Realpolitik – where have you gone ?
Think back to that balmy night on 23rd June 2016. The night when the United Kingdom voted for its independence and freedom from a failing experiment. Did you feel euphoria and a sense of real belonging. Did you have an overwhelming sense of success, patriotism and national pride.
The events leading up to that day were historic, entertaining and galvanized this country into a conversation like nothing else. It was a time of coming together, whichever side you lay your head and heart on. It was a time of joie de vivre and a nation that had encouraged and allowed its people to speak.
As a foot soldier and leaflet distributor for vote leave, a spokesperson for Ukip in Yorkshire, I felt that I had contributed. I felt that I had invested. I am sure many others did too. I was excited and very optimistic, certainly for the immediate future as we had to have endured project fear. Houses did not lose 18% of there value, and we did not need an emergency budget. 800,00 people did not immediately lose their jobs and we did not plunge into a recession, the likes of which have not been seen since the great American depression.
Fast forward two and a half years, that realpolitik has totally disappeared, almost as quickly as Boris Johnson’s attempts at securing the premiership of the country. Not as quick though of course as Cameron and Osborne who scuttled off to pastures new double sharp. Or in fact of course Nigel Farage, who has realised by now and at last, that it was not job done, not by a long way.
That great feeling that the people had taken back control of their destiny and future has been slowly worn down and put through the grinder until it has now been replaced by frustration, anger and despair. Parliament no longer engages with the people. They treat us as they did prior to and since that summers day, with contempt, insolence and disdain. No more are the debates, Wembley gatherings and tours. Long gone are the days of politicians pulling pints in your local and talking to the `real people`. We are just, it seems simply not worthy.
This momentous time in our history has now been reduced to a party political football, within the family of footballs that are housebuilding, transport, education and the NHS. Important domestic footballs of course but Brexit must for sure take precedence and be beyond political point scoring. Brexit must be recognized for what it is, the biggest singular event since the silencing of the guns at the end of WWII for this United Kingdom.
Sickened am I though by the antics of our elected representatives who argue like school children over their stances. Selfish singular ideologies and career saving are the order of the day. Far away and long gone now is the feeling, that we are saving our nation and its peoples from being swallowed whole in a super state of vacuous ideologues. Thoughts of looking toward an exciting and prosperous future are smothered in doom and gloom again as project fear rages on and on.
The utter arrogance and complacency of the MP`s and unelected House of Lords cannot go unremarked, not just by this writer but the nation. People, whether remain or leave must surely have knots of frustration and anger in their stomachs when thinking about Brexit. How far then are we away from real protest, real uprising and a reckoning. It cannot come through the ballot box because that is an event too far away. The ballot box cannot be relied on either because of the first past the post system that skewers any result in the favour of the two main parties.
Are we heading for a further poll tax moment in our history? Time will tell of course. I must be crystal clear here, I am not an advocate of civil unrest. I do though believe, that the appetite to secure what was fought for is rising and quickly, the abject failure to deliver that will surely have a consequence. With nothing to choose from though, one wonders where the next real government will come from.
Ukip are without a doubt the only political party of note who have remained true to the cause and have never blinked nor flinched with regards to Brexit. Their raison d`etre is still Brexit and must remain so. However turning their attention onto other matters may just cost them if they do blink. It is without a doubt their greatest chance in the next six months to make a real in road and secure their political future having had two years of annus horribilis.
The people who voted leave will not be stupid enough second time around to fall for the nonsense fed to them, neither will those who chose remain. I have always advocated that if you bully, or tell the Brits what to do, you lose. Parliament, both houses, are on very thin ice at the moment. Parliament cannot afford to cheat the public from what they gave us, freedom and the right to speak up for ourselves.
If they do, they have been warned.
