Brexit means what precisely? Or rather Brexit tells us what?
Forget “Brexit means Brexit”, that is no more than pure esoteric-mumbo-jumbo gold.
A few days before Christmas, Mark Easton, the BBC’s Home Affairs Editor, asked What did the Brexit vote reveal about the UK?
The answer was basically that it is a result of our dysfunctional political system and a cry for a return to proper democracy. Here are some key extracts:
The vote for Brexit was a thunderous rumble of national indignation, an outpouring of frustrated fury that shook the foundations of the British state. We misinterpret its meaning at our peril.
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This was much more than a simple referendum about membership of the European Union. Neither Brussels bureaucrats nor Polish plumbers were really the motivation for a popular revolt unparalleled in almost five centuries.
This was an act of extraordinary defiance against a system that does not and will not listen to people’s concerns and anxieties … Our governance, our democracy, does not function properly. It is failing the people of this country. That is the message of Brexit.
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Our politics is still routinely discussed in terms of left and right, workers and bosses, socialism and capitalism.
But look[ing] at the Brexit vote … these historic distinctions simply did not apply … The working class tended to vote Leave and yet most Labour supporters voted Remain. The professional middle-class tended to vote Remain but most Conservatives voted Leave.
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I was very struck by the attitude of people I met in Port Talbot … What I [heard] were people who did not think anyone was listening to them. They felt powerless and ignored.
… Everything in Port Talbot depends on the steelworks and its future is decided by people whose names they do not know in a boardroom in Mumbai. Globalisation has robbed the people … of their voice …
There was a time when people up and down the land believed they had some kind of control over their destiny. But … Trade unionism has been neutered, local government is a shadow of its former self and political activism is … simply shouting into the wind. National elections are all but meaningless …
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Decisions made in Westminster and Brussels resonate down to the supermarket shelves of Gloucestershire and local people do not feel they have had any say in the matter.
The Brexit campaign was centred on the idea of taking back control … a slogan that went far beyond the demand for control of our borders.
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[T]he European Union was one obvious villain … It gives no impression of listening … national politicians are not listening either … Brexit was a cry of pain from a country that no longer believes that traditional democracy offers the answer.
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[T]he challenge of Brexit [is] how to give people their voice … making that happen will require profound courage and imagination from our national political leaders because it necessarily means they give up some of their own power.
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What the British people want … is a democracy honest enough to reveal the trade-offs and the complexities of contemporary politics, responsive enough to reflect nuanced opinions, and convincing enough that people believe they are genuinely connected to the decisions that affect their lives.
When we cut our ties with EU power, we must also reform Britain’s archaic power structures.
I think Easton may well be right. And as so often I couldn’t have expressed it better, hence the extracts.
To quote Robert Kubica, Everything is possible but everything will be difficult.
Interesting times we live in, innit!