How 30 Years of Globalisation Hollowed Out the British State
For over three decades Britain has been told the same story: outsourcing and globalisation make us leaner, more efficient, and more secure through interdependence. The reality is the opposite. We’ve traded away sovereignty, skills, and security — and handed control of national life to global corporations.
The Great Shift: 1990s Onwards
Thirty-plus years ago, a political consensus formed across Left and Right: shrink the state, privatise public services, and integrate Britain into a globalised economy.
- Defence: Military recruitment handed to Capita, tanks maintained by Babcock, battlefield comms outsourced to General Dynamics UK, cyber payroll given to Sopra Steria — a French IT firm that promptly presided over a data breach affecting 272,000 service personnel.
- Energy: The UK’s critical energy grid sold into foreign ownership, leaving French, German, and Chinese companies controlling large sections of supply.
- Transport: Railways fragmented and franchised to multinationals. Public money still underwrites risk, but profits flow offshore.
- Housing: Local authorities stripped of the power to build; private developers and foreign buyers shape the market instead.
This wasn’t an accident. It was a strategy: move responsibility out of government and into the hands of corporations.
The Defence Example: Dependency by Design
The British Army is the perfect case study of how this ideology corrodes sovereignty.
- Surveillance: When the RAF lacked capacity over Gaza, the MoD hired a U.S. private contractor, Straight Flight Nevada (a Sierra Nevada Corp. subsidiary), to fly missions. British eyes in the sky — but controlled from the outside.
- Recruitment: Capita’s £1.3 billion contract repeatedly missed enlistment targets, yet it was extended. Outsourcing failure became normalised.
- Equipment: The £5.5 billion Ajax armoured vehicle programme, run by General Dynamics, has been years late and plagued with safety issues. The Army still doesn’t have a working fleet.
- Cybersecurity: SSCL (later Sopra Steria) lost control of payroll data for the entire Armed Forces. A foreign company held the keys to military pay — and dropped them.
Each of these “efficiencies” weakened national independence.
The Globalisation Logic
Why was this done? The arguments repeated for decades:
- Cheaper: Private firms “more efficient” than the state. (Tell that to anyone watching Ajax bleed billions.)
- Smaller government: Keep headcounts down, boast of savings, pass costs off-book.
- Interdependence: Shared global supply chains reduce conflict risk. In practice, it just makes us hostage to others’ politics and failures.
And so Britain joined the global race to hollow out the state. Thatcher started it, Blair locked it in, and every government since has nodded along.
The Consequences We Now Live With
- Loss of Sovereignty: Britain cannot even patrol its skies without buying in foreign contractors.
- Erosion of Skills: Once state engineers and workshops go, they don’t come back. Sheffield Forgemasters had to be nationalised in 2021 just to preserve heavy forging capacity.
- Security Risks: From data breaches to foreign-owned energy and transport, the state’s critical arteries are exposed.
- Political Capture: Contractors don’t just deliver — they lobby. Revolving doors spin between Whitehall and firms like Elbit, Raytheon, Serco.
The Pattern Across Sectors
Defence isn’t unique. The same story repeats:
- Energy: Dependence on EDF (France), RWE (Germany), and CGN (China) for our grid. Price shocks prove the danger of foreign control.
- Transport: Rail franchises collapse into public bailouts, but the outsourcing model never dies.
- Health: NHS contracts handed to private providers who cherry-pick profitable services, leaving the state to handle the rest.
Every sector shows the same 30-year logic: the state retreats, corporations advance.
What Was Lost
Britain once had:
- Nationalised energy, steel, transport, and defence industries.
- Sovereign capacity in engineering, shipbuilding, heavy industry.
- Government departments staffed to handle logistics, recruitment, catering, and IT in-house.
All dismantled in the name of “efficiency.” The result? A nation dependent on global corporations for the very basics of sovereignty.
The Hard Truth
This wasn’t just poor management. It was deliberate policy: globalisation as law, privatisation as dogma. The British state was hollowed out by choice.
And now the cracks show. War in Ukraine, energy crises, cyber hacks, failed military procurement — each is a symptom of 30 years of outsourcing sovereignty.
The Question Now
If the state could build Spitfires in six months in 1940, it can certainly recruit soldiers, maintain tanks, and forge artillery barrels in 2025. The people and skills exist — if the will exists.
The choice is simple:
- Keep outsourcing sovereignty until there’s nothing left but a flag on the contract paperwork.
- Or rebuild the capacity to defend, power, and govern ourselves.
Hope isn’t what they promise you. It’s how you carry on when they don’t deliver. — Dave Carrera
