The background of the Government reshuffle today lends itself well to many different explanations. Depending on which publications you read, listen to or just review, you are bound to get at least a slightly different take on someone else’s interpretation of what will one way or another end up as doom and gloom.
How Brexit is or will be handled continues to be the topic of choice even where new jobs for Cabinet Members are concerned. It seems the most controversial possibility which comes with Theresa May’s changes, is that of the creation of a Minister focusing on the realities of an outcome which will be know universally as ‘No Deal’.
Yes, it all sounds very scary. In no small part due to the continuing noise emanating from the Remain camp, with high profile figures such as Tony Blair making it known that it has now become their latest life’s work to overturn this travesty that nobody who voted for it democratically could possibly understand.
It would be easy just to veer off and have a rant about Remainers ignoring the will of the people. Yet, the Leave brigade are no better. And if we look closely at what each side says, it becomes ever apparent that none of these speakers really understand the reasons that millions of anonymous people walked into a polling station on 23rd June 2016, and against the flow of what even the most ardent Brexiteers at the time believed, looked at a future remaining in Europe and simply said ‘NO’.
Finding evidence to say everyone is now a lapsed Brexiteer or more in favour of leaving the Union than ever is not really all that hard.
Polls continue to be presented and taken as read, even though their true validity has been brought seriously into question during recent political campaigns. Even those of us who rarely feel inclined to question the overuse of statistics are now looking at them with the same level of faith as a TV weather forecast; instead choosing to take a quick walk and a look at the conditions outside.
The biggest error that politicians, pollsters and journalists are all making about Brexit, is in attempting to explain it all in terms which are culturally acceptable, rational and what we equate with being the ‘norm’.
Such an approach does not lend itself well to the human condition. It overlooks our propensity to place our own truths in the mouths of others, and neglect anything that sits outside our accepted or documented level of understanding. It bypasses everything else that simple human behaviour hides.
Brexit was about far too many different things to mention. Yet all of our leaders and opinion makers continue trying to distill a highly complex decision down into basic questions, which can then be answered with solutions or arguments which cannot ever be so simply or intelligently defined.
Getting caught up in the cases of for and against immigration, sovereignty, trade, our place in Europe and much more besides, is an elephant trap of gargantuan proportions. One that only adds fuel to the fire of dissention, disaffection and disenfranchisement that everyone feels beyond Westminster – from whichever side.
Brexit represented so much more than any of these tangible areas of policy – even though they are real to us all, but for each of us in very different ways.
Brexit happened because it was an opportunity for so many of us to say no to everything that is wrong with politics. The chance to speak and be heard without fear of reprisal and without fear of enabling just another set of politicians to gain influence over our lives in ways that could make our already difficult set of experiences much, much worse.
The privacy of the ballot box enabled a rebellion of a kind which nobody really believed possible. The irony being that it was devised and brought into being by politicians being caught out by their lack of care for others and having overconfident faith in the reasons for creating their lines.
That none of the political establishment are getting it right now is no great surprise. But the fact that they aren’t also leaves the door open to even greater mistakes being made. Mistakes that will only serve to over amplify the real problems – the ones that both the Government and the opposition are still through lack of awareness and understanding – continually attempting to hide.
image thanks to unknown
Adam Tugwell 
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