Brexit was only a start but we need leaders to continue the revolution - John Longworth
Brexit was only the beginning and was not an end in itself.
Boris Johnson declared before his 2020 election landslide that he wanted to get Brexit done, as if it was a chapter in history following which the country could get down to business as usual.
Not an end in itself, Brexit was a new beginning but was certainly not meant to be the beginning of what happened next.
Most “ Brexiteers “ that I know held highest the idea of Brexit as a bringer of sovereignty, enabling Britain, as a nation state, to have democratic, self determination. Many of us also felt that this would lead to a slow revolution in the conduct of our affairs.
Of course revolutions are synonymous with change and there are always many vested interests, whether in: big business, the asset owning classes or indeed Whitehall. Groups who do not favour change and will go on trying to undermine the creative disruption necessary to produce change.
In the wrong hands change can be problematic, half cocked, negative or badly delivered. In the right hands it can deliver prosperity, growth and security.
At least democracy can now work its magic and throw them out and the next lot, until we get a decent crew to steer the ship, in contrast to the undemocratic eu technocracy.
There is however a rub. While we have clawed our way back to a Parliamentary democracy, the forty plus years of diminishing democratic accountability that membership of the putative eu superstate represented, also saw democracy leaking away in many other ways.
Firstly there are the actions of the state, or more precisely the Executive. In the making of Treaties the Executive can create “law” norms that can be upheld or challenged in the courts. Norms that, against the principles of our democracy, tie the hands of future Parliaments.
Then there are a multitude rule setters.
Financial and non financial reporting and accountancy standards drive businesses away from their primary purpose of profit and instead focus upon delivery of a myriad of other supposed deliverables, distorting markets and society in favour of interest groups at the cost of consumers and tax payers and without democratic scrutiny and approval.
Over 90 percent of businesses in the U.K. are SME’s, at least 85 percent of businesses both SME’s and large, are family owned or run.
This enormous weight of rules are simply useless as they cannot possibly be assimilated and those that are act as a break on enterprise, employment, wealth creation and prosperity.
All rules are made for a purpose but they also have the consequence of depressing economic growth and GDP, making people poorer, of denying them public good, including healthcare and housing.
Of making lives less well lived and removing the energy and excitement from human existence. Of allowing busybody groups and those who wish to bully, control and oppress others, in their own narrow interests, to do so.
Brexit was only the beginning. Now we need leaders who are prepared to continue that revolution by re imagining a true democratic sovereignty for our country and removing the swathes of controlling hands that oppress us.