Just 100 years ago, Great Britain was the premier power in the world. "The sun never sets on the British Empire" was not just a pithy saying, it was an actual fact. The official title of George V was "By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India," and while you always have to take royal titles with a grain of salt, his was, if anything, understated. He ruled over 412 million people, a staggering 24% of the world's population at the time, and held dominion over 13,700,000 square miles, almost a quarter of all the land on the planet. Everyone else, including those upstarts over in the US, was a distant second fiddle next to the glory of Britain.
But of course, they were an Empire, with all the problems that entails. Empires are temporary things, after all, and the British are perhaps to be commended for the relative grace with which they surrendered theirs once it became clear it was untenable. Two insanely costly world wars and the rise of her bastard child left Britain a shell of its former self, but even after those, she was still considered one of the world's major powers. And various British leaders, most especially Thatcher, felt obliged to occasionally remind the world why Britain held this position. I'm not THAT old yet, but I remember when Britain sent troops and ships to a tiny set of islands halfway across the world in order to kick the shit out of Argentina.
Fast forward to 2018, and Theresa May's...well, I guess we'll call it a plan. And as far as I can tell, May seems to be conceding that Britain is now incapable of doing even the most basic tasks expected of a nation state. Control it's own borders? Nope. Too hard. Gonna have to concede to the EU's "mobility framework." Determine it's own trade policy? Gah. Can't. We'll just have to submit to the ECJ. Determine her own laws? Well of course! Unless they contradict EU regulations, of course. Then we'll have no choice but to concede, lest we face penalties.
Isn't this the nation that promised to fight them on the beaches, in the fields, in the streets and towns and shops? The Empire That Never Sleeps is now the nation that can't so much as run a border checkpoint?It's not like I think Brexit is a good idea or anything. It's almost certainly a stupid idea. But I had no idea that Britain had fallen so far that it was no longer able to function as an independent nation, which is my takeaway from the last week or so. Heck, it seems like its getting harder for Britain to even hold itself together. I constantly read threats that Scotland will leave if Brexit goes badly, that Northern Ireland must break away from Great Britain...heck, you can even find the fevered (if probably delusional) dreams of an independent London City-State if you go looking.
Now granted, I'm American, and the influence that Great Britain has played in our country has been unique and long-lasting. It's very likely that I hold many misinformed notions about our neighbor across the pond. But as I flip from watching Gary Oldman channel Churchill in Darkest Hour to watching May stumble around a country estate trying to peddle a plan that Chamberlain would have looked at in horror, I find myself at a loss.
What the hell happened to you, Britain? You used to be cool. Or at least, you know, stable.
