Brexit was a shock. Though much rationalised in hindsight, the decision of the UK to leave the EU was unexpected. As such, most commentary has unsurprisingly, if mistakenly, characterised it as an event that marked a shuddering break with the past.  But Brexit is better understood as just the latest step in the jagged but inexorable retreat of the UK, or more particularly England, to the periphery of global affairs. From the Empire on which the sun never set to the splintering Kingdom of today, it has taken little more than a century for the power of London to dissipate. …

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