Hypernormalisation: The Managed Decline of the UK in 2025, and how we pull ourselves out of this hole
This is an opinion piece written by Radical Association member Tara Foster. It was first published on 30th July 2025.
In the dying days of the Soviet Union, a term emerged to describe the uncanny paralysis gripping the country: hypernormalisation.
Coined by the scholar Alexei Yurchak and later popularised by filmmaker Adam Curtis, it described a society where everyone knew the system was broken. Everyone knew the official story was a lie. But because no one could imagine a different future, people simply carried on — going through the motions, pretending it all still made sense.
Britain in 2025 is not the Soviet Union. But the feeling is eerily familiar.
Wages are stagnant. Rent devours more than half of the average income in cities like Bristol and Manchester. The NHS is breaking under the weight of underfunding and neglect, while ministers insist it’s “safe in our hands.” Civil liberties — the rights to protest, to strike, to exist as a minority — are being steadily eroded, even as politicians perform the rituals of “British Values.” Climate policy is delayed, diluted, or dumped altogether. People are exhausted, working longer hours for less, told to keep calm and carry on.
And even with a historic Labour landslide, what do we hear? No vision of transformation. No ambition to reverse decline. Just managerialism, fear of “spooking the markets,” and the quiet suggestion that this is the best we can hope for.
Britain is not lacking in resources. It is not lacking in talent, creativity, or compassion. What it lacks is political imagination. A sense that things could be better — and the courage to fight for it. The myth of British decline tells us we must lower our expectations. It has become an ideological straightjacket.
Net Zero or a Warm home — Pick one.
Long wait times in the NHS are part of the deal — at least it’s still free.
Don't dream of more time with your family — we need growth, not leisure.
Civil Rights are the price that must be paid for security.
This is an ideology, dressed up as realism — there is an alternative.
Radical Social Liberalism: An Antidote to Despair
Radical Social Liberalism (RSL) is not a “nice-to-have philosophy.” It is a direct challenge to Britain’s hypernormalised decay.
It begins with a simple, radical truth:
Real freedom is impossible when people are trapped by poverty, debt, sickness, and structural inequality.
RSL doesn’t just defend liberty — it reclaims it. It insists that to be truly free is to live in dignity, with agency and care, in a society that lifts rather than abandons.
It is the only philosophy brave enough — and feasible enough — to call time on Britain’s slow-motion collapse — and offer a route out.
🔶 A Radical Agenda Grounded in People’s Lives
Here’s what that looks like in practice — a programme to break from hypernormalisation and build a freer, fairer Britain.
1. Empower People Through Fair Opportunity
Launch a National Skills Guarantee — offering free lifelong access to training, apprenticeships, and adult education.
Fully fund Early Years education and expand access to mental health support at every life stage.
Pilot a localised Universal Basic Income in areas most affected by economic transition and automation.
2. Build a Green, Democratic Economy
Re-establish a public Green Investment Bank to fund renewable energy, public transport, insulation, and green businesses.
Support worker cooperatives and mutuals with start-up grants, tax relief, and low-interest loans. Additionally, backing groups of employees who want to move to co-ownership to buy out failing businesses — helping people own and shape their workplaces.
Reform Britain’s outdated and unfair tax system that holds back our economy, replacing council tax with a fairer Land Value Tax as well as making our tax system transparent and understandable.
3. Rebalance Power to Communities
Devolve meaningful powers over housing, transport, and economic development to regional and local governments.
Introduce Community Wealth Building strategies based on the Preston Model, keeping investment and ownership in local hands.
Pilot council and community-led planning, where areas can decide exactly what and where they wish developments to be, then tendering for companies to provide it as has been very successful in cities like Vienna.
4. Stand Up for Freedom and Inclusion
Strengthen the Equality Act and workplace protections — instead of scrapping them.
Guarantee full rights for LGBT+ and trans people, backed by inclusive education, strong services, and clear legal protections.
Repeal authoritarian anti-protest and anti-union laws.
Expand access to justice for victims of discrimination, harassment, and abuse.
Protect freedom of speech, belief, and identity — equally and unequivocally.
5. Revive Democracy and Civic Life
Reform Parliament with proportional representation, and devolve real power away from Westminster.
Introduce civic education focused on democracy, pluralism, and social responsibility.
Restore legal aid and rebuild access to justice for ordinary citizens.
6. Manage Migration Fairly and Humanely
Build a fair, compassion-based immigration system with clear paths to residency and citizenship, that plugs holes in Britain’s working landscape whilst ensuring that people are not treated cruelly.
Fund integration support — language classes, community hubs, and anti-exploitation enforcement.
Tell a positive story of migration grounded in Britain’s history of openness and resilience.
7. Fix the Broken Markets
Impose windfall taxes on excessive energy profits and cap prices on essential services during crises.
Break up monopolies and enforce competition in tech, banking, and retail — And when competition isn’t benefiting ordinary people, then consider other options.
Reform corporate tax to close loopholes and end the race to the bottom.
8. Making the Economy work for people - not Billionaires
Introduce incentives for profit-sharing models and encourage employee representation on company boards.
Expand the role of ethical business and social enterprise in public procurement.
Guarantee trade union access and strengthen workplace democracy.
A fundamental moral reckoning
The defining feature of Britain’s current politics isn’t extremism — it’s resignation. We’re told that decline is inevitable, that asking for something better is naïve or “too radical.” But radical shouldn’t be a dirty word. Radical means going to the root of the problem — and after decades of managed decline, that’s exactly what we need.
Allowing millions to fall into poverty in one of the world’s richest countries is not acceptable. Pretending that minor tweaks can fix systems that are fundamentally broken isn’t pragmatic — it’s delusional. Radical Social Liberalism rejects this defeatism. It calls time on managed decay and offers a politics rooted in freedom, care, equality, and hope. Not reckless change for its own sake — but bold, compassionate transformation to build a society that truly works for everyone.
🔶 The Natural Option for the Liberal Democrats
But this isn’t just a moral reckoning on the National Scale — it’s one the Liberal Democrats must face too. Since the last general election, the party has retreated into strategic silence. We've become "not the Tories, but slightly nicer" — a placeholder, not a political force.
Voters don’t know what modern British liberalism stands for.
They don’t know how it differs from the diluted, technocratic centrism on offer elsewhere.
Too often, Liberalism is misread through the lens of American politics — reduced to vague social niceness without economic substance or moral clarity.
Worse still, we’ve failed to be uncompromising on our values: tolerating anti-trans views in the party, despite their clear contradiction with our commitment to equality and dignity.
If we want to grow — not haemorrhage support — we must be bold.
That means embracing Radical Social Liberalism not just as policy, but as identity: a principled, modern liberalism rooted in justice, freedom, and a refusal to manage decline.
It's time to stand for something again.
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Image source/attribution: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1053508