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The extinction of British liberalism (DIY late realization) - C C - Oct 4, 2025
Our American masters have moved on
https://unherd.com/2025/10/the-extinction-of-british-liberalism
INTRO: With the rump Conservative Party assembling in Manchester, so begins what is effectively the fifth Reform conference of the year: for Farage’s immanent presence now suffuses the entirety of British politics, turning the probability of an incoming Reform government into a near certainty. If European philosophy, as A.N. Whitehead claimed, consists of a series of footnotes to Plato, British politics is now merely a series of hesitantly defiant ripostes and sassy fact checks to Reform.
From late-life TikToker and Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey’s bizarre claims that Reform will import America’s culture of school shootings, to noted Labour intellectual and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy’s hurriedly retracted assertion that the younger, and presumably time-warping Farage once “flirted with the Hitler Youth”, the waning forces of British Left-liberalism have retreated onto the comforting plane of fantasy, as their worldview crumbles into dust.
For all its purely domestic malignities, British politics is, like that of the European Union, merely a provincial outpost of those of America’s imperial centre. A large part of Europe’s current woes is attributable to our leaders reshaping our societies according to the model both inspired and imposed by American hegemony in the Nineties, before being left in the lurch as our masters change course.
Believing that, under the Pax Americana, globalisation would dominate the future, our leaders entirely reshaped our economies and societies for the world they saw coming into view. Industry was allowed to wither in the certainty that cheap Chinese goods would sustain our lifestyles; international human rights law, in reality a fig leaf for American military intervention against geopolitical rivals, was elevated above national interests in a way the hegemon never once countenanced for itself; destructive energy policies were written into law in the illusory belief of a shared global mission to ameliorate climate change.
Through a misreading of America’s early 20th century experience, mass immigration was actively encouraged, in the genuine belief, still intoned as a mantra by Labour at its conference, that ethnic and cultural diversity, contrary to historical precedent, would soon become an inherent strength.
But now the hegemon has radically changed course, leaving its regional middle managers in Britain and Europe stranded in their Nineties fantasy world, and the political parties which adopted this worldview facing collapse. Globalisation was always just a superficial Americanisation, from which America itself has now withdrawn.
Trump’s UN speech, in which he declared that the “entire globalist concept of asking successful, industrialised nations to inflict pain on themselves and radically disrupt their entire societies must be rejected completely and totally, and immediately” is a direct attack on the worldview of our leaders. So too his criticism of “uncontrolled mass migration” — which, he says, is an “assault on Western countries”.
It is difficult to think of an arc of client states surviving for long in direct ideological opposition to their imperial patron... (MORE - details)
RE: The extinction of British liberalism (DIY late realization) - confused2 - Oct 7, 2025
The basic principles of capitalism..
Do it if..
The reward is greater than the invitable consequences.
And for the thinking capitalist..
Do it if..
The reward NOW is greater the the inevitable consequences LATER
Immigration (and cheap labour) is good for an economy but (surprise!) you end up with a lot of immigrants.
Cheap goods from abroad works well for rich folks but (surprise!) you destroy your own manufacturing base and the poor folks have no entree into money laundering.
What was LATER 50 years ago has become NOW.
Capitalists and liberals are heading in the opposite direction. Capitalists have no further use for immigrants and want them to vanish and liberals see them as wonderful people who should be cherished.
RE: The extinction of British liberalism (DIY late realization) - Syne - Oct 7, 2025
Correction: liberals see them as liberal voters.
RE: The extinction of British liberalism (DIY late realization) - confused2 - Oct 8, 2025
The last UK 'right wing' government was formed around being rich and avoiding tax and (for some unknown reason) lost popularity with the proles. The US might be trying the same experiment - time will tell,
Since (it seems) wealth alone isn't enough to make right wing (capitalist) politics attractive the fall-back position is race, religion and social class. I don't know whether they are targeting groups with higher or lower intelligence - from some of the representatives I've seen I would guess the latter.
RE: The extinction of British liberalism (DIY late realization) - stryder - Oct 8, 2025
The country was far better when it actually had a singular drive with optimised forwards momentum. The current gastronomy of the panolific(portmanteau: Pan & Prolific) array of political parties sporting their own biases is a "house divided". Each trying to muster favour with the voterate way outside of their area.
Consider the current trend of the immigration noise made by Reform bias of GBNews to maintain brainwashing internally in the UK. That brainwashing is what the other parties fear currently, but to be honest there should well be a backlash.
After all who would knowingly want to be brainwashed? (Ever since Cambridge Analytica's support in securing the original first Trump term, various politicians around the world have been attempting to mimick the success... through brainwashing/propaganda... How Rusky!.)
Brainwashing only works when "Critical Mass" is possible, and that is where Social Media comes into play. Without Global Social Media being used, the posed discussion (or just the mantra of the brainwashed reaching critical mass) would not be heard. The hard-right of course would imply that not being heard is censorship, since for some reason they like their eggs scrambled.
There is also the duplication of maintaining constant political diatribe(verbal diarrhea) even outside of an election period so as to brainwash and unbalance the populace for when an election does eventually arise (Again Critical Mass). Such diatribe again leads to a House Divided.
Ideally the only way to remove the problems in the country is to remove the party system in it's entirety. Direct votes on policies by the people within the country, should be done instead. No more personality issues at the helm, or "he said/she said/they did" and "for the last 14 years" being stated over and over again. Enough is enough!