 |
| Unless some kind of revolutionary movement is quickly given to political
establishment, the lights on the island will soon turn off.
(Source: Berliner
Zeitung originator: dpa)
| |
The Brexite has plunged many Britons
into a national identity crisis. Especially the supporters of the
leave hope for a real catharsis from the "pollution" by the
European Union. They are prepared to take on heavy burdens and
renunciations for years to come. But the national conflict is also
based on very old feathers. Between the north and the south of
England; between Anglicans and those who never want to be, and
between generations.
Only a few are really aware, it is only
the royal house which carries the crowns of England and Wales and
Scotland in personal union as kings. Only this holds the so-called
"Great Britain" as a state structure together at all. There
are good reasons, why this Great Britain still has no modern
constitution. This personal union would then probably have to be
abandoned and with it the symbolic union of the crowns in one person.
Ultimately, what we have perceived as the United Kingdom for about
four hundred years is about to disintegrate. The English aversion to
Welsh and Scots is already legendary and often enough the stuff of
jokes. Hardly anyone realise, however, the centuries-long rift
between the north and the south within England. But that's what
finally led to Brexit.
Historical North-South conflict
The relationship between the north of
England with places like York, Liverpool, Manchester and the south
with its centre London has always been problematic in England.
Without going too far back in history, the rebellion of the North in
the "Pilgrimage of Grace" during the reign of King Henry
VIII in the 1530s may be recalled. Perhaps because of Henry's
separation from Catholicism, the rebellion against the king ends
after some back and forth with a terrible revenge by Henry on the
rebellious ones in the north. He finally had all the leaders of the
rebellion executed in public.
 |
König Heinrich VIII (1491-1547)
(Source: wikipedia, licence free,
Workshop Hans Holbein the Younger |
Never again should the North of
England, in the reputation of English society as a whole, come even
close to the level of the South English. To this day, northern
Englishmen, especially in the eyes of the Londoners, are regarded as
backward, uncouth, awkward, narrow-minded and stubborn. They are
defamed as uncouth people, capable neither of the fine language nor
the fine customs of the noble Southern Englishmen. Later, in the
beginning industrial age, which finally had its origin in England
thanks to the steam engine, the North was mainly used as a supplier
of coal and as a steel factory, without really being loved by the
South. In the eyes of the South English, the North remains a region
where one can only get dirty.
With the growing colonial empire in the
18th and 19th centuries, the British made the same fundamental
mistakes as other European colonial powers. They exploited the
colonies mercilessly and thus created a questionable wealth at home.
However, it lacked completely the domestic economic substance. That,
above all, is the difference to major continental powers such as the
USA, Russia and, more recently, China. They have, at least
theoretically, so many resources of people and material in their own
country that they can try to live up to their ambitions on their own.
The two world wars also contributed to the economic decline of the
"Empire". They also sucked the last reserves out of Great
Britain. Soon the motherland could no longer hold its colonies. Since
the 1960s, Great Britain has been reduced to the economic power of a
population of around 60 million people. Thus one finally arrived
where one had never wanted to go in England since the 17th century,
in Europe!
Modern Confrontation
After Britain had actually lost its
global significance and had long since ceased to be called "Great",
the country spun into two almost civil war-like conflicts: the war in
Northern Ireland and the merciless struggle of the powerful trade
unions with their base of workers, especially from the North. In this
phase, Margaret Thatcher, a strictly patriotic conservative
politician, came to power in London as prime minister. She is
determined to resist the country's obvious decline. Meanwhile, the
Americans, under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, are also preparing
to withdraw London its important rank, as the financial and trading
centre of the world. The country threatened to become even more of a
peripheral phenomenon in Europe.
 |
Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)
(Source: wikipedia, originator: Chris Collins /
Margaret
Thatcher Foundation / CC BY-SA 3.0)
|
Margarete Thatcher, whose hatred of
ordinary workers and trade unions was indelible, actually managed to
break the social neck of this class and its organizations once and
for all. Once again, the proud class of workers from the north of the
country was to be deprived of everything. Even today, the devastating
condition of the Liverpool and Manchester areas testifies to this
defeat. But Thatcher not only wanted a single victory, she wanted to
prevent a renewed resistance from industrial workers forever. Her
instrument was to be the targeted development of a strong service
economy at the expense of a traditional industrial production
economy. The starting signal for this would be the Big Bang. The
complete liberalisation of the British financial sector in October
1986. Since then, an increasingly rapid economic divide has developed
for a long time between the north and south of England. From year to
year, the City of London made more and more fantastic profits in the
trading of funds and securities. The tough boys and girls from the
City of London became enormously inventive in their lax handling of
laws, especially tax law. At the same time, many of them earned
millions in bonuses year after year. As a result, property prices
skyrocketed not only in London, but also in large parts of southern
England. On the other hand, property values fell in the north. While
salaries in the south skyrocketed to unprecedented levels,
unemployment rose in the north. As if to mock the poor, the English
Financial Times regularly published a glossy magazine with the
meaningful name "How to spend it". This was addressed to a
few nouveau riches. It served to answer the very difficult question
of how they could most senselessly bring their million-dollar bonuses
back to the people.
Problems of Class Society
But that alone is not the only
rejection of English society on the islands. It has always been a
class society. Old nobility and nouveau riches clearly distinguish
themselves from the rest of the population but also from each other.
