British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing his first crisis since being elected on July 4. Groups of white men, many who are products of generational reliance on the welfare state, have taken to the streets to engage in violent protests against immigration. The spark that lit the fire of violence was the murder of three young girls in Southport in northern England (a subsidiary country of the United Kingdom ).
On July 29, a 17-year-old British man of Somali ancestry attacked a dance workshop, killing the girls and wounding others. The young man probably suffers from mental illness. But rumors immediately spread that the assailant was either a recently arrived asylum-seeker or a radicalized Muslim. The rumors were not true. The protesters don’t care.
The tragedy provided them with an excuse for engaging in public violence. They revel in nihilism and blame others for their own failings. Central to the broader problem here is the U.K. welfare system. While it is true that immigration has put increased pressure on housing, jobs, and access to the socialized medical system, that system is a total failure regardless of these pressures.
The youth unemployment rate in the country approaches 14% . Almost half of young people in Britain are jobless and not looking for work. The British government confiscates from the private sector almost half of the annual GDP. Most of the money is flushed down the economy toilet. People do not escape poverty. The British National Health Service, the jewel of the country’s welfare state, is in a disastrous state. Queues to see cancer specialists are the longest on record. Waits for ambulances and emergency care are catastrophically long. People die unnecessarily.
The state education system also fails the poor. Britain’s greatest universities, which are among the world’s best, are dramatically underfunded . Most damning, economic growth in the U.K. has been almost stagnant for the past 15 years. Britain is in relative economic decline.
Under the governance of Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of Great Britain from 1979 until 1990, the country transformed itself from the sick man of Europe into a country that challenged Germany for economic leadership of Western Europe. But the left-wing elites hated Thatcher.
The elites believe in statism and big government. Not capitalism and limited government. The rest is history. The British economy is mired in economic mediocrity.
Too many young people, especially men, are completely ensnared in meaningless lives of economic and cultural poverty. Economic statism and big government do not work. And as with these riots, they blame anyone but themselves for their plight.
There is an important lesson here for the United States.
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James Rogan is a former U.S. foreign service officer who later worked in finance and law for 30 years. He writes a daily note on the markets, politics, and society.
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