Starmer’s exit exposes Britain’s soul crisis: The return of the ‘sick man’ of Europe

Half a century ago, Britain was known as the “sick man of Europe” — a declining power crippled by economic stagnation, labour unrest and political drift. Then came Margaret Thatcher. Through iron will and painful reforms, she broke the old consensus and restored confidence to a nation that had begun to doubt itself.

Today, Britain is sick again. But this time, the illness runs deeper than economics. It is political, social, cultural and, more alarmingly, civilisational.

The revolving door at Downing Street — Britain is gearing up to have its seventh prime minister in a decade, with Keir Starmer being the latest casualty — is merely a symptom. Governments rise and fall, policies change, leaders come and go. Yet the malaise persists. A country once celebrated for institutional stability increasingly resembles a laboratory of political instability. Large sections of the public no longer trust the governing class, doubt that the system serves their interests, and fear that the civilisational and cultural core of the country they inherited is disappearing before their eyes.

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At the heart of this anxiety lies immigration.

This, however, is not merely a British problem. Across Europe, immigration has become the defining political issue of the age because it has evolved into something larger: a question of identity, continuity and belonging. For decades, Europe’s governing elites embraced a simple assumption that anyone, from anywhere, could become European merely by crossing a border. Integration would happen naturally. History would take care of the rest. As author Douglas Murray writes in The Strange Death of Europe, “We are expected to believe that anyone in the world can move to Europe and become European. If being ‘European’ is not about race — as we hope it is not — then it is even more imperative that it is about ‘values’.”

The political class largely accepted this proposition as self-evident. The public did not.

Brexit was the first major rupture. It is often portrayed as an act of economic self-harm, but that misses its deeper significance. For millions of voters in Britain, it was less about trade than sovereignty, identity and control. It was a revolt against decisions imposed by Brussels and a declaration that national borders and democratic accountability still mattered. As Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni observes in Giorgia’s Vision, “Federalism refers to the devolution of power from the centre towards the peripheries — for example, from the state to the regions. In Europe, however, federalism means the devolution of power from the periphery to the centre — for instance, from the national states to the Commission.”

Brexit was, in part, a rebellion against this centralisation of power in Europe. Whether it succeeded is another question. What it revealed was that millions of Britons felt alienated from a political establishment that neither seemed accountable to them nor shared their concerns. Those fears were repeatedly dismissed. Questions about immigration, social cohesion and cultural change were treated not as legitimate political issues but as evidence of ignorance, xenophobia and racism. Rather than engage with these anxieties, elites frequently sought to stigmatise them.

Nowhere was this failure more damaging than in the grooming-gang scandals that emerged across British towns and cities. Without condemning entire communities for the crimes of individuals, it is evident that political sensitivities often inhibited honest discussion. Authorities became fearful of appearing prejudiced, of being cancelled, or worse, being dubbed Islamophobic. The result was institutional paralysis and devastating consequences for vulnerable victims.

The same contradiction surfaced during the migration crisis of 2015. Instead of encouraging open debate about one of the largest demographic transformations in modern European history, many governments focused on policing the conversation itself. Douglas Murray recounts how, at the height of the crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel — a prominent advocate for accepting refugees during the 2015 European migrant crisis, famously declaring “Wir schaffen das” (We can do it) — reportedly asked Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg what could be done to stop criticism of her immigration policies online. “Are you working on this?” she asked. Zuckerberg was said to have assured her that he was.

So, while Europeans face intense scrutiny, often with their voices being policed, immigrants — including many who arrived illegally — are frequently given an easy pass in the name of multiculturalism. In Punjabi Parmesan, author Pallavi Aiyar points to the institutionalisation of immigration in Europe as she quotes a Brussels-based Islamic scholar explaining how Europeans have become “victims of their own laws”. The scholar argued that it was “impossible for them (Europeans) to stop the Muslims now. They have cut off their own arms with all these rights. Human rights and women’s rights and immigrants’ rights”.

When asked what he would do if he were a European policymaker, his answer was blunt: “I would change their laws to stop all this immigration. It would be better for them to send all the Muslims back home. It’s impossible for two cultures to live together.”

The result is a reality that starkly diverges from elite expectations. In many European cities, immigrant communities have not simply integrated into a shared civic culture. Parallel societies have emerged. Entire neighbourhoods have become culturally distinct enclaves where language, social norms and communal identities remain rooted elsewhere. As Aiyar observes, many European cities have been “appropriated and transformed” into culturally unfamiliar spaces.

This is not new and has been unfolding for decades, though migration accelerated dramatically over the past fifteen years. In Prey, author Ayaan Hirsi Ali recalls her time in a Dutch asylum shelter in 1992, when a Somali man attempted to attack her for riding a bicycle because he believed she was “asking for it”. When asked whether Dutch women who cycled daily were also “asking for it”, the Somali man answered unequivocally: “Yes”.

In the early 1990s, such attitudes were rare. Today, Hirsi Ali argues, they have been mainstreamed. “In certain neighbourhoods in Brussels, London, Paris or Stockholm, you suddenly notice only men are visible.” The reality is stark: “Some women have removed themselves from those neighbourhoods, others have been hounded out, and still others are at home, out of sight.”

Europe already has no-go areas for women. Worse, authorities have often adapted to the problem rather than confronting it. If men cannot be policed, women are told to avoid situations where they might be attacked. They are advised not to go out alone at night. Students are urged to modify their dress. Public events create segregated “safe spaces” where women can gather without fear of harassment.

These examples are not an indictment of immigration itself. They are an indictment of policymakers who assumed multiculturalism could substitute for integration. The result is a Europe increasingly divided into cultural islands coexisting uneasily within the same state.

Europe’s predicament stems from the fact that mass immigration arrived at a moment of its own civilisational uncertainty. The continent was already suffering from what might be called existential exhaustion. Europe has aliens well inside the gate while it is weathering a deeper loss of its innate identity and confidence. For decades, national identity was viewed with suspicion, while post-national ideals were celebrated. Borders became inconveniences. Patriotism became awkward. Historical and civilisational continuity became something to apologise for rather than cherish and preserve.

Yet no society can survive indefinitely without a shared sense of belonging. Diversity can enrich a nation, but only if there exists a common civic culture capable of binding different groups together. A country cannot function merely as a collection of communities occupying the same territory.

Nowhere is Europe’s dilemma more starkly visible than in Britain, where questions of immigration, identity and national cohesion have collided with unprecedented force. In fact, the island nation’s challenge today is arguably greater than the one Thatcher confronted five decades ago. Economic decline can be measured, debated and corrected. A crisis of identity is far harder to resolve. Until Britain decides what it is, what it stands for, and what kind of nation it wishes to remain, no change of government will be enough.

The “sick man of Europe” is ill once again. This time, the ailment lies not only in Britain’s economy but in its soul.

(The writer is the author of ‘Bharat Rising: Dharma, Democracy, Diplomacy’ and ‘Eminent Distorians: Twists and Truths in Bharat’s History’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)