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With the War going on in Afghanistan, a British Government seemingly unable to make a case for our involvement in it. An American President unable to decide whether to piss or get off the pot with regard to the same, the distrust generated by the Lisbon Treaty and the general poor economic picture, there is shall we say, a certain lack of self confidence abroad in this Country.

One often comes across heated debates in the “Comments” sections of the Media about whether British “greatness” was wasted by Blair acting as Bush’s poodle over Iraq. The doom-sayers who believe that if we are not fully integrated into the EU, we “stand no chance…” of what I’m not sure but these people certainly lack the courage to even contemplate standing alone. However, it set my mind to thinking about just what makes a Country “Great” so, some thoughts.

A Gentle EU Debate

The other week on the Economist and in reply to an article on Britain and it’s approach to the EU, I got engaged in an interesting and friendly debate on UK Membership of the EU. This I found unusual because the Economist is so pro-EU, it often gets rather boring however, there were a number of people from both the pro and anti lobbies taking part and little of the “name calling” arose.

My view is that I would be quite happy for us to leave the EU. A quite charming ‘Continental gentleman who is clearly fond of the British and felt that it really didn’t matter whether the UK stayed in the EU or left it, in either case EU friends of Britain would remain just that still but hid difficulty lay in our “half in, half out” approach.

I suspect and most likely because it was not raised as an insult, when this same chap asked the question concerning the “Loss of Empire Syndrome” I set to thinking it through and likely, I am of a generation best placed to do so because I can remember the three key generations involved in this plus that even from very young growing up in 1950s post war Britain, I took a great interest in the world around me.

Loss of Empire = Loss of Direction ?

Although this sort of claim had been very often made as former colonies achieved their independence and Britain withdrew first from “East of Suez” and gradually, from pretty much everywhere. Some saw joining the Common Market as a substitute for this loss of Empire and yet for the majority of ordinary British people, it never crossed their minds.

If anyone would “miss” the idea of Empire, it could only be people who grew up with that as their “normality” because that is the world they lived in. In this sense the only generation that fitted the bill was Harold McMillan’s generation, the one that fought in the Trenches of WWI because that was the watershed event of the 20^th Century, the moment when everything changed, forever and nothing was going to be the same again.

Also it was the “Death of Empires” right across Europe, as the ‘Flower of Europe’, the youth, was mown down by machine guns and artillery on all sides, 400 years of European domination was wiped away also. Rather than the British pining for the days of Empire, to my mind most EU Countries are just cling to the wreckage of those times. The Bolshevik Revolution, a post WWI of great social changes because of necessity and then the Great Depression. It wasn’t Emily Pankhurst  that won “votes for women”, it was the machine guns of the Western Front that left well over 500,000 families without a man as the head of the household.

For Later Generations

Of my Parent’s generation who fought in WWII, whilst I’m sure that some of the Muddle Classes, though not many I’m sure, hankered for pink bits on the map, for the working class, nobody gave a monkey’s, that was all yesterday. Besides which, during WWII, if you were sent to the Middle or Far East, it was pretty likely to be “for the duration” before you saw your family again so being back in Blighty was to be welcomed.

For my post war generation who’s youth was the 1960′s and a cultural working class revolution, all we were concerned with was “getting on” personally. As history, the short lived period of Empire was interesting but, just history to be plundered for good yarns so that Michael Caine could star in Zulu and so on.

The Real Loss…

Was not the loss of Empire, it was that two World Wars separated by only 20 years had virtually bankrupted Britain, standing alone was magnificent but it came at a heavy price levied mainly by Wall Street in the “Fire Sale” of assets that Britain needed to trade for armaments. To ordinary British people, it is likely that the dismantling of the former Empire was viewed more as a financial loss that would impact their jobs and their economic well-being as indeed was the case.

The Future

The one thing missing that would put the “Great” back into Britain does not involve being part of the EU, the USA or having an Empire, it is dead simple, the Victorians knew how to do it – We need to rediscover how to Create Real Wealth.

The future will not be the “Age of Empires”, it will be the “Age of Entrepreneurs”, business men and women who can see commercial opportunities and exploit them whether through Manufacturing or Service Industries, the City of London and Property Development has made far too many people lazy, time we all got back to work.

If as a Nation you are an economically unproductive basket case, it doesn’t matter what grouping you belong to, you are still a basket case which cannot pay your way in the World – It’s the domestic Economy Stupid, not a frigging Empire !