Due to inflation, energy crisis, worsening pay and conditions, increasingly authoritarian right wing govts, the impending collapse of the NHS, higher education entry criteria choking the number of graduates, etc.
I’m reasonably sure the final straw would be a currency crisis. A stable currency feels like imperial privilege.
Has anything been written on this? The characteristics of imperial core countries, I mean. I’d be interested to know if there are any examples of countries that have ceased to be core countries that have been analysed through a Marxist lense.
The UK is part of AUKUS, which is a cultural/military (read “white supremacist”) alliance between the US, UK, and AUS. It seems that the US considers the UK one of its closest allies and will continue to strengthen that bond as it doesn’t take nonwhite allies seriously (like India) or abuses its non-anglo allies (basically Western Europe). There is an expanded version of this called AUSCANNZUKUS which includes Canada and New Zealand. All of these countries could be considered part of the new “Imperial Core” centered around the US.
My take is that, as the US loses power projection and allies, it will double down on these anglo alliances based on ‘shared heritage’ and tie them to the sinking ship. Some might break off and survive as regional powers, but for now they exist to funnel money into the American project. I think after the European Union suffers enough abuse from conflicts with Russia, they will start to notice they’re not part of the ‘elite’ AUKUS club and will start to call for cultural/political independence from the US (“hey, what are all these yankee military bases doing here, anyway?” they’ll say as America’s military budget deflates). But given how their economies are tied, it will become something more like a client state where they begrudgingly depend on the US/UK for energy and AUS for mineral resources, esp as their neocolonies increase trade with China. When the memory of the Ukraine War starts fading, they’ll probably start buying Russian gas again, minus their American contracts.
The UK itself, though, seems to be extremely interlinked with the American economy and political sphere that it seems like they would necessarily follow the same path of America’s ups and downs. So many British Bourgeoisie are tied up in American companies and so many British politicians are influenced by US-Funded think tanks that it feels like almost an honorary US State at this point. Brexit will continue to increase the gap between the rich and the poor, so it will definitely feel like the country is collapsing before it actually does. But before that happens there will be that “sublime moment in history” where the British and American 1% have funneled more wealth upward than ever before, and they will say the economy is working exactly as intended. We can see this sort of thing happening already.
