Cultural Malaise: UK

Non-fictional people are mentioned in this article. To respect their privacy, the author will not use their name and use their occupation or some other pseudonym. This will be the same for organisation or protest groups names.

The Cultural Malaise has gone from The States to Canada, across to Continental Europe and now has gone north to the United Kingdom.
The UK unlike the rest of the Western World has years of disasters, that took a particular theme from March to the rest of the year. This was the case until the Pandemic in 2020. The only other exceptions were in 2016 when all western countries suffered from the Year of Feminism and 2017, for The Year of Terrorism which affected, the UK the most and The States second.

2010’s

2016

The UK was not as affected by The Year of Feminism. but was mainly affected by the Brexit Referendum. When the results came in the Leave vote won with 51.9% and Remain with 48.1% ^[6].
Before the Referendum, the British Public was promised that whatever the result they would enact it in Parliament. What in fact happened was parliament trying to delay the result from happening as much as possible so everyone would give up and would want to stay in the EU. During this time two myths about the Brexiteers. One was that they didn't know what they were voting for.
Second that the margin for winning was too close to the actual percentage of votes, so they couldn’t be “sure” if the British Public actually wanted to leave the EU. Various elections occurred throughout the decade in which one side was pro-Brexit while the other was not. The Voting culture was not on what the party promised or what their aims were. Rather were they on the same side as you. As each election occurred the Pro-Brexit side got more and more votes.
During this time more people from the Remain side joined the Brexit side as they were frustrated with how parliament dealt with the Brexit Referendum mostly because they voted for Remain and were ready for the result to happen regardless if they voted for it or not. Remain voters who transferred to the Brexiteer side were called Brexiteer by persuasion. Brexit indeed happened under an election in 2019 which resulted in Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister. Brexit occurred and the UK got its independence on January 31 2020.

2017

In 2017 which is known as The Year of Terrorism, because March, May, June and September saw religious terrorism and one attack in retaliation ^[4]. It was this year that the Cultural Malaise became apparent to some in the UK. What was apparent was the division that was made. Not because of the terror attacks between the members of the religion and the host nation but between those who did and did not want to have a discussion of the beliefs of the religion.
Other things that to an outsider would look odd during this year, with the same theme, these being;

• Once an attack happened the Government, headed by Theresa May as Prime Minister, would reply that the religion was a “religion of peace”, contrary to what happened.
• The Prime Minister, had three assassination attempts from the members of the religion, but thanks to the The Home Office ^[1] helped in finding these people and put them to justice.

2018

This year, termed as The Year of The Cold Civil War. Two things occurred, it was the first event that was a hint of the second but it was the second that kicked off events of The Year and The Cold Civil War.

The First Event

In the first event in March ^[2], two journalists and an activist, were banned from entering the UK.

The American Journalist And The Activist

The American Journalist travelled with the Activist and was stopped from entering. The purpose of this was to question them. The Journalist wanted to interview a controversial person in the UK and was not allowed to do so. The Activist was not allowed in the UK because he wanted to speak at Speakers Corner [sup[3]. This was not allowed as it may inflame tensions. In a place that allows free speech, not allowing people to speak, at the time and from that point forward was seen by some, as moronic.
The Controversial Figure met up with the activist in France where they could both meet. The edited speech was given so the figure could read it at Speakers Corner ^[3]. It was edited because the person was sent to a night in prison, they edited the speech in their cell. Later that month The Controversial Figure made the speech on the behalf of The Activist and scuffles broke out ^[19].

The Canadian Journalist

The Journalist was banned from the UK from a previous visit to the UK, in which she gave out fliers with a controversial message ^[7].

