Exceptionalism

Our household has been struggling to determine what's causing this shift to supporting a morally and ethically corrupt government and this nation's current predilection for self-flagellation.

The only reason we can arrive at is this newfound concept of nationalism. It has worked for every right-wing dictator - for a while. It's quite easy to convince the downtrodden that the reason for their plight is Johnny Foreigner, rather than government policy on minimum pay, tax, jobs, housing and everything that domestic central government is responsible for. It's what's driving English Conservatism, Scottish Nationalism and Welsh Nationalism - a visceral question of identity that is deeply rooted and yet defies any logic.

It invariably raises its head when a country is already in crisis but, rather than resulting in said country rising above others, it usually results in an even further descent into decline as the country concerned becomes internationally isolated and is pillaged by the wealthy.

To consider oneself to be exceptional, there has to be a scapegoat - exceptionalism doesn't arise in a vacuum. That scapegoat is foreigners, as it was for all nationalists of the past.

Boris Johnson has broken every promise he's ever made. Yes. he did promise to take the UK out of the EU and accomplished that, but rather than it leading to a promised, bureaucracy-free Utopia of sunlit uplands, it's turning into an explosion of additional red tape and industrial decimation in fishing, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, etc. Sending Royal Navy vessels to Jersey to confront irate French fishermen, while simultaneously ignoring the catastrophic damage you have done to the British fishing industry, beggars belief. 

Starmer is seen as a class traitor by many on the left, yet he's the epitome of aspiration, having risen from the working class. How do the left respond to this? They vote for a party that is totally elitist, which is illogical in the extreme. However, where the Conservatives have the upper hand is around the question of national identity, a deeply rooted construct that's based on primitive tribalism, which is antithetical to an advanced civilization.

It seems you can lie through your teeth while plundering the public purse, pay someone poverty wages, put them on a zero hours contract and take food from their children's mouths, but as long as you tell them they're exceptional and have won life's lottery by being born in a certain country, while being exceptionally vague about those exceptional attributes, you can do virtually anything. 

Perhaps Starmer needs to focus on vilifying foreigners and building more statues while waving a flag. 

What exactly are the British or, rather, the English, exceptional at? Food? No - the French and Italians beat us hands down on that (how many British restaurants do you see on the continent?). Work ethic? Again, no. The Germans regularly top the list for productivity and hard work. Countryside? Again no, as the Brits head off in their droves to France, Spain and Italy for that every year. Perhaps it's statue building... Ah, I have it - we drive on the left (however, I'm surprised the right allow us to drive on the left). Again, no - 76 countries drive on the left, although they're mainly ex British colonies. Is it our funny electrical plugs, perhaps?

A couple of things we are certainly good at are health and pop music, despite successive Conservative governments' attempts at selling off the former and Boris' best efforts to let the bodies pile high. 

I continually hear Brexiteers say; "Well, if you hate the UK so much, why don't you go to your beloved EU." The paucity of this argument is self-evident. It's precisely because I love my country that I will fight to prevent it descending into a mire of ineptitude and corruption by people who wholeheartedly believe  lies and collude with a morally bankrupt government. One only has to look at what happened across the Pond to see the result when an inveterate liar is voted into power, and to Putin's Russia to see what happens when a government can plunder the public purse with impunity.