1/ England is suffering from what could be called 'Post-Imperialism Orientation Disorder'. Its leaders and many of its people cannot accept what for them is the humiliating status of England as a normal nation.
2/ For the English to accept the loss of empire is to accept that England has something to learn from others, and to accept that it has to conform to rules that it hasn't imposed on others. But to do that is to accept the humiliation and defeat of imperial collapse.
3/ England pretended that the loss of its empire was a graceful and voluntary granting of independence to its former colonies. This was a big lie. The collapse of empire is never voluntary. It comes through the humiliation of rejection and defeat.
4/ The big lie that the empire was given up voluntarily meant that England never went through the full psychological process of accepting the pain and humiliation of losing the empire and reorientating itself to a new diminished status.
5/ Instead, in terms of its place in the world, England exists like the ghost of its former imperial self, unable to depart from the place of an unprocessed traumatic loss.
