Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Maybe - but I think the opposite's also somewhat true in that, in the UK at least, politics has become far more presidential. So it's now quite common for the leaders who do well to poll ahead of their party. For example Cameron, Blair, Starmer and I think Johnson too all had personal approval that was stronger than their respective parties (I'd add this is one of a number of indicators Badenoch is doing well on - ones that in normal times often point to who will win the next election).

Also, France Although I think there is a French exception in that on all sorts of opinion polls the French tend to be outliers in how negative they are about literally everything

[Tonitrus]

Yeah, I know France was somewhat closer to our system, but also...France is just different. 

[Josquius]

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We can't - I've said it before but my view is that the most important fact for Britain in the 21st century is that America speaks English. We didn't do a great firewall and develop a more national internet (which was probably a mistake). I think for what it's worth I think it's also how the UK ends up serving as quasi-dystopia for both left ("rainy fascist island"), right (whatever Vance is banging on about) or even centrists (here it's bits of and pieces of those two criticisms plus horror at NIMBYism) within American discourse.

And I think we need to be cautious of what we think this would "solve". The fourth biggest country in Western Europe is led by an explicitly post-fascist party (I know I bang on about it - but the FdI really genuinely have a fascist lineage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRwZ70JGRio and the youth groups in that film are the same that Giorgia Meloni joined at the age of 15). From recent polls it now looks fairly plausible that we'll have President Bardella in France next year (in particular he is now leading in the polls on all potential run-offs).

It's interesting that Italy with its actual card carrying fascists manages to be less fascist than the US.

But my view was more on culturally closer countries in the north of Europe.
Obviously we can't replace the US with Sweden. But certainly we need to shift the dial a bit so it's not all 100% US and we can at least point to Denmark on a map.