Full-text indexing
- One: Britain and India similar early lying flat.
- Two: Why did the UK take a different path?
- Three: the formation of the British political tradition.
- Four: British political tradition and world hegemony?
- V: Where did the British problem come about now?
- Six: What will be Sunak's fate?
On October 23, former British boss Johnson, after weighing one or two, chose to retire in the face of insufficient supporters (59 votes in the party did not meet the threshold of 100 votes), making Indian-Sunak the leader of the Conservative Party and automatically becoming the new British prime minister.
This is the choice of the British, we can't say much.
But as a historian, I still sighed a lot when I saw all this, and sure enough: British orthodoxy was in India.
What is orthodoxy? Following historical and political traditions is orthodoxy, as to whether it is the British who lead Britain.
Having looked at British history, it doesn't really matter.
One: the lying flat era of Britain and India.
What kind of country is the UK? It is the most peculiar country in Europe, surrounded by the sea to make Britain easy to defend and difficult to attack, and also gives the British a dual national character.
Positive: The convenience of the sea gives Britain the cultural value of openness.
On the flip side: these open values have created an isolated and closed political atmosphere in Britain after the barrier of the strait.
The contradictions and twisted national nature are related to the formation history and composition of the British nation.
In this respect, Britain and India are similar.
Before the 11th century, the British Isles, which had not yet developed the concept of a nation-state, encountered numerous foreign invasions.
The invaders took turns ravaging the British Isles.
Among them, Rome came twice, Viking pirates came three rounds, and other peoples were countless, and after hundreds of years of war and integration, the British mixed into a unified nation.
These successive invasions have always made Britain a European country, and this marginal country of European civilization has a continental plot that follows it.
Britain during the Norman and Plantagenet dynasties was an empire that crossed the strait.
Therefore, from the perspective of historical narrative, this Anglo-French era can be regarded as the era of the British First Empire.
Isn't this successive years of invasion the same as India?
The Hindu Kush Mountains, which stretch for thousands of miles, play a joke on India, and the Khyber Pass, which is 53 kilometers long and 600 meters at its narrowest point, has become an Indian nightmare.
This mountain road, which can be accessed in all seasons, has given countless conquerors who have watched India the opportunity to enter India.
After the opportunity, Aryans, Greeks, Persians, Arabs, Turks, and Mongols flocked to India, making today's India racially complex and caste system rampant.
The English Channel cannot stop the Nordic invaders.
The Khyber Pass gave ancient India countless nightmares.
So here's the question? Why can Britain be revived and become a powerful nation-state?
Two: the continental complex that was forced to abandon.
The Anglo-French era is the embodiment of the plot of the British mainland.
But all this changed in the era of the "King of the Lost Lands" of the Plantagenet dynasty.
John the Lost King lived up to the nickname "Lost Land", defeated one battle after another, and also caused Britain to lose the territory of Aquitaine, Anjou, Maine, Brittany and even Normandy.
In the whole of Europe, only a few possessions of Aquidan remained in Britain.
This made the British Isles the foundation of Britain, and made the later British kings have a dream: to regain European territory.
Hence the Anglo-French Peace of Paris of 1259 (mutual compromise), and the subsequent Hundred Years' War.
The Hundred Years' War from 1337 to 1453 rewrote the fortunes of England and France, and gave England the possibility of strength.
The war was ostensibly caused by the issue of French succession, but in essence it was a war between Britain and France over the two wool-producing regions of Flander and Gaskoni.
Economic interests became the motive for the war, but they unleashed the germs of nationalism.
More than 20 years after the war, the British defeated France at the Battle of Poitiers, captured King John II of France, and forced France to sign the Treaty of Brettingheny (1360).
This treaty allowed Britain to gain nearly half of French territory, and also received a large ransom, and France lost its face.
The humiliation of the king and the arrogance of the English led to the rise of national consciousness in France.
Unwilling to accept British rule, the occupied French began a Jedi counterattack against the Black Death epidemic!
In 1369, the French, led by Charles V, recovered almost all the lost territory, and the English retreated to the coast.
France was also destitute, and the two countries concluded a 20-year armistice in 1396.
The British left only five port cities in France as bases for the counteroffensive.
