They want to move the British Isles, away from the rest of Europe -to cross the Atlantic-, and turn them into one more State of the United States. That is the goal of Brexit. It seems that a Brexit has finally arrived, but not as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had planned for the United Kingdom. As a faithful follower of the Trump administration and its policy for Europe – and for the rest of the world – the line of weakening economically and degrading politically. However, this Brexit has come at the same time that the United Kingdom has had to be isolated from the European Union for being the most contagious patient in Europe.
With the appearance on its territory of a Covid-19 mutation, the international relevance of the United Kingdom has reached its lowest level. After a new highly communicable variant of the coronavirus was detected in the UK, a growing number of countries had to halt transport activities with the country. And more than 40 countries have suspended travel in and out of the United Kingdom, including the allied and closest European countries, and which also extends to India, once a colony of the old British Empire.
The Reuters agency published an article titled, “Sick Man from Europe”: UK Isolated Over Fears Over New Strain of COVID. On the same day, the front page of the Daily Mirror newspaper read “Sick Man in Europe” alongside a picture of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wearing a mask, looking exhausted. The term has become a collective mockery of the British media these days.
Once an empire where the sun never set, Britain is becoming an isolated island. This new outbreak caused by a mutant coronavirus could have brought the country’s international prestige to its lowest level since the British Empire. For example, recently, London has been reaching out to the government of India in an attempt to become deeply involved in the Asia-Pacific region in the future with its vision of a “global Britain”. However, India’s ban on UK flights says its project is not welcome at the moment.
The UK, home to more than 66 million, has already reached more than 2 million confirmed cases of the new coronavirus. And the death toll is already close to 68,000. The British government policy of Boris Johnson, following in the wake of the Trump administration, did not take drastic action at the start of the pandemic in March. And it developed a policy of putting the economy ahead of the health and lives of its citizens. And sadly what has also appeared is a mutation of the virus.
The social consequences of the pandemic are being serious. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has had to provide a grant of £ 25,000 ($ 33,526) to help feed British children affected by the COVID-19 crisis. It is the first time such an emergency response is needed in the UK in the more than 70-year history of UNICEF. “The pandemic has raised the total number of people in the UK living in poverty to more than 15 million, 23 per cent of the population,” according to The Guardian newspaper.
Throughout its existence as an imperialist country, its ruling class liked to call other countries “sick man” and has done so by using it with China during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), and has also used it with the Empire. Ottoman in the 19th century. Unfortunately, the UK has now found other countries applying the term to it.
According to The Guardian, the British economy will have suffered “an economic contraction of 11.1 per cent” in the year that ends, becoming “the worst year for the UK economy since 1709.”
The British ruling class may have delusions of grandeur, but its people have to contend with the health pandemic and the painful economic and social consequences. Such a national situation is not to support an imperialist mentality and ambitions. That it is also, really and merely, a dance to the rhythm of the hegemonistic plans of the American superpower, sending aircraft carriers and making demonstrations of its strength and influence in other parts of the world. Now he should only worry about his people.
