Britain and its Empire

I'm quoting from Alexander McCall Smith’s new novel, The Good Pilot, in which he writes about Germany and Britain after World War 2:

“Everything changed. A great wave of prosperity washed over Germany as the pinched, hungry years of the fifties gave way to a decade of plenty. In Britain, crisis followed crisis, as the world folded in over a country that was exhausted to its very bones. The youthful vanquished rebuilt and prospered; the aged victors looked on in puzzlement as their lucrative empire crumbled.”

Sadly, there are still those in Britain who continue to hate the Germans for what they have achieved - remember the sneering when Germany went out of the World Cup? - and can’t move on from the days of empire when England (which they often call Britain) was top dog.

The first point partly explains why so many English people want to leave the EU: they should be top dogs and they can't get used to the idea of being in partnership with former enemies. I've never encountered that kind of bitterness in France or Belgium or the Netherlands, where Germany is just a neighbour and partner in the EU. Maybe having your country occupied changes your attitude to war and its aftermath.  

The last point explains why so many English commentators, especially in the press, hate Scotland and the Scots: we're the last of the Empire and the desire of many of us to take Scotland in the direction we think is good for it is seen as a betrayal. Just as some English people saw the Empire as being made up of dependent races who should be grateful to the British Empire for every penny it put into its colonies - and forgot about the riches it took out - Scotland is sadly seen as a country of servants. To be brutal, having cowed Wales over centuries and Northern Ireland most recently by bribery, Britain has fixed on Scotland as the next target to subdue. The Empire doesn't give up easily: remember events in India, a rich country reduced to beggary by the time Britain left it. 

We in Scotland are not equals: we provide the workers, educating them to a high level and then exporting them to the south-east of England to run the economy. We don't have an income of our own: we get a 'grant' which is determined by a parliament far away from where we live. We have to accept, as we always have done, that our land is almost entirely in the ownership of other people: absentee landlords, owners of shooting estates, the army, etc. 

McCall Smith's comment for me shows the basic difference between Germany and Britain since 1945: Germany rebuilt almost from ground zero. The people pulled together and got the benefits. Britain seems to me to have floundered around and then closed down its economy so far that industry has almost gone, large areas of Britain are reduced to industrial wastelands, and bribes (in the form of tax-free residence) seem to be the only way to get companies to invest in jobs here.   In the 1970s, trades unionists used to talk about the danger of Britain becoming 'a banana republic.' I have to tell you, I now think Britain is a banana republic but the bananas (oil, whisky, agriculture, fishing, tourism) are mostly in Scotland, now that the Brexit disaster is starting to unfold and jobs are leaving England for other parts of the EU. 

Let me explain something: I don't hate England or English people. I wish them well in the Brexit era. But I don't want their parliament controlling my life and I certainly don't want it setting the future for the children in my family. 

And no, I'm not a member of the SNP or even a supporter of the SNP. I'm a Scottish Green and you are welcome to check out what we stand for online: 

https://greens.scot/