It is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the conclusion that Britain is now a basket-case (which, if you are not sure, refers to a country which has massive social and economic problems.)
Far be it from this column to make disparaging remarks about our nearest neighbours (and our rulers since 1171), but it is obvious that Boris Johnson has made Britain somewhat less than mediocre again. Its Covid-19 inspired economic decline is worse than other developed economies and the United Kingdom now faces virus-driven disintegration. Not only does Britannia no longer rule the waves, she does not even rule much of Britain these days.
So how did Britain get into such a mess, what’s its future and what will it all mean for Ireland?
Britain’s decline began with losing its empire and it was accelerated by the election of Margaret Thatcher. It collapsed as an industrial power when Thatcher decided that because it had become temporarily self-sufficient in food and energy (through North Sea oil) Britain no longer needed manufacturing industries to trade with the world. So she turned the country into an offshore casino for the money market. (We were too busy here killing each other to notice.)
Her collapse of British manufacturing led to huge social and economic deprivation, which was made worse by her decimation of the welfare state. The continuation of her policies by successive Labour and Tory governments increased the sense of working class despair, which eventually generated enough anti-government sentiment to produce a majority vote for Brexit.
Against a background of regional and class division, Boris Johnson became prime minister. If ever there was a wrong man in a wrong place, at a wrong time, it was him. Today Britain’s immediate problem is Boris himself.
He flails about as if he is not fully in control of his political brain, making only sporadic contact with reality. He appears to view British society as a novel for which he writes, and then abandons, a different and improbable plot every day.
Johnson doesn’t govern, he just distracts, as evidenced by his madcap idea of an Ireland-Scotland bridge. As London mayor his mad and unfulfilled ideas totalled £1 billion, including £53 million for a “garden bridge” which was never built.
His heroes are Churchill and Trump (his Oxford degree conferred neither common sense nor good taste) and he is apparently “fascinated” by Trump’s simplicity of language and “intermittent relationship” with the truth.
Apart from his obsession with bridges, Johnson is indulging in three more serious follies. The first is his denial, indifference and arrogance towards Covid-19. He has made Britain the sick man of Europe in more ways than one.
His second folly is his pursuit of a presidential style of government in which the civil service will be political rather than independent (he may have got the idea from Stormont) and political appointees, rather than MPs, will shape government policy.
His third obsession is Brexit (which is where we come in). To him, Brexit is not just a move towards greater economic independence, it is his Grand Plan to make Britain great again. His claimed intention to break international law by re-writing part of the Brexit withdrawal agreement is Churchillian in design and Trumpist in practice.
Nationalist Ireland complains, but it helped Johnson into power. To impress Berlin, Ireland refused to co-operate with Theresa May, despite knowing that Johnson would succeed her. Nationalists now accuse him of ”treachery”. What did they expect - benevolence?
If Johnson opts for a no-deal Brexit, the UK economy will reduce by 3 per cent, according to a recent German study. But Ireland’s economy will shrink by 8 per cent. Having helped Johnson into power, Ireland now stands to lose most from his madcap antics.
You see, that’s the problem with living next door to a basket case. If you don’t try to curb its worst excesses, you too can become infected - as Ireland may be about to find out.
