In the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death we have been met with a deluge of suggestions that this is the final nail in the coffin for Britain. Now the United Kingdom’s unifying figure is gone, what is there left to bind this otherwise divided and fractious place?
People are hopeless at acknowledging their own prejudices. We are prone to using events like these to retroactively prove the legitimacy of our biases. Of course the crown’s detractors — especially those observing from abroad — want to believe the events of the past week are the last gasps of a fading institution.
Fervent acolytes, in contrast, see the throngs of people on the streets as the funeral cortege goes by and take it as ultimate evidence of the longevity and supremacy of constitutional monarchy. In short, our reality is determined by our beliefs, and not the other way round.
Britain is not beyond reproach. It faces challenges in the coming months, as Europe as whole is teeters on the brink of a cliff this winter
So it was not surprising, then, to see a slew of pundits take this moment of national mourning to make clear how it reveals all that is wrong with Britain: a nation collapsing under the weight of self-delusion, unable to escape its folly, run poorly by a chosen leader, in the thrall of odd and asinine ritual, with people suffering thanks to their bad votes and attachment to non-existent romantic ideas.
It takes a unique arrogance to dismiss a whole nation as foolish swivel-eyed loons for grieving the death of their monarch. And it requires a certain amount of mental gymnastics to cast a display of national unity as archaic and gauche — evidence of a country no longer fit for contemporary life — while permitting every other country its patriotic oddities.
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Nevertheless, this sort of attitude has been on display long before the death of Queen Elizabeth II. In recent years the New York Times alone has dismissed “Brexit fantasy” as a “nightmare”, suggested the nation is “socially fragmented, politically adrift” and “corroded” with an “abysmal” economy. “No One Knows What Britain Is Anymore” suggested a 2017 headline. “Britain Is Heading Into a Nightmarish Winter” it predicted in 2021.
Some speak with such passionate intensity about the imminent demise of Britain that it is impossible to ignore the poorly concealed subtext: do they want it to be true?
But the UK is not falling apart at the seams, no matter how many people wish it were so. The real question is: why do so many people wish it were so? And why do these relentless screeds about the apparently unravelling nation come bearing the quiet hope they will turn out to be accurate?
Britain is not beyond reproach. It faces challenges in the coming months, as Europe as whole is teeters on the brink of a cliff this winter. But Britain is not unique in this vein, and certainly not the epicentre of the gas crisis. And, if the worst comes to fruition and the European economy really does collapse Britain will not have been a key architect in that downfall.
When even the most ardent nationalists in Ireland can pay heed to the queen and the UK it is not just evidence of a profoundly matured Anglo-Irish relationship
But many would have you believe otherwise. And this sentiment finds its provenance as far back as 2016. Somehow we are still casting our net of interpretation back to Brexit, as though it were the original sin from which all other difficulty emerges. And now everything that blights the nation is just-deserts for such foolish electoral transgression six years ago.
Brexit certainly could have been handled more gracefully, and the Conservative Party has hardly run a tight ship. And Liz Truss may be strange — even her supporters are not convinced she is a good fit. But it is in everyone’s interest for her to succeed. But the bid to innumerate her incalculable failings before she has even left the starting blocks has the appearance of a gruesome arms race, with laurels awarded to whoever’s grim prediction was most correct.
Writer Freddie de Boer saw this phenomenon play out when it came to Donald Trump: pundits “ruminated on Trump and the dystopian future he might bring about with such emotional pathology” that it’s clear, on some level, they want it to happen, if just to say: “I was right.”
This addiction to the “told ya so” moment is an obvious product of a politics-as-sport mentality — a contest for demonstrating intellectual superiority, rather than practising empathy. And it has driven us to a situation where being right about the world ending is somehow preferable to the world not ending.
On the queen’s death Michelle O’Neill wrote a sincere and warm message of condolence, one that acknowledged the national tragedy, and respected the tradition of the crown. And she did not use the affair to demonstrate that the UK was somehow turning to rubble.
When even the most ardent nationalists in Ireland can pay heed to the queen and the UK it is not just evidence of a profoundly matured Anglo-Irish relationship. But it throws into sharp relief the zealotry of the country’s most enthusiastic detractors, watching like prey for any sign of weakness as proof of its ultimate demise.