Well, that’s it. I’m leaving the country. It’s not because of Brexit – I’d planned to go anyway – and I will be coming back, whether I want to or not. But I leave a much diminished country that has not taken control, but lost control, not least of its senses.
Not that there is any going back. The people have spoken and we are leaving the European Union. No amount of petitions or marches will change that and nor should they. Whether or not the British public has made a collective cataclysmic decision – and I am quite sure it has – scarcely matters in the round. We have made our bed and we will need to lie in it, no matter how uncomfortable it is going to be the years and decades to come.
David Cameron’s Project Fear told us that the economy would tank if we left the EU. In fact, every single credible expert in the land said the same. Every major political party said so too and they all got a kicking. Now that the pound is tumbling, as it will do for years to come, now that the economy will contract by at least 6% by 2020, now that investment will be cut by at least 8%, maybe more, now that unemployment will rise, tax revenues will fall and public debt will soon reach 100% of our national output, suggests that whilst Project Fear didn’t play well with the electorate, the doom-laden threats, and that is what they were, of decline were not far off the mark.
It seems that the next prime minister will be Theresa May who is regarded as a “safe pair of hands” which will come as a bit of a surprise to the police who regard her with utter contempt. Mrs May was on the Remain side of the EU debate, but had about as little impact on the campaign as the pathetic Jeremy Corbyn. One does not need to be a Class A cynic to work out that the reason for her near silence was down to a political calculation. If the Remain side lost, she would be able to maintain some political purity. So someone who put politics above the interests of the nation could be out next PM. Nice.
But then, Boris Johnson put his own political ambition ahead of the national interest by leading the Leave group when it is blindingly obvious he is, and was, a natural remainer. Would we now be leaving the EU if Johnson had campaigned to remain in the EU? I have seen enough on social networks from people who said “I love Boris” to suggest to me that he probably tipped the balance. And, as a former Bullingdon boy, he trashed the country and then walked off without paying for the damage. I cannot emphasise this enough: Johnson wrecked the country because he wanted to be prime minister and then when the going got tough, he got out.
His partner in crime, Michael Gove, betrayed Johnson as soon as he saw a route into Number 10. Ask a teacher – any teacher – what they think of Gove, the most destructive education secretary ever. And he too put his own interests above those of the country to run for office.
And what we will be left with is Theresa May, the next PM. A safe pair of hands indeed. A safe pair of hands for what? The rest of the decade will be spent picking up the pieces of the EU referendum and all its terrible consequences. We need leaders of passion and vision, not a safe pair of hands. May will spend the next three years, at the very least, sorting out Johnson and Gove’s mess. Hers will be a poisoned chalice. This will end in tears.
Could anything be worse than this? Sadly yes, and this is where Labour comes in. If David Cameron is a lame duck PM, Jeremy Corbyn is a dead duck. Since his election, Corbyn has shown he is not up to the job, any job, in the upper echelons of politics. A career backbencher, Corbyn has always chosen the easy life, the life of protest meetings where everyone agrees with him, of rejecting the very (socialist) ideal of collectivism by ploughing a lone furrow of so called free spirit. In the top job, he is worse than useless because his view of what politics is does not echo the real world. And he let Labour down big time in the referendum.
Let us be clear: Labour was almost unanimous in its support for the EU. It was Labour’s official policy. Corbyn’s half-hearted, weasel words to remain were embarrassing. Remain for him could only be on his terms. Johnson and Gove sold us down the river, but Corbyn was a hapless, hopeless accomplice. My understanding is that he remains as leader of the Labour Party (only in name) because the comrades around him want him to stay. He would much rather be spending time talking at protest meetings or in his allotment. But the impending crisis in our country requires much more than that.
A Labour leader could buy herself or his self the keys to Number Ten and soon if they were to articulate a vision of where we go now we have left the EU and how we get there. It turns out that the Leave campaigners had no plan beyond leaving the EU and now that their big hitters are crashing and burning, what happens next?
This is a time, not for a safe pair of hands, but for real political leaders to step forward. We now know they will not be Tories, so can Corbyn please stand aside to enable a real leader to come through? The country is crying out for real leadership. Is there anyone out there?
