Brexit Britain: a moral and political crisis. How Brexit is destroying Britain from within

The sequence of events following the EU referendum has revealed the callous amorality that lurks at the dark heart of British politics.

Brexit has shown itself to be a ravenous beast of an idea.
Part of the destructive power of Brexit is its ability to be both an idea that is a chameleon (that it means different things to different people), and also has a seemingly-unique ability to bring out the innate divisions in British society, from top to bottom. It is a poison and a cancer on the body politic and society overall, its only ability to corrupt and destroy.
In this sense, Brexit is a political creature of chaos, as seductive and divisive as any ideology from the fork-tongued mouth of "the serpent".

Biblical hyperbole aside, the singular crisis that Britain finds itself in is a result of a series of decisions. It could be argued that some of these decisions were ones that could have been predicted long ago, if a solid analysis had been done of the nature of British politics. In other words, the singular crisis that the body politic finds itself in was entirely predictable before the referendum, once the terms of the referendum itself were decided.

One of the decisions that made a difference was the nature of the referendum question that was originally posed. The battle over the wording of the question itself was explained in great detail in one chapter of Tim Shipman's book "All Out War".
In the end, having the question about the issue with one option or another ("remain" or "leave") effectively gave the "leave" side a sort of  ideological"free pass". While Cameron thought the referendum would be simple to win from an establishment point of view, the very chameleon-like nature of the "leave" option was the problem that the "remain" side could never tackle.

With "leave" being an essentially emotive vote, it meant almost whatever the "leave" voter wanted it to mean. From a philosophical and even semantic point of view, the referendum question was meaningless in any practical sense.
The referendum question really was a choice of "stay as we are" or "do something else". But what "else" were the 17 million people voting for? In this sense, "leave" could only ever be a negative vote i.e. "not remain", because there were a plethora of reasons and paths that voters may have all voted "leave" for. For the referendum vote to "leave" to make any rational sense (and for the government to know what on earth its legitimate course of action should be), a follow-up vote to choose from the most likely "leave" options would have been the only rational and democratic path to take. It was not taken (because David Cameron never thought he would "lose"), and the result of that is the chaos Britain finds itself in.
It thus gave fertile ground for opportunistic ideologues to take advantage of the chaos.

With there being three different major campaigns for "leave", and all having their own distinct agendas, how was it even philosophically possible to explain that 17 million people voted for the exact same idea when they voted to "do something else"? How can anyone know what "else" they all wanted? It is impossible.
How many of those 17 million voted for a WTO  option, or an EFTA option, or any one of dozens of possible alternatives? No-one knows, and no-one can know. Because not one of those options were ever clearly shown as the "people's will", the end result was always going to be a semantic nonsense without a further democratic clarification.
This explains how, once "leave" won and the Article 50 process was triggered, the chaotic situation that parliament finds itself it was almost inevitable. With no one option having a majority in parliament, the resulting stalemate (arguing while Britain slides ever closer to the abyss) only means that Britain is doomed to leave without a deal.

This is how we got into a situation where Brexit became the ultimate death of British democracy in Westminster, and the beginning of a reign of Whitehall autocracy in Theresa May.

Theresa May's strategy has been to act as a virtual dictator on the terms of Brexit, somehow seeing herself as the extraordinary arbiter of the (still unclear) "people's will".
Brexit itself seems to have poisonous effects on anyone that wields its unusual power, giving Theresa May a hard-faced sense of mission, dismiss any advice that contradicts her own perception, while also confusing her enemies and sowing discord at the same time.
Meanwhile, Brexit seems to have taken a very obvious physical and mental toll on the Prime Minister, making her appear even more gaunt and preoccupied; a troubled soul that is immovable and yet feeble, her empathy seemingly leeched away by the poison of Brexit; sustaining her political survival but at the cost of her humanity and judgement.

Apart from May herself, Brexit's power seems only to create and exacerbate division. Her party are split down the middle, seemingly more united in their dislike of her "deal" than in their own vision of the alternative. It is a party that seems to be waiting for Brexit to finally tear it asunder when the time comes.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn seems to be using Brexit for its own self-centred reasons, some hoping secretly that a "no deal" Brexit might lead to a kind of new "socialist revolution".
The DUP see Brexit as an opportunity to have control of the government by their own form of political extortion.

As the chaos in parliament continues, the country hurtles headlong towards the cliff because no-one in charge can decide in which other direction to go. The house is burning down, but those in charge can't decide which exit to use.
If this isn't an absolute indictment of the rotten state of Britain's body politic, then what else is?

Theresa May: the survival instinct and the "talisman" of Brexit

If Theresa May has one overlying quality, it is an indomitable survival instinct.

While her personality flaws are legion (and have been commented on by this author), she seems to have a strange knack for outwitting her enemies. What is so odd about this is that she seems otherwise so incompetent, with an unnerving ability to antagonize her existing enemies and create yet new ones. And yet, when it comes to the crucial moment, she seems to possess an almost supernatural ability to survive politically.
She can be wounded, but as yet possesses an inability to accept her own demise. When necessary, she manages to find a way to expose the weaknesses of her opponents and at the same time muster enough loyalists around her to see them off.

It is that, or that she is just plain "lucky" in her choice of enemies.

In a sense David Cameron was "lucky" to have got as far as he did before he needed to resign. In his time as Prime Minister, he rolled the dice one too many times, thinking that his run of good fortune was almost endless; his over-confidence was eventually exposed.
With Theresa May, however, we are dealing with a different form of political animal; a political creature that, with an almost ghoulish quality to its character, seems almost indestructible to normal, mortal means.

To use a more symbolic analogy, she has sent her troops needlessly into a near-defeat in battle, but was not overthrown by them; has removed or forced out countless of her courtiers; has ruled over her land as an impenetrable, immovable and incompetent autocrat; and now has survived an attempt at her overthrow from within.
All this she has achieved by making repeated, insincere claims to heed her followers' advice at the critical moment, which mollify her critics, but then are seemingly "forgotten" by her a short time later.
It's hard to judge if she is knowingly, repeatedly deceitful or just completely lacking in self-awareness of her actions. But the fact that she repeats the same behaviour again and again suggests it can only be the former, which makes her followers either appallingly gullible or just held in hock to her rule from fear alone. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is "fear" (of the alternative) that is the key to May's unusual power (more on this is a moment).

Is is possible for a person so inept and yet wield such powers of fortitude and survival? Perhaps "Brexit" can explain a lot of it.


The "talisman" of Brexit

Many have spoke about how Brexit has utterly changed the political landscape of Britain.

Something else that it has also done is change the nature of political leadership. For whoever is Prime Minister during the "Brexit process" can also claim, through the extraordinary circumstances of the referendum, to be the sole arbiter of the nation's will.
In this way, parliament has become an irrelevance since the referendum, as the Prime Minister can claim (and has) that parliament would be subverting the vote of the referendum if it opposes her. This was the very claim she made when she called the snap election last year, and this claim has been repeated whenever it criticized whatever actions on Brexit she unilaterally decided. As far as Theresa May was concerned, she seemed to see her rule as a "higher duty" to the nation, regardless of what parliament, or even many in her own party, wanted.

So "Brexit" has become something almost esoteric or "supernatural" in its power: a simple word with a meaning that somehow bestows extraordinary power on its wielder. "Brexit" means whatever its wielder wants it to mean. This is why the meaningless phrase "Brexit means Brexit" is in fact as meaningful in its meaninglessness as Theresa May requires. It means nothing, or it means everything.

"Brexit" in itself is simply an instrument - or talisman, if you like - of power. To stretch the esoteric meaning even further, this is why Andy Serkis' take on "Brexit" was, for all its satirical meaning, still so unnervingly close to the bone.

As well as being a symbolic instrument of power, it is also a poison. Brexit has undeniably poisoned the social fabric of the country, perhaps for ever.

But in the meantime, it has given Theresa May an unusual power and a strange aura of political invincibility. The symbolic "talisman" of Brexit protects Theresa May from all enemies, confounding them at the crucial moment by creating an aura of fear.
She can be wounded by her opponents, but as the wielder of the Brexit "talisman", it also has the power of exposing the fear that others have of the alternative. Theresa May's plan might be awful, but she can still exploit the remainers' fear of "Hard Brexit" and the Brexiteers' fear of "No Brexit" without being overthrown by either (or both) in the process. In the middle of this are those on the government "payroll", whose combined loyalty and fear of any other leader than May are enough to see off her opponents. This is the symbolic power that "Brexit" has over those who oppose its wielder; it exploits their fear.

Equally, the counter-intuitive maxim that my enemies' strength is their weakness; my weakness is my strength rings true here. The Brexit "talisman" even serves May as her ultimate protection regardless of her apparent weakness, for as long as she wields the ultimate power over Brexit, she cannot be safely removed.
In this way, the "talisman" of Brexit defends May's position by playing up her apparent frailty, and exploiting fear in another way. May also uses her own frailty as an instrument of power, appealing to her enemies' sense of pity. In this way, Brexit can make its wielder even seem as a victim or a hostage to her enemies' mercy - portraying May as a creature of pity that allows her to continue with her power, tricking her enemies into granting her clemency for as long as the Brexit "talisman" requires.

