Thread by @TheTeacherType

@mrjamesob

Dire prediction time, and one for the Brexiters. [thread]

History is clear: societies tend towards greater complexity. Any society, when it hits a critical point where the cost of complexity is no longer economically sustainable, must contract its infrastructure. 1/

I recognise this sounds like austerity, but that's because austerity has been used as a desperate attempt to stave off contraction following several crises. In reality, unless an economy continues to grow, complexity quickly becomes a burden. 2/

This complexity is caused by growth. To sustain manufacturing, population must be centred in cities. To sustain cities, expensive supply, waste and water services are required. Complexity generates more complexity, until collapse becomes inevitable. 3/

Being part of the world's largest trade bloc has allowed the UK to grow and avoid critical complexity, but Brexit ends all that. Suddenly, as the economy undergoes its largest shrinkage to date, our complex infrastructure is no longer sustainable. 4/

The obvious solution is to reduce complexity via fragmentation. This worked well for the Eastern Roman Empire (later the Byzantine Empire), but there's a catch. It only pays off for the smaller parts of the whole (it didn't work out for the more complex Western Roman Empire) 5/

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are smaller, less densely populated and operate a closer control over local infrastructure policy than England. Had they been independent in 2008, austerity would not have even been discussed there. Austerity was an English project. 6/

England is massive in terms of its complexity, and after Brexit will suffer the greatest relative economic shrinkage. Its population alone will ensure that the current level of infrastructure is unsustainable without heavy borrowing. 7/

This means that English pressure on the rest of the UK will not only hasten Scottish independence, but push Welsh and Northern Irish sentiment away from the Union. England will soon become a state breaking apart at the seams. Further austerity becomes inevitable. 8/

In the long-run it isn't unimaginable to see emigration from England, devolution campaigns in English regions, and ultimately the total fragmentation of England in to smaller regions, in a drive to reduce infrastructure complexity. 9/

This may seem far-fetched, but it would have seemed equally ridiculous to a Western Roman in 400 AD, before Italy descended in to a series of less complex, more economically successful city-states. History is not on the side of the Former British (rather, English) Empire. 10/

The demise was probably always inevitable, but Brexit has pushed it forward a few centuries. We're about to live through the most historic period in UK history since the Act of the Union, and the most significant in English history since the Norman conquest.

Buckle up. /11