This peace is similar to the time stipulated in the armistice treaty.
Twenty years later, England took advantage of the civil unrest in France to restart the war in 1415!
In the early days of the war, England continued to victory, and in 1419 they marched into Paris and forced Charles VI of France to sign the Peace of Troyes, and the mentally ill Charles VI agreed to the English demand for loss of power and humiliation.
First, Henry V became the son-in-law of the French king and had the right to inherit the French king.
Second, it declared that the Dauphin was not his own son and recognized King Henry V of England as the heir to the French throne and regent.
Thirdly, France became part of the United Kingdom of Britain and France.
The Treaty of Troyes should have been the earliest contract between England and France with merger effects.
But Henry V was a short-lived ghost and went to hang in 1422. On the contrary, France, because of the long war of resistance, formed a national consciousness and national conviction.
This gave birth to Joan of Arc.
After King Henry VI of England was French queen for seven years, the 17-year-old Joan of Arc announced that he had been guided by God to save France.
The legendary saint girl, one by one, rode through the British defense line, saved Orleans, and then regained countless city fortresses, reversed the Anglo-French war, and also used her own death to inspire the French at the dawn of victory.
Inspired by Joan, the Hundred Years' War ended in 1453, and England had no place on the continent except the isolated city of Calais.
A Hundred Years' War, Britain withdrew from Europe, France ushered in national unity, and the era of the First British Empire ended.
As for this imperial era, what are the characteristics of the British?
That is, it doesn't care who is king, and it doesn't care about the royal bloodline.
The Wessex dynasty is descended from Germanic Anza, Canute the Great is Dane, the Norman dynasty is French (of Norwegian descent), the Plantagenet dynasty is French (Anjou family), the Stuart dynasty is of French origin, essentially Scots, and the Hanover dynasty is German.
As for today's Windsor dynasty, it is of German descent.
Almost all of them are foreigners, the British have no opinion at all, so today there is an Indian prime minister, how can the British have an opinion?
This is why the British chose Indians as prime ministers: the tradition of lying flat extends to the political level, so that they do not care who is the leader in the crucible of nations.
Three: the formation of the British political tradition.
After the Hundred Years' War, Britain was silent for more than 100 years.
But Britain's economic ties with Europe have continued, accumulating strength.
This era of silence and savings allowed Britain to calmly look at the European hegemony, and then think about the key proposition: make money!
Yes, it is to make money, which is the key to Britain's standing out in the era of constant competition among European powers.
First of all: Britain's geography and complete national identity made them less worried about maritime invaders.
Second: the absence of external threats gave Britain the strength to look beyond the continent to overseas markets and colonies.
Finally: this geography and market expansion gave Britain a tradition of mercantilism and glorious isolation.
How this tradition is interpreted depends on the economic style and the virgin queen Elizabeth I.
Economically: After the Age of Exploration, the British have been committed to making money, and the British government has particularly encouraged business.
In terms of glorious isolation, Elizabeth I is proof that this British-born and raised queen has a special sense of belonging to Britain!
This sense of belonging became the national centripetal force of the British people after the queen successively declined "the marriage proposal of the kings and granddukes of Spain, Sweden, Austria, and France."
Politely refusing to propose marriage and insisting on being single made the queen a popular lover of England, and even Winston Churchill said that her relationship with her subjects was a long-term flirtatious relationship.
The queen gained unprecedented affection and laid the groundwork for Britain to smoothly survive the era of religious revolution.
Under the leadership of the queen, Britain, which practiced the middle line, avoided falling into religious wars, and rose against the trend, shaping Britain's unique national character after defeating Spain.
Spain, which annexed Portugal in 1580, demanded a solution to the English problem with a bang.
After eight years of diplomatic tug-of-war, war came in 1588 and the Spanish fleet rushed murderously towards England.
This huge fleet made Sir Drake, the commander-in-chief of the British army, say something as if it were prophetic: There has never been such a powerful fleet, but Almighty God is even stronger.
After the prophecy, a storm fell on Spain and God blessed Britain. At the cost of 100 deaths, the British let the Spaniards return. After the victory in the war, the British national spirit was high and reflected in politics.
