London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, May 31, 2025

Brexit Britain is becoming a failed state: here is the evidence

Brexit Britain is becoming a failed state: here is the evidence

Chris Patten
Britain’s institutions, economic prospects, constitution and future are all at risk - but the delusion and lies continue

What is a failed state? Not so long ago, when I was Britain’s Overseas Development Minister, and later European Commissioner for External Affairs, I would probably have tried to answer the question by pointing to specific examples, including several countries in Latin America and Africa.

I would have highlighted tribal conflicts, military coups, economic failure, extremes of poverty, and high mortality rates. I might have referred to the failure of more prosperous societies to ensure that globalisation helped everyone and did not leave some communities trapped in deprivation. In addition, I would certainly have mentioned systems of government that had ceased to deliver what they were intended to do, and certainly what outside well-wishers hoped and assumed they would do.

By these latter criteria, one no longer needs to travel to Latin America or Africa to discover failure. Indeed, many of us in Britain worry that failure is increasingly evident within our own borders — which are soon to be clogged after Brexit — and particularly in the way the country is governed.

Britain’s system of government, much praised in the past, is based on parliamentary democracy and the institutions of pluralism that one would associate with an open society.

Voters elect individual members of parliament, who owe their constituents their best judgment about how to negotiate the predicaments of politics. MPs are not required to do what they are told by an alleged popular will — a system much favoured by despots and demagogues. Instead, they are part of a system that owes much to the conservative political philosopher Edmund Burke, not to the French writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We have always preferred caution, compromise, and evolution to disruption and appeals to fleeting public passions.

The parties to which most MPs belong represent different strands of opinion. Yet by and large, debates have usually assumed a strong relationship between evidence and assertion. Facts might be interpreted in different ways, but they were not simply denied because they contradicted an ideological assertion. Dogmatism is a bad bedfellow to democracy. Experts can be challenged, of course, but until now, expertise was never seen as something the ruling establishment would use to bamboozle and obfuscate in pursuit of its aims.

In Britain, historically, government has been accountable to parliament, whose opinions it must respect and whose conventions it should follow. And a separate and independent judiciary guarantees the rule of law to which all, including ministers, are subject.

That is how Britain has run its national affairs: avoiding political extremism, achieving a self-adjusting balance between left and right, managing change over decades in peace and war, and making the transition from imperial power to middle-sized European country. By doing this without surrendering or diluting our values, we have won approval and praise around the world.

Sadly, things look very different today.

As a proportion of its electorate, Britain has fewer political activists than most other European countries. Yet these activists and other political partisans have recently acquired growing control over their parties’ policy direction and choice of leader.

As a result, the Labour Party is now led by Jeremy Corbyn, an old-fashioned far-left socialist. And 90,000 Conservative members, whose views have become more extreme as their numbers have fallen, recently selected Boris Johnson as their new leader, and thus as the country’s new prime minister.

In doing so, they have chosen a mendacious chancer. It is no exaggeration to say that Johnson has lied his way to the top, first in journalism and then in politics. His ascent owes everything to the growing xenophobia and English nationalism that many Conservatives now espouse. Johnson is prime minister because he has promised to deliver Brexit by the end of October, recklessly assuring the world that he will take the UK out of the European Union with or without a deal, and whatever the consequences.

Johnson has chosen a government of like-minded anti-European nationalists. His principal adviser, Dominic Cummings, was described by David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister from 2010 to 2016, as a “career psychopath”. Cummings is, alongside Johnson, the most powerful figure in the new government; he is an unelected wrecker who earlier this year was ruled to be in contempt of parliament. Fittingly, if depressingly, he now is masterminding our departure from the EU with or without parliamentary approval.

Moreover, the government is scheming to win an election, yet to be announced, on the basis of a “people versus the politicians” campaign. Those who oppose crashing out of the EU without a deal are to be branded as opponents of popular sovereignty. So much for parliamentary democracy.

The Johnson government denies the truth about the consequences of a no-deal Brexit, and denounces any attempt to point these out as “Project Fear”. The EU is blamed for the failure of negotiations, even though this was almost entirely the result of choices made by the previous British government. To cap it all, the public is told that if Britain can convince the EU it is prepared to damage itself with “no deal,” then France, Germany, and others will surrender and give us what we want. Yet any damage that a no-deal Brexit causes to the EU would be dwarfed by the long-term harm it inflicts on Britain.

Johnson and Cummings are prepared to use all the methods that were successful in the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign, when the British public were assured that there would be no question of leaving the EU without a deal. Promises of increased public spending now rain down from a Treasury that will soon be stretched thin. The value of the pound is falling, inflation rose in July, and business investment is flat.

