Britain’s a Small Country. Get Used to It.
Europe is full of former imperial powers that have adjusted to their diminished status. The U.K. needs to find a way to do the same.
Parliament delivered the government its worst defeat in decades.
Photographer: Jack Taylor/Getty Images
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a small country that is about to get even smaller. I know that this simple statement of fact will nevertheless infuriate many English people — and I do mean English people, not Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish. Last week, at India’s Raisina Dialogue, the Spanish foreign minister said that there were two types of countries in Europe: countries that are small and countries that do not know that they are small. Aside from the English, no Europeans in the audience were upset at this plain-speaking. Not even the French.
We know that Britain is about to get smaller because, as the consequence of its inability to resolve its own internal political contradictions, it looks increasingly likely that it will crash out of Europe with no deal a few weeks from now. Prime Minister Theresa May and her withdrawal agreement have just been delivered the biggest parliamentary defeat in recent British history; this, as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has pointed out, merely raises the “risk of a disorderly withdrawal.”