Build it here
@"We have the engineers and could rebuild our manufacturing", it would take a very long time to repair the damage done over the last 40 years, what quality engineers remaining could indeed be moved away from Engineering to teach instead but in the mean time the existing engineering being done would have no experts and would stop generating external income to feed the masses of cheap semiskilled labour that have now become the vast majority of the UK work force. Are you proposing culling/deporting those that consume but cannot help with the project of getting the UK back upon it's feet?
@"I was never a fan of globalisation." without dealing with the rest of the world then how are we going to buy things like food, materials etc given that our population consumes more than we can grow and after what materials we had remaining have been sold off to maintain the standards of living for those that put the UK last.
If the UK really put STEM first and removed the blockages that are allowed to be imposed by those that put a higher value on classical languages than STEM then perhaps within 40-80 years then the UK could return to leading the world. The fact is that when this country lead the world they did is off the back of the colonies where high population and hence low wages were the norm means that everyone would have to get on board and put all their wealth behind and that just won't happen.
Sadly those that currently hold the UK wealth are more likely to move out taking the wealth with them at the first indication that they will stop controlling how the UK is run.
The Nationalism you seek only really works where their is a common culture and identity, what used to be "British" has been suppressed for so long that it exists, now, only in the rose tinted memories of those looking back on their naive childhood and wondering where it all went to.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