The supposed benefits of leaving the EU are no longer touted, with the exception of a promised trade deal with US President Donald Trump that would be almost as unacceptable to the US Congress as it would be to British public opinion. What’s more, the government is simply ignoring the fact that lengthy negotiations with the EU would inevitably follow from a “no-deal” departure.

Worse still, the future of the Union of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland looks increasingly at risk. The government fails to accept that if Britain leaves the EU’s customs union, the resulting border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland will imperil the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which has brought more than 20 years of peace to the island of Ireland.

Are these the actions of a successful state? Those who raise the question risk being dubbed “enemies of the people”. We are in good company: this is how Brexiters previously described three British high-court judges who asserted the principle of parliamentary sovereignty in the Brexit process.

As Brexit looms ever closer, Britain’s institutions, economic prospects, constitution, and future are all at risk. But the reckless plunge into delusion and lies proceeds apace.


* Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is Chancellor of the University of Oxford

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Satirical Sketch Sparks Political Spouse Feud in South Korea
Indonesia Quarry Collapse Leaves Multiple Dead and Missing
South Korean Election Video Pulled Amid Misogyny Outcry
Asian Economies Shift Away from US Dollar Amid Trade Tensions
Netflix Investigates Allegations of On-Set Mistreatment in K-Drama Production
US Defence Chief Reaffirms Strong Ties with Singapore Amid Regional Tensions
Vietnam Faces Strategic Dilemma Over China's Mekong River Projects
Malaysia's First AI Preacher Sparks Debate on Islamic Principles
White House Press Secretary Criticizes Harvard Funding, Advocates for Vocational Training
France to Implement Nationwide Smoking Ban in Outdoor Spaces Frequented by Children
Meta and Anduril Collaborate on AI-Driven Military Augmented Reality Systems
Russia's Fossil Fuel Revenues Approach €900 Billion Since Ukraine Invasion
U.S. Justice Department Reduces American Bar Association's Role in Judicial Nominations
U.S. Department of Energy Unveils 'Doudna' Supercomputer to Advance AI Research
U.S. SEC Dismisses Lawsuit Against Binance Amid Regulatory Shift
Alcohol Industry Faces Increased Scrutiny Amid Health Concerns
Italy Faces Population Decline Amid Youth Emigration
U.S. Goods Imports Plunge Nearly 20% Amid Tariff Disruptions
OpenAI Faces Competition from Cheaper AI Rivals
Foreign Tax Provision in U.S. Budget Bill Alarms Investors
Trump Accuses China of Violating Trade Agreement
Gerry Adams Wins Libel Case Against BBC
Russia Accuses Serbia of Supplying Arms to Ukraine
EU Central Bank Pushes to Replace US Dollar with Euro as World’s Main Currency
Chinese Woman Dies After Being Forced to Visit Bank Despite Critical Illness
President Trump Grants Full Pardons to Reality TV Stars Todd and Julie Chrisley
Texas Enacts App Store Accountability Act Mandating Age Verification
U.S. Health Secretary Ends Select COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations
Vatican Calls for Sustainable Tourism in 2025 Message
Trump Warns Putin Is 'Playing with Fire' Amid Escalating Ukraine Conflict
India and Pakistan Engage Trump-Linked Lobbyists to Influence U.S. Policy
U.S. Halts New Student Visa Interviews Amid Enhanced Security Measures
Trump Administration Cancels $100 Million in Federal Contracts with Harvard
SpaceX Starship Test Flight Ends in Failure, Mars Mission Timeline Uncertain
King Charles Affirms Canadian Sovereignty Amid U.S. Statehood Pressure
Trump Threatens 25% Tariff on iPhones Amid Dispute with Apple CEO
Putin's Helicopter Reportedly Targeted by Ukrainian Drones
Liverpool Car Ramming Incident Leaves Multiple Injured
Australia Faces Immigration Debate Following Labor Party Victory
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Founder Warns Against Trusting Regime in Nuclear Talks
Macron Dismisses Viral Video of Wife's Gesture as Playful Banter
Cleveland Clinic Study Questions Effectiveness of Recent Flu Vaccine
Netanyahu Accuses Starmer of Siding with Hamas
Junior Doctors Threaten Strike Over 4% Pay Offer
Labour MPs Urge Chancellor to Tax Wealthy Over Cutting Welfare
Publication of UK Child Poverty Strategy Delayed Until Autumn
France Detains UK Fishing Vessel Amid Post-Brexit Tensions
Calls Grow to Resume Syrian Asylum Claims in UK
Nigel Farage Pledges to Reinstate Winter Fuel Payments
Boris and Carrie Johnson Welcome Daughter Poppy
×