May can only be removed from power once the "power" of Brexit itself has passed; in other words, she is politically immovable before "Brexit Day". But by that point of course, Brexit's potential for destructive power will have reached its peak, because if parliament do not agree to May's autocratic "deal", we are instantly into "no deal" and the nightmare scenario.
To continue the talisman analogy, a "no deal" Brexit will have destroyed not only its "wielder" (Theresa May), but the whole land as well. "Mordor" consumes "Middle-Earth". Perhaps the Brexit "talisman" wants to destroy Britain.

This was why David Cameron opened Pandora's Box when he allowed the issue of Europe to dictate his tenure. Brexit is a poison that cannot be satisfied; it is an "instrument of power" that is as seductive as is it dangerous.

Once it is wielded, its only purpose can be to destroy.

Narcissism and politics: Theresa May (Part 2)

A few months ago there was a dark rumour in political circles that some figures in the government were secretly orchestrating a "no deal" Brexit that would cause as much chaos as possible; both causing chaos within Britain and also across the EU.

The theory followed a hypothetical series of events where the government (i.e. Theresa May) would cynically lead the EU towards the impression of agreeing to a deal, only to sabotage it at the last minute, leaving the EU with as little time to prepare for the chaos as possible, and leaving Britain dependent on American logistical support until the period of "no deal" chaos passed. Such a scenario would turn Britain into a de facto American "client state" where what remained of government infrastructure and assets would be sold off in a "fire-sale", with the British economy as a kind of Libertarian dystopia. This would also leave the EU in a state of economic turmoil as an added "bonus".

The scenario that Britain currently finds itself in is due to the actions of its Prime Minister, Theresa May. Thanks to her actions:

• The British government spent nearly two years negotiating with itself - due to May's own perpetual stalling tactics. The government's position to start serious negotiations with the EU was then only agreed after Mrs May forced her own position on to her government (i.e."Chequers").
• Due to her "red lines", this position was then rejected by the EU. This resulted in May unilaterally deciding on her government's new position without consulting her own government or parliament. The consequent "deal" she unilaterally agreed with the EU was thus a result of May's "red lines", which forced the EU to demand terms that May must surely have known the British parliament would find unacceptable. 
• When May tried to convince parliament to ratify her "deal", she dealt with them in the same way as her own government: to cajole and disseminate to make them accept the unacceptable, or face "no deal". When it was clear that parliament would not agree to the deal, her tactic was to delay the vote to the last possible moment - and subvert democracy in the most cynical way - or allow the country to descend into chaos (see hypothetical scenario above).

Put in this light, May's actions resemble those of an unashamed autocrat working to blatantly undermine the democratic system. She has little moral regard for the idea of the democratic process, and ultimately sees herself as the sole arbiter of the land. 

Worse than that, she seems to have lost any rational sense of perspective, seeming not to care about the political damage she is doing to her party, her government and parliament, and seems to care little about the wider damage she is doing to the economy and to people's lives in general.

How to lose friends and alienate people

This author has written before about Theresa May's personality, and how there seems to something "off" about her behaviour and her judgement. All the evidence points to her being someone who seems to want to go out of her way to annoy friends and enemies alike, inadvertently or otherwise. 

This singular ability to alienate herself from those she engages with is truly exceptional in the annals of political leadership; even Nixon had better judgement and charisma. It seems the only ones she can retain the loyalty of are those that have entirely self-serving and amoral ambitions, or are too cowardly to want to give up their own ministerial status. The combined result of this is governmental positions that are filled by incompetents; the natural consequence of being ruled by a narcissist is some kind amoral personality cult where rationalism and intelligence are the main enemy.

In pursuing her "deal" outside of democratic consent or transparency, she has alienated both wings of her party against her by her own terrible judgement, as well as losing what little respect the grassroots of the party had left for her. As she never wanted to engage with the opposition, she lost any chance of gaining their support long ago, and has managed to also lose the confidence of the DUP, so she now is ruling a government with no functional majority, even on paper. 

And now that she no longer has the backing of parliament, she seeks "rule by extortion" instead: threatening the chaos of "no deal" if it doesn't support her deal - a deal that is only so awful to contemplate because May's stubbornness made it so.  

The events of the last few weeks have shown that Theresa May is someone who cannot be reasoned with. She does not listen, is incapable of admitting she is wrong, and cannot be trusted.

Her stubbornness is now legendary, but then this is compounded by the fact that even when she has changed her mind on something (such as calling for an early election), she makes it even worse by refusing to admit the obvious. Such "crazy-making" behaviour is an indication of pathological narcissism.

One of the other indicators of narcissism is a lack of "emotional intelligence": the ability to see things from another's point of view, and use human empathy and persuasion to explain your point of view.
It is clear that Theresa May lacks "emotional intelligence" in spades: she seems incapable of understanding how her government's policies might harm other people's lives, from her stance on EU migration to the "hostile environment" and the government's pursuit of austerity and welfare reform. Instead, she only focuses on the job she has tasked herself with doing, with no real regard to the effects of its wider, human impact. The countless stories of lives destroyed by her government's policies seem to have no effect on her. This is evident in her obsession with reducing migration, which she pursues relentlessly long after her colleagues have given up on it as a fool's errand. To have such a blinkered perspective is a sign a dysfunctional personality.

Then there is other evidence such as how she reacts spontaneously in the face of a human crisis (e.g. the Grenfell fire), where she demonstrated a chronic inability to do what any normal person would do (which Jeremy Corbyn then demonstrated) - to emotionally engage with the victims.
Equally, this lack of emotional intelligence is evident from the many anecdotes of those who have had to endure conversations with her. European politicians have been invited to a meeting with her, only to discover she had nothing to say; likewise, the many stories of her frosty (or sphinx-like) demeanor in meetings with her colleagues make the phrase "Ice Queen" that has been thrown around to describe her seem apt. And let's not forget her famous "death stare".

It is a common perception that politicians are wont to lie and disseminate rather than admit an uncomfortable truth, but May manages to do this is in such a cringe-worthy and blatantly dishonest way (e.g. demonstrated by facial contortions), that you wonder why she bothers. Politicians are wont to avoid answering uncomfortable questions, but May manages to do this in such a cringe-worthy and leaden way that it makes conversation with her almost physically-painful to endure.


A reign of fear

The natural result of this lack of "emotional intelligence" is that when narcissists are in a position of power, what they fall back on to maintain their hold is fear: fear of the alternative or fear of the unknown. In this manner, the atmosphere of rule under the narcissist is akin to a "reign of terror".
This was evident when Downing Street was ruled under the guidance of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.
Since the 2017 election, May has fell back on her other advisors and her her whips to hold the party together. "Fear" was used by May herself to justify calling the snap election; in that case it was "fear of Jeremy Corbyn" that was the main threat she used. It worked (just about), but the result was a ruling government that was held together not by shared respect for Theresa May but by fear she stoked of the alternative: a reign of fear created by May herself.

It is this "reign of fear" that then allows May to dictate and control events beyond any measure of accountability, as we have seen with her dictatorial management of Brexit.

The Gothic mood music and almost ghoulish quality to aspects of her character make it feel as if hers is a government of the undead. Ever since the election of eighteen months ago, her "zombie government" has been losing ministers at a rate of attrition unprecedented in British political history. As government presides over a state of institutional stasis, the country is slowly falling apart, society slowly disintegrating thanks to her government's amoral social policies, and the economy outside of London is barely functional.
It is a government that literally has no purpose but power for the sake of power, with Theresa showing every sign of narcissistic delusion about the necessity of her own position. As far as she is concerned, she seems to feel it is her moral obligation to rule. 

Theresa May's personality - and the innate strain of narcissism that seems to run through it - is the primary cause of the chaos that Britain faces. Two and half years ago, the future of Britain after the referendum was unclear; but it was not certain that it would be chaotic. It is only Theresa May's dysfunctional personality that has made it so.  

It is hard to imagine how the Brexit process, after the referendum, could have been handled any worse. 

May's most recent actions in delaying parliament's vote on her "deal" as long as possible only serve to extend the wider chaos in the country even further to the brink, as the value of the economy collapses further, businesses are unable to plan, and people are left in a state of paralyzing trauma. It is as though Theresa May has declared a kind of psychological warfare on her own population, regardless of her actual intentions. 

Seen in this objective light, Theresa May's behaviour can be seen as nothing more than selfish and self-defeating: the actions of an irrational narcissist. 

Tumblr's adult content ban: the decline of liberalism and the subversion of free-will

The news that the website "Tumblr" is to introduce a ban on adult imagery is the latest indication that we are currently experiencing a historic swing away from liberal values towards conservative values.

The revealing thing about this news is that the linked article mentions how the decision was provoked by an Apple technical glitch, resulting in inappropriate (and illegal) imagery being sent to the website. So it appears it was Apple's error, resulting in the "Tumblr" app being removed from Apple's software, that was the cause of the problem.

