Endgame Britain? The Four Crises of 'Anglobalisation'

In the twelve months after the Yes campaign was launched, the UK lost its triple-A credit rating, finalised its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, and saw 350,000 people rely on food banks to stave off hunger. But many analysts cringe at these topics, considering them impertinent to the 2014 debate. Column inches are dedicated to 'what Scotland thinks', pouring over the minutiae of voter intentions and the intrigues of party leaders. The debate's substance, the British state, often disappears in this haze.

Public opinion is crucial, but its terms are not fixed. Rather than treat voters as a passive bundle of neuroses, we should remind them of the urgency of change, addressing the citizen, not the psyche. Otherwise, by focusing on individual impulses, conservative forces will set the agenda and define the meaning of 2014.

Yes supporters tend to downplay the vote's significance, fearing it will startle potential supporters. But if we tell people they are terrified of change, they will start to believe it. If you fear the unknown, why vote for separation? Instead, we should treat citizens as rational and mature enough to handle the implications of their decision. The stakes are very high, as Scotland's vote could consign the British state to history. No referendum has ever had such far-reaching consequences. Every four years, we register views on politicians, but how often do we decide the fate of a global power?

Our analysis of independence thus begins with the ideology of Britain today. Fantasies of national destiny are common to all Westminster parties, but they receive little scrutiny. By outlining Britain's ruling ideas, we expose their 'nationalist' core. British politics relies on an imaginary sense of power and purpose; but reality often intrudes, exposing the shabbiness of Westminster's ambitions. When facts trespass on prevailing assumptions, a crisis results; and UK politics faces crises on many fronts.

Anglobalisation

Britain was the first truly capitalist nation state, and despite its gradual democratisation, its core institutions survived disruptions intact. Unlike European rivals, it escaped convulsions of invasion and revolution for over three centuries. While other states chopped off heads, swung dictators from lampposts, and restructured parliaments, the UK evolved in bits and pieces. Existing elites absorbed democratic challenges with minimal upheaval. Labour sold the welfare state as an extension of the privileges of Empire.

Although the establishment retained its privileges, this did not insulate Britain from wider events. In lieu of radical change, Britain suffered a century-long erosion of power. For most of the 1900s, Westminster contemplated 'decline', ceding influence to American and European challengers.

Two issues highlighted Britain's woes. First, after 1945, Britain surrendered its Empire, pressured from above by the US and from below by anti-colonial uprisings. Preserving a Commonwealth trading area and a Sterling zone slowed, but did not stop, this slump of global ambition. The US quashed an Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Suez in 1956, proving Britain's shrivelling relevance. Paralysing conflicts within Britain's industries during the 1960s and 1970s heightened these problems, leading to the tag 'the sick man of Europe'. Britain had enjoyed a rapid rise to imperial power and industrial supremacy in the nineteenth century; but in a century it vanished.

Britain's elites saw waning influence overseas and workers' strength in industry as two parts of the same problem. Both symbolised decline. This is why British ideology pivots around Margaret Thatcher. Her reign, according to present-day mythology, restored national pride on both fronts. Thatcher identified a common enemy ('socialism') both at home and abroad; by declaring war on this rot, she reversed Britain's malaise and lifted the gloom.

Even critics point to Thatcher's 'remarkable achievements' and the necessity of her reign. As a result, a new post-decline ideology emerged, spanning all sides of Westminster. From sinking the Belgrano to hosting the Olympics, the media proclaims a British resurgence. Tony Blair cast the UK both as a 'pivotal power' between Europe and the US, and as 'cool Britannia', a trendsetter in fashion and retail. The colonies have gone; but Britain retains its purpose, and its intellectuals celebrate British Civilisation without apologies. Politicians and historians recount the Victorian era as a golden age, with lessons for American statesmen today. 'We should be proud of our colonial history in Africa,' Gordon Brown remarked on a trip to Tanzania, 'the days of Britain having to apologise for its colonial history are over.'

In common parlance, 'British nationalism' refers to little Englanders, xenophobes and the BNP. But this confuses nationalism with defensive parochialism; for the most powerful states, nationalism affirms their right to rule. By this logic, Brown beats Nick Griffin or Nigel Farage as a British nationalist. True, Britain no longer commands other nations; instead, Westminster nationalism declares a continuous bond between the UK and US Empires. Their shared mission is to open closed societies to globalisation: 'commerce, civilisation and Christianity', in the words of Scottish explorer David Livingstone. British nationalists see uninterrupted purpose in the Anglophone world, a project to spread civilisation across the globe.

We call this the fantasy of 'Anglobalisation', following the Scottish historian Niall Ferguson. This word captures both parts of British nationalism: the aristocracy of English-speaking whites, and free market evangelism. Although Ferguson's rhetoric recalls Tory chauvinism, all major parties in Westminster express similar ideas. This new British nationalism refuses to apologise for the past, and casts itself as a wise counsel to the American 'colossus'.

By explaining these ideas, we do not excuse them. Britain's Empire was far from a civilising influence. We refer anyone who doubts this to Mike Davis's research on 'late Victorian Holocausts', free market famines imposed on India and China in the late nineteenth century that killed up to 50 million. We could mention the slave trade, Trevelyan's starving of Ireland, the Bengal famine, torture camps, and many other cruelties inflicted under the banner of 'civilisation'. Alas, we do not have the space to explore the details of Britain's crimes. But they are not ancient history or irrelevant to the debate. Gulags rendered 'Communism' unspeakable; the Holocaust did the same for fascism. Britain committed parallel acts in a parallel era, but nobody apologises; instead, the Empire's achievements are heralded as exemplars of civilised rule.

In Chapter 2, we...