Britain’s Decline From Winston Churchill to Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak

The serial implosions of four Tory prime ministers—David Cameron, Theresa May,

Boris Johnson

and Ms. Truss—made a laughingstock of what was once the most successful political party in the Western world. The Labour Party, for its part has, thankfully, freed itself from the shackles of Corbynism, but after 12 years in the wilderness its capacity for government remains open to doubt. Untested in office and divided by Brexit, Labour is better placed to win the next general election than to provide coherent leadership in difficult times.

It is easy to overstate Britain’s decline. The country may be floundering economically and failing politically, but beyond the corridors of Parliament, Britain stands tall. Culturally, from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to the hobbits of Middle-Earth, Elizabethan Britain punched well above its weight. British universities and science remain at the head of the class. The British financial industry recovered from the shocks of World War II to emerge as the leading innovator in the most sophisticated and integrated financial markets in history. British authors and journalists are read around the world. The British monarchy occupies a unique place in the global imagination. Fans everywhere cheer British soccer teams, follow the denizens of “Downton Abbey” and are in thrall to

Harry Potter

and James Bond. In perhaps the most extraordinary development, British chefs and baking shows have found international success.

Britain isn’t failing, but its politicians and diplomats are. For all the dynamism of its entrepreneurs, bankers, artists and academics, Britain has steadily lost ground to European and Asian economic competitors. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.K.’s 2021 per capita gross domestic product, adjusted for purchasing power, trailed those of Germany, France and Ireland and was slightly below the average for OECD member countries.

Genteel economic decline (and a corresponding decline in international power and influence) may not be what most Brits want, but it is the natural and inevitable outcome of the policies they prefer. This mismatch between Britain’s international ambitions and its domestic policy preferences has haunted the country ever since Clement Attlee’s Labour government introduced major socialist changes to the British economy while attempting to keep Britain a global power.

The Thatcher years were an exception, not a turning point. The minority of British conservatives who embrace Thatcher’s economic and social views are not strong enough to control their own party, much less to impose their policies on a skeptical society.

Brexit sharpened the dilemma. Leaving the European Union could work only if Britain returned to an even more radical version of Thatcher’s free-market policies, becoming what proponents called a “Singapore on Thames,” a deregulated, hard-charging economy unshackled from EU regulation and restraint. But that wasn’t what most Brexit voters wanted.

For many Tory and Labour voters, voting for Brexit was a vote against change. They wanted less immigration, less development and disruption in the English countryside, and less control over British life by officious EU bureaucrats and the metropolitan London elite. They were hobbits voting to preserve the Shire as it was, not radicals voting to transform it root and branch.

With the collapse of the Truss premiership, the hobbits have decisively beaten the Thatcherites. This will likely mean a shift from the “hard Brexit” that Boris Johnson fought for to a softer form with Britain staying more closely aligned to EU regulations in exchange for more access to the European market. This isn’t a propitious path for economic or diplomatic revival, but, pending a long, agonized debate over a possible “Breturn” to the EU, it’s the path British voters appear to have chosen.

This fundamental impasse in British life has accompanied a long-term decline in the quality of British political leadership. A country that once produced a cavalcade of political stars seems doomed to cough up mediocre lightweights.

Margaret Thatcher

and

Tony Blair

aside, few postwar leaders inspire or impress. Britain’s best shun politics these days.

Perhaps the problem is that the rewards of a political career in the U.K. have dimmed with the country’s diminished role in the world, while opportunities in business, culture and sports are as bright as they were at the height of the Victorian age. British bankers, musicians, entrepreneurs and soccer stars can become as rich and as globally celebrated as their Victorian predecessors, while booze-guzzling British politicians fight over scraps in the shadows of vanished greatness.

Sixty years ago,

Dean Acheson

observed that Britain had lost an empire but not yet found a role. The long search continues as

Rishi Sunak

prepares for his meeting with King Charles.