Non-hereditary nobility titles only for lifetime are nothing more
than elaborate orders of merit. Of course, the old nobility
distinguishes itself from such upstarts. It is almost impossible to
ascend socially to the highest circles via the way to school and even
through personal talent. Overpriced private school institutions offer
young Britons hardly any development opportunities, even if
well-heeled parents are behind them and can buy their children a
place in such schools. England, which prefers to train the offspring
of rich foreigners, with whom these schools can earn a lot of good
money, rather than systematically promote its own talents for cheap
fares, has been suffering for decades from a secret brain drain that
no government has so far been able to counter with anything. No
bourgeois businessman, no matter how successful, can ever ascend to
the innermost social circles of the long-established aristocracy.
Rich businessmen from abroad certainly don't. The long-standing
racism of a white, Anglican Protestant upper class and the rest of
English society has not improved throughout the centuries.
Foreigners, regardless of their origin, have always been tolerated
only for time and only for economic reasons, but in the end have
never really been accepted, or even integrated. Immigrants from the
former colonies, today somewhat dressed up as the "Commonwealth
of Nations", are easily preferred to other foreigners from
"third" countries. But in the end they form a parallel
society. At times this picture has changed in the country due to
membership of the European Union. Union Europeans enjoyed a degree of
freedom of movement that even Commonwealth members were unlikely to
enjoy. They can enter and leave the country as they wish, work
without special official controls and even buy what they want,
without any customs. As long as the EU was dominated by Western
countries, that did not matter much to the English. At the latest,
however, since the eastward enlargement of the EU, many people view
these new EU citizens with great distrust. Again, especially in the
north of England, where Eastern Europeans compete with their native
counterparts on the labour market because of their relative modesty.
 |
| Theresa May also allows herself to be influenced in her politics
by misjudge
(Source:
wikipedia. open government licence,
Originator:
https://www.gov.uk/governmenploads/system/
uploads/attachment_data/file/588948/
Controller
of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office)
| |
Misjudgements
In the meantime, economic ties with the
European Union have become so tightly knit in such a way that a
detachment will be painful for both parties, but could even be fatal
for Britain. At best, the country still plays a role internationally
in areas such as the chemical industry and pharmaceuticals. Recently,
it has even been used to electronically sniff out alleged opponents
of all kinds and origins. Separated from the EU, the British could
not even feed themselves from domestic production in the foreseeable
future. The mandatory import of food and daily necessities is likely
to drive the prices of these goods to unexpected heights in the event
of an unregulated Brexit. Such an increase in prices will not be
matched by a corresponding increase in income for a long time to
come. The enforced end of the heavy industry and the sell-out of
entire industries by Margarete Thatcher, such as the automobile
industry to various foreign owners, have made the country so
dependent on important production opportunities in other countries
that an interruption of this chain of goods will immediately lead to
production stoppages.
The importance of England as a military
power, which some like to praise, is simply an illusion. It may well be that the country has
some nuclear toys. However, when you look at it in the light of
things, all the effort that has been put into it has been of no use
in effectively resisting any aggressive action by various countries,
pirates or terrorist organisations. However, the maintenance of the
strategic weapons causes immense costs for the already weakening
economy. The country is already no longer in a position to build new
nuclear submarines for itself, for example. It lacks the necessary
shipyard capacities and the necessary know-how. For example, they are
forced to order replacements for the outdated nuclear submarines in
France and have them built there. The costs for this will then rise
in future, probably by 25 percent customs surcharge. The company
proudly refers to its own construction of two modern helicopter
carriers near Aberdeen in Scotland. One is supposedly finished, the
other is still under construction. Admittedly, for the time being the
two are useless because they do not have the helicopters that are
supposed to be the core deployment systems of the two costly
carriers. These two prestige objects were not laid on keel for the
own national defence anyway. Someone in London years ago came up with
the clever idea of lending these weapon systems to other users for
money. The main focus is on Singapore.
 |
David Cameron
(Source:
wikipedia, copyright notice,
Originator:
Meet the PM (direct image link)
from
the 10 Downing Street Website)
|
Gamblers
How did the victory of the Brexit
supporters come about two years ago? Because a politically
disinterested, slightly arrogant and blasé relatively young British
population, based in the south of England, was too sad to be strongly
committed to its own future at the decisive moment. On the other
hand, the older people, who had always been disparaged and treated
badly by London, were busy going to the ballot boxes, especially in
the north, and forced a triumph in their eyes. Nothing that populist
politicians like Nigel Farage or a Boris Johnson promised to the
people two years ago will come close to what they promised. This may
well dawn on the last citizen in the meantime. But it is to be feared
that a majority of the English electorate is still more willing to
shoulder heavy burdens and renunciations for years to come than to
give up the dream of regaining full national sovereignty.
Some politicians in the European Union
fear that Britain's resignation may become an example of ambition for
other Member States. That is not to be feared! On the contrary, the
inevitable, blatant decline of Great Britain will make it clear to
many a national political muddlers that their small nations, which
cannot survive on their own, will only be able to leave a little more
of their national proud if they are embedded with a strengthened EU.
Other than that, all what's left for those countries, is being just
the destination of hundreds of thousands of Asian tourists in the
future .