When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, James I and Charles I from the Stuart family of Scotland were not sensible people, and actually appealed for the restoration of limited royal power, making the king and the people go on a path of confrontation.
Soon after, an English revolution, nicknamed the "Puritan Revolution," shaped Britain's political tradition.
The British overthrew the autocracy under the slogan "born free" and made Britain different from all countries in Europe after the execution of King Charles I in 1649.
The difference is bottom-line thinking: royal power must be limited, the British need freedom, and whoever violates all this is tantamount to making enemies of everyone.
During this period, despite the chaos of the protector Cromwell and the restoration of the Stuart dynasty, the British still ushered in the victory of the Glorious Revolution by changing kings, and let the king accept the "Bill of Rights" in October 1689, which established the British constitutional monarchy.
Four: British political tradition and world hegemony?
A constitutional monarchy, compared to a monarchy, is undoubtedly a loose and liberal existence.
The royal power was limited by parliament, which also brought Britain into an era of responsible government, and this innovative measure and the empowerment of the industrial revolution made Britain glorious.
In the War of the League of Augsburg from 1689 to 1697, England returned to Europe by going to war with France under the pretext of religion.
In the War of the Spanish Succession of 1702-1711, the English army fought the Sun King Louis XIV doubting life, and dragged down France and the Netherlands.
The Seven Years' War of 1756-1763 was the decisive battle for Britain to get out of Europe and into the world.
The death of Frederick the Great of Prussia in Europe allowed Britain to win victories in North America and India, and Britain also defeated the French fleet one after another and became the strongest sea power.
After the war, a trading circle centered on Britain, radiating colonies, and based on mercantilism took shape.
In this trade circle, Britain provided industrial and manufactured goods, the Americas provided tobacco, fish, etc., the West Indies provided sugar and agricultural and sideline products, and India provided spices.
Britain, which had not yet experienced the industrial revolution, practiced the earliest industrial division of labor with actions.
This primitive industrial division of labor system eventually became the trigger of the Industrial Revolution, making Britain leap thousands of miles.
So why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? A constitutional monarchy is, of course, the main cause.
This system ensured a relaxed and peaceful British society, and also promoted individual struggle and creative thinking.
These are empowered by mercantilist policies and reflected in the degree of economic policy freedom.
Although there is a story of France's counterattack and the birth of the United States, Britain's national fortunes are still in full swing.
The factories in the countryside, the chimneys in the towns, the machines in the factories, and the molten iron in the blast furnaces formed a symphony that also made Britain the top of the world hegemony.
This hegemon is also supported by data!
In 1850, 50% of the world's metal, cotton and iron production came from Britain, 66% of coal production came from Britain, and the shipbuilding industry and railway mileage were also the first in the world.
In 1860, 45% of the world's industrial goods and 40% of trade volume were created by Britain, and the pound became the world currency.
Industry changed the world, and Britain was the pioneer.
Then, the British political tradition, around the time of the pioneer era, changed again: from mercantilist innovation to "reserved change" under conservative politics.
To this day, the Conservative Party remains the backbone of Britain.
What does this mean?
Instead of resting on our laurels and resisting change, we should follow the trend and take small steps to maintain political stability!
This political tradition, which does not advocate "unconventional and changeable", is completely different from today's Britain.
Why?
Because the British at that time believed that they had the most perfect system, and the change was not to make policy better, but to destroy perfection. This makes Britain's ruling parties conservatives.
Stability became a British characteristic, and after 50 years of persistence from 1780 to 1830, it became Britain.
This period lasted before and after the French Revolution.
Conservative Britain, seeing France's fierce rebellion to kill the king, was particularly disgusted, and also felt that the rise of Napoleon's empire affected the balance of power in Europe and threatened British security!
This necessitated intervention based on conservatism and the maintenance of balance of power.
British diplomacy led to the Napoleonic Wars, which lasted 22 years.
The Tories and Whigs, who had alternated power for 22 years, remained steady as old dogs during the war, unmoved by the onslaught of the Revolution, and were hostile to France for 22 years.
Although there were moments of peace during the period, the general direction never changed, and in the end, victory was expected.
