Britain in Decline

The Anatomy of Brexit

The tragedy of the modern-day United Kingdom is hard to fathom from a continental European perspective. What appears to be the most self-damaging political act akin to national suicide, Brexit has proved to be an unmitigated disaster for most observers, except for the hardliners within the UK, who are still pretending that success is "just around the corner" as Britain has regained control of its destiny and is a free nation once again. As if the European Union was some Stalinist straight-jacket that prevented the country from preserving its deserved status of greatness.

For a better understanding of the origins of Brexit and the underlying forces that managed to impose such a radical idea on Britain and get away with it by winning a much-contested referendum that was promoted on a foundation of lies, that would make a Donald Trump proud (and which did) for a non-British individual not living in the UK and experiencing it first-hand, it is necessary to turn to a renowned expert and opinion leader in the UK.

James O'Brien is one such expert, and his talk show on LBC radio in London is avidly listened to every weekday between 10 am and 1 pm. The format is a phone-in discussion of current affairs and generates robust exchanges with the host. O'Brien is known for his anti-Brexit beliefs and considers himself a "liberal" as opposed to left-wing.

O'Brien is not only a radio presenter and podcaster but also a talented author. His latest book, "How They Broke Britain," attempts to explain the present state of the UK.

Our economy has tanked, our freedoms are shrinking, and social divisions are growing. Our politicians seem most interested in their own careers, and much of the media only make things worse. We are living in a country almost unrecognisable from the one that existed a decade ago. But whose fault is it really? Who broke Britain and how did they do it?

O'Brien firmly places the blame on what he calls "the shady network of influence that has created a broken Britain of strikes, shortages and scandals". Over the course of ten riveting and incisive chapters, he identifies specifically the people and institutions he has in mind; politicians and their unelected advisors, think tanks, journalists and press barons are not spared by his astute mind and fact-based research.

The chapters on ex-prime ministers and politicians such as Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn are riveting. Rishi Sunak, the current Prime Minister, is described in an afterword - much like his tenure at ten Downing Street, which is expected to end very shortly on July the fourth unless, by some miracle, he can avoid defeat at the forthcoming General Election.

Other less-known figures for a non-British readership are also singled out, although Rupert Murdoch is world famous not only because he married at the ripe old age of 93. Joe Biden is assuredly envious of Murdoch's continued political influence and stamina.

After reading this book, the reader is left with the impression that all is lost and that Britain will never regain its previous standing in the world. The only path to possible redemption and "for the process of repairing Britain to begin" is the election of a new labour Prime Minister in the person of Keir Starmer, thus ending fourteen years of Conservative rule. But even O'Brien is somewhat cautious in his closing remarks.

But in the ecosystem where Brexit could happen; where Boris Johnson could achieve the highest office in the land and treat it with complete contempt while his party cheered every lie and scandal; where Liz Truss could crash the economy and later blame it on ‘trans activists’; where a government could abolish our ‘Freedom of Movement’ and tell us to celebrate; where a Home Secretary could call for the confiscation of homeless people’s tents; a Business Secretary can describe meaningless arrangements as lucrative ‘trade deals’ and be applauded by supine client journalists; and where the billionaire-owned media’s weaponisation of immigration continues even as every sector cries out for staff, nothing, but nothing, is certain. In that country, in the Britain they broke, I wouldn’t take anything for granted.

One can only hope that the famed resilience and courage of the British people will ultimately prevail and that O'Brien's caution and foreboding are unwarranted.

And herein lies the rub. "How They Broke Britain" is a marvellous analysis of the current predicament the country is in. As incisive, intelligent, and informative as the book may be, it does not address the next logical question: what needs to be done in concrete terms to change course? Given the timid and over-cautious declarations of the next presumptive prime minister on the theme of Brexit, where his only guarantee is "to make Brexit work better" establishes upfront a series of redlines that he will not cross (i.e. refusal to either rejoin the EU, the European Economic Area or even the Customs Union) so much so that Starmer has created a political straight jacket of his own that he may live to regret. And with him the United Kingdom as a whole.

If this indeed turns out to be the case, can we rely on O'Brien to strongly call him out and advocate for a much more ambitious and pro-European trajectory?