Just as Gorbachev’s failed reforms accelerated processes which “encouraged many Russians to redefine the Soviet territory as alien and to identify the Russian territory as their homeland,” we see a similar process on the rapidly evolving British Right in distinguishing between the Britain of recent memory and its UK replacement. When even Tory grandees such as Lord Frost borrow the disparaging term “Yookay” from the internet Right to disparage what he defines as Blair’s “new country, an actual successor state to the old Great Britain [but] distinct from it”, we see a similar, explicit distinction being made as that between Russia and the USSR. The counterpoint to Blair’s UK, or YooKay — the two are, now, more or less interchangeable — is, as Frost observes, simply Britain.
Whether you welcome this development or fear it, British politics in its current tumultuous form, with all its increasingly radicalised and existential debates on immigration and demographics, on its history, social housing and the welfare state, and on the nature and boundaries of Britishness or Englishness, is inexplicable without accepting that the country has now entered this phase of political development.
Some pundits are now claiming that both major political UK parties have lost their general approval and public respect. The Conservatives through a long period of managed decline and Labour in a frightful mix of authoritarianism and helplessness.
So yes. We are now in a period of political instability. Going ‘back’ to the old Britain is no longer feasible. Going forward to some Socialist wet dream is unappealing. It’s up to us as voters to pick our way forward – what a shame the Conservatives are still working on their plan, Labour have no idea that won’t change next week, and Reform are still in the hand waving stage.
I hope the next Government has some idea beyond merely responding to ‘events’.
Will Climate Change be an issue? I think of it as the biggest fraud ever perpetuated in the history of mankind. Will it ever dawn on the vast majority that they have been had? If the bubble does burst, will politicians be able to claim that they were acting in good faith, responding to the best scientific knowledge that was available at the time?