- (may 2024)
Britain the Incurable Patient
A series of incompetent leaders has turned Britain into the sick man of Europe. The kind of self-harm inflicted by Brexit and by the governments that came after Brexit has no equals in British history.
The best joke is that the trigger of Brexit was an anti-immigrant sentiment and now Britain finds itself with European immigrants replaced by African and Asian immigrants, and in larger number. I suspect that the xenophobic Britons who voted for Brexit would rather have a Catholic from Poland as a neighbor than a Muslim from Pakistan.
Net immigration, which hovered around 200,000 in pre-Brexit years skyrocketed to an all-time high of 745,000 in 2022.
Now about one third of British physicians and almost half of all nurses are foreign-born. They are often from India, Pakistan and the Philippines because of the
new restrictions on European immigration. Europeans are discouraged, but long-distance immigrants are still willing to deal with those restrictions.
Furthermore, immigrants from Europe were more likely to go back to their countries once they achieved their financial goals (or, quite simply, completed their studies), whereas immigrants from Africa and Asia are more likely to settle down forever.
And the ultimate irony of Brexit is that the British xenophobes are now ruled
by prime minister Sunak, the son of African immigrants of Indian descent.
Britain still has grandiose international (imperial?) ambitions but shrinking economic resources and credibility. Its economy is smaller than India's and slightly bigger than Italy's.
Britain is out of the EU, where it held a strong influence, and its friendship with the USA is getting weaker with every new generation of US politicians (it was Obama, before Trump, who started talking of a "pivot towards Asia").
The octuagenarian Biden might be the last sincere Atlanticist to occupy the White House. Trump only cares about himself. After them, the next president is likely to be someone born way after WWII.
Starmer is the favorite to succeed the current clownish prime minister. Starmer has stated clearly that he will not try to rejoin the EU, the only thing that would restore some credibility and influence to Britain.
Hopefully Starmer will at least focus more on reviving the economy and rebuilding a decaying infrastructure than on grandiose international ambitions.
Britain is condemning itsef to irrelevance. At least it could become a modern and decent place like Poland or Romania.
See also Britain should quickly rejoin the EU and adopt the euro
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See also Nations in crisis: Britain.
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