Britain Was Warned!

He was right that Britain would leave the EU

“Britain is going to look back on Monday, January 1, 1973, in all probability, as a most tragically historic date—a date fraught with ominous potentialities! For that date marked the United Kingdom’s entry into the European Community.”

That statement in the March 1973 Plain Truth is classic Herbert Armstrong: gripping, plain, sincere—and true.

Just ask the growing number of Britons grappling with the realization that the European Union has established a major beachhead within British society. Ask the 17.4 million majority “Brexit” voters who, on June 23, 2016, voted decisively to leave the EU. For them, it’s growing increasingly difficult not to look back on January 1, 1973, and lament it as a “tragically historic date.” Today, the “ominous potentialities” Mr. Armstrong referred to have become alarming realities.

The Date That Shocked the World

Few expected Britain’s rejection of the EU. Even Nigel Farage, who helped lead the effort to get Britain out, conceded his side had lost the vote—only for a last-minute count of votes to turn his defeat into victory.

But Herbert W. Armstrong forecast Brexit decades in advance. From the earliest days of his broadcasting work in the 1930s, he forecast the advent of a united European power. In 1956 he wrote, “Probably Germany will lead and dominate the coming United States of Europe, but Britain will be no part of it” (emphasis added throughout).

Later, in 1978, with Britain firmly entrenched in the European Economic Community, Mr. Armstrong described a “soon-coming resurrected ‘Holy Roman Empire’—a sort of soon-coming ‘United States of Europe’—a union of 10 nations to rise up out of or following the Common Market of today.”

“Britain will not be in that empire soon to come,” he wrote.

Once again, Mr. Armstrong was right.

The British public voted to join the EU in the belief that it was merely a trading bloc. Yet they found it steadily taking over more and more aspects of their life. Britain opted out of the euro while the rest of the EU pushed toward economic union. France, the Netherlands and Ireland all voted against a European Constitution, yet on January 1, 2010, the EU adopted one under the Lisbon Treaty.

With each step toward a superstate, more people became aware of the “ominous potentialities” Mr. Armstrong warned about. For many, the Lisbon Treaty was the final straw. “Britain is no longer a sovereign nation,” wrote British politician Daniel Hannan the morning after the treaty was enacted. “At midnight last night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaties to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state“ (Telegraph, Dec. 1, 2009).

The Lisbon Treaty “tramples [Britain’s] Magna Carta into the dust,” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard lamented in the Telegraph. “The founding texts of the English constitution—charter, petition, bill of rights—have one theme in common: They create nothing. They assert old freedoms; they restore lost harmony. In this they guided America’s Revolution, itself a codification of early colonial liberties,” he wrote (Dec. 6, 2009).

Why Britain Is in This Predicament

How did Britain—the nation that very recently ruled the greatest and most benign empire the world has ever known—become a victim in this abusive relationship with the EU? Why is formerly Great Britain now sidelined and languishing in minor-power status?

The reasons for its staggering decline are numerous: Many British claimed undue credit for the prosperity they enjoyed, and they succumbed to guilt and self-loathing, which prompted them to relinquish most of the empire. At the same time, two world wars decimated the strength of the nation. Britain was further drained by its decades-long but never-quite-successful campaign to hitch itself to Europe. Finally, it underwent a revolution in morality, culture and religion.

Have the British, in all of this, simply been victims of the inevitable cycles of history? Was it coincidence that they acquired a globe-girdling empire, and was it coincidence that it was later ripped away? For answers, we must look far back in ancient history.

Over 3,000 years ago, God began inspiring His prophets to record exactly what would happen to the British Empire. The biblical name “Ephraim,” the Israelite tribe that became modern-day Britain, appears in well over 100 passages. Britain is also one of the modern-day nations collectively called “Israel” in many prophetic passages and is also occasionally referred to by other biblical names. (For proof of modern Britain’s identity in the Bible, request a free copy of Herbert W. Armstrong’s book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.) Scripture foretold the British Empire’s rise and decline, including the very curses it is experiencing today. Prophecies also make clear that these circumstances will lead to Britain’s eventual, complete collapse.

Through several decades under Mr. Armstrong’s editorial eye, the Plain Truth reported in detail the curses that were increasingly plaguing Britain, all the while forewarning that they are merely the prelude to far worse.

Several Plain Truth articles in the 1960s in particular detailed Britain’s woes at the time: economic problems, low food production, struggles with defining its commonwealth, racial tension, a burgeoning and unsustainable welfare system, notorious laziness, and preoccupation with entertainment. The Plain Truth pointed out that, even at that epoch, Britain was often viewed as inferior to Europe, sometimes referred to as “the sick man of Europe” and “an international charity case.” Britain was not really considered integral to the economically uniting Continent.