The tolerance of the defeated country France after the victory also allowed Britain to maintain the balance of power in Europe and let the sun never set hegemony, based on "free trade". (Napoleon's continental blockade policy blocked out)
Britain, with its confident system, has reaped success with institutional stability, and has ushered in the era of "peace under British rule".
V: Where did the problem come from now?
"Peace under Britain" was the Victorian era and the peak of Britain.
It lasted from 1837 to 1901.
Early Victorian era: Britain established hegemony in Europe and, after the Opium Wars, opened the door to China, with a vast market and raw material sources.
Mid-Victorian era: British power reaches its peak "The plains of North America and Russia are our cornfields; Chicago and Odessa are our granaries; Canada and the Baltics are our forest farms ...
But all this began to change in 1870!
The United States and Germany, industrial output value has successively surpassed Britain, Britain's advantages, only wealth accumulation and maritime supremacy.
However, the British colonial policy remained unchanged, and in order to gain more benefits, the Boer War broke out.
The war, which lasted for three years from 1899 onwards and cost £2 billion and 22,000 casualties, was won, but it moved Britain from an expansion period to a period of operation.
Based on this, Britain has made many attempts, such as the "imperial parliament" system and the "common tariff system".
Allowing the colonies to have seats in the imperial parliament and implementing a unified tariff, the former decentralization, the latter concession, the calculation can be described as far-reaching, but it has no effect.
Because of the economic exhaustion of Britain, it was also unable to cope in political games, and after successive World War I and World War II, it changed from the British Empire to the British Kingdom.
British politicians, who followed the pragmatic tradition and pragmatic attitude, chose to shed the colonial baggage one by one, constantly adjusted British national policy, and tacitly acquiesced to the status quo of becoming second-rate. (After the 1956 Canal Crisis)
After admitting that it could not work, Britain chose to join the European Community in 1973, using its political status (P5) to release its influence, rely on Europe, and maintain its status as a great power.
But all this is still inevitable to calculate interests and selfishness, and was amplified after a reform.
During Margaret Thatcher's reign, Britain underwent its last radical economic reforms.
State-owned enterprises are privatized, welfare is abandoned, guilds are suppressed, currency issuance is controlled, and privatization is not prohibited.
This drastic change, which is not in line with British political tradition, was carried out for 11 years because of Thatcher's insistence, and was followed by the subsequent John Major and Linton Blair administrations, which lasted for nearly 30 years until 2008 due to the subprime mortgage crisis.
Margaret Thatcher, who withstood the pressure, persevered with the praise and criticism plan to the end, survived the British recession, gained countless honors, and completely financialized the British economy.
And this is the root of the British problem, the industrial real economy is hollowed out, and finance has become a pillar industry.
Why did the UK leave the EU?
Because finance is the pillar of the economy, the EU's change from an economic entity to a political entity affects the British to make money.
The lack of industrial competitiveness makes Britain particularly weak when competing with Germany, France and Italy, and constantly suffers losses.
Financial problems have become the root cause of all problems in Britain today, exacerbated by the loss of policy continuity and the lack of politician courage.
The after-effects of Brexit, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the US interest rate hike are the triple triggers of the UK's recession, and non-human resources can be reversed in a short time, even if the policy is useful and does not adhere to it, it is ineffective.
But the British people during the recession were particularly sensitive and impatient, so Johnson and Truss resigned.
Six: What is Sunak's fate?
Compared with Truss's change of order, Sunak is still more reliable.
During the campaign, he repeatedly warned the British: Truss's promise of tax cuts is to paint a pie.
This is his wisdom, in addition to wisdom, another characteristic of him is perseverance!
From this perspective, we have reason to believe that the perseverance and wisdom of Sunak can lead the LinkedIn country out of the quagmire.
As for how the British perceive the Indians becoming prime ministers.
As mentioned earlier, Britain does not care who governs itself, and likewise, this is not a matter in Europe.
The famous generals of the late Roman Empire, Stirico and Aetius, both have Vandal blood, and don't they also protect Roman interests.
Writing here, the only exclamation is: the most important thing about the strength of any country is not people but systems, and the stability of the system.
From this point of view, today's world's only country with a century-old national policy will surely become a world leader, so let us look forward to it.