By the time you read these words, it’s seeming increasingly likely that the Cabinet will have nobody left in it for various reasons, whether they harassed various women, kept porn on their office computer or even had secret chats with some Israelis. Indeed, the entire British political system appears to be a sinking ship without a captain, more fit for satire than for government. Unfortunately satire, it occurs to me, serves at least partially to poke fun at the respect our leaders are meant to command, yet what role can it play if there’s no respect there to undermine?
It’s no secret that Theresa May is not expected to last a full term as PM, especially with the ‘backing’ of some of her top team she’s been getting recently. However, in a bizarre twist of fate, May is remarkably untouchable in the top job at the moment, although the frustrating reality is that this is true purely as there’s nobody better in the Tory party at the moment (not David Davis, not Boris Johnson, not even personality cult extraordinaire Jacob Rees-Mogg). She’s hopeless, true, but she’s the least hopeless we’ve got – quite the horrifying situation for the most successful Western political party of the last two centuries. Across the ever-widening political divide, Labour offers little solace. Jeremy Corbyn’s backing from his party is fragile at best, only obtained for now due to two truly pitiful leadership contests. At the party’s annual conference, Corbyn’s close allies in Momentum made sure that Brexit wasn’t given a chance to come up, potentially to dodge the divisive issue of single market membership. More frustrating than any of these matters is the unstoppable dominance of soundbite politics undermining any leadership this country could provide – post-Brexit (if it ever even happens), what can Britain be good for?
At first glance, well…not much. Our discussions with the EU are bruising at best, the incessant stumbling and lack of progress hurting our credibility as negotiators, diplomats and politicians. Perhaps a good indication of this dwindling respect on the continent is the fact that, during the German election campaign, the country often perceived to be the linchpin of the EU debated Brexit exactly zero times. They don’t really care about the post-Brexit UK because, the way the wind’s blowing, it’s not going to be significant enough to matter to them. To the average individual that doesn’t mean a lot, yet nationally it’s a concern. Without support or respect from the continent, the UK is going to struggle to become the ‘world-leading’ nation we were promised it would be. For the first time (outside of Eurovision anyway) we’re going to have to compete with other European nations for attention.
It’s not looking good there either. We’ve little to offer in terms of product. British manufacturing is not the beast it used to be (we’re currently eighth in the world and that’s celebrated in the birthplace of modern industry), and by far the largest sector of our economy is in services – services mainly from other countries using Britain as a gateway to all of the EU (and Europe as a whole, usually). Without a deal (and a no-deal scenario is gaining support), there’s little to no reason for any of these companies to stay in London over, say, Berlin or Dublin.
It’s no secret to a child of the British education system that Britain, at one stage, possessed a really quite impressive empire. Now, beyond all the horrific truths of colonialism lies one fact– the English language is the third most-spoken in the world, and the de facto official language of global business. Even the EU leaders, in their attempts to expose the chaos of the British Brexit team, have been speaking in English, using their native tongues in purely symbolic capacities. Collectively, the British imperial efforts and the rise of US-endorsed capitalism have spread the English language all over the world, and as a result the conducting of most business can be and is affected by Britain. Creatively, English dominates – despite its recent battering, Hollywood controls the film world, and the English novel rules the bookshelves as well. Short of a surge in support for Spanish or Mandarin, we will retain this influence post-Brexit, and perhaps this is something to cling to in this increasingly bleak reality we appear to be stuck in.