Pariah : Misfortunes of The British Kingdom

"Pariah" is a retrospect of Tony Blair's recent New Labour plebiscite; so far the most absurd election of the 21st century, with a victory being obtained on less than a quarter of the electoral register. How is Britain breaking up? is the question asked and is there any chance of it being repaired?

<i>Pariah</i> is a retrospect of Tony Blair’s recent New Labour plebiscite, so far the most absurd ‘election’ of the twenty-first century. After a much-vaunted Constitutional Revolution, overwhelming victory was obtained on less than a quarter of the electoral register, with more people abstaining than voted for Blair. In 2000 the Constitution of the United States collapsed into farce; in 2001 it was the turn of the United Kingdom, as the oldest and most stable of Western democracies turned into a despised pariah of the global age. ‘How is Britain breaking up?’ asks Tom Nairn. Is there any chance – or indeed any need – of its being repaired?<br>In this corrosive polemic Nairn argues that democratic and constitutional reform alone provides an answer to such questions. But the longer the British <i>ancien regime</i> endures, the less chance there will be of such changes taking place by agreement. ‘Reform or perish’ is the moral; but perish farther looks like the only way towards reform.