Unquestionably, the first half of the twentieth century, and the century before that, belonged to Britain. At its apogee the British Empire covered one-fourth of the globe and it was said that the sun never set on the Empire, allegedly, because God could not trust Britons in the dark. However, after Britain lost its colonies to nationalist movements, its fall was precipitous; to maintain a semblance of its non-existent importance, wholly unmindful of the epithet ‘American poodle,’ British governments, regardless of party affiliation, determinedly stuck to its war-time ally US’s coattails.

Now, Donald Trump has brought even the days of reflected glory to an ignominious end, making it markedly clear that Britain should look after its own, and the US will give no preferential treatment to Britain, subjecting British goods to the same tariffs that the US levied on other countries. The economic jolt, even before it was delivered, has almost dismantled the socialist welfare paradise that Britain had turned into; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves had to cut welfare allocations all around, including those for the old and disabled.

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Savings from the welfare budget cut were repurposed for increasing the defence budget. After some unsuccessful wheedling at the White House, the British PM, in his meetings with his European peers, who had been similarly rebuffed by Trump, bravely talked about enhancing Britain’s defence capabilities. Like the rest of the Western World, Britain had long outsourced its manufacturing to China, relying on services that were cleaner, non-polluting, and required little labour for earning its bread and butter.

Now, the chickens have come home to roost. America was much in the same boat, but had become serious about reindustrialising and having an indigenous supply chain for producing military hardware, during the Bid en Presidency ~ motivated mainly by its aim to reduce dependence on arch-rival China. Right from the nineteenth century, industrialisation and its symbiotic relationship with colonisation, had fuelled British dominance over the rest of the world; colonies provided raw material to industries, and a ready market for industrial products.

Hapless colonies also provided a large store of manpower to further British interests in far corners of the globe, and act as cannon fodder in Britain’s numerous wars. Moreover, scientific and technological innovations kept Britain far ahead of its European rivals. None of these conditions exist today; British industry is almost defunct, and the era of colonialism is long over. So far has Britain travelled from its nineteenth-century war-like avatar that despite Ms. Reeves’ promise of making Britain a ‘defence industrial superpower,’ a resurgence of Britain’s industrial and military power does not look possible in the near future.

British planners aiming to build a military-industrial complex at the behest of Ms. Reeves were aghast to discover that British Steel was now Chinese owned, and on the verge of closing its last blast furnace giving Britain the dubious distinction of not being capable of producing a single ton of virgin steel. Almost all of the North Sea oil, which was a lifeline for Britain from the 1970s to recent years, had been pumped out, with billions in decommissioning costs looming on the horizon. Britain’s foundries are floundering, with output down by 85 per cent since 2000. The chemicals sector is on its swansong, and so is the ceramics sector.

The share of manufacturing in Britain’s GDP is 8.3 per cent ~ half of what it was in 1990. For comparison, the share of manufacturing in India’s GDP is double that of Britain ~ around 17 per cent. With such poor fundamentals, according to analyst Rian Chad Whitton, Britain is incapable of producing anything physical, what to say about the hi-tech weaponry that it has set its heart on. British characteristics of hard work, thrift and entrepreneurship that had contributed to its pole position, are in terminal decline. Since the 2007-08 global financial crisis, wages have been stagnant, and productivity has slowed down.

Ominous, after the recent increase in worker insurance contributions, employment levels are also set to fall. To further complicate matters, since MayJune 2022, a series of labour strikes and industrial disputes have bedevilled various industries, with striking workers demanding pay increases in line with inflation. Members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), were the first to vote to strike over planned changes to their pay and working conditions. RMT were soon joined by oth – er railway unions, and a series of oneday strikes halted trains in many parts of the British mainland. Train services operated at 20 per cent of normal capacity on strike days. The next two years saw strikes by barristers, postal workers, bus drivers, teachers and professors of all hues, refuse workers, and finally by doctors, nurses and even senior consultants.

After strike threats, airport workers, and some others, were placated by hefty pay rises. As of now, even the ruling classes have lost faith in an early British renaissance; in an article in the Daily Telegraph in May 2023, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, started a debate about Britain being in decline. Hunt’s article was preceded by essays in prominent newspapers, predicting the decline, not just of the UK, but of the entire West. Economic collapse, takeover of Britain’s cultural and national identity by ‘aliens,’ the dominance of immigrants in politics and the incompetence of government, have been part of daily news for the last few years.

Columns with titles like “Bri tain isn’t in ‘managed’ decline, the country is about to fall off a cliff” are often seen on oped pages. The four “declines” ~ in external power, in economic performance, in State capacity and in ‘British’ culture, provide grist to the mill of negative public opinion. Things have come to a pass where many see the State as the problem ~ ineffective, spending and taxing prodigally, destroying businesses, and entire sectors of the economy. Brexit, quickly followed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, caused unprecedented inflation and a shrinking of the economy, resulting in a cost-of-living crisis for a large section of Britishers, who genuinely wondered if the British government and politics, had irretrievably broken down.

Such negative sentiments were reinforced by a steep decline in public services ~ ranging from healthcare, to transport, to housing, to sewage disposal, to education ~ often culminating in industrial action. To rescue Britain from a downward spiral and boost growth and productivity, the new Labour Government optimistically planned to adopt a green growth strategy which could tackle climate change. Simultaneously, the Government aimed to build a close partnership with the EU.

This entire strategy, except the now imperative partnership with the EU, has been effectively upended, by shockwaves generated by recent Trumpian antics. Obviously, MEGA (Make England Great Again) will require a resetting of goals and an overhaul of State policy. As for today, what arch-imperialist Winston Churchill had to say about the Roman Empire rings uncannily true for modern day Britain: “By the end of the century Rome seemed as powerful and stable as ever. But below the surface the foundations were cracking, and through the fissures new ideas and new institutions were thrusting themselves.

The cities are everywhere in decline; trade, industry, and agriculture bend under the weight of taxation… The Empire is gradually dissolving into units of a kind unknown to classical antiquity, which will someday be brought together in a new pattern, feudal and Christian. But before that can happen generations must pass, while the new absolutism struggles by main force to keep the roads open, the fields in cultivation, and the barbarian at bay” (Birth of Britain, 1956).

(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)