The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a small country that is about to get even smaller. I know that this simple statement of fact will nevertheless infuriate many English people--and I do mean English people, not Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish.
Last week, at India's Raisina Dialogue, the Spanish foreign minister said that there were two types of countries in Europe: countries that are small and countries that do not know that they are small. Aside from the English, no Europeans in the audience were upset at this plain-speaking. Not even the French.
We know that Britain is about to get smaller because, as the consequence of its inability to resolve its own internal political contradictions, it looks increasingly likely that it will crash out of Europe with no deal a few weeks from now. Prime Minister Theresa May and her withdrawal agreement have just been delivered the biggest parliamentary defeat in recent British history, raising the risk of a disorderly withdrawal.
The British can blame no one but themselves. While they've never been enthusiastic Europeans, their decision to be the first country to withdraw from the EU is revealing of a basic inability to grasp their vastly diminished place in the world.
Countries that were once powerful have to work hard to realize they no longer are. Some, like France, have understood that they can hold on to some of their past glory through shaping and guiding a larger collective. Others abandon the quest altogether and find fulfillment elsewhere.
Perhaps the fact that London is still in a way an imperial center has allowed the fantasy of British greatness to persist. But the empire London now serves is a very different one from those of the past and lies beyond any one nation's control: Finance's power has given Britain the confidence to undercut the basis for finance's presence in Britain--its status as a gateway to the EU.
Perhaps Brexit can still be avoided. But, that would only be the beginning of Britain's task. It must still seek an identity for itself that is more suited to the role it can realistically play on the world stage.
Editorial on 01/19/2019