As the article describes, this leaves a whole segment of adult society who used Tumblr for a variety of personal reasons, without a place to share and communicate with other like-minded souls. As the article says, the website served as a "safe space" for some of the more unorthodox people in society to express their sexuality.
Without a place like Tumblr, the only other known online venues for such activity would in the realm of pornographic websites, which bring with it a whole different type of behaviour and interaction: the type of "behaviour" that Tumblr was there to avoid.

In this way, the inherent assumption by those behind the decision is a lazy labeling of diverse and unorthodox subcultures and communities into the broader label of "porn". In other words, it makes no real attempt to distinguish one form of sexual expression from another, which is as intellectually-lazy as assessing all people that have mental health issues as being "crazy".

Thus, it feels as though we are regressing back decades into a socially-conservative world were everything must be labelled and neatly boxed, where sexuality cannot be something ambiguous or imaginative, and everything is either blanketed as "porn" or "not porn".
Likewise, for those communities and subcultures that have been able to feel safe and at ease in their own identity by using facilities like Tumblr, it leaves them feeling as social outcasts. By just assessing their content as "pornographic" - and thus with the same label as the most "hardcore" content online - it implicitly defines them as being somehow freaks, perverts and amoral exhibitionists.


Subverting free-will

The reason it came to this is due to a steady subversion of liberal values by the "new right".

One of the evident trends in recent years, and exacerbated by social media at times, is how free speech and the issue of "causing offense" has become conflated. This has then been exploited by the "alt-right", resulting in a wave of moral outrages and a backlash against what is seen by conservatives as moral degradation.

The root of this stems from the time of the financial crisis, when the "alt-right" saw its birth on the back of perceived indulgence of both "liberal" establishment values and the campaign for greater equality of rights by the LGBT community.
At the same time as the TEA Party was growing in strength in its desire to redefine "liberal" values, the "alt-right" was conducting an undercover culture war against what it saw as an indulgent and morally abject society.

The "alt-right" was able to label itself as a "victim" of free speech at a time when "political correctness" made their views unpalatable or offensive. In reality, the views expressed by many in the "alt-right" were racist, misogynistic, homophobic and hateful; their views were deemed offensive because they spread hate. They were being deliberately provocative in many cases - a classic technique of Fascist movements - in order to be offensive and gain notoriety and attention. They succeeded.

But by twisting the same "liberal" values against the establishment itself, the "alt-right" were able to argue that their "community" was thus as "oppressed" as those marginal and unorthodox communities had been in the past (and in some cases, still were). Thus their ringleaders argued that the white community was now being "oppressed", that men were being "oppressed", and that the establishment was being led by the interests of "minorities" at the expense of the majority.

It is in this climate that pressure builds on the media and social media to "reflect reality". This explains how Trump's outrageous lies and exaggerations were never seriously challenged by the media, but were allowed to be disseminated freely, as long as the "opposing view" was given as well. In Britain, the same was true with the lies that were used by the "Brexit" campaign, and the wider culture wars that now consume Anglo-Saxon culture on both sides of the Atlantic.

So now the pendulum seems to be swinging in the favour of the conservatives and the reactionaries. Culture wars across social media have resulted in "echo chambers" on both sides, with the result that anything that someone might find disagreeable is termed "offensive content".
The only winners out of this are ultimately those who wish to restrict self-expression: the reactionaries and social conservatives.

The concept of free-will has been turned on its head, and used as a weapon by those, such as the alt-right, who seek to remove it.
Social media has thus become risk-averse as a means of financial self-preservation. At a time when news, comment and artistic content has become monetized, the result is an erosion of free-will. Whereas at one time, it was thought that technology would result in greater freedom, the reality has proven to be somewhat different.

The actions of "Tumblr" thus fit into this wider trend. The trend now is towards a wider consideration of social morality; the realm of the social conservative.
Whereas at one time people were encouraged to think about the effects of their actions on the environment, that same mindset has infected the social mores of the online world: now people are policed by social content and the nature of their posts, and asked to consider what effect their internet activity might have on wider society. This means the internet is no longer about free-will, but about social morality; the precise opposite to its original meaning.

It is this climate that leaves very little space for those who have unconventional or alternative lifestyles, as those who use "Tumblr" are now finding out.

Brexit Britain: the new "sick man of Europe"?

There are many different ways that Brexit has been be analyzed in comparison to other historical events. The kind of comparison depends on what angle the observer comes at Brexit from. The "deal" that Theresa May has secured from the EU on Britain's post-EU status brings to mind other comparable historical events, and none of them look good.


An imperial vassal?

Earlier this year, this author compared the initial terms being offered to Britain as the price of a transition period to being asked to be the EU's "gimp". This was a graphic and deliberately harsh comparison, because the situation is historically so unusual. But the "deal" that Mrs May has secured from the EU now is even worse than that, precisely because the EU were forced into offering such a bad deal by May's own stupidity and intransigence.

The deal looks like "punishment" because Theresa May gave the EU no other option. In herself being unyielding on the issue of immigration controls and exiting the single market, this meant the EU could only offer Britain a deal that would be the worst of all worlds. May wanted to ensure that Britain could close off the free movement of people to and from the EU; but the price of that has been that Britain would be subservient to EU laws and customs, with no power over them and unable to act without the EU's consent. In any case, any future trade deal would be entirely on the EU's terms.
Meanwhile, as it would be outside the single market, Britain's exports into the EU would still rely on checks like most other "third countries", and making the country far less desirable as a place to foreign investors. And remember that this isn't just a "transitional" arrangement; its legal force is one that would exist in perpetuity until the EU says otherwise. In effect, it makes Britain a country without any of the advantages of EU membership, but with almost all the obligations; a country still firmly under the EU's thumb in spite of being outside it.

Talk of calling it "vassalage" might seem overblown, but in historical terms, the comparison isn't that far from the truth when you look at the details. Apart from independent control of its borders, the deal leaves Britain with control over little else in real terms, with the EU calling the shots on almost everything else, and Britain with no say, no redress and no legal power to stop it. By most reasonable terms, this is modern-day "vassalage".
It's clear from her apparent satisfaction with the deal that Mrs May is happy to see herself as effectively the EU's in-situ "colonial administrator" of Britain; a bland functionary overseeing the whims of the idiosyncratic locals. Their lot is not to make a fuss, but to keep their heads down and mind their own business. Under this deal with the EU, Theresa May rules as "quisling", content to rule the roost over an emasculated and moribund polity.   

Back in the 19th century, the imperial powers talked of "spheres of influence". In the modern day, the EU has a broad sphere of influence that encompasses the EEA, and arguably also other nations in a customs union with it. The USA has this with NAFTA and its broader "soft power" influence. China has this too with its growing ambitions across Asia and Africa (with its "String Of Pearls" strategy) and even into Europe, with its "Belt and Road" strategy. Russia, too, has got in on the act by (re)establishing its own sphere of influence under the "Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)". The Arab Gulf States have the GCC.
Britain's exit from the EU, in this wider context, looks like nothing more than an act of dangerous self-harm. The deal that Theresa May has now accepted with the EU leaves Britain outside of any wider sphere of influence, except in the sense that it would be controlled by another sphere of influence: the EU. In current terms, Belarus would have more legal standing in its relationship with Russia (as part of the EEU) than Britain would have with the EU.


A moribund polity

But to return to the 19th century comparisons, the original "sick man of Europe" was Ottoman Turkey, which by the middle of that century was in a chronic state of mismanagement. The phrase was made famous by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, who sought to take advantage of Constantinople's malaise and expand his own sphere of influence at Turkey's expense.
This was the wider context that led to the Crimean War, where France and Russia vied for primacy over the Ottoman court. France (and later, Britain) pushed back against Russian stratagems to undermine Ottoman sovereignty. The Tsar's aim was to make him the legal protector of Ottoman Orthodox Christians inside of the Turks' empire, thus fundamentally undermining the supremacy of Ottoman law. This situation doesn't sound too far from modern-day comparisons with the EU's desire to protect the rights of EU citizens in Britain post-Brexit.
The difference with the current situation is that in the EU's case, it is about protecting EU citizens' rights that they already have, and ensuring those rights are not lost. In the case of the dispute that eventually led to the Crimean War, it was never really about the "rights" of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire; it was about Russian influence being used as leverage. A better contemporary example would be how Russia today has granted automatic citizenship to separatist Russian-speaking regimes that have broke away from states like Georgia and Ukraine; like in the 19th century with the Ottomans, Russia today applies the same tactics to undermine its "enemies", and invokes the call to defend Russian "citizens" as a reason to attack them.

