Paul Kingsnorth

What happens to a system when its people begin to opt out of it? I asked that question a few years ago in my first book. I was talking in the context of global neoliberalism; in the context of mass movements of people withdrawing their permission from the global economy. That's still happening, though millions more are excitedly opting in at the same time.

But what about closer to home? Am I the only one who, for some time, has felt that Britain has a kind of fin de siecle feel about it? Is this how the last days of the Weimar Republic felt, as well-meaning liberals tried in vain to hold their society together as the darkness gathered ahead?

I don't know, but I know that this country increasingly seems desperate, pale, dysfunctional, and that change, big change, seems inevitable. What that change will be, and how palatable, I don't know. In yesterday's Observer, John Gray wrote an interesting piece about the collapse of the British state, and the collapse of our faith in it. In the FT a few days ago, Maurice Saatchi wrote a less good piece (you have to sign up to read this, but it's free) about the angry English and what they have to be angry about which, despite him being a bit of a tit, does touch on a couple of key points.

The main one, I think, is disenfranchisement. A state, a nation, holds together if its people trust it, more or less, and feel it has a common purpose - and that they are a common people. Today we have none of these. Many people in Britain feel, quite rightly, that their concerns are not represented by the political status quo. On a number of crucial issues, people have no voice at all. Mass immigration, for example, regularly tops the list of concerns people have about Britain's future. Whatever you think about it, you can't argue that that concern is being met by any politician. Similarly, more state power is handed to the EU almost annually, with no-one's voice being heard, despite mass anger. The state is privatised bit by bit, and will continue to be whichever party runs it. Multinational companies, from supermarkets to private healthcare firms, tear up our culture and landscape and eat it for breakfast and none of us gets a say. Something called 'multiculturalism' descends upon us from above and goes unchallenged, again, by the political establishment even while the majority of British people, whatever their skin colour, feel uncomfortable about it. Wars are started despite mass opposition. The state draws up scheme after scheme to remove our rights and liberties in a spiralling effort to put the pieces back together again

I could go on. The point is that, whatever your personal opinion on any of these things, it doesn't matter. The country is changing rapidly, those changes are not in your hands, and you cannot vote them away. The nation is fragmenting into islands - islands of wealth and poverty, islands of ethnicity and religion, islands of culture and lack of it. England, Wales and Scotland are going their separate ways (one good thing in my view), the head of Henry VIII's church wants Sharia law ... and nobody knows what the future holds. I'm by nature a pessimist, so I think it may bring darkness. What normally happens when we are gifted a combination of a failing state, internal ethnic tensions, a violent external threat, economic uncertainty and a longing for unity and purpose? I'll give you a clue: it's not enlightened liberalism.