The Second Event

The controversial figure ^[5] took a course about Contempt of Court as he was seen to have been breaking the law previously. In May they were arrested by the police for breach of the peace.
Upon his arrest, a reporting restriction was put in place but was taken down four days later. He was given a show trial and sent to prison. As soon as this occurred tensions increased between his supporters, supporters of freedom of the press and the other side, The Government.
Every week in the UK in Major Cities, protests commenced and so did fears of a Civil War. Those who were aware of this in the UK, which was about 6% of the population, began saving money and making plans just in case the Cold Civil War became hot, such as getting loved ones on a ferry to The Republic of Ireland in Pembroke and walking back in Cardiff to garrison oneself if it were on the same side as them.
Across the world, people saw this happening so protests happened outside, British Embassies. These places were;

• Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton in Canada
• Across The States
• Adelaide and Sydney in Australia
• Many parts of Western Europe
• Eastern Europe
• India

During his prison sentence of 13 months, he was sent to Leeds Prison and felt safe. He felt safe as he could see his meal being made and what he got. After some time, he was moved to a more secure prison and was not given a valid reason for this.
He did not eat his meals as he feared they would be poisoned. At this prison, he was not given any prison work so he only had his canteen. Using his canteen he could only afford a can of salmon and one piece of fruit a day. Due to this, he lost weight.
During this time The Figure was not being able to eat properly and requesting a higher canteen and was denied his request even with the reason he was not given prison work. A debate about his human rights was made. The result of the debate was that his human rights were not infringed.
At this point, The Cold Civil War has raged on and people needed a symbol of hope, not just having The Controversial Figure was enough. So the people of the UK, who were aware, chose one of two places. The majority chose The States, while the minority chose Canada.
In August 2018 tensions lowered as a tribunal was made to decide the future of The Figure. It was decided that the remaining part of his sentence would be reduced and he would be released. In October 2018 he was released and the tensions of the Cold Civil War had ended.
Later in the year, he put the judge, who gave him a show trial, on trial and won. It was found to be unlawful.

2019

This Year is known as The Year of Political Corruption and is thankfully is the beginning of the end of the Brexit process. This year saw more delay to the process of leaving by moving the date to leave to October 2019 which later got changed to the last day in January 2020.
In September of this year the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, prorogued parliament so no laws could be passed, which went to the Supreme Court ^[20][20a] and found to be unlawful revealing internal corruption as the Supreme Court is not independent and is part of the government. One day later after the proroguing of parliament that was meant to last for 5 weeks ^[8] lasted only a day.

2020’s

2020

This year is known as The Year of the Pandemic. This year saw the Covid Pandemic rage across the globe. The UK responded by putting the country into lockdown, three separate times ^[9].
Upon declaring The First Lockdown, which lasted from March to July. The People of the UK were mainly resolute in the troubling times and took on the mantra of a blitz spirit ^[11].
Many people, however, were much more panicky so while all supermarkets were open, they panic bought many items and many items were in shortage. These items had to be rationed famously this was toilet paper, but other items were;

• Self Raising Flour
• Plain Flour
• Pasta
• Canned Food
• Cleaning Materials including Hand Sanitizer
• Cereal

The positive side to the shortages was that at least people learned what was perishable from the snowstorm called The Beast From The East. ^[12]. In which consumers panic bought Bread and Milk.
During the first lockdown, the rules for travelling for exercise was not clear. While this was changed to a 1:2 ratio, so if a person travelled for 1 hour they had to exercise for 2. In the beginning, however, people who lived nearby a national park would be miles away from people who might have the virus and used these areas for exercise. One particular Police Force in the UK used this opportunity to use drones to video people breaking the lockdown rules ^[13]. Once this was apparent the public was not impressed as it was seen as too dystopian.
After the First lockdown ended, a scheme was introduced to help the hospitality sector. The Eat Out To Help Out scheme was devised, to allow a diner to purchase a meal and non-alcoholic drink for reduced rates. The government would pay pack losses to the restaurants on the scheme. This lasted to the entirety of August. Once it ended, it was found that the cases increased so the young of the UK were blamed for wanting a good time for reduced rates. The Scheme was later renamed to, Eat Out To Kill Granny, in honour of this injustice.
After some time it was noted by others, that wasn’t part of the Governing body, that whenever the country went into lockdown the cases would drop, then we come out of lockdown, the cases would increase, Rinse and repeat. People realised this and began to despise the lockdowns and wanted an end to them.

