A Striking Country

Researchers, analysts, and a mix and match of media specialists. All are scrambling to find an explanation. Why? Why is the United Kingdom facing so many issues all of a sudden?

Brexit, the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. Not to mention the instability at the top of the government. They all take a pole position in what some call “a perfect storm facing the UK.” Nothing farther from the truth.

If we choose to play the analogy game, there are certainly better options. Chickens are coming home to roost or good ol’ Karma takes my vote.

The strikes

In a country with record inflation, mortgage repossessions almost doubling, budget issues being plugged by raising taxes, and companies losing trust so much they are dumping government bonds, a profoundly unpopular government chooses to die on a totally unnecessary hill — a fight with labour unions.

Don’t get me wrong. The clash between the two parties is not recent. It started with several railway staff unions, which are some of the strongest in the country. What is not surprising is that a leader that bragged he was planning to take away funds from “deprived urban areas” to invest in wealthy towns made it even worse.

100,000 civil servants voted to go on strike, spanning 126 employment areas including border force officials and Jobcentre staff. They joined the National Health Service nurses, railway staff and Scottish teachers to name just a few, in the struggle against the cost of living crisis.

The demands

With such a vigorous fight from the government, you would be forgiven to think the labour unions are overreaching. Asking for too much and trying to take advantage of a bad situation. False. Their demands are in line with what yours or mine would be.

A pay rise in line with inflation (10%) — this is true across the board for all the unions

Job security — civil servants face cuts of up to 90,000 jobs in an attempt by the government to reduce costs; rail workers face significant cuts or reassignments in the industry shake-up that will be Great British Rail.

Working conditions —these refer to working hours and increase workload due to staff cuts or shortages among others.

Outlandish, I know.

Government failure

We can speculate why the pushback is so strong from the government. Theories range from the sensible to the insane. Conspiracies of funnelling money and other nonsense.

I am a strong believer in Occam’s razor principle. Don’t think zebra when you hear hoofs, in a way.

This whole mess has a few key, simple explanations:

A gross mismanagement of funds by a country that never had this issue before

A deep conservative ideology contrary to what a labour union stands for

An acceptance of the fact that if the demands are met, it would create a precedent for the entire labour market, making the private sector less profitable. Not fail. Less profitable. Never bodes well for a conservative government to hurt the private sector.

Empire fall

Let’s end on a fun note.

The United Kingdom is in a predictable downward spiral with not even a sliver of hope to understand where the end is. A country looted by the ones that had nothing else to loot after the fall of the empire, now eating its tail like an insatiable snake. Something that generally goes amiss — the British Empire is not an old fairy tale like the Romans. They were, and arguably still are, draining the resources of current and former colonies to fund what were previously government-owned entities. The fight for the empire was still going on in the 1960s (I will refrain to add links here as the pages are filled with details and pictures that are not for the faint of heart).

The country went through several crises. Colonial wars on either side of WWI and WWII were sprinkled with economic struggles and depressions. Crucially, the circumstances changed. The pipeline of funds from colonies and support from the European Union is now gone.

The United Kingdom has to handle this alone for the first time in hundreds of years. A test they are currently failing.