No. 119 - Floreat Britannia? I am Going to Bed Early Tonight.

Dear James, 

So the big day has come. Brexit is done. In a few hours we shall all be ‘free’ from malign Europe! From every public building in Westminster the Union Jack is flapping splendidly, flying bravely, shouting out ’Floreat Britannia!’. Meanwhile Boris has held his first pre-post-Brexit cabinet in Sunderland. Apparently, the nation is set on a course for ‘real national renewal and change’. ’Floreat Britannia!’ indeed! 

So will Britannia floreat?  Boris certainly hopes so. So do his ragtag crew. The smiles on their faces are somehow fixed just above grimace level. It has been an exhausting four years and now, with the absence of regular nail biting votes, everyone feels the fun has gone out of it all. Now comes delivery. But you are safe James. An 80 seat majority is assured and Boris can hardly be bothered to answer Corbyn’s questions in the Commons. We have political certainty at last. Pity about about industry and society? 

Yesterday, Ann Widdecombe left the EU parliament in a taxi decorated with a union jack. Nigel Farage, after his appalling flag waving swan song in the same parliament on Monday, will celebrate on Parliament Green tonight. Boris however, is taking a low-key approach. The poor man seems slightly deflated as if all this brouhaha is wearing down on the man. Of course, his mission in life has been achieved. He has become Prime Minister and that’s all he ever wanted. And what about Nigel? His one mission was to leave the EU and that is now in the bag. This one time Tory niche niggle has been made flesh by the terrible twins and the neglected people of austerity. The question is what do the twins do for an encore for the neglected many? Fortunately for these two ‘responsibility-adverse’ flag wavers, that is up to their underlings, the Raabs, the Goves and the Hancocks of this brave new world. While Nigel can retire and be held in reserve for any future Brexit betrayal and Boris has become the Company Chairman (or rather the human megaphone for Dominic Cummings), it is the underlings who will take the rap. Boris has warned them already. Perform or be reshuffled. How nice it is to be top dog - or top advisor.

So the game is over. The battle is won. Brexit is done. Ergo it is very tempting to think that the war is over. Unfortunately for Boris and our nation it is not. In fact, James, it has only just begun. There is never an end to history and history has a way of revealing its hand over decades rather than days. In about 1200, the great flowering of science and technology in the Muslim world ended suddenly. In 1450, the great technological revolution in China also came to a juddering halt. And then in 1650, the great Tokugawa dynasty put Japan back into the dark ages for another two hundred years. All these ‘demi-extinctions’ came about through a mixture of self-imposed isolation in the search for ideological or national ‘purity’ unpolluted by foreigners and their malign ways. But it was the resulting loss of markets which, in the end, caused their destruction. Not that I am saying this will happen to us. But at least the principles are the same. For the sake of a particular historical narrative and its associated emotions, our little island is setting out alone into the wild blue yonder in search of a lost past. The launch pad for our venture is not encouraging.  

Take for example our UK car industry. It is in dire straits. British car production slumped for the third year in a row in 2019, dropping by 14.2 per cent on the previous twelve months. The car industry accounts for 823,000 direct and indirect jobs in the UK and one in six jobs in the North East of England. It also accounts for 14.4% of our total exports of goods. More bad news is expected next year. Not a good start Boris?

But fear not. Dominic Cummings is planning to create a miracle producing ‘skunkworks’ to revolutionize Britain’s place in the world. A skunkworks is where very clever people, unhindered by red tape, spend unlimited amounts of public money, dreaming up impossible futures. Great idea but will it fly? The world is in ideological tumult James and the UK is just a small part. Mr Cummings may be right but technological change will require social change and social change will require legal change. And in that process power will be redistributed towards those who already have it. But so what? Mr Cummings does not like rules or order. He is the ultimate disruptor. Remember: to reform a system, first you must break it.

So there is a rocky road ahead James. Brexit may be done but for the next five, ten, fifteen years or more we have all been launched on a wild experiment, adventure, trial or reckless gamble - whichever words works for you.  All so unnecessary James. 

I am going to bed early tonight.

Kind regards,

BH - Your Concerned Constituent