Travel: British Culture and Brexit

A long time ago I lived in Britain. London to be exact and I didn’t like it. Class distinctions were too apparent, the air was dirty (blowing one's nose after being in town), and the most available entertainment for the average model salary was and still is, the pub. British culture inter-alia includes much drinking. Pints of it. That alone is unhealthy but so is the food. Too many carbs with their Sunday roast, namely, rice, potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, not to mention the most terrible fatty breakfast you can imagine.  Fried eggs, sausage, tomato, bacon, baked beans in tomato sauce (horrors!) with white toast.  I'll take a continental breakfast anytime, or an Asia rice soup or omlette any day. 

Although obesity is a modern problem arising everywhere, with some outliers of Turkish, Chilean and Mexican women, America and Britain take the lead. Economic Inequality in both countries is higher than most developed countries with a stable democracy. https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk  Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the USA and UK are among the highest countries with obesity. Gluttony is obviously not a concern.  This OECD 2017 research graph below gives the stats.  UK and USA near the bottom. SA, nearby also with high economic inequality, has high obesity, predominantly among women, the so called fairer sex.

I’ll take the tea, marmite, horlicks and love of dogs, plus I appreciate the English countryside, with its rolling hills, hedged lanes, and rugged coastline but that’s about it as far as nice things go.  I'd also visit Edinburgh sooner than London and really still have to make way to the Scottish north some time.  The Scottish have their own history with the British and I feel, a richer culture, with their kilts, clans, sword dancing and bagpipes. Thus, I was happy to see the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon do well last night,  putting up a fight against the Tories, in the 3rd British election in 5 years. 

Prices for living in London are exorbitant, and many young professionals live in communes together, (sharing a house) if anywhere near the centre to save costs. That, or at the time I was there, be a Lebanese rich banker at Lehman Brothers to live on Sloane Square. But that of course is history. Furthermore, a country is not only its real estate, landscape and consumer goods. It’s the mentality of its people. The famous British stiff upper lip, distinct class segregation between upper and lower with little in the middle, plus geographical isolated location, does not lend a hand to any majority being progressive. Arriving on the Continent where one can compare, the differences are vast. Large middle class societal groups and small upper and lower.  As a fish in water, there is no comparison if one never leaves the water. But if you do, you're likely to encounter generally open and progressive mentalities. I might add too, that the continental mixed gene pool also seemed to have added to human physical attractiveness.

 
Britain is similar to the USA in that their political spectrums offer basically two streams, left and right wing politics with little in between.  Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Labour.  If we look at the way the two countries have become so divided in recent years, its clear that this political polarization has helped deliver crass, arrogant,  controversial leaders such as Trump, Johnson’s and political nasties such as Farage. It's always red against blue or blue against red. As it's either or, seldom is there a balanced coalition of purple.

The idea that the west has had its best years has been around a while, and with Trump as the epitome of the worst American characteristics all in one and Johnson, Farage and friends emulating the same character it's clear that decline is accelerating. In Britain, the Johnson and Cummings criminal investigation, now passed from the Metropolitan Police to the Prosecution office does not deter pro-Brexiters.  Despite, "Last year, the Electoral Commission found that Vote Leave broke electoral law by overspending during the 2016 European Union referendum, after the campaign funnelled £675,000 through another pro-Brexit group to avoid spending limits. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/johnson-and-cummings-under-fire-police-hand-criminal-evidence-vote-leave-prosecution-agency/ 

With Trump, it's just been one scandal after another. His crass leadership style far from the Democratic Obama,  that delights for example in sending tweets, provoking North Korean's Kim Jun  into contemplating who has the biggest arsenal! Sophistication and class has long left America and Britain political leadership or voters' heads. Perhaps it's precisely because there is nothing special about Britain and that's why they don't fit into the EU, and neither do their polarised politics. 

On a good note, emerging economies of China and India are taking their place on the world stage, both with their one billion populations. Investing in Africa and abroad, China is almost on a par with the USA in technology, unrolling its 5G network, robotics, and boasting ultra high-tech transportation systems and infrastructure in Beijing and Shanghai. Alas, one of the BRICS, Russia too is pretty much doing what it wants to stop Ukraine from entering the EU, annexing the Crimea in 2014, clearly also afraid of the strength of the European Union block. Brazil and SA are still far behind, purely because of the high economic inequality of their populations. 

https://inhabitat.com/worlds-fastest-bullet-train-can-travel-between-beijing-and-shanghai-in-4-5-hours/

In the meanwhile, your average Brit or American, isolated in their rural provincial hometown,  know little of geopolitics and progress. Thus, the idea that they are still "rulers of the world" reigns supreme, as their newspapers and televisions tell them so, and because everyone seems to speak their language, when and if they travel, they believe it. The problem with being isolated i.e. an island or midland America, is that exposure to anything different is just not physically possible. Anything beyond direct reality cannot be imagined and so therefore, “cannot exist." The fear mongering of "socialist Europe, and communist Corbyn" is swallowed, lock stock and barrel.  It’s how human brain conditioning works. If consciousness is a form of predictive processing, then the brain creates a reality based on prior experience, relying on previous information input. It makes it far easier to go along with intuition (the known) than the unknown, which is time consuming because the latter requires fact checking and research. Something which technology has made most modern world humans lazy in. Factor in societies with polarised left and right wing politics and the result is continual quarreling about what progress is, while they are left behind as the rest of the world progresses.

