The UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) just revoked RT’s broadcasting license with immediate effect, which is the latest manifestation of that country’s pathological hostility to Russia. As the junior partner of the Anglo-American Axis (AAA), the UK has taken it upon itself to serve as one of the US’ top anti-Russian proxies in Europe alongside Poland, with whom it just entered into a trilateral alliance together with Ukraine. This comes on the heels of that island nation proposing ideological purity tests for Russian athletes in a blatantly Russophobic move that would have been universally condemned had they suggested doing the same for Jewish athletes for example. It also occurred the day after Trade Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan shamelessly pressured her country’s former Indian colony over its principled neutrality amidst Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine.

This hostility isn’t just pathological, but is also self-interestedly being pushed onto the public in order to mask the UK’s many insecurities. Its post-Brexit geopolitical future remained uncertain for several years after that historical referendum, with observers wondering whether it would retrench into isolationism, proactively engage more with the non-Western world, or return to its former policy of trying to divide and rule Europe. The first-mentioned was dismissed while several efforts were made to advance the second through prospective trade deals and other forms of bilateral cooperation with such countries. Ultimately, however, it was evidently decided to take a page out of its imperial history by returning to its stereotypical meddling in European affairs. The difference between then and now, however, is that the UK is advancing these aims at the behest of its American patron instead of in pursuit of its own interests.

The one-time global hegemon is but a shadow of its former self, reduced to an increasingly desperate geopolitical actor that’ll do anything for attention in order to remain relevant in the global consciousness. It could have turned inward to deal with its myriad domestic issues connected to the unsustainable and grossly unequal financial basis upon which its modern-day economy is now built, migration-related concerns that raise questions about the future of British identity, and many other such issues but it chose instead to dive head-first into European affairs as one of the US’ top divide-and-rule proxies alongside newly allied Poland. Its engagement with the Global South could also have been promising and mutually beneficial in spite of the shaky financial foundations of the UK’s economy but this scenario was also discarded due to its leadership’s ideological devotion to their former US colony.

The irony is that the historical colonizer has now turned into a colony of its former subject, though its proud people mustn’t ever be made aware of this truly shameful fact, hence why the UK’s pathological Russophobia is being so aggressively pushed onto the public in recent days. The target audience is being misled into thinking that London is independently standing up to “Russian imperialism” just like they were historically manipulated to believe in centuries past, which is supposed to fill them with pride. Instead, it only serves to confirm that the UK has gone back to its old meddling ways, though this time in support of its new patron’s interests instead of its own objective ones that arguably lay in retaining (however imperfectly practiced) pragmatic ties with the Eurasian Great Power. The British leadership is also in a sense deliberately distracting itself from dealing with its myriad problems at home.

It’s much easier to indefinitely put off resolving those issues just like it’s more convenient to take a page from the history books instead of ambitiously charting a new path for the future through mutually beneficial engagements with the Global South that could have resulted in carving out a novel niche for this one-time global hegemon in the emerging Multipolar World Order. The lesson to be learned is that even a country comprised of very proud people can end up selling out its objective interests if its leadership and those members of its permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) are corrupt. The tragedy of it all is that the British people presumably aren’t as rabidly Russophobic as their government and deserve to be led by those who have the population’s best interests at heart, not those of a foreign elite halfway across the world hellbent on destabilizing Eurasia.