
Britain today is falling apart. One of the most dominant states in world history finds itself confronted with growing demands for nationalist secessionism. Brexit has already secured its break from the European Union while looming Scottish independence promises to undermine the integrity of the British state. Meanwhile, class, gender, regional and generational inequalities are deepening while endemic racism has been re-invigorated. How has it come to this?
Britain in fragments traces how the historic pillars sustaining the democratic settlement have begun to crumble. This stability was constructed amid a century of imperial expansion abroad and working-class struggles for justice at home. The post-war welfare state was the apex of this historic arrangement; however, the ground beneath it began to shake as the processes of decolonisation and neoliberalism unfolded. This book traces how successive Labour and Conservative governments have incrementally dismantled the democratic settlement. A bipartisan commitment to neoliberalism has culminated in a historic crisis of representation and legitimacy, opening the door to competing nationalist forces.'A brilliantly readable and historically astute account of the point of collapse at which the entity called "Britain" finds itself today. Virdee and McGeever offer us a pithy and compelling story of where we are, how we got here and how it may yet be possible to rediscover the emancipatory impulses that will set us free from this quagmire.'
Priyamvada Gopal, Professor of Postcolonial Studies, University of Cambridge, and author of Insurgent Empire