On more than one occasion, the Plain Truth expounded on detailed prophecies of correction from God, elaborating on His efforts to arrest Britain’s attention, turn the nation around, and set it back on a path paved with blessings.

Consider these paragraphs from the December 1964 Plain Truth: “Relations between Britain and Europe will continue to deteriorate until ‘The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far … which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil …. [H]e shall besiege thee in all thy gates …’ (Deuteronomy 28:49-52).

“These prophecies reveal a soon-coming ‘siege’—a trading blockade—of modern-day Israel! Of all the nations that compose modern-day Israel, none is more vulnerable to such a trade embargo than the United Kingdom. Under present conditions, the British Isles are entirely unable to feed their population without massive food imports. Even during the strenuous agricultural efforts of World War ii, Britain was able to produce barely half her food requirements! Since then, population has increased, farming land diminished.

“Yet the British public remains apathetic! … The new generation insists only on less work and more benefits. The welfare state, supported by each government in turn, encourages just such an attitude. … But as the cry grows louder for wage increases, unemployment pay, sick benefits, pensions, allowances, national assistance, grants and payments—the entire economy staggers, unable to stay afloat!”

Now, having stumbled through those tough times with no improvement in its behavior, Britain faces an intensification of its problems. Its welfare state has bloated to far greater proportions—as has its drag on the economy. And its corruption and immorality are far worse. Britain today is a house divided, and the 52-48 Brexit vote in June 2016 accentuated and worsened the divisions within the United Kingdom.

Will Britain Awaken?

Scriptures such as Job 12:23 and Isaiah 40:15 clearly reveal that it is God who makes and unmakes nations. He made Britain what it once was, and He is unmaking it today.

Scripture explains—in passages like Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28—God’s reasons for inflicting curses on Britain. Still, Britain toils on, trying to solve its problems with its own ingenuity. Instead of looking to God, Britain is relying on its “allies” like Europe—or as the Bible calls them, its “lovers.” “[T]hey have gone up to Assyria, Like a wild donkey alone by itself; Ephraim has hired lovers” (Hosea 8:9; nkjv). (For proof that Assyria refers to Germany, request a free copy of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.)

God never intended for Britain to join with Europe. Its ill-advised efforts to do so have revealed fatal weakness and lack of trust in the Source of its national greatness. At the same time, they have portended the downfall of the country!

In 1966, the Plain Truth made this important statement: “The big question: ‘What will it take to wake up the people of Britain?’ Will it take a terrible economic depression, or will it take national military defeat at the hands of a German-dominated United States of Europe?” (October 1966).

The article referred to the prophesied ultimate fall of Britain!

As Bible prophecy makes clear to those who have the key to understand it, Britain will learn its lesson only through total defeat and the subjugation of its people as slaves to a United Europe!

“I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me …. They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God …. Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria [Britain is fulfilling this prophecy even as you read this]. When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard. … My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations” (Hosea 5:3-4; 7:11-12; 9:17).

The Plain Truth’s question—will Britain awaken?—is more pressing than ever. What will it take to wake up the people of Britain?

Britain Bows Out

Today there is little doubt that the “ominous potentialities” that Mr. Armstrong warned about are coming to pass. Politically, economically and judicially, Britain has greatly weakened and is increasingly subservient to the EU.

This is what Mr. Armstrong said would happen—decades ago. Mr. Armstrong’s conclusion in that 1973 article was ominous: “Britain’s entry into the European Community portends a tragic situation.”

The tragedy of that situation has become increasingly evident today.

In numerous articles, Mr. Armstrong made clear that Britain’s dalliance with Europe would end. “The stage is all set!” he wrote in 1956. “All that’s lacking now is the strong leader—the coming führer! The Germans are coming back from the destruction of World War ii in breathtaking manner. Germany is the economic and military heart of Europe. Probably Germany will lead and dominate the coming United States of Europe. But Britain will be no part of it!”

Herbert Armstrong warned for decades that Britain would not be a part of the coming final resurrection of the German-led Holy Roman Empire. Even as British Prime Minister Edward Heath deceitfully ramrodded his country into the Economic Community in 1973, Mr. Armstrong warned that it was an experiment doomed to failure and that the British—as many are doing right now—would look back on that day as a “tragically historic date.”

The reality is undeniable. He was right.