WTF Happened To The UK?

Two months ago, UK prime minister minister Kier Starmer signed an agreement that will transfer the sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory to the independent nation of Mauritius.
This place is (honestly) barely worth mentioning, it has zero inhabitants apart from temporary naval personnel, and its total land area is only 21 square miles… (at low tide)…
However!.. This deal once it is finalised in the courts, will have one big symbolic side effect.
Losing this dot on the map at 71 degrees east, will mean that for about 120 days next year… the sun will set on the British Empire…
Now for a lot of people back in the UK itself, this symbolic decline is not exactly surprising. 20 years ago it was one of the fastest growing major economies in the world, but today it’s completely paralysed because of some… all too familiar problems.
The collapse of a trading empire, overfinancialisation, single city centralisation, housing unaffordability, wealth concentration, reckless privatisation, corporate consolidation, brain drain, a perceived over-dependance on the wealthy, a public-private sector revolving door resulting in limp wristed regulation, a debt crisis and reactionary policy, all fueled by the idea that just don’t work anymore…
These problems are clearly not unique to the UK, but THEY saw what everybody else was doing and said; “hold my warm beer and baked beans… we can do it better… “