British imperialism lost the war against German imperialism, just as it lost the war against Japanese imperialism. The defeat against Germany, forcing the humiliating retreat from Dunkirk, was replicated by an even more humiliating defeat against Japanese imperialism, in Singapore. It was not alone. What was seen was the defeat of those old European imperialist states, like Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands that had dominated the era of colonialism, and which, consequently, rested upon the pillaging of their colonies, many of which were thousands of miles away. They were defeated by the new imperialist powers such as Germany and Japan, which rested upon the development of industrial capitalism. In the process, the imperialist power that most symbolised that industrial capitalism, the US, became the new world hegemon.
Hitler did not immediately get drawn into a war with the USSR, as the British ruling-class would have liked. Stalin, having tried to cosy up to Britain and France, by sabotaging revolutions in China, and Spain, saw that, instead, Britain and France, stood by while Germany and Italy enabled Franco's fascists to violently overthrow the elected, Republican government. Stalin had also sucked up to the British imperialists, via the British TUC Leaders, in the hope that they would recognise that he sought to limit the Chinese Revolution, within the bounds of a purely bourgeois-nationalist, not socialist revolution, and, as in Spain, was rebuffed.
Seeing the creation of an “anti-Comintern” alliance, of Germany, Italy, and Japan, Stalin had swung from the Menshevist, “stageism” and popular frontism of the 1920's, to the Third Period ultra-leftism, and back to Popular Frontism. All had failed. The decision to seek a non-aggression pact with Hitler, therefore, as Stalin saw the imperialist powers, once again circling around the USSR, was not unforeseeable. Similarly, when Japanese imperialism engaged with the USSR, in 1939, it was decisively defeated at Khalkin Gol. It acted to shift the Japanese imperialist strategy away from a war with the USSR, and towards a war with US imperialism, in the Pacific.
Consequently, German imperialism was able to focus on resuming the resolution of the contradictions left unresolved in Europe, i.e. the need to create a large multinational, European state, to meet the needs of imperialist capital, and to be able to compete against its equivalent in the US. In large part, by 1940, it had done that. It was not British imperialism that defeated German imperialism, but the USSR, after 1941, and, after 1941, US imperialism, which entered the war after Pearl Harbour.
The consequence was that, German imperialism was not only drained as British imperialism had sought, from it being engaged in a war with the USSR, but decimated. But, so too was French and British imperialism. The big winner, again, as in WWI, was the US. Its own industrial base was untouched, and now, its hegemony was manifest not just in the fact that its multinational companies had vast swathes of labour-power to exploit across Europe, but it created a global economic architecture, after Bretton Woods, to facilitate it. It was in those conditions that the EEC was formed, and the inevitable path towards the EU was established. Britain had always played Germany and France off against each other, using their ambitions to dominate a European state, as the means to do so. Now, that period of history was gone, but, as DeGaulle recognised, Britain still played a subverting role, and had one foot in Europe, and the other stretching out dangerously towards the US.
As the post-war, long wave uptrend began to fizzle out, in the late 1960's, the effect it had of lifting all boats, also, came to an end, and illustrated starkly the relative decline of British industrial capitalism. That was what made it imperative for Britain to join the EEC/EU, and is what makes Brexit such an idiotic adventure. As an aside, to illustrate that point, one of the first actions of the EEC as it was forming was to create the European Coal and Steel Community, to rationalise those industries across Europe. As the British steel industry has collapsed, as it is too small to compete on a global scale, the decision of the Blue Labour government, now, to nationalise it, is again an expression of its petty-bourgeois nationalism driving a utopian and reactionary/populist agenda, which amounts to pouring money down the drain, which could have been better utilised in capital accumulation in other industries. The only way steel production in Britain makes sense is as part of a European steel industry, but that is not possible with Britain outside the EU.
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