2008 "should" have been a severe global depression for 2 years, hitting the UK very hard. It was an extremely drawn out, perhaps decade-long, recession masked b

2008 "should" have been a severe global depression for 2 years, hitting the UK very hard. It was an extremely drawn out, perhaps decade-long, recession masked by zero/negative interest rates. The UK's performance wrt the growing west became uncorrelated in 2008, and negatively correlated since Brexit came into effect 2020ish+. The UK was, in many ways, ground-zero for one of the most severe financial crises in modern history. It has never really addressed that, nor does it have an answer for a version of the UK which can exist "in the shadow of that event". The UK's "best future" from 2008 was an significant pivot to "boring tech", a pivot to the EU, and a rationalised financial system which could support both goals. Instead, it redoubled on relatively pathological elements of the financial industry and away from the EU.