Let England Shake

It history, they talk about the "Great Man" theory, which is the idea that most of history is guided by a few strong individuals. Given that no one has bothered updating it to "Great Person," You can surmise that it's not a very popular view anymore. Today, historians are more likely to see the path of history guided by big movements among many people. For instance, both world wars were, on the surface, triggered by individuals. But both wars were the result of much bigger societal and economic forces, and probably would have happened eventually anyway, even if they weren't triggered as they were.

But I still find it interesting to look for those times when an individual makes a decision that impacts history. I mean a situation where the decision is not pushed by outside considerations, but instead is an individual's judgement. I'd say one example would be the Cuban Missile Crisis, where Kennedy and Khrushchev could have taken any of a number of actions, and that could have had huge impacts on the course of history.

Another example would be Brexit. I know, that sounds like the complete opposite of what I'm taking about. It was a referendum of a large country, not an individual's decision. But it was an individual - Prime Minister David Cameron - who decided to hold the referendum. It wasn't because of a recent change in support for the European Union in Britain; it was a calculated strategy.

British politics in general, and the Conservative Party in particular, have always suffered from the distraction of euroskeptics, those who dislike and demonize the European Union. The intention with the referendum was to get the public to agree to remain in the EU, thus disarming euroskeptics in the future, since the country would have very publicly endorsed membership in the EU.

Of course, it didn't go at all according to plan. The public surprised everyone by voting to Leave. What I find interesting in this is that Cameron's gambit has changed the direction of modern Britain, and it's all due to nothing more than timing: young people were disproportionately in favour of staying in the EU, Britain's membership in the Union would get more popular. So if Cameron had chosen a different strategy for dealing with euroskeptics, there never would have been a referendum for another decade or two. That hypothetical vote would have gone the other way. Today's young people, who mostly wanted to Remain, will eventually be the majority. But they'll live the rest of their lives in a more isolated country outside the EU, even though that wasn't their choice.

This all comes to mind because the Brexit referendum seems to have changed the entire mood in Britain. You may have already seen the reports of a troubling increase in racist attacks since the referendum, as the nation's bigots seem to feel empowered. The country's already nationalist newspapers were all-too happy to make their biases more open. But on top of that, the new post-Cameron Conservative government has embraced the anti-foreigner feeling, with disturbing promises to name and shame companies employing non-Britons.

So essentially, Cameron's strategy not only failed, it actually worked backwards: instead of discrediting the euroskeptics, the referendum discredited those who believed in a more international, interconnected country. I don't know how long this new attitude will last, but for now it appears that the entire country is going quickly in a new direction. And it's a direction that it really didn't need to go.

It certainly seems hard to stop. While all this has been going on in government, the opposition Labour Party is having its own crisis. It's currently lead by Jeremy Corbyn, who seems to be Bernie Sanders without the endearing anti-charisma. He's not popular with fellow politicians or - according to polls - the general public. But he's super popular among left-leaning people, so they put him in the position, then confirmed him when his own caucus tried to kick him out.

Of course, this sort of situation comes up a lot in politics: should the party choose the middle-of-the-road candidate the general public will like, or the ideologically-pure candidate the party members want? Essentially, both American political parties struggled with the same choice in the primaries. Yet with Labour, there seems to be no one arguing for moving to a leader that's more palatable to the electorate. Of course I don't know all the nuances of the situation, but in the discussion online, I've noticed that when anyone argues for centrism, Corbyn's supporters are quick to invoke the name of Tony Blair.

Their view seems to be that Blair made the deal that if the party moved to the centre, they could get into power, even if they didn't get everything the membership wanted. That worked, until he made the uber-blunder of joining George W. Bush's war in Iraq. That move wasn't merely unpopular, it was everything the party membership hated. Honestly, it was worse to them than anything Margaret Thatcher ever did. So Labour Party members felt like they'd been tricked into electing a might-as-well-be-Conservative government. That's poisoned the concept of moving to the political centre, and it is a non-starter among party members. Every liberal party may have is hardliners who say that moderates like Hillary Clinton are no better than their conservative opponents, but at Labour, they appear to believe it.

So all together, it seems like the United Kingdom has really lost it. But really, the crumbling seems to be concentrated in England. Scotland had far less problems with post-referendum hate crimes. And they voted solidly to stay, so now they're eying the exits. And people started talking about Irish reunification. And you know things are bad when even Wales is talking about leaving. But that's where they make Doctor Who. Great, another British institution that could pay the price.

England's problems are deeper than politics and economics; it's beloved soccer team has been a sort of metaphor for the country recently, first getting booted from the Euros by small but united Iceland, then losing their new coach after just one match thanks to bizarre bragging about rule-breaking. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that England has Jumped the Shark. Or, whatever the national equivalent of jumping the shark is. Actually, this could coin a new phrase. I suspect that centuries from now, people will be saying that China is no longer the country it once was, and that maybe it's "Voted to Leave."