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The time has come to mourn the end of old Europe. The corruption is too advanced, the decline is too pronounced, the welfarism, decadence, pacifism, and self-loathing are too deep-seated and the loop of destruction is unstoppable. Once Europe, the world’s richest and most developed continent, ends, its humiliating downfall will be all too obvious to the rest of the world, even if Europeans are not deluded. Alistair Heath, journalist, author, critic, and editor of The magazine, writes: Sunday Telegraph.
Self-inflicted pathologies are now metastasizing: catastrophic economic collapse, near-total geopolitical irrelevance, an immigration and integration crisis, and major democratic deficits. They are too complex and too complicated for Europe’s third-rate elites, especially for the self-interested and demagogue politicians who have ruled with indifference to social collapse, “degrowth,” Potemkin armies, and frightening demographic trends. It’s becoming mind-boggling. Germany, France, the Netherlands, and other countries are on the brink of a social explosion, and farmers have recently become radicalized.
In 248 years of Western competition between the United States and Europe, there can only be one winner. America is also sick, as evidenced by its own social decline, the rise of woke ideologies, and the absurd geriatric rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. But unlike Paris, Berlin, Rome and Brussels, there is enough of the spirit of capitalism, dynamism, entrepreneurship, love of science, meritocracy and technology left to overcome the current difficulties.
Europe’s greatest legacy to the world was capitalism, individual freedom, the rule of law, and what Joseph Henrich of Harvard University so beautifully described as “Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic.” (or “strange”) values will continue to exist. In the United States. But they embrace nihilism, post-Christian paganism, illiberalism, the politics of envy, believe that saving the planet requires shutting down successful industries and impoverishing the population, and are unable to confront Islamic extremism. There is no way to return to continental Europe. That is anti-Semitism and the welfare state will not be reformed.
Even Brexit, the ultimate warning signal, failed to change anything. Europe’s establishment dismissed Brexit as an aberration, a self-inflicted own goal by British eccentrics, and a double blame for failed policies. He refused to listen to the voters. No wonder their anger has become increasingly fiery, incomplete, and unfocused.
Eurostat predicts that the EU’s population will peak at 453.3 million people in two years’ time and decline to 419.5 million by 2100, despite heavy immigration. The collapse of the birth rate will cause the population to age significantly. The welfare state will collapse, and taxes on young people will skyrocket to pay for medical expenses and pensions for the elderly. The only answer for the euro elites is further immigration, which will empower potentially dangerous extremists. Countries such as France, Germany and Belgium have recently failed to admit large numbers of immigrants, paving the way for disaster by lying that all is well with the answers of the ruling classes. The rise of Germany’s AfD should worry us all. Populists will win the European elections.
The continent’s high-tax, high-regulation model has led to decades of underperformance, and now Emmanuel Macron, the EU, the Dutch and German governments are deliberately shutting down large swathes of agriculture to meet net-zero targets. are doing. Germany is destroying its own car industry, and Europe will import Chinese electric cars instead. Decades of “industrial strategy” and subsidies have failed to create a world-class European technology industry. The continent’s economic suicide is already causing an exodus of top talent.
Europe’s geopolitical irrelevance is equally surprising. Its defense rests with long-suffering American taxpayers. French nationals are nowhere to be seen in the fight against the Houthis. The army is a vestige of its former self and will not last long in a real war. The Poles and a few others are trying their best, but the German military is a joke and the big promises to rebuild the European Army in 2022 meant nothing. The continent is almost completely demilitarized, short on personnel and hardware, with no capacity to produce more of the latter, and with zero long-term solutions to contain Putin and Trump’s second Nothing has been done to prepare for the possibility of victory. That’s shameful.
It is hard to believe that many of the British middle-class Remainers and Remainers who will lead Labor to victory this year are still immeasurably ignorant about the true state of Europe’s economies and societies. Blinded by anti-Tory hatred and obsessed with memories of shiny TGVs and happy holidays in southern Europe, they believe that things must and will be better in Europe. I believe it must be.
Almost all Labor MPs privately believe that the solution to our own lack of growth is to rejoin the single market or customs union, even if we cannot save Europe’s own economy. There is.
How would it help Britain to further strengthen its ties with a continent with zero growth and a shrinking German economy? No. And how will the British left respond to the rise of the far right in Europe? Would you still love Germany if the AfD became part of the government? Even if Marine Le Pen were at the Elysée Palace, would she love nationalist France?
Britain is in a terrible situation, but so is Europe. The pessimism of those who left the EU was correct. The problem is that the ruling class has refused to use Brexit to break with Brussels’ regulatory philosophy and reorient the economy away from stagnant EU markets. Britain is therefore increasingly suffering from the same pathologies as Europe and faces similar terminal decline. This is not an argument for her enlargement of the EU, but an argument for further shrinkage of the EU and fundamental changes within the country. Europe’s slow eclipse is accelerating and it would be foolish for the UK government to consider realigning with Europe.
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