The UK has plenty of problems. But we won’t solve them by rupturing our trading arrangements with our European neighbours, and sailing off into the blue empyraean, to some unknown destination, with Boris Johnson and David Davis fighting to control the helm. This betrays a fatal mindset: infantilism based on delusions of lost greatness.
There are much more important questions, and they are about us, here, in Britain. Why are we so ill-governed? Why is our productivity so low? Why is our political class so deeply unimpressive?
The popular catch-all for blaming the ills of the West is “populism”. But some of the things that are wrong with us in Britain are identifiably more specific.
Why, for example, are we still victims of the absurd notion of crude majoritarian decisions by first-past-the-post? In real life, almost all choices are much more complex than that. Most of our European neighbours are manifestly better governed than we are, and it shows up in their superior economic and social performance; and many of them have long ago adopted political systems which are to some degree adapted to the possibility of complex, negotiated choices. But in Britain, politics is still ruled by the quaint idea of winner-take-all.
Moreover, the British governing classes have presided over a country which has become increasingly and damagingly skewed, first in terms of inequality, and then towards London and the South-East. London has been allowed to become far too important, politically; the City of London, and London’s financial services, have been allowed to become far too important, economically; and the well-off have become better-off, while many of the rest are struggling.
The referendum gave the governed a chance to express their anger and resentment at the governing classes. But the governing classes appear not to recognise or to wish to address any of these problems. They seem to assume that everything is just fine, the way it has always been; and have taken the line of least resistance, by blaming a foreign scapegoat. And so we have Brexit.
Which is an indication of what is wrong. As a textbook case of a badly-governed country, Brexit is exemplary. Consider its nine elements:
- The most far-reaching strategic national decision in well over a century;
- Decided on the spur of the moment;
- As a manoeuvre to solve a split inside the governing party;
- And adopted on the basis of a paper-thin majority;
- In an unprecedented referendum without rules or criteria.
- It has since been pursued in a wild frenzy, month after month;
- With no agreement, inside the government, on its aims;
- With no clarity on what could be obtained from the EU;
- And with no explanation to the voters of the purposes or the end-result.
In short, a primer of political recklessness and incompetence. We shall be paying a heavy price for it, for many years to come.