Apart from the modern comparison to vassalage, Britain today draws other uncomfortable parallels to the Ottoman situation.
As a country, the nation is not being led in any meaningful sense by its government; it is staggering from one year to the next. For decades now, Britain has been led by short-term tactics from the heart of government. Since the end of empire, Britain has struggled to adapt to life in the modern world. It's industries quickly becoming inefficient and with its markets drying up, Britain joined the EU as a statement of realism. It knew that Britain could no longer survive on its own, given how the world was changing.
The problem was with the solution. This was not the fault of the EU (unlike what some "leavers" think), but with the Libertarians who took control of the economic and political agenda forty years ago. The result of this agenda was to turn dozens of towns and cities across the country into places that no longer had a real function: mining towns and manufacturing centres died. What replaced them was low-skilled work in the service industry. The agenda was only suited to London and the South-East, for that was where those who would make money from the agenda happened to live.

This expanded the levels of inequality in the country to a gulf. Since the financial crisis, the government have pursued an agenda that ever more brazenly amoral. The polity that pursues a Libertarian agenda does so now regardless of the damage it is doing to public finances and wider society; it does so because it has no other ideas.
A recent OECD report explained how Britain has become one of the most heavily-indebted nations in the world. Due to the government's cumulative asset-stripping, the government no longer has many assets to offset any loans or borrowing. The result of this mindless strategy is a massive black hole in public finances.
Meanwhile, things like the basic defence of the country and law and order are left to rack and ruin. The "Royal Navy" has become a sad decimated joke, made all the more ridiculous by having built an enormous aircraft carrier that we don't need and even lack the planes for. The country has a scattering of territorial outposts around the world, but (like with the Falkland Islands) no longer has the practical means to defend them. The air force is so cut to the bone it barely able to patrol the skies above Britain; likewise with the army, which is spread thin across various conflict zones, and is struggling to attract enough recruits as it is.
The state of law and order in Britain, thanks to cuts of government funding, has meant that in parts of the country there are simply not enough police to deal with crime, leaving people to deal with it themselves; meanwhile, thanks to cuts of government funding the state of Britain's prisons is so bad that they have become more dangerous than the streets outside. Britain is a society that is falling apart.

The Libertarian agenda, through the pursuit of austerity and welfare reform, has led to a surge, not only in inequality, but in crime, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse and malnutrition. In this sense, Britain literally has become today's "sick man of Europe", because the British government is destroying its society. 

 










 

The rise of Tommy Robinson: the far-right, UKIP and modern-day Populism in Britain

The rise of English far-right activist Tommy Robinson to that of global "cult" status has now been cemented with news that he is likely to be made a millionaire thanks to support from well-heeled, like-minded extremists across the Atlantic.

While his entry to the country is still being discouraged by US authorities, his fame at both the "grassroots" level, and with those high up in the right-wing political food chain, is well-established. As part of Steve Bannon's grand scheme ("The Movement"), Robinson is now central to Bannon's plans for a co-ordinated effort to bring together Populist movements across Europe. In spite of the fact that Bannon's plans are illegal in many of the countries he's targeting, this has had no effect on Bannon's overall plan, and the central role that Robinson can be seen to play in it.

Robinson's notoriety was established with the high-profile events organized when he led the English Defence League (EDL). This group's agenda was openly Islamophobic. While its adherents would claim that their ire was not aimed as Muslims as a whole but rather its extremist elements, in practical terms the group's followers have openly Islamophobic views. It is clear that large numbers of the EDL's followers see Islam as a cultural threat to British identity, and therefore see Muslims as an inherent "threat" to them.
By focusing in particular on the cases of Child Abuse "rings" in various Pakistani communities that have come to light in recent years, the EDL have seen their cause as a kind of moral mission. Comparisons to how in the early years of the Nazi Party, their "brownshirts" would target Jews and Communists as a plague on German culture, are plain to see.
Robinson himself claimed to have become disgusted with the EDL's lurch into blatant prejudice, which caused the end to his association with the group. However, by then becoming involved with other similar movements like the British offshoot of "PEGIDA" in Germany, his motivations became hard to miss.

Robinson was "reinventing" himself as a kind of social justice warrior. His notoriety continued with his violent conduct involving brushes with the law, while at the same time he was now claiming himself to be a victim of police harassment and a supporter of free speech. This then culminated in his prosecution and imprisonment for contempt, which played directly into his narrative as a victim of the establishment's curtailment of free speech.
It was this that gave him international "cult" status, and cemented his high-profile reputation with people like Steve Bannon. Since then, Robinson's popularity has been shown to include serving members of the armed forces (no surprise there). More significantly, he has attracted the support of UKIP's leader, Gerald Batten.

This is significant for a few reasons. While UKIP had become largely an irrelevance since Theresa May stole many of their clothes after the EU referendum two years ago, the way in which she has managed to turn almost everyone in her party against her "deal" can only be a boon for UKIP.

If May's deal gets though parliament, those in the Tory right would accuse her of betrayal. This will naturally lead to a surge among the grassroots back towards UKIP as the "natural" party of Euroscepticism and nativism, as it was before 2016. On the other hand, if we get a "no deal" scenario, UKIP are likely to prosper in the longer-run as they can claim that it was through trusting the Tories that caused the situation to become so chaotic - so the accusation of "betrayal" can be used again. Finally, if somehow the end result is that Britain remains in the EU for wont of any better alternative, UKIP can again blame the Tories for making the issue so toxic, leaving their party as the last "honorable" bastion of English nationalism.
Batten's strategy of bringing Robinson under his wing might be cynical, but it makes a fair amount of political sense in some ways. Nigel Farage, the original charisma behind UKIP's rise, has savaged Batten's strategy of allowing UKIP to flirt with the far-right. But Farage himself may well be misreading how the political climate has changed since the referendum.

This is partly Farage's own fault. The author recently read a report into UKIP's electoral strategy from twenty years ago, when Farage was advocating for the party to make a breakthrough in Westminster. Farage's strategy was to focus on getting UKIP MPs elected into the British parliament. As a strategy, it was a complete failure. Meanwhile, from 1998 onward, UKIP's representation in the EU parliament went from strength to strength, leading to them becoming the largest UK party in Brussels in 2014. And while this surge in EU representation was happening, UKIP's representation in Westminster only ever came to two MPs out of more than six hundred (both of whom were Tory defectors).
In this way, we can see that Farage's strategic understanding of the reality of British politics is weak. By misunderstanding the correct method to bring about UKIP's success all those years ago, today he misunderstands the motivations for people now supporting UKIP.

Farage took UKIP in the direction towards being a Libertarian party. While this is a simplification (and there were many inconsistencies), Farage's motivation seemed to be about making UKIP support a broadly Libertarian agenda, very similar to that supported by the "Brexiteers" in the Conservative Party (e.g. the ERG) today. This explained the overlap in much of their ideology.
The inconsistency was about marrying this with the inevitable "nativist" rhetoric than underlined the English nationalism of UKIP's core message. This was why UKIP attracted a range of support, from right-wing Libertarians that wanted Britain to become a "free trade paradise" outside the EU, to traditional cultural Conservatives from places as eclectic as Clacton, Keighley and Camarthen. This was how UKIP was able to bridge the class divide, by appealing to the innate petty prejudices of the "common man". This was how Farage created his "people's army".
Those "petty prejudices" are the core root of Populism. Its ideology, almost by definition, is about appealing to people's petty prejudices. UKIP grew in strength on the back of explaining events like the migration crisis, growing domestic inequality and the Conservative government's austerity agenda through the prism of prejudice. By arguing that the government were more interested in housing and financially supporting Europeans and migrants, UKIP fed into a toxic atmosphere, culminating in the referendum result of 2016.


A "natural" alliance?

By this point, Farage seems to have been unaware (or delusional) about the nature of the monster he had created.
Farage seems to have believed he had made UKIP a Libertarian party, while in reality it had only grown in mass support by using Populist rhetoric. So when he stepped down after the referendum, he left a party that was Populist in nature. Meanwhile, with Theresa May turning the governing Conservative Party into one that simply copied wholesale much of UKIP's  pre-referendum agenda, Farage's party had nowhere else to go but further to the right. Jeremy Corbyn has done much the same with the Labour Party, taking the party of the official opposition into territory that was once filled by George Galloway's hard-left "Respect" Party.
The logical conclusion of UKIP's shift to the Populist right is Gerald Batten now endorsing Tommy Robinson. As mentioned earlier, Farage misunderstands the motivations of those that now support UKIP, because the party now represents more than a mere Libertarian fantasy; it now represents the Populist mood that is more cultural than political. Farage's disgust at what is happening to UKIP feels more like private self-loathing at the monster he belatedly realizes he created.

Robinson's place in this as a "social justice warrior" is that UKIP are exploiting the cultural overlap between his Islamophobic agenda and UKIP's own agenda of base Populism. With the issue of Brexit now reaching a point where many of its supporters are bound to feel a sense of betrayal, Batten's strategy seems to be to ensure the party are well-placed to hoover up those disillusioned with the Conservative Party's bungling of Brexit. With the mood towards immigrants and "the other" hardening since the referendum, Batten's strategy may well be to follow this poisonous mood to its logical conclusion. He has seen the direction that the national mood has taken, and sees UKIP as being in the primary position to take advantage when the time comes.
Whether UKIP will ever reach the levels of support they had before the referendum is pure speculation at this point; it depends on what the actual outcome of Brexit will be. But Theresa May's own cynical strategy of copying UKIP's agenda after the referendum forced UKIP further to the right. With her then doing such a disastrous job of the Brexit negotiations, there are bound to be a lot of angry people: the end result may well be the eventual resurgence of UKIP as a far-right party. In the febrile climate of Britain post-Brexit, who can say how radicalized the political landscape could become? This is what Gerald Batten's alliance with Tommy Robinson seems to foresee.

