Opinion: A Nation In Need Of Repair

the Duncan Illing Writes column. Election special.

Image drawn by the author.

July 4^th 2024 independence day. This time, liberation for the UK. Or at least we hope.

Finally, for the first time in five years, and after fourteen years of downward spiral rule (in this writer’s opinion), the UK has an opportunity to vote, and make a change, deciding who leads the nation. It feels like a long time coming.

Since December 2019’s Brexit led election, between two party leaders who were both Brexiteers, one of which did not seem to have an opinion on it, the other, a clown who loudly pratted on constantly about his ‘oven ready’ Brexit deal, a winning campaign that was certainly not ‘oven ready’, as more shambles continued, we have had three Prime Ministers, two of which were unelected. 

The UK has experienced fourteen years of the worst government in British history, taking us from austerity that punished not bankers’ incompetence through greed, but the most vulnerable in society, governance that led us toward some of the most surreal and scary moments in British political history. In a period that drove the country apart, politically and economically, with an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, a government that has been edging further and further to the right, restricting rights to protest and free movement. We witnessed the costs of privatisation daily; sewage flowed into our seas, train prices for commuters rose to unfathomable heights, while profits flowed to foreign investors as infrastructure degraded. A government and party of asset strippers, keen to support a legacy of selling British infrastructure and services to foreign investors, but at the same time prevented foreign workers from continuing to be the backbone of up our economy and NHS. Who ended EU free movement for everyone, including British people living and working on the continent. Whose latest key policy of ‘Stop The Boats’ shallowly reflects from the cost of living, the carnage, corruption and economic misgovernance, the associated interests of tax and EU regulation dodging elites; blaming Britain's problems and challenges solely on minorities and immigrants, reflective of classic textbook far right routes to autocratic power seen in the 1930s. Populism, a front for darker agendas, a global plague threatening healthy political discourse, critical thinking and liberal democracy. Do we learn nothing from history? It appears not.

In Bury North, the UK’s closest marginal parliamentary seat in recent times, people see the need for change, but equally many people still believe that Britain’s key problem is immigration - their favourite newspapers report an invasion is under way. It’s amazing that post the 2016 referendum and with all that we as a nation have witnessed, that this is paramount for many voters: after the cold light of post Brexit reality, the narcissism, chaos and corruption under Johnson, to Liz the Lettuce and Kamikaze Kwarteng and onto Sunak. Add the numerous and consistent fallout effects of Brexit, ditching relations with our EU trading partners, that took 50% of UK exports, the resulting red tape, endless issues, and all for the campaign that did not have a strategy. People still think like this. That (and I quote) ‘brown people’ in dinghy boats on the English Channel is Britain’s number one issue. 

Neither main political party now mention Brexit, the elephant in the room. The time will come. Since 2010, Britain’s two main parties drifted up toward the extremities of both sides of the classic political U-shaped wing model theory, that meet at the top in authoritarianism in practise. Our main political parties forgot politics is about inclusion, compromise and appeasement to move forward as one party. Only one-party is recovering. After Labour’s worst election result in its history, in only the last four years the UK’s main opposition has made a return to a more moderate left position and electability. Even in Islington North, where former leader Corbyn is standing as an independent, anyone not voting strategically to keep the Tories out of government, are aiding the Tories chances.

The Tories, like a gaslighting abuser, will point to lowering inflation and signs of economic growth, that they pulled Britain back from the brink. Back from the horror of their own doing. From an extended cost of living crisis, rising inflation and economic woes, their reckless referendum to appease far right-wing backbenchers. In real terms (wage growth versus inflation), regular pay does not go as far as it did pre-2008’s recession. Oh, and did those bankers ever pay us back? When are the authorities going to go after those corrupt and ineffective Tory awarded PPE contracts of 2020 adding up to billions? All this and more on the Tories watch since 2010. It is as if the country had been in some parallel universe run by Estate Agents, Britain’s least respected and most unregulated profession, but this is the reality of our nation’s making.

And onto most probably a Labour government come July, who will inherit little funds and means for their most ideal manifesto, a watered down set of policies, due to shackled economic burdens induced by the previous incumbents of No.10, criticised by the aggressive shouts of the far left as a result, impacted by the shocking delay in calling for a ceasefire, poked by a Tory party that may yet creep further toward the depths of the poisonous toxicity of the far right to coax xenophobic voting led by an agenda that does not serve the communities suffering poverty. A Labour government that will need at least two terms to begin to deliver the policies that lay at its natural heart. Where social responsibility and equality rests alongside free enterprise and the rights and freedoms of its people, not a party of factions, but a united, centre - left ideology working together.

Britain is a nation in need of long-term repair.