Source:
https://www.ft.com/content/f752a1ad-4a23-408f-a549-4909974c6...
As for fears for the rest of Europe – I don't doubt that the rest of Europe has problems. My worries are confined to the UK because that's where I live. (To be clear, this isn't me saying I don't care about other countries. But there's only so many problems a person can concern themselves with.) I think the country could very well cease to exist unless we figure a lot of problems out.
The three reasons I listed are the ones that people keep citing. I actually suspect that the UK's problems are longer term and more fundamental. I don't think it's related to either party, either. The Conservative Party of the last few years has not been good for the country, but I'm not convinced Labour will be able to fix our deep, societal problems, either.
Do you mean something like Scotland going their own way? Or something more dramatic (think revolution)?
Yes, exactly this – the four countries of the UK going their own way and the UK ceasing to be.
(It's my personal opinion – people will of course have their own take, and good reasons for having their views – that such a happening would be a devastating event.)
But the severity of UK's problems are solely of their own making and are pretty much entirely due to Brexit, and the fallout from Brexit that caused by a string of ill-prepared "leaders".
That said, one reason I'm hopeful about the UK is that, compared to US politics, there is much less "tribalism", much more fluidity among how people will vote, and more willingness in your parties to vote for pragmatic policies when strict ideology fails. In the US most voters couldn't conceive of voting for the opposite party, such that most elections in the US come down to turnout and a small sliver of maybe 10ish percent of "swing voters".
In the UK, by comparison, after the sheer idiocy of Liz Truss, she was quickly canned, a much more realistic/pragmatic PM was installed (even if one disagrees with his overall political stance), and policies quickly changed. Also, at least in polling, there were huge swings in sentiment against Conservatives and towards Labour because Conservatives were (correctly in my opinion) being blamed for their massive fuckup.
I can't see the equivalent happening in the US.
Pretty much all the Euro Area (of which the UK was not a part of) sees similar numbers. According to [0], it was at 15.5% in October, from 13.3 in September.
You're making a very slippery argument here. You started by asserting that things are worse in the UK than elsewhere in Europe and this is due to Brexit, but you didn't name any specific way in which things are worse. So you were called out on it because this discussion is about a single data point - food price inflation - which is not different to elsewhere. Now you're saying well no, but if things were worse then it'd be the fault of Brexit.
HN discussions on anything UK related seem to always be like this nowadays. Intellectual curiousity is dead, killed by motivated reasoning. "Things are worse, I won't say what, but if anything is worse, then it's clearly Brexit and not anything else". That's not a valid argument, it's not even an attempt to lay the groundwork for an argument. We get it - you wish no country ever left the EU - but if you want to blame leaving then you need to show a causal relation, not simply assert that the EU can only ever make things better in any conceivable capacity.
The France CPI increase was 6.2% for the same period [2].
That is a huge difference for similar developed economies.
1. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bull....
2. https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/france-inflatio....
The difference is caused by France more heavily subsidizing/capping energy costs. It reflects a short term deviation in market policy triggered by gas shortages, not some fundamental divergence.
The UK is simply doing worse WRT inflation than any comparable country, and nobody, not even Conservative UK politicians, really debates this.
According to [0], the UK isn't doing that much worse than Germany (12.2 vs 12.6%). It's doing same as Norway and better than the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic and way better than Sweden. The latter being barely better than Ukraine, which is actually at war. Now I agree those are "smaller countries", so maybe not comparable?
Some "peripheral countries" are doing great (Romania), others terribly (Hungary). This is to say that values are over the place. I don't see any emerging trend that would allow easily to pinpoint the reason prices are going up in this or that country but not in the other.
The issue with Germany's decision, wrt to nuclear, is that it affects everybody because of the way electricity prices are set in the EU (priced for the most expensive production).
[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/consumer-price-ind...
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate
Netherlands: 14.3%
UK: 11.1%
Germany: 10.4%
Euro area: 10.6%
Italy: 11.8%
etc.
"The UK is simply doing worse WRT inflation than any comparable country, and nobody, not even Conservative UK politicians, really debates this."
Nobody debates this because outside of the HN anti-UK bubble nobody is claiming it, and nobody is claiming it because it isn't true. This is what I mean by HN discussions about the UK being hot garbage for the last few years. Way too many posters are willing to simply make things up in order to attack the UK.
The leaders weren't just I'll prepared with Brexit, they head-on despite the consequences, since they were chasing the "EU-bad" popularity votes by pointing at the EU as the scapegoat for the UKs own self inflicted internal issues. Now the leaders have no more outside scapegoats other than COVID and Putin.
Well, arguably, they kind off got carried away by the thing they created; Brexiters pre-referendum were usually advocating some sort of soft Brexit (albeit often with conflicting demands which made it impossible; "single market access but we don't need to follow European rules" sort of thing), then there was May's Brexit which looked 'hard' at the time but soft compared to what actually happened, then Boris's Brexit, and then Truss wanted to make it _worse_. All of these things were worse than being in the EU, but the degree of badness intensified as the leaders of the movement were captured by the movement itself.
Well yeah, the population voted to jump off a cliff, and the leaders (Boris) cheered them on and promised them the most spectacular cliff jump ever just to shove it to the EU.
In a way this is populist democracy in action and is a lesson for future generations.
Only one of these issue is UK specific tho; so either your fears extend to the rest of Europe and/or the western world, or you can pinpoint the cause of your anxiety.