In this way, Britain could currently be called one of the most unstable democracies in the developed world. The alliance of Tommy Robinson with Gerald Batten, under the wider tutelage of Steve Bannon, might seem like a fringe movement at the moment, but it's clear that these people are also biding their time, planning their strategy, and waiting for the right moment. Their "moment" may well come.

Theresa May, Salzburg and the "Brexit speech": a psychological portrait of narcissism

It has been a year since Theresa May's Florence Speech, where she set out what aims the British government had. A year on from that, almost to the day, we had the events of the informal EU heads' meeting in Salzburg.

Looking back over the events of the year that has transpired since May's Florence speech, we see a pattern of behaviour from Theresa May in her treatment of the negotiations with the EU. The "vision" that her Florence speech set out was never one that the EU could or would ever accept; it would break their own rules, for a start.
However, in the desire for the negotiations to move forward from "Phase 1", last December the EU agreed to a compromise - a "fudge" - on the intractable issue of Northern Ireland, where the UK agreed to a "backstop" if the UK failed to provide a solution to the problem of the NI border. Negotiations moved forward on the clear understanding that the UK would provide a solution to the EU in due course. However, the compromise was quickly backtracked on by the UK, who claimed a different "interpretation" to the wording of what was agreed with the EU. Meanwhile, the UK government have pushed back the submission of a "solution" to the NI border at every opportunity. Like an errant student, May has wangled extension after extension on the submission deadline of their homework to teacher. At some point, the teacher's patience is bound to snap.


Ending the indulgence

After nine months of this charade, it is not unreasonable for the EU to have felt duped. After doing what they could to move things forward for the benefit of Theresa May last December, they found out later on they had been "played". May's tactics seen in this way appear as those someone taking advantage of the others' charity, eking out negotiations with the EU by playing on their fears of May being replaced by a hardliner if they didn't compromise. On top of that, the British government's other strategy of getting the EU "on side" was to have their ministers going around the various EU capitals in a ham-fisted "divide and rule" approach that ignored the EU's hierarchy and institutions. Both these approaches seem to have convinced the EU that their indulgence of May's behaviour has only worked out against them, making May more brazen in her approach rather than more compromising. More on that in a moment.

May's "Chequers" plan was meant to have been a method of resolving the outstanding issues, including Northern Ireland, and also of providing the grounding for a future relationship. But given that the plan was only really there to hold together the opposing sides of her party, the EU's opinion seems to have been only an afterthought. Almost as soon as the plan's contents were public in July, the EU explained how they were impractical and broke the rules of the single market, as was obvious to anyone who understood how the EU functioned as an institution. The EU reiterated the possible alternatives; options that the EU had explained to the British government from the start of the negotiations.
So May went into the Salzburg meeting, with the EU having already rejected key aspects of the plan, as well as even a large part of her own party. When she talked to the other EU heads on Wednesday, the EU leaders were then stunned by the tone of her "pitch" to them: that her Chequers deal was the only one she could offer, she couldn't change it, and that the onus was on the EU to compromise. It was May's stubborn refusal to budge that had provoked the strong words from Donald Tusk and others on Thursday, and which led to May's bizarre and tetchy press conference that afternoon.

As the expectation was that some kind of "bridging" compromise was bound to be reached at Salzburg (i.e. one that could see a basis for further discussions in October), what had made the actual conclusion so abrupt had been May's inability to be flexible. One wonders if her personality is the culprit, as it has been for most of her failings as a national leader. As she appears to have a personality indicative of some pathological form of narcissism, this might explain how she could have arrived at the Salzburg meeting with such a delusional view of how events would transpire. While this can only be conjecture, circumstantial evidence of how she runs her government within a "bunker" of sycophantic advisors suggests that May doesn't know what the EU is really thinking because no-one around her is inclined to tell her. In this way, her brittle ego only listens to people she trusts, and those she trusts can only maintain that trust by telling her things that don't contradict her own world-view.
 Bringing in a comparable (and relevant) example from reality television, is "Amy's Baking Company". This is a company that featured on Gordon Ramsay's well-known programme, ran by a woman (the eponymous Amy) who is literally incapable of handling criticism.

Ramsay is incapable of getting even basic points across to Amy, who is defended from the rest of the world by her "enabling" husband. Any criticism is seen as an "attack". As a result, Ramsay decides he's wasting his time trying to change someone who cannot change.
Tusk and the other EU leaders seem to have reacted to May's stance on Wednesday in a similar way: for them, May's inability to compromise at this late stage seems to have been the last straw.

With May's position being so tenuous after the Chequers plan bombed with her own party, it's also possible that May felt she needed to talk "tough" at Salzburg in order to shore up her position for the party conference. But if that was true, then this was also the fault of her poor strategic thinking; something that is another of her unfortunate traits. Talking tough to the EU would make it all the harder to climb down in her party's eyes in time for a compromise in October. If she had compromised as the EU was expecting her to do, the party conference would have been tempestuous at best, putting at jeopardy the compromises needed for any positive outcome in October. She would have needed to tell the party a few unpleasant home truths at conference about what was realistic to achieve; but again, May is not temperamentally the type to make waves, and her stubborn streak also extends to her political durability.
When she returned to the UK, she then made an impromptu speech.


In the mouth of madness

After May's plan was rejected by the EU, the manner of that rejection (and Tusk's "instagram") seems to have affected May quite profoundly. Her surprise at the EU's inability to compromise seemed genuine, and thus the rejection of her plan she took as a personal affront. She had been publicly shamed, as far as she was concerned.
But with the way she approached the Salzburg meeting, she seems to have taken the attitude of the ever-indulged narcissist: as the EU had always compromised over her wishes, why wouldn't they do so again? Couldn't the EU see that Chequers wasn't already a "compromise" as far as May was concerned? Therefore, it was the EU's "turn" to do the same. This seems to have been her take on the situation, going to Salzburg.
But again, it seems clear that May simply doesn't "get it": there are some things the EU cannot compromise on, such as breaching their own rules. This had been clear from the very start. But May, like the typical narcissist, just doesn't listen. She only listens to people that confirm her own bias.

The rationale for the impromptu speech on Friday afternoon may well have been aimed at securing her position with her party, but the tone of the speech seems to have been driven by narcissistic rage. She singles out Donald Tusk for criticism, and uses untruth and psychological projection to accuse the EU of being disrespectful; quite a bold accusation, considering how much the British government had taking the EU for fools for the last nine months, as mentioned earlier. Making liberal use of her infamous "death stare", it is a speech that is designed for domestic audiences; but to the objective observer, it looks like the speech of someone on the verge of losing all self-control (and self-respect). She then reiterates her inability to compromise, demanding like she did in Salzburg that the EU must shift their position, or there would be no deal.

The effect of the speech on the talks, given what she said, is to increase the likelihood of "no deal" even higher. With now less than a month before the last real meeting, and with the party conference likely to be belligerent towards any kind of compromise with the EU, May's behaviour has brought the talks effectively to an end.
An inability to listen, an inability to change, and May's fragile ego seem to have brought Britain into the mouth of the abyss.

The psychology of Conservatism and Nationalism: a "controlled environment", or is it just Narcissism?

Broadly-speaking, nationalism could be said to act as a psychological "comfort blanket". There is a lot to be said for the argument that people who are ideologically-conservative also desire a "controlled environment"; in other words, they require the psychological security of an environment where they feel "safe", where things are familiar, and where things don't change. This last point is the entire nature of Conservatism as an ideology.
The psychology of narcissism is inherently tied to this. The concept of a "controlled environment" is something that can be found in narcissists, who seek to have the last say in how people behave who they interact with, and require an environment where things stay exactly as they are, in a state of controlled inertia.
In the same way that the concept of change scares a conservative, "change" terrifies a narcissist. Both react to "change" as a threat, as it challenges the carefully-constructed environment that they have created for themselves. The carefully-constructed environment both narcissists and conservatives have created stems from insecurity.

