[The fallen prime minister is just part of the overall
disintegrating process. ]
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BORIS JOHNSON & THE UK DECLINE  
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Craig Murray
July 7, 2022
Consortium News
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_ The fallen prime minister is just part of the overall
disintegrating process. _

Prime Minister Boris Johnson giving his resignation statement outside
Number 10 Downing Street on Thursday., Kyle Heller / No 10 Downing
Street

 

All Empires end in ignominy. That of the United Kingdom is drawing to
a close.

A century from now, the dominant historical narrative will be Chinese
and Chinese historians will puzzle over how a prime minister, Boris
Johnson, fell from office
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over a lie about what he knew of sexual harassment by a very junior
member of his government.

Learned papers will be written over whether this was truly the cause,
or whether the underlying socio-economic crisis caused by inflation
and Brexit was the real determinant.

Chinese books (or their technological equivalent) will be written on
the crisis of neoliberalism and how Western society reached
unsustainable levels of concentration of capital and wealth
inequality.

Acres have been written in the mainstream media about Johnson’s
lying and personal immorality, but there is very little serious effort
to understand why so many in society have been prepared to tolerate
this. The answer is that neo-liberalism has succeeded in destroying
societal values, to the extent that anti-social and even sociopathic
behavior no longer appears peculiar.

In a society where authority condones, and constructs a system to
enable, personal fortunes of $200 billion or more while millions of
children in the same country are genuinely hungry and poorly housed,
what values is the socio-political structure telling people to hold?
What value is placed on empathy? Ruthless ambition and resource
grabbing is applauded, encouraged and held up as the model to be
followed.

More and more, you are either part of the elite or you are struggling.

In the U.K., the Thatcherite dream of mass property ownership is
abruptly canceled. Social mobility and meritocracy are changed from an
opportunity for large scale social advancement by multitudes, into
Hunger Games. Where significant numbers of young people see their best
shot at financial comfort as selection for “Love Island,” how do
we expect them to be repulsed that Johnson was having multiple affairs
while his then wife was struggling with cancer?

Johnson is explicitly a devotee of the great man theory of history.
But in fact his startling political career is in itself merely a
symptom of the decline of the United Kingdom, from great Imperial
power to the breakup of the metropolitan state (the latter of course
started to take formal effect in 1921).

Brexit was just a convulsion, as the United Kingdom went through the
psychological trauma of accepting its change in status from great
power to reasonably senior European state. There is a great treatise
to be written on this and the consequent wave of populist English
nationalism.

You may like to note the constant Tory use of the phrase
“world-leading” in risible circumstances; the fact that even
yesterday Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition, felt the need to
comment on government collapse while planted between three Union
Jacks; the constant militarism and fetishizing of the armed forces on
TV, and the desire for reflected glory by fighting a great war to the
blood of the very last Ukrainian.

Peter Oborne’s meticulous compilation
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it is that the crisis should come over a comparatively minor lie about
knowledge of bad sexual behavior, in which Johnson for once was not
personally involved. But it is quite wrong to think of Johnson as
unique. Oborne’s wonderful book _The Rise of Political Lying
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the massive attack on governmental standards perpetrated by the
charlatan Tony Blair, a former prime minister.

Johnson is just a part of a process. As the power of an Empire
disintegrates, so do its mores. Since the second world war, over 60
states have become independent of British rule. The pink bits on the
map (“this colony is where your tapioca comes from”) they showed
me so proudly at primary school have shrunk and shrunk and shrunk.
Thank God children are no longer taught to sing “Over the seas there
are little brown children” in need of conversion (I really was
taught that, I am not making stuff up).

As the U.K.’s military, economic and political power have collapsed,
so have its political mores — both for good and for bad. Johnson is
but a turd spewed to the top of the gushing sewer of British decline.

Every one of those 60 states that have left British rule, was warned
that it would struggle without the U.K. No state has ever wanted to
return to British rule. Fellow Scots, take note.

I also want to make plain to my English readers — and remember I am
half English myself — that I genuinely believe the breakup of the
highly artificial British union will be very beneficial to England.
Scottish independence and Irish reunification are coming soon. Welsh
independence is fast gathering support.

It will take the break-up of the U.K. to jolt the great power
nostalgia and silly patriotism that underlies so much of Tory support
— and that of other right wing Union Jack fetishists like Starmer.

Only the shock of the formal closure of the British state will
precipitate the psychological change needed for England to become a
modern, forward looking, middle-ranking European state with concern
for domestic and international fairness.

The U.K. has been in socio-political turmoil since 2016 and is now
entering profound economic crisis. These very days are the end-time of
the United Kingdom. Rejoice!

I shall leave the last word to that great radical Percy Bysshe
Shelley:

CRAIG MURRAY IS AN AUTHOR, BROADCASTER AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST. HE
WAS BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO UZBEKISTAN FROM AUGUST 2002 TO OCTOBER 2004
AND RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE FROM 2007 TO 2010. HIS COVERAGE
IS ENTIRELY DEPENDENT ON READER SUPPORT. SUBSCRIPTIONS TO KEEP THIS
BLOG GOING ARE GRATEFULLY RECEIVED
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_This article is from __CraigMurray.org.uk_
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_The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not
reflect those of _CONSORTIUM NEWS.

* Boris Johnson
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