A Frayed Edge

Once heralded as a ‘fortress built by Nature for herself... a moat defensive to a house…’ our island is slowly unravelling. Across political, social and economic dimensions, Britain is beset and besieged. ‘Our scepter’d isle’ is fast fraying at the edges.

Politically, these have been intense years. A tortuous and messy divorce from Europe is being tested daily at customs posts on the land and across invisible lines on the high seas. Once a totem of English authority, the White Cliffs of Dover have become irreversibly politicised. One faction regards them as unassailable battlements, while a rival party deploys their sheer white slopes as a vast projection screen to beam forlorn messages of loss to our European neighbours. North and south along the coastline, our Channel beaches have become the landing sites for waves of refugees seeking solace and security after perilous voyages from war-ravaged homelands.