“Flagless, powerless and an empty shell, the former Royal Yacht Britannia left its Portsmouth berth for the last time, towed from the home of the Royal Navy by a German tug,” wrote The Weekly Telegraph, May 5. “Its bad enough that we’re losing Britannia and everything British she stood for, but to have her towed out by a German tug is the final straw. For those of us who went through the last war, it’s an insult. You’d have thought they could have found a British tug,” said Jack Fisher, a wwii war veteran.
In like manner, Germany—Europe’s tugboat of big business—is leading the fleet as it strips the British establishment of businesses that have stood as household names and docks them in its own financial harbor, Frankfurt—home of the European central bank.
Hong Kong, the world’s third-largest financial district, lies in the hands of communist China. The Times is in Australian-American possession, while The Sunday Telegraph is owned by a Canadian company. The exclusive Harrod’s department store is now Egypt’s pride; Christie’s auction house has been lost to the French; the executive auto company Rover slipped to bmw; and, after almost 100 years of production, mother England’s prized possession, luxury car manufacturer Rolls Royce, has been gobbled up by Germany’s Volkswagen.
Previous administrators of such national treasures would have gasped, wagging their heads in disapproval, refusing to oversee the sale of such icons of the empire. It is with the surge to power of liberal socialist Tony Blair’s Clintonesque administration that events in Britain have gone from bad to worse.
Amidst all this high-powered, “red light special” shopping, the British public watches impassively as their national heritage sails out of its native docks. Margaret Thatcher, the respected Iron Lady, would have deemed such deals and morbid public opinion as inconceivable and unacceptable!
Anciently, the prophet Hosea foretold the shocking events of today, declaring, “Ephraim [or Britain] also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria” (Hosea 7:11).
At its height, the British Empire enveloped the globe. It encompassed 11 million square miles, occupying almost 20 percent of the world’s landmass. She governed 400 million people, 25 percent of the earth’s population at the time. She controlled all major sea ports of the world, directing global trade with London, the bustling metropolis that stood as the crossroad of the financial and business world.
Today’s “empire” covers a mere 100,000 square miles, with only 14 dependent territories governing a total of 60 million people. Britain in the 1990s lies almost powerless, lacking the will to rule, a mere empty shell of its former glory days.
Recently, at an address in Oklahoma City, former Prime Minister John Major diagnosed Britain with a clean financial bill of health. “Britain is booming,” he said.
Conversely, in his warning to Britain, anciently known as Ephraim, Hosea depicted Ephraim as a “cake unturned” (Hosea 7:8). Informed world watchers know that Britannia’s outward appearance may look like a sumptuous cake just out of the oven; however, its inner core has fallen apart, and with pressure applied to the outside of the cake, it will collapse into crumble pie.
As its industrial and corporate treasures sail into foreign ports, Britain continues to reject its regal heritage, founded by the patriarch Joseph, consolidated in the royal line of the house of David. As prophesied by Daniel, modern Britain is depicted as a largely godless society. “All this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth” (Daniel 9:13).
It is only when Britain turns to the God who blessed it so greatly for the faith of its forefather Abraham that its treasures will return to its homeland. Today Britain has fallen from the heights of rulership of the greatest empire in man’s history to an aged former colonial power, literally embarrassed by its empirical history and royal heritage. Britain has indeed become a cake unturned.