Devolved Powers

During the lockdowns in the UK, the devolved powers of the other countries of Wales, Scotland and Ireland could change the rules of the lockdown. Which included what stores could sell, travel within the country or if its citizenry could travel out of the country to boarding parts of the UK.
During this time Wales declared that what it thought was an essential item, compared to what the UK government thought it should be. For the winter lockdown, they didn’t allow the sale of clothes ^[21] This was overturned some days later ^[22]. This was because of the number of protests and public rejection of these rules.
One of the famous protests were of a boyfriend with his girlfriend who went into a supermarket to buy clothes as he only had a pair of underwear left, which he was wearing. The staff at the supermarket refused to sell him clothes that were essential to the customer this showed the flaws of the rules. It wasn’t that they said he was indecent but that he couldn’t buy clothes from the store regardless if they had them or not.

Minor Events

During 2020 there were minor events. Minor events because the major event was the pandemic and the minor events started overseas or were seen as unimportant during a health crisis.

Race Protests

The race protests started in The States of a person who allegedly got killed by a police officer in The States and became a The False Martyr riots broke out across The States soon after that occurred in the UK and broke Lockdown rules, with no backlash from the British Police or the Government. This made it more apparent that the lockdowns may have not been there for peoples health but for subjugation. As anti lockdown protests had police action of arrests which further increased tensions towards the lockdowns.
One of the famous events during this time, was of statues of slave traders ^{[14][14a][15]} were removed. They were slave traders; it was publicly acceptable at the time when they were alive but isn’t now as time and public opinion changed.
During this time organisations donated considerable sums of money to fund the course they said they had. Which some parts of the public were beginning to think were not for race equality but more for the destruction of civil society. Some people looked at their website to see what their aims were^[10], they certainly weren’t for race equality. Once this got out the UK branch’s reputation dropped considerably.

Environmental Extremism

While they had operated in the past doing considerable illogical things to publicise the climate catastrophe that, to them was going to hit us. Since the race protests happened their protests didn’t help and they were already seen as idiots from their previous protests.
Their previous protests that were of note are;

• To climb the top of a tube train in rush hour to stop it and show how fragile the British travel network is something in the UK everyone already knows ^[17]
• To glue themselves to the windows of the public gallery in the House of Commons to disrupt the debate ^[18].

Article Contents

References

[1]Information on the Home Office
[2]News Article on Why the three were banned (BBC News Article)
[3]A Wikipedia Article on Speakers' Corner
[4]A Wikipedia Article on a list of terrorist incidents in Great Britain
[5]Google Search the for the figure (I used the Wikipedia Article)
[6]The EU Referendum Results (BBC News Article)
[7]The reason why she got banned
[8]Brexit: Protests as five-week Parliament suspension begins (BBC Report)
[9]A Timeline of UK coronavirus lockdowns, March 2020 to March 2021
[10]What their demands actually were (Spectator)
[11]The definition of Blitz Spirit
[12]2018 British Isles cold wave
[13]UK police use drones and roadblocks to enforce lockdown (Guardian)
[14]Edward Colston, Slave trader statue torn down in Bristol anti-racism protest (BBC News)
[14a]Edward Colston statue removed from Bristol's Harbour (BBC News)
[15]Robert Milligan, Docklands statue of merchant linked to slavery removed after campaign | Eastlondonlines - (East London Lines)
[16]"Manic" shoppers clear shelves in panic buying frenzy with 'mini Beast from the East(The Mirror)
[17]Extinction Rebellion rush-hour protest sparks clash on London Underground (The Guardian)
[18]Semi-naked climate protesters disrupt Brexit debate | Protest (The Guardian)This News Article Contains Nudity
[19]UK: Scuffles break out as [Controversial Figure] speaks in London's Hyde Park (Ruptly Video)
[20]A Wikipedia Article on The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
[20a]The Supreme Court Offical website
[21]Winter clothes & CLEANING supplies deemed ‘non-essential’ in Wales (The Sun)
[22] Wales lockdown: Baby clothes join essentials list (BBC News)

Acknowledgements

ErinRigh
Erin's World Anvil Author Page

Kahuna the Elder
Twitch
Kahuna The Elder's World Anvil Author Page

Oncomingshower
Oncomingshower’s Author page

Siobhan The Writer
SiobhantheWriter's World Anvil Author Page
Twitch