The family member or partner of a narcissist, if they allow the narcissist to have their own way (as it is the easiest way to avoid conflict), will find decisions made for them by the narcissist, their possessions are no longer their own, and the company they choose no longer a matter of their free-will. The narcissist is a "control freak" at heart, because of their innate insecurity. That insecurity inhabits itself through the establishment of a "controlled environment" at home, and an irrational (and unethical) desire to impose their will on to others in the world in general; the world must be moulded to suit the narcissist's desires, rather than the narcissist adapt to reality.
This can also be exhibited as an intense and pathological inability to change their views (i.e. stubbornness), even if that causes them (and others) far more problems than it would if they had changed their mind in the first place. This is more accurately a kind of neurosis - mental incapacity - where things must be done as the narcissist decided, as to admit that they were wrong would create a crisis of confidence in their own fragile sense of self-esteem. In Britain, Theresa May seems to be a good real-world example of a personality that is so neurotic (and innately narcissistic) in her inability to change, she would rather the country go to ruin than bring herself to admit her judgement was wrong.
Again, this stems from insecurity, as it is psychologically difficult for the narcissist to change their perspective on the world; they see it as easier to get the world to change for them. The narcissists' sense of self-esteem is so fragile that anything that threatens to change their own carefully-constructed and cast-iron perception of the world must be either disregarded or disparaged.
And when that "carefully-constructed perception" is destroyed, the reaction from the narcissist is the same as a child's tantrum: anger, fury, vindictiveness and spite at the source of their "pain". At their worst, the narcissist reacts to their world-view being shown as an illusory fantasy as the highest form of betrayal, lashing out at even those that care for them if they are unable to "get even" with the ultimate source of the "problem". Someone must pay for the narcissist's emotional suffering, even if it redirected at the innocent, or even those that they claim to care about the most. The narcissist's rage can be something fearsome to behold.

The behaviour above that describes the narcissist also applies to the ideological nationalist, and to conservative thinking on general. At its most toxic level, this can manifest itself as far-right extremism, such as seen in the alt-right or Islamic fundamentalism. This is the psychology of the "loser" who wants to get revenge on society. In the male-dominated world of the far-right, it is about the creation of a society where men are superior to women, culture is homogeneous, and unorthodox thinking is suppressed and persecuted; the logical conclusion of a narcissist's "controlled environment", writ large. This is the narcissists' "power fantasy".
 The psychology of Hitler is the most extreme manifestation of this type of "malignant narcissism" embodied in one person, as his "nationalism" was a psychological projection of his childhood insecurities, creating Nazi Germany as the manifestation of his disturbed ego. In a different manner, J Edgar Hoover is another example of someone with his own insecurities (also seen in his widely-reported dysfunctional personal life) who led the FBI as his own personal "controlled environment" through the tenures of eight presidents, from Coolidge to Nixon. In this manner, he ruled the USA as a "power behind the throne" for decades, using his position to indulge his own prejudices on the nation, with the power to potentially decide the fate of millions at his whim. In the end it was Nixon, another personality with a mass of insecurities, that oversaw Hoover's slide into irrelevance.

Going into the psychology of nationalism (and Conservatism in general), the core tenet is about people wanting to preserve things they way they were when they were a child. At the most extreme embodiment, Hitler seemed to have his own fantastical version of Germany in his head: psychologists have talked of him having a "God Complex" coming from his mother, who  died when he was an adolescent. In this sense, his idolization of Germany before the First World War (and his desire to unite all German-speaking peoples) may have come from the insecurity felt by the loss of his beloved mother; to equate pre-war Germany with the time his mother was still alive, which then morphed into thinking that creating a greater Germany would somehow assuage his feelings of loss for his mother. With other accumulated insecurities piled on top of this, such as his acquired hatred of the Jews, we see the blinkered, twisted vision of a man who seeks to create the ultimate "controlled environment".
Hitler is the extreme embodiment of this; at a more prosaic level, conservatives in general seem to psychologically hark back to a time when things were more "familiar", when the world seemed like a simpler, less unpredictable, place. This inevitably goes back to the time of their childhood. But the desire to "turn back the clock" can itself only come from the desire to change reality as it exists now; an irrational (and even unethical) desire to impose their will on the rest of society. This is the core psychology of the narcissist.

While this desire for "turning back the clock" can in some ways be just harmless fantasizing ("stop the world, I want to get off!"), there are plenty of examples of where this has led to a surge of narcissistic rage when this fantasy is resisted by others. The violence of the alt-right in the USA, and now the surge of far-right violence in Britain and Europe, are all signs of narcissistic rage. Unwilling to accept that diversity of opinion and culture is a normal part of life in the developed world, the far-right seek to express their frustration that they cannot "turn back the clock"; thus they seek to impose their version of a "controlled environment" by use of violence and intimidation.
At a different level, the same can be seen in Britain with the rhetoric of "Brexiteers", who talk of saboteurs, appeasement and betrayal. This is the same language that a narcissist would use when confronted with people who refuse to follow their commands. When this is writ large in supportive elements of the media, this harsh rhetoric only encourages others to carry out violence in their name.

The psychology of Populism and Donald Trump is the psychology of narcissism, in the same way that "Brexit" is the irrational psychology of narcissism. But the world cannot be tamed to follow his vision as the narcissist would like to think it is. The politics of "Brexit" and Donald Trump are about "nativism", and wanting to make society more homogeneous and more predictable, as it was when its supporters were growing up. If the world cannot be made to do as the narcissist pleases, then they will construct their own "controlled environment" at home where they can feel safe. This is the psychological root of American isolationism; and it is the logical conclusion that "Brexit" will take, once its architects see that the world does not care what they think, and cannot be cajoled into doing what they want.
The stereotypical old-aged conservative is the man (or woman) who is sat at home, alone and friendless, complaining to anyone who will listen about how the world has changed beyond recognition, how nothing is as good as it used to be, and how he no longer feels like he belongs in the world.
It is a sad existence, and one that is entirely self-inflicted.

Brexit and Britain's slow decline: a society falling to pieces?

Britain in 2018 seems like a country having a kind of slow-burning nervous breakdown. From a social point of view, the bonds that hold society together seem to be falling apart, while from an economic point of view, swathes of the country are populated by towns and cities that have simply lost their purpose, seeming to be there just because people happen to be there, not because the people really have anything to do there.
Both these issues, in the two links highlighted, come at the social and economic perspective from differing ideological ends of the spectrum, but the conclusion that can be reached appears similar: that Britain is socially-broken, and economically-moribund.

The nature of British society has fundamentally changed since the end of the Second World War. Like all developed countries, it has gone from being a male-dominated society, to one where women have a great role in the working world (note, I am not saying that women have "equal rights"; there is still a long way to go on that score). Society has become more racially-diverse (though, again, that does not mean racially-equal), and more sexually-liberal (generally-speaking; in some ways it could be argued to even have backslid, depending on the issue).
On top of that, social bonds have loosened, partly due to changing social attitudes, and also due to the changing (and more unpredictable) nature of work. The "changing nature of work" is partially a result of government strategy (or sometimes, lack of): in the last thirty years, the British economy has shifted massively in the direction of London, exacerbating a slide that had already began with the demise of empire.

Here is where the two articles mentioned at the start overlap in their concerns. The social bonds that have broken have done so as a result, at least in part, due to economic policy. The Libertarians that led the Thatcher government saw how the larger part of the population outside of the South-east of the country were being supported by the industries that were inefficient. Their solution was to either get rid of them, or if they didn't change, allow them to die. Thus we had the huge structural change of the economy from the 1980s onward, with a service-led economy that was only sustainable in the long-term for one part of the country: London and the South-east of England.
The social effects of this were not hard to predict, and are evident in every town and city outside of the South-east of England. In those towns and cities most badly affected by having their key industries disappear, the jobs that replaced them were primarily low-skilled, low-paid and low in productive value. In short, they were what could also be called "shit jobs", where job satisfaction was through the floor.
The vicious circle of this is that it affects all parts of the local community: unhappy workers are also unhealthy workers, low-skilled workers are much more likely to resort to alcohol or substance abuse, domestic violence, and so on. And then there are the unemployed, and unemployable, for whom these issues are even more acute. So the long-term effect is to create, on top of "shit jobs", "shit towns". Not surprisingly, there are even websites devoted to this whole issue.

This was all true before the financial crisis, where the economy outside of the South-east was funded by massive household credit and a large dollop of self-delusion, helped along by the self-interest of the The City. Property speculation is a "British disease" seldom seen in Europe; those countries that had succumbed to this mania (such as Spain) seem to have learned their lesson since the financial crisis.
Not so in Britain, where the self-delusion goes on and on, for lack of any rational alternative. An economy based on services alone cannot maintain a population of sixty million in the long-term. It is economically impossible. To paraphrase a famous political saying, a service-based economy might fund some of the economy all of the time, or all the economy some of the time, but not all of the economy all of the time. The Libertarians who led this structural change more than thirty years ago were not stupid; they knew that a service-based economy would leave half of the country in a permanently-moribund (or deluded) state. They just didn't care.
Bringing this up-to-date, the Libertarians that are leading the charge for Britain to leave the EU without a "deal", seem to be even less interested in the fate of those that are already falling by the wayside in society as it is. The potential consequences of Britain leaving the EU without a deal have been looked at elsewhere, but it is telling of the extent of Britain's decline that the country could be so easily hijacked by the dangerous agenda of these ideological extremists.

