An opinion from across the pond about the UK and conservative politics

An opinion piece from the Guardian opines:

Oh, Britain: the chasm between myth and reality keeps on growing

So it’s tempting to see the fall of the hapless Liz Truss and the rise of the guileless Rishi Sunak as a contrasting tale of character and plot.

One was plainly incompetent and spontaneously combusted in an inferno of their own lies and trickledown economics. So is the other.

But British politics are not quite so simple – not since the country ripped off its reputation for common sense and streaked on to the global stage claiming it was too sexy for its own continent.

There has long been a yawning chasm between what British people admire in the mirror and what the rest of the world observes.

But over the last six years, that gap between myth and reality has become unbridgeable.

Sunak, for all his earnest schoolboy affect, is heading for the same fate as all four of his predecessors, because you can only fool all of the people some of the time.

Of course, some of the people can be fooled all of the time. We call those people Conservative party members who are – like their American Republican counterparts – no longer conservative at all.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the monster raving loony right has glugged down a radical cocktail of conspiracy theories, free-market fever dreams, and a corrosive taste for cultural victimhood.

Six years into Brexit, it’s obvious that the world is not in fact hankering after glorious new trade deals that will make Britain ludicrous amounts of loot. It’s also obvious that erecting trade barriers to the largest economy on your doorstep did not in fact punish the foreigners on the other side.

As the former governor of the Bank of England points out, before Brexit the British economy was 90% the size of Germany’s. Today it is less than 70%. Well done, chaps.

The new prime minister is faced with the same dire choices as his predecessor – and proudly proposes the same dire policies.

He cannot increase trade with Europe, without admitting that Brexit was batshit. He cannot raise taxes to spend more on public services, without admitting that his version of Thatcherism was reckless nonsense.

So all he can do is to cut public spending at a time when interest rates are rising sharply. The next two years, before the next general election, will be miserable for everyone.

To be fair, other countries will also need to hack back after years of cheap money as the world’s central banks crack down on inflation.

But Britain has indulged in something worse, and there are clear lessons for other countries that are tempted to go down the same mirage-filled road.

Today’s rightwingnuts idolize the notion of a long-lost greatness that somehow proves their own exceptionalism.

In Britain’s case, that is clearly rooted in memories of empire that have never been revisited with any seriousness. British children can pass through an entire schooling without an honest discussion about the white supremacist enterprise that built their own country.

In a country that likes to look down on racial politics in the United States, there is little to feel smug about. Around one third of Brits think the empire is something to be proud of. That’s not much different from the number of Americans who think the US government has no responsibility to address the historic effects of slavery today.

If we can’t be honest about our past, it’s easy to lie about our future.  

British prime ministers used to come and go like vintage wines. Every few years there might be a classic. Now they come and go like utility bills: painful and entirely forgettable.

Gosh, that sounds a lot like British right wing politics is about like radical right deceive and divide politics in the US. There's lots of illusions of grandeur, false beliefs, lies and crackpottery, with plenty of slanders to go all around. 

At least the toxic reality of Brexit is dawning on some of the Brits. One question is whether a significant awakening will make any difference. Probably not.