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.
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