multicultural, universalist consensus Britain shaped in the 20th century is crumbling and risk of ethnic conflict is growing, as manifest in the 2024 riots. The working classes are angry, and have been further led down by a right-leaning Labour government who people hoped would make things better, but declared war on the welfare state and pensioners alike. Keir Starmer is of course the inheritor of the Boris legacy, and I am not blinded by hatred of him unlike others to be blind to that, yet his government have lost people's trust with a catastrophic series of own goals.
Thus, as I have warned for years, Britain is in decline. Such a decline may not be "terminal" or of course a "death kneel" for the country, but the story of my adulthood has been witnessing one of growing economic stagnation, people becoming poorer, and an assessment of the poor choices which has led us up to this point. For Britain to get out of this mess, the entire socio-economic order of the country needs to change. Radical policies are needed, a complete rebuilding of everything from industry to education is needed, before it gets too late.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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