In the absence of social shock absorbers, economic shocks are often felt more violently by the population in the United Kingdom than elsewhere on the European continent. The economic and social storm which rises across the Channel confirms this observation. With an annual inflation rate greater than 10 % and a peak planned at 13 % from October, the British endure the worst price increases in G7 countries. The cost of food is flying off while energy, for lack of a price shield, will have almost tripled in one year.
Combined with growth at half mast, this vertiginous increase in prices produces the worst economic situation recorded since the 1970s. If we add damage from Brexit and COVID-19, the United Kingdom threatens to regress in ” An emerging market “, analyzes the Danish Bank Saxo. Leaving their reserve, the leaders of the National Health Service (NHS), for their part, are in guard against the risk of “a humanitarian crisis” linked to the impoverishment of the population.
blow On the embers of dissatisfaction
In this context, the multiplication of strikes intended to obtain salary increases is not surprising. After railway workers and employees of the London metro, the 1,900 members of the Unite union employed in the port of Felixstowe (east of England), which deals 40 % of British trade with containers, began, Sunday, August 21, a strike eight days to claim “a correct salary increase” and not the 7 % offered by management. To these movements are added movements of civil society, such as “don’t pay uk”, which threatens to a strike for payment of energy bills.
The political situation only strengthens the impression of a freewheeling country. Less than two months after being ousted from the head of the Conservative Party, the long vibrating Prime Minister Boris Johnson only explains current affairs. The burden of designating his successor, whose name will be known on September 5, is bizarrely to the 200,000 members of the Tories, which, rather old, fortunate and very conservative, do not represent the population. The two candidates who compete for their votes – the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Liz Truss, favorite of polls, and the former chancellor of the Echiquier Rishi Sunak – compete in promises of tax cuts and reverence to Margaret Thatcher, icon Ultraliberalism of the 1980s.
By promising clear couples in social budgets, by ensuring, like M me truss, that the British should “work more”, without offering a solution to the weaknesses of the British economy – Training And infrastructure deficient for lack of sufficient public investment -they only blow out on the embers of a dissatisfaction with which the Labor opposition struggles to propose a credible political outlet.
The pre -eminence given to ideology on pragmatism – allegedly British virtue – which has already led to the Brexit disaster, risks prolonging, or even aggravating the already degraded situation left by Mr. Johnson, whose lies have amplified the divorce between opinion and political world. The economic crisis and instability could increase the temptation to activate the Antieuropian and nationalist rhetorics. When threats accumulate everywhere in Europe, highlighting the need to strengthen solidarity, the crisis in the United Kingdom sounds like a warning for all its neighbors.