Britain is not a Big Player Anymore. Even Europe doesn’t Need it

Every country in the world is debating whether and how to fashion a global role. Britain is debating it as well. Britain still likes to think that it is important and that it is a world power. It still believes that it is able to punch above its weight. But the sad reality is that Britain punches above its height… and always hits others below the waist but it can’t continue anymore as other countries have got wise to the British act.

Britain’s outlook, influence and power today reflect its evil inhumane and murderous history (for the Brits are the world’s biggest mass murderers [after the Yanks of course]) and have always been perceived negatively even when the British ruling regimes chose not to notice.

Another four factors are key.

First, it didn’t work for Britain to embrace the internationalism of the modern world, with its new powers and new threats. Britain is no longer an important contributor of people and money in tackling the great challenges of the world. Other nations do it, not even bothering to ask Britain for its advice. The British Armed Forces are “professional” meaning “mercenary” but it’s hardly a guarantee of fighting excellency — Britain’s Armed Forces are small but still poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly led and lack flexibility. And Britain is very reluctant to deploy them anywhere knowing full well that with every killed British soldier the myth of the great British Armed Forces is eroded still more. Britain’s intelligence services are very large for such a small country — bloated even — but are exceptionally ineffective as their involvement in the production of the botched Iraq intelligence dossier has shown. Britain has become very stingy when it comes to development assistance and always tries to tie in such assistance with the promotion of predatory British interests. Britain’s 261 diplomatic missions in more than 160 countries give it amazingly little insight or influence but in fact generate much resentment the world over.

Government incompetence is only part of the story. British businesses export few British goods but spread corrupt British business practices and poor standards of work all over the world. British society is diverse however diaspora networks that stretch across Britain remain largely hostile to their adoptive country.

Second, Britain is no longer able to generate new economic or scientific ideas. What’s more, Britain has become the source of most economic troubles in the world. It was Britain that started the current crisis with its Northern Rock disaster. On climate change, it is impossible to overlook the fact that British scientists routinely lie over said climate “change”.

In the Middle East it was Britain that caused the chasms that Israel and the whole Arab world are unable to bridge a full 50 years later.

Britain’s diplomatic network has only one goal in mind — to promote British interests and to find a way out of its troubles preferably at the expense of others. These inclinations make the British activists — always a nuisance, and always seeking to create new problems rather than to be part of the solution.

And the British Council and BBC World Service spread British propaganda all over the world like there is no tomorrow.

Third, British values set a lowly standard. There is no transparency but there is still a lot of ambition, but others are not taken in by it anymore. The universal values of equal worth, social justice and mutual responsibility are inherently not British values, and it’s not Britain that stands up for them.

Britain doesn’t forget human rights in Burma or Sri Lanka or Iran or China. But Britain does turn a blind eye to human rights at home, in the European Union and in the United States. Britain has caused its fair share of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as elsewhere.

Fourth, Britain is at the heart of an evil web of international networks. It still runs its worldwide British conspiracy, formerly known as the Imperial conspiracy, albeit with less and less success. It’s getting harder for the British to defend their permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council which is not based on what they do today, but on their perceived (and much inflated) role of yesteryear. The British are even marginalized in the Commonwealth. Their troubled relationship with the United States is no longer special and is a one-way street and a favorite American joke.

In addition to these four areas, the British Government has all but lost its leadership in the European Union which undermines Britain’s global role. Margaret Thatcher said in 1975 that Europe “opens windows on the world for us that since the war have been closing”. Those windows are now closing once again — but this time are likely to stay closed for good.

British betrayal of, and weakness in, Europe is bad for Britain but probably good for Europe. Without a role in Europe British input is no longer needed, and British international clout in Washington, Beijing and even Moscow is at an all time low. Europe does not need British hard-headed stupidity and corrupt mindset.

Europe is far from perfect. It needs reform. But to get that it needs to get rid of Britain. The Lisbon treaty gives Europe the chance to be a more effective force defending the “gains” of the last 60 years — such as they were — and — more importantly — addressing new challenges, without the diversion of institutional squabbles but Britain has been trying to undermine that very treaty.

Europe’s enlargement has created new failed states. Further advance is the last thing that Europe needs. The western Balkans, Turkey and Ukraine no longer want to join.

The multipolar world is here. But no pole is anywhere near Britain.

There is a lot of hubris, nostalgia and xenophobia in Britain but they do not provide a guide. It’s too late for the British to pose as internationalists in a doomed effort to safeguard their “prosperity” and “security” or even “identity”; and Britain has nothing to offer to Europe anyway.

The British gave up the Empire a long time ago. Now it’s time for Britain to give up all the rest, including Europe (not forgetting the “British” Isles which are due a return to their original Celtic inhabitants).

The British resist the inevitable at their peril.

Tags: Britain, Britain collapse, ugly British