Far from “Great" Anymore: The Cultural Collapse of Britain, By Richard Miller (Londonistan)

Once, Britain stood as a titan of stability, its identity forged through centuries of monarchy, empire, and a gritty resilience immortalised in tales of the Blitz. Sladden, an Australian visitor in February 2025, saw a shadow of that nation:

https://dailysceptic.org/2025/04/01/is-the-uk-heading-towards-a-cultural-collapse/

She describes a Britain where "a strong sense of identity known both to itself and the world" has vanished. The symptoms? A palpable loss of national pride, evident in conversations with locals, from taxi drivers to farmers, who feel betrayed by their leaders. The 2021 ONS data she cites shows Christians now a minority, with a 44 percent surge in the Muslim population over a decade. This shift isn't just demographic; it's symbolic. When Westminster Hall, bastion of British heritage, host Iftar events with Qur'anic recitations, it's not mere inclusion; it's a rewriting of cultural DNA. Imagine the Knights of the Garter hearing the call to prayer echo through St George's Hall—they'd think the realm had been surrendered. Leaders like Keir Starmer champion this as unity, but to many, it feels like a sellout of what Britain once was.

A nation's culture thrives when its people do. Sladden paints a grim picture: a post-pandemic economic hangover crushing ordinary Brits with soaring energy costs, high taxes, and a cost-of-living crisis. In cities, grocery prices are "eye-watering," leaving people wondering how to eat, let alone heat their homes. In the countryside, farmers face inheritance tax policies that could shatter family legacies, fence signs and pub tales scream their desperation. Richard Littlejohn's Daily Mail column (circa March 2025) amplifies this: UK steelmaking, once employing 100,000, is down to "three men and a dog." Scunthorpe's potential closure means reliance on foreign steel from coal-chugging China, ironic for a nation chasing net-zero dreams. Manufacturers buckle under the world's highest electricity prices, driven by Labour's green dogma and rejection of fracking or North Sea oil. This isn't just economic decline; it's cultural emasculation—a nation that can't forge its own steel or fuel its own future has lost its backbone.

Britain's cultural collapse isn't just about identity or wallets, it's about liberty slipping away. Sladden's taxi driver quips, "You can't sneeze without someone saying bless you," nodding to London's omnipresent CCTV. What started as safety measures has morphed into a "well-established surveillance state," with digital monitoring creeping into daily life. She references Allison Pearson's run-in with police—a chilling anecdote of free speech under siege. The result? Self-censorship is now the norm. A nation once proud of Magna Carta and parliamentary debate now gags itself, fearing the knock of an overzealous state. Posts on social media echo this: one user laments "the state is crushing everything about Britain and Britishness," tying it to a broader silencing of dissent. When free expression—the lifeblood of cultural vitality—dies, collapse isn't far behind.

Sladden's crisscross of the UK revealed "social, political, and economic fractures" tearing at the seams. Cities pulse with a changed multicultural mix—less British, more fragmented. The ONS data backs her eyes: a religious and ethnic shift that's outpaced integration. This isn't about rejecting diversity; it's about cohesion crumbling when change outstrips a shared narrative. In the countryside, farmers feel abandoned by urban elites; in cities, locals strain under burdens the government seems to heap on foreigners' behalf. Littlejohn warns of a Britain "at the mercy of potentially hostile foreign powers" like China, a dependency born of cultural shortsightedness. When a nation no longer knows what binds it—when "Britishness" is taught as shame to kids—the centre cannot hold.

The final nail? A leadership class asleep at the wheel—or worse, complicit. Sladden senses Britain's been "sold out" by its Prime Minister, and Parliament. Starmer's embrace of multicultural gestures over tradition, the Iftar optics, and Labour's economic missteps (per Littlejohn) signal a disconnect from the Britain of old. Policies like banning fracking or taxing farms into oblivion aren't just pragmatic failures—they're cultural surrenders, prioritising ideology over heritage. If war looms, as Littlejohn fears, a Britain unable to build tanks or rally its people is a husk. Leaders who can't see the "palpable sense of demoralisation and disintegration" Sladden describes aren't leading, they're presiding over a funeral.

The UK's cultural collapse isn't a prediction—it's happening. National pride's been swapped for guilt and surveillance, economic might for dependence and despair, freedom for control, cohesion for fracture. Sladden's outsider lens and Littlejohn's insider rage converge: this is a nation losing itself, not by invasion but by neglect and betrayal. Hope lingers, as Sladden notes—a path forward with "courage, strong leadership, and a return to core values." But the clock's ticking. Without a jolt, the Britain of Shakespeare, Churchill, and industrial grit risks fading into a memory, leaving a fragmented shell where a culture once roared.