Outside of the self-contained bubble that is London and the affluent South-east, the decline of British society since 2010 is visibly evident. The surge in rough sleeping, the surge in food banks, the surge in drug use (even in the countryside), the surge in casual violence etc. etc. These are all unmistakable indications of a society falling apart. With government cutting local spending by half, with some councils already bankrupt or close to it, the predictable social effects are all there in plain sight. The government has an agenda that tells everyone that they no longer care; not about crime, not about poverty, not about the vulnerable.
Inequality in Britain has been high compared to other developed nations for decades, but the post-war consensus was a genuine attempt to reverse that. The Libertarian "project" of Margaret Thatcher quickly "restored" Britain's famed levels of inequality, with some of her advocates even claiming that inequality was a good thing. This is the classic response of a Libertarian. Since the Conservatives returned to power in 2010, they have "succeeded" in reversing all the good work that the previous Labour administration had done in reducing child poverty; in just seven years the Conservatives had "succeeded" in more than doubling child poverty levels, that had been previously halved over thirteen years under Labour. I suppose to a Libertarian, that would be marked as an "achievement"?

The Libertarian "project" that was started under Thatcher has now reached its logical conclusion with Brexit and austerity. After 2010, the latter was economically-justified by the government after the financial crisis on the grounds of necessity, even if there were few economists who could find any real evidence to support its imposition today; its justification was only ever ideological rather than economic. Support for Brexit was then led by a hard-right Libertarian faction with the Conservative Party itself (which itself had its roots going back to Thatcher's time), which has had effective control of the government since it won the referendum. In seeking a "Hard Brexit", they are pursuing what they see as Thatcher's undying wish: to convert Britain into a neo-liberal "utopia".

Politically and ideologically, then, it seems that Britain has run out of road. The ten years since the financial crisis have just seen Britain being led down the road of smaller and smaller gains for more and more economic pain, till the point that no-one can go on any more, as the fate of the "zombie" British high street tells us. This is the take that Pete North (in the linked piece at the start of this article) seems to have.
I have some sympathy with his wider point, but he offers no solutions. He offers Brexit as a "solution" in that it offers seismic change to the fabric of Britain's economy and society. Thus may be true, but the same could be said of declaring war on your nearest neighbour. It isn't a real "solution" if all it offers is chaos for the sake of chaos.

Arguing in favour of chaos isn't offering solutions; it's nihilism. British society deserves more than that; unless you think that British society isn't worth saving. But that (I would argue) would make you little better than a Fascist.
In this toxic social environment, it's no wonder we have "culture wars" between "remainers" and "leavers", where an ideological civil war is taking place at all levels of society; masquerading at times as a war of "them" and "us", it pits the working class against middle class, town life versus city life, even man against woman. Thus far, the "culture war" has remained, barely-concealed, just below the surface, only breaking through at isolated moments and flashpoints. Brexit has come to symbolize both everything that is wrong with modern Britain, and everything that must change to restore Britain. It is a "culture war" that has its roots going back nearly five hundred years.

It's true that, in the current state of affairs, this schizophrenia might only be properly resolved, one way or the other, by Brexit. It is the realisation of this that is so depressing.

Psychopathy in politics: callous indifference versus deliberate harm (2)

It's difficult for most right-minded people to think that their government (outside of war) is capable to deliberately seeking to harm people. But when the evidence smacks you right in the face, it's hard not to notice.
In in article some months back, this author wrote about how government actions can be driven by a desire to achieve goals, regardless of the wider cost to society. As alluded to in that article, this kind of "callous indifference", in its most inhumane form, can take the form of a dictator (such as Stalin) wiping out his opponents through willful mass starvation - the brutal logical conclusion of "the ends justify the means".
At a different level of indifference, the government of Theresa May created the "hostile environment", which has destroyed the livelihoods and quality of life of many British people (such as those married to non-EU citizens) and naturalized British citizens (such as the "Windrush" generation, and others). At the same time, the continuation of the "austerity" agenda has destroyed the livelihoods and quality of life of many disabled people in Britain in particular, as well as creating an antagonistic atmosphere in society towards those claiming welfare in general. The antagonostic atmosphere of the "hostile environment" also creates a situation where landlords are implicitly given a free pass to fall back on their prejudices to deny tenancy rights to any foreigner they are suspicious of.
This could all be documented under a policy of institutional "callous indifference". However, the British government is also guilty of going deliberately out of its way to make life almost impossible for many asylum seekers.

This is the sharp end of the "hostile environment", where indifference to harm transforms into active facilitation of harm to people. The highlighted link above explains how the British government makes an active policy of appealing against court decisions to grant asylum, even when the vast majority of those appeals fail. In other words, the government has a policy of denying basic rights to asylum seekers that have already been legally granted by its own courts. What's all the more extraordinary about this is that the government is wasting public money pursuing hopeless appeals, whose only function is to deny rights (that have already been legally-granted) to asylum seekers, and to prolong their misery.
Put into context, not only is this abusing the rights of legal asylum seekers, it is also misusing public funds in order to do so. As the government-sanctioned appeals simply stretch out the amount of time that asylum seekers are unable to receive government support (or the right to any kind of humane existence), this is not about "callous indifference" to harm, but active pursuance of harm towards asylum seekers. This is the logical conclusion of creating a "hostile environment": implementing a policy that actively seeks to make people's lives miserable, even those who are legally-entitled to (and ought to expect) humanitarian support from the state.
The fact that the government are effectively misusing taxpayers money to achieve this travesty is all the more sickening: taxpayers are subsidizing the active mistreatment of asylum seekers in the UK. The policy of the government to pursue appeals against granting asylum when there is no real evidence to support them is, almost by definition, an act of irrational institutional sadism. It is wasting public funds to be cruel for the sake of being cruel.

The term "hostile environment", by its very meaning, has malevolent overtones. To be "hostile" to people is to be threatening and to wish them ill. The "hostile environment" that the British government has created towards asylum seekers is one where their existence in the UK seems to be deliberately made as unpleasant as humanly possible, short of actually building internment camps for them (the UK already has some notorious "detention centres", ran by private contractors who are given more-or-less free reign, with little effective government oversight. The public prisons are, not surprisingly, in a similarly anarchic state).
To play devil's advocate, I suppose an argument could be made to compare it to the treatment of the French authorities, which generally create an environment where asylum seekers are left in a kind of neglectful indifference (and any camps are eventually disbanded by the authorities). In that narrow sense, could Britain's "hostile environment" be argued to be more "humane" than just letting asylum seekers live in camps in the British countryside, until they dispersed of their own accord, as seems to happen in France? This is still doubtful logic, as the "hostile environment" in Britain functions in much the same way as it would in France: in France it is administrative bureaucracy that encourages asylum seekers to migrate to the UK; when in the UK is it the "hostile environment" that creates a kind of Kafkaesque nightmare for them instead. There are no disorganized camps like in France, but UK policy turns asylum seekers into housebound paupers (if they are lucky), and has numerous "detention centres". Then there are those that disappear into the black economy as a result of all this.


A "compliant environment"

The term "hostile environment" has been replaced by "compliant environment", though few would appear to be fooled. "Compliance" is another term bathed in banal, institutional syntax, but describe actions that make pursuing cruelty active government policy. The policy hasn't changed; only its presentation has.
The term "compliant" follows from the notion that those who comply with the rules have nothing to fear; except that all the evidence has now shown that the government actively seeks to persecute asylum seekers who have already been proven in law to require humanitarian protection by the British government. It is the government who are failing to comply with their own "compliant environment". And going back to the case of the "Windrush" generation, these include people whose own documents have been confiscated by the government, either through gross negligence or callous indifference; documents that proved their legal rights. Again, the government show how they cannot be trusted to follow their own rules. It is those that are most vulnerable in society in this case who are the most likely to suffer; their rights taken away from them for the sin of choosing to take officialdom at its word.

The sense of betrayal, at discovering that the high moral regard that the British government is based on is really an illusion, must be strong with those who have suffered as a result of this. It is like if you discovered that your father, who had raised you and you trusted implicitly for years, is actually a monster. With the government, it is a case of: do as I say, not as I do.
Presiding over all this is Theresa May. Those who support her say that, in close quarters, she is kind-hearted and warm. This may be true, but her supporters also seem blind to the more realistic view that May is kind-hearted and warm to people she likes and understands; there is far more evidence to suggest that, outside of her narrow social circle, she deals with issues in a far more mean-spirited and narrow-minded way.
This may well come from her parochial and socially-conservative upbringing, which means she struggles to humanly relate to those outside of her own background, and is temperamentally resistant to change. When turned into an "ideology" or government strategy, the result is the "hostile environment"; in a sense, an instrument of May's own inner psychology. Her officials are meant to apply the rules as set out by her. The "Cool Britannia" of twenty years ago has turned into "Cruel Britannia" under Theresa May.
The moral hypocrisy of Theresa May and her government is what really stands out in this "do as I say, not as I do" philosophy. As an ostensibly religious person, it's hard to fathom how she squares her Christian morality with her government's treatment of asylum seekers, the "Windrush" generation, and the most vulnerable in society in general. The "hostile environment" is an immoral policy, reeking in antipathy, and used in a way that deliberately harms people.
And yet Theresa May is still a church-going, seemingly moralistic person (or claims to be). Ignorance cannot be an excuse, as the real-world results of her government's policy have been known for a long time. It is much more likely about cynical political calculation, as that has been her strategy ever since she arrived at the Home Office (these kinds of stories go down well with the party grassroots, as they make her look resolute on immigration). Besides, who cares about the suffering of those who cannot vote and have no voice? It's already been made clear that she doesn't care about the fate of even her own citizens, if they have opinions and lifestyles that are different from her, so making some "third world" foreigners suffer just for the sake of it would be even easier to sanction.

