Let us not mince words. The European Union’s £170 million fine against Temu, the Chinese e-commerce behemoth, is not merely a regulatory slap on the wrist. It is a declaration of war. A shot across the bow of a digital empire that has, for too long, operated with the impunity of a Visigoth chieftain looting a Roman villa. The charge? Illegal sales, of course. But beneath the bureaucratic jargon lies a deeper anxiety: the creeping realisation that the West’s consumer paradise has been invaded by a force that plays by different rules.
Consider the parallels. In the late Roman Empire, the legions grew soft on imported luxuries, while barbarian tribes learned the art of siege warfare. Today, our own ‘legions’—high-street shops, local manufacturers, and even middlemen—are being gutted by platforms like Temu, which flood the market with goods so cheap they beggar belief. How do they do it? State subsidies, lax labour laws, and a willingness to overlook intellectual property that would make a Victorian mill owner blush. The EU’s fine is a belated attempt to erect a customs barrier, but one wonders if the damage is already done.
What truly galls our mandarins in Brussels is not the illegal sales per se, but the cultural decadence they represent. Temu is not a store; it is a symptom. A symptom of a society that has abandoned craftsmanship for churn, quality for quantity, and local identity for global homogeneity. The Victorians would have called it ‘vulgarity’, and they would have been right. We are drowning in a sea of plastic widgets, and the EU’s fine is a teacup hurled at a tsunami.
Yet let us be honest: the public loves Temu. That is the tragedy. We complain about the death of the high street, but we click ‘buy’ on a £2 gadget without a second thought. We bemoan the loss of jobs, yet we demand ever-lower prices. The EU’s fine is a moral gesture, but it cannot cure the spiritual malady that makes Temu necessary. Until we rediscover the value of making things, of buying less but better, these fines will be mere placebos.
So yes, fine them. Fine them again. But recognise that the barbarians are not just at the gates—they are inside the city, and we invited them in.
