THE house of illusions has collapsed. The politics of fantasy are over.
For decades, the ruling elites of Britain and Europe have lived in a cocoon of irresponsibility.
They contracted out the defence of their realm to the US, while they postured on the global stage as green saviours of the planet and imposed their cherished theories about open borders and multi-culturalism.
We are paying a terrible price for this decadence, as social solidarity breaks down and national identities are eroded.
Ours has been the age of make-believe economics in which essential industries are neglected but vast sums of taxpayers’ money are squandered on lavish benefit systems and bloated state bureaucracies.
Less victimhood
One graphic indicator of these warped priorities can be seen in the shocking revelation that Europe accounts for just seven per cent of the world’s population and only 25 per cent of its output, yet it consumes more than 50 per cent of global welfare expenditure.
But the fall-out from the Ukraine war has provided an injection of harsh reality.
In his dramatic rejection of traditional US foreign policy, President Donald Trump has made clear that he has no interest in paying for Europe’s defence any longer.
The protection of US manufacturing through tariffs is of far more concern to him than the protection of European territory through military support.
Indeed, so many of the assumptions about Western co-operation have now crumbled.
Trump’s belief in “America First” is a wrecking ball aimed at the transatlantic alliance that governed strategy since the end of the Second World War.
Similarly, after the row over whether or not Vice-President JD Vance had Britain in mind when he sneered about “a random country that has not fought a war for 30 or 40 years,” the special relationship now looks to be on life-support.
Europe will have to stand on its own feet, and that is going to require a radical change right across our society, with more valour and less victimhood, more self-reliance and less self-indulgence.
A bold reset in the way we manage everything from our borders to our economy is needed.
But given the Prime Minister’s pledge to support Ukraine with boots on the ground and planes in the air, the first task will be a massive expansion of our Armed Forces.
The British establishment likes to blather about the importance of “soft power” in extending British influence across the world.
But the blood-soaked conflict on Europe’s eastern frontier exposes the emptiness of that wishful thinking.
This is a moment for robustness, not more softness.
At a strength of just 74,000, our Army is at its smallest size since the beginning of the 19th Century, and that total is far too low to make a meaningful contribution to the fight in Ukraine.
At least the Government has promised to slash the foreign aid budget to provide an extra £13billion a year to the defence budget, but ministers will have to go much further.
It is also vital that in the drive for growth, the Ministry of Defence drops its fixation with diversity, which has done so much damage to recruitment, morale and effectiveness.
In one outrageous recent case, the RAF imposed a temporary ban on applications from white men.
National pride should be restored and so should our industrial base.
Leo McKinstry
This blatant discrimination was eventually declared unlawful, but the saga gave an insight into the twisted attitudes that exist in the top brass, who seem to view our defenders as a vehicle for social engineering.
Attracting new recruits will also require a return to traditional patriotism in place of the institutionalised denigration of our heritage.
One recent survey found that just 11 per cent of Gen Z would be willing to fight for their country, but that should hardly be a surprise given that official woke propaganda paints Britain as a racist, oppressive country with a vicious colonialist past.
National pride should be restored and so should our industrial base.
We were the country that pioneered the Industrial Revolution and we can be the innovators and makers again. But to do so we will have to be competitive.
That means dropping the disastrous Net Zero green agenda, which has pushed energy prices artificially high and accelerated the process of deindustrialisation.
Perverse incentives
It also means building a better-trained workforce by shifting focus away from the university sector which has failed to provide the nation with the skills we need.
In the new, self-reliant Britain, we can no longer afford luxury, dogmatic beliefs like the green agenda, or the nonsensical claim that “diversity is our strength”.
Nor can we afford the gargantuan welfare state which now, including pensions, swallows over £303billion a year, yet provides perverse incentives to mass unemployment.
There are more than nine million people of working age who are economically inactive, a spectacular waste of resources and human talent.
The lavish reach of the benefits system also acts as a magnet for many immigrants to this country.
Contrary to all the claims from the woke brigade about newcomers doing the jobs that Britons refuse, just 17 per cent of all those who arrived here from outside the EU in the past two years actually came here to work.
The unceasing waves of migration are not just a drain on the economy but also a potential source of crime and terrorism.
The problem is another illustration of why we must become keener on real security rather than social security.
We have come through crises before. We can do so again.