While the treatment of the "Windrush" generation could be called a policy of "callous indifference", for the government to misuse public funds to actively make asylum seekers' lives intolerable is nothing less than sadistic.

Ideology and psychology: Libertarian motivation, right-wing thinking and historic comparison

The link between psychology and ideology is something that cannot be underestimated in terms of its human impact, as politics is about human decisions; flawed psychology leads to flawed decision-making.
This author has written before about the disturbing links between sociopathy and political advancement. The world of politics attracts those who seek either amoral self-advancement, or those who wish to expunge their own psychological insecurities by imposing their own twisted world-view on the rest of society.

In the UK, the issue of Britain's membership of the EU was at one time something of an obsession with "cranks". Nowadays, those one-time "cranks" are in the position of holding the government "hostage", ensuring that their vision of Britain outside the EU is enacted in full.

Who are these people? What are their backgrounds and motivations? Looking at some of the more high-profile of the "Brexiteers" in more detail, a few common themes appear.
First of all, there is the fairly obvious issue that the large majority of those in favour "Hard Brexit" are Libertarians. Brexit has always been a Libertarian project at its heart, going back thirty years. It should be asked how many of the electorate would call themselves "Libertarians": 20%, if not even less than that?
The Libertarian mindset is one of strongly individualistic, anti-government (and psychologically anti-social) motivations. It is vigorously anti-Communist, against any use of government power outside of the bare minimum. This is the reason for the Libertarian sense of historic "betrayal" by the EU. As they thought in entering the EU they were entering the world's largest free trade zone, the resulting regulations and rules that then went with that, along with "ever closer union", they saw as a personal affront to Libertarian "freedom".
When a Libertarian talks of "freedom", they are talking about economic "laissez-faire" freedom: the freedom from government rules, and the freedom to trade and make money without rules. Thus the EU, in needing to have rules in order to create a "level playing field" within the single market, becomes the Libertarians' enemy. While to an objective observer, rules and regulations can be seen to have a common-sense application when dealing with a open border economy involving dozens of countries, to a Libertarian, these rules and regulations become something more sinister: a threat to the Libertarian's "freedom".

In this way, Libertarians have a highly-concrete (and personal) sense of their own individuality and "freedom", where anything that reduces their ability to act as they wish is seen as a threat to themselves personally. This explains how "Brexiteers" respond to any attempt on compromise over Brexit as anathema: having invested so much of their own time and careers to it, they "internalize" their ideology, calling those who call for compromise as "appeasers" or "saboteurs".
This violent rhetoric partially may come from the psychology innate in Libertarian thought itself, which with its strongly individualist themes also encourages an inherently aggressive, masculine world-view. This testosterone-fueled culture that comes from Libertarian thought has pervaded Western thinking, particularly in the dog-eat-dog world of the "Anglo-sphere", where inequality is seen not only as inevitable but actually a positive thing for society, and where personal "drive" is what matters in life, rather than your social background. In this way, poverty is seen as the result of personal failings rather than the result of wider injustice in society. Such a stark, unforgiving moral universe has uncomfortable parallels with even more extreme right-wing ideologies.


Where the "military" and the "diaspora" meet

A closer break-down of the people advocating Brexit reveals yet more curiosities.
Apart from the shared ideology of Libertarianism, a disproportionate number of "Brexiteers" come from military backgrounds: people like (former ministers) Iain Duncan Smith, David Davis and Steve Baker have all had military careers of one sort or another, while some other "Brexiteers" (such as current minister Penny Mordaunt) have military connections through their parents.
A disproportionate number of "Brexiteers" are also what might be called part of the historic white British "diaspora": people who were either born and raised outside the UK (but also outside Europe), or have spent part of their time growing up abroad, or spent a significant part of their adult life abroad. Prominent examples include Boris Johnson (born in New York), Douglas Carswell (born and raised in Africa), Daniel Hannan (born in Peru), Arron Banks (who has significant interests in South Africa), and others.
Lastly, there is yet another disproportionately-represented segment within the "Brexiteers": those of non-white background who are also "products of empire" like some of the white British "diaspora" already mentioned. The significant trio of Sajid Javid, Priti Patel and Suella Fernandes stand out here: all three are Libertarians, of South Asian heritage, and from different parts of the former colonies - Pakistan, Uganda, and Kenya-India respectively. These people are either ministers, former ministers, or powerful personages within the "Brexiteer" side of the Conservative Party.

What this all adds up to is a revealing character portrait of the motivations and backgrounds behind "Brexit". In short, what it tells us is that disproportionate numbers of Libertarians are former-military and/or legacy products (i.e. children) of the "empire".
Should this be surprising? Probably not, but being able to look at the cold, hard facts in this way certainly brings a fresh perspective on the whole "Brexit Agenda". It has been said that "Brexit" is really about creating "Empire 2.0": the "colonial" background of some of the key people involved lends itself to the view that they indeed wish to leave the EU in order to establish a kind of "Commonwealth-with-bells-on". Theresa May's current traipsing around Africa seems to support that viewpoint.

More generally, it might also be guessed that the "colonial" and military background to many of these people would skew their own view of how they see the world and Britain itself. Military people always have tended to be more nationalistic, arguably seeing their nation in a far more emotional (and personal) way than the ordinary person. Equally, those with a "colonial" background may well tend to see Britain through the eyes of mythology: their own distant upbringing taking the rhetoric of Britain as a "sceptred isle", a bastion of civilisation, all too literally, lacking the perspective that close experience of a country creates. In this way, in having a narrow (even disconnected) experience of "real" Britain, they have fallen for their own propaganda.
From a psychological point of view, they therefore invest personally in believing in Britain's unique status, becoming staunch defenders of its freedoms while ignoring its many flaws; and when they see the EU, they see an institution that threatens their own sense of Britain's mythology. As a result, they lash out at anything and anyone that threatens to destroy their own carefully-formed (and insecure) version of the world. "Brexit" therefore is about creating the Britain of Libertarians' own mythology.
The end result is that their view of Britain's place in the world is through the lens of its former imperial status and its status as a military power; by contrast, Britain's physical proximity to Europe they see more as a threat than an opportunity, skewed through the prejudice of two World Wars.

This mythology of Britain is what Libertarians are obsessed with; their own prejudice against Europe comes from their own personal background, equating EU bureaucracy with the slippery slope to Communist oppression and/or dictatorial autocracy that they may have heard about or experienced abroad. Thus they react to EU regulations as though they were the same as Soviet oppression or totalitarian methods of control. The rose-tinted perspective that many Libertarians have of the "colonies" from their parents' stories thus lead them into (masculine) fantasies about restoring British power and prestige, fueled by their own sense of having something to prove.


German parallels

This isn't the first time that ideology and a nation's fate has been guided by the fantasies and prejudice of an alliance of ex-military and "diaspora" ideologues.
Where there are "cranks" that are today Libertarians guiding Britain down an unknown and unstable path, a hundred years ago in Germany, "cranks" of a different kind were also fighting against the spread of Communism in Europe.
By 1919, Germany was in a state of institutional flux, with a weak centre of power in the aftermath of the First World War. Into the void stepped an alliance of ex-military "Freikorps"; right-wing nationalists who sought someone to blame for the mess. They then gained the trust of the German "diaspora" of the (former) Russian Empire, who began to flee from the Russian civil war to Germany: these were people of aristocratic stock (known as "Baltic Germans"), whose heritage went back centuries, to the time when Germans - then called the "Teutonic Knights" - ruled over vast tracts of the Eastern Baltic. These "Baltic Germans" were ardently anti-Communist, and had their own rose-tinted views of what Germany could look like if it were able to take advantage of the opportunity in the east and recapture its "lost lands" in the Baltic.
Into this mix was added their own prejudice. The "Baltic Germans" anti-Communism was also influenced by one of the most influential of their kin: Fyodor Vinberg. Under his tutelage, the Baltic Germans were able to influence a large part of the "Freikorps" into believing Communism was also part of a larger Jewish plot to take over the world. Thus Anti-Semitism became established in right-wing circles of German society thanks to the German "diaspora"; one of those listening was Adolf Hitler. The extreme views of those Baltic Germans went on to feature in "Mein Kampf".

Extremism can take many forms. A hundred years ago, it was the rise of Communism that led to the rise in Anti-Semitism. Today, what were once the fringe views of Libertarians have come to dominate political discourse in British politics. Their own prejudices - their irrational hatred of Europe, and their fantastical view of British exceptionalism - are leading Britain down a path where xenophobia has become normalized, and where casual violence goes unpunished.

This can't end well.