The 2016 Brexit referendum was a 48:52 result. After three elections in five years and no Brexit deal because Farage disappeared, not having a plan and the House of Commons didn't have a majority, today the conservatives are back with full power to unfold their Brexit deal.  The Green and Liberal Democrats are barely in the picture, Labour lag behind at 206 seats with the SNP at 54 I believe. The 360 seats under Johnson’s pro-Brexit leadership, clearly shows therefore that the majority of Brits still think Britain is more special than their neighbours across the pond. It's a narrow minded view which I'm sure will come back to bite them in the future. Just as the division of Irak long ago and creation of states without taking history into account has in the past 70 years. I am not anti-Israel at all, I have good friends living there, but until there is peace between Palestine and Israel there wll be no real peace between east and west. 

On the one hand, Britain needed to get its act together, and the result favours that. But on the other hand, it is now leading its future into a place where the generations of tomorrow will be even more isolated. Less freedom of movement and mobility while in reality, the world becomes a smaller place everyday. Unfortunately, demographic aging affects voting today and the more grey generation don’t care much for mobility, employment opportunity,  exploration or cultural global awareness. They are too stuck in their ways and most probably can’t afford it. Markets might bounce back temporarily, because  markets favour stability, but that says nothing about long term. For the middle and lower classes in Britain, time will prove no difference in income inequality and the Brexit will be seen for the sham it is.  For the so called nationalists, they'll soon discover that being free of the EU is about as abstract as being free of the moon that shines over cities at night. Brexit is an emotional idea thath will not change everyday life and crime is not just going to miraculously disappear. Everything is cross-border nowadays and in virtual reality. Being on an island doesn't change anything as it might have in the past.

In the big scheme of things, there is nothing special about Britain or the English. If anything, the only thing the pro-Brexiters have proven to the world in recent years is how arrogant and superficial they are. Stiff upper lip politeness might hide thoughts, but an absence of words does not hide the truth that voting delivers. However, while conservatives might have won overwhelmingly, the victory will be short-lived because the majority of British have just made themselves an inconsequential player on the world stage. 

 The Hypocrisy reigns supreme

In the big picture of reality, the world is no longer individual countries, it’s continents and blocks. It’s USA, Latin America, Russia, Europe, China, South East Asia, Arabia and Africa. Pigeon hole ideas of nationalism for individual countries are of yesteryear.  So I have much sympathy for the Brits who were humble and open minded to the EU, who have clearly lost many advantages as politics have played them a bad hand. Labour made a huge mistake in not being clear cut in favour of or against the Brexit. They were trying to save themselves a loss of seats but they lost badly because of it. With the pro-Brexit now at 53 and anti-Brexit at 47, the gap and divisive politics will not go away. Peoples' needs for decent housing, salary, health care and pension will not be solved by a Brexit. Had Britain been a leader of the future, they would have picked up on Corbyn's idea of a 4 day working week. With AI's future that's the way the world will head and it makes sense to  work less, as it could improve overall physical and mental health for many.  But the majority of Brits are not that progressive. They're conservative, and although they don't have the religious influence of the even more conservative Americans, it doesn't make them any less hypocritical.  

Considering all the lies the Brexit was built upon, I think Britain is in for a future rough ride. The EU won’t tolerate Britain setting its own rules in de-regulating banking and avoiding international tax law guidelines, but few citizens understand the realities of that. China will also obviously get more from trading with a block like EU than just Britain, no matter what lies the British leaders sell to their population. On the upside, now that Europe can officially say goodbye to Britain, passport lines, and new commercial contracts can finally be put into execution.  It's the British borders that will struggle most with transport and logistics not Europe.

I have never felt more relieved about being on the right side of the pond.  There is really nothing special about Britain and their left/right wing politics are so like America, they really do not fit into the social democratic ideas of Europe. Europe as a block is 100 times better than Britain and as humans have always achieved success through collaboration, operating as one organism instead of individual parts, I have great faith in Europe as being one of the great pillars of the world. The union is  a mastership of cultural harmony and integration, something which Russia, China and the USA cannot boast of.  Arabia, Africa and Latin America still need to get their act together. Many fear the growth of Europe because it reflects their own deficiencies but good always triumphs in the end.  The pro-Brexiters are about to engage upon a path that promised much but will deliver little, and force their fellow anti_Brexiter Brits, Irish and Scottish to follow.  Fortunately, the Brexit is probably the last and final move of Britain on the world stage, as it moves ahead into its downward spiral trend of being a country of little importance. They are now a lost pea in a pile of vegetables, while the European Union is the corn on the entire cob.

                                                                        9Gag