The concentration crisis could prove even more devastating than the oil shock of the 1970s, which destroyed the administrations of three British prime ministers, heralded 40 years of American involvement in the Middle East, and (because of the oil glut that followed) ultimately caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. Carnage has already reached the developing world, with blackouts from Cuba to South Africa. Sri Lanka is just one of a cascade of low-income countries where leaders face ouster in an inglorious fire of oil drought and debt default. But the West is not going to escape this Armageddon. In fact, in many ways, it looks set to be its focus – and Britain, its Ground Zero. In Europe and America, a technocratic elite system based on mythology and complacency is collapsing. Its founding myth – which prophesied the glorious involvement of nation-states in global government and supply chains – has morphed into a parable of the perils of globalization. Despite all efforts to portray the Ukraine war as a black swan event, the rise in commodity prices in a volatile world was entirely predictable. People are wondering why their leaders have failed to make contingency plans given that they are sitting on vast untapped reserves of natural gas, oil and coal. The EU has been prone to Putin’s attempt to keep the region’s market divided and dominate its most compromised powers. Nor is there any explanation for this fiasco, other than decades of failed business and policy mistakes by our ruling class. In the wake of the financial crash, the establishment succeeded in persuading the public to submit to the purifying strictures of austerity by convincing voters that we all share responsibility for the crisis and must all play a role in atoning for the country’s wrongs. This time, the elites cannot avoid responsibility for the consequences of their fatal mistakes. Simply put, the emperor has no clothes. The establishment simply has no message for voters in the face of hardship. The only vision of the future he can conjure up is net zero—a dystopian agenda that takes the sacrificial politics of austerity and financialization of the global economy to new heights. Actively campaigning for boiler bans, 15mph speed limits and profit-making green bubbles may seem madness. But it’s a perfectly reasonable program for an elite cut off from the real world. There are many countries where we may see the first signs of a subsequent populist uprising. Germans must swallow national humiliation along with higher energy bills as their political leaders are mocked on the world stage for their naïve attempt to prioritize economic harmony and trade ties over security. France, no stranger to protest, could be the first in Europe to face blackouts despite its large nuclear industry, according to some analysts. But it’s Britain where things could really explode. The UK may well be the tinderbox of Europe. With the ousting of Boris Johnson and his imminent replacement by a politician who will not have led his party to power through a general election, the political context is particularly heated. Even more so given the frustration over the waste of the last two years and the government’s failure to capitalize on Brexit to renew the country. What’s more, British consumers seem likely to put up more of a fight than most. We already have the highest inflation in the G7. But a series of fatal policy mistakes – from closing natural gas storage facilities to failing to exploit our domestic oil and gas reserves – means we will remain unduly vulnerable to high international energy prices for years to come, with all the pain that will bring consumers. Despite this, Britons are set to receive less government help than their counterparts in other Western countries. The 5p cut in fuel duty has been estimated to be the second smallest in Europe. While our politicians call for insulating more homes sometime in the distant future, Spain has made many train journeys free until the end of the year. France has pledged to fully nationalize energy giant EDF, which it had already forced to cut consumer bills. A civil disobedience movement, inspired by the populist tax revolt, has already begun here in the UK. The Don’t Pay campaign, which is urging people to take part in a “massive non-payment strike” when the energy price cap rises in October, has won thousands of online supporters. And if it does take off, what will the authorities be able to do about it? Such is the scale of the coming price hikes that millions may simply not be able to pay their bills – including retirees and formerly middle-class families. The danger is that, bogged down with leadership, the Tories realize too late that they must act. The predicament we face is likely to be a game changer. We are only beginning to realize how unpredictable the coming years are likely to be – and how ill-prepared we are to deal with the consequences. If weaning ourselves off Russia – a relatively small economy – is painful, how do we end our addiction to cheap goods from China? If we do manage to achieve a greater degree of energy self-sufficiency, how will we deal with the collapse of the petro-states in the Middle East and the migration crisis that is likely to follow? This may sound like a bleak prognosis, but in Britain in particular it looks as if we have entered the final act of an economic system that has clearly failed. It is clearer than ever that the emperor has no clothes and no other stories to distract us.
