It’s amazing how many people on Twitter from the anti-lockdown function are preaching to their bubbles and echo chambers telling their followers that if they want everything that’s happening now to stop it’s up to them to do something about it.
The commonality between them all is that none of these speakers are actually presenting a solution. None of them are providing direction on what needs to happen in order to stop the things that the Government is doing that are hurting people.
Yes, it’s easy to criticise. But facts are facts, and there seems to be a significant absence of any understanding of how this situation came into being and how it really all works.
Nobody is taking the time nor the trouble to talk through how our system of government works or why things are like they are, why we have the politicians that we’ve got, and most importantly, why it’s so difficult to get rid of them – as many of us now appreciate that we should.
The great travesty that we all face is that we are stuck with the Johnson Government or a derivative form of it until such time as that government resigns and calls a general election, or we reach the end of this parliamentary cycle and have another general election by default, which under the current timeline will be held in December 2024.
Until we have different politicians in power – and by different politicians I mean politicians who are not from this political class – nothing will fundamentally change.
So that’s politicians who are not members of Parliament now. It’s not politicians who are members of the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrat Party, the SNP, the Conservative Party, or even the latest version of the Brexit Party which is now known as Reform UK.
Sadly, and most frustratingly, neither does it currently apply to any of the new groups that are springing up either, such as Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party, nor the Keep Britain Free movement championed by Simon Dolan.
The British political system is sewn up in such a way that it is only through navigating through and adhering to the full Democratic process that it will be possible to remove the Political Parties and the politicians who are in power today.
Yes, it is frustratingly unfair. But this is the hard, factual reality that we all face if we want to experience real, meaningful and above all, permanent change.
No, we really shouldn’t have to face this problem. But the situation that we face today has been a long time in the making.
This is not a situation that came about simply because COVID-19 arrived in early 2020.
The political problem that this Country faces today has been developing since at least the Thatcher era if not, many years before.
The system today reflects the chilling reality that self-interest rules British politics and it has deliberately become so. It is only by having a complete clean out, or by literally cleaning house and by starting all over again, that we will find ourselves in the position of having politicians running this Country who really believe in and hold dear the principles and delivery of representative government that is considerate of all.
The rules that the existing system operates under are governed by those who are in control of the system. To change the system, we have to gain control of it. To gain control we have to play by the rules of that system. That means gaining power democratically first.
The painful reality that we all have to face is that the difficulties and injustices that we are all facing today will continue to be visited upon us in one form or another until that system change has been completed.
So even if the lockdown ended right now and things appear to take on some sense of normality, whatever the ‘new normal’ may be, the fact is that we will still be governed and led by people who are not fit to fulfil that role or be trusted with that responsibility on our behalf.
We now face the task of having to play the long game. The long game here is to literally create a new political party and movement for change that will do all of the things that government should have been doing since the COVID-19 Pandemic began and for as long as anyone can remember before.
We need this new political party or movement for change to be ready and credible enough in the eyes of the majority to run and secure the necessary level of support to win power at the next general election.
Yes, we want and are desperate for change now. But the change that we need will not come whilst these people, these politicians, this political culture remains in charge of the Country and therefore able to dictate our destiny.
We therefore have to accept that the only way to make that change is to work on the basis that the change will not be possible until that next General Election comes.
Ironically, as real effort begins and is channelled into creating that new political party or movement for change, the very act of doing so will become the kind of threat that this political culture needs to see and to experience in order for them to enact change.
Yet when these politicians become fearful, react and do so by starting to enact change, this will be the moment when it becomes critical to double down and be even more fervent in the effort to create that new vehicle and to build up the momentum behind it necessary for that movement for change win a working majority and become the government of the majority and not just the few.
We’ve seen what happens when incumbent political parties adapt, modify or adjust their approach in order to accommodate the strength of public feeling.
Brexit was the most fitting example of this. Boris Johnson adapted himself chameleon like and moulded into the role of lead Brexiteer purely for the purposes of winning power.
We cannot and must not allow something like this to happen again. There is simply too much for us all to lose.
The biggest obstacle to this change being created in the form and with the mechanisation that it needs are the egos that are already exist in this room.
There are some fantastic people. Some fantastic speakers. Some fantastic minds, already out there, speaking out against the injustice that is occurring and is being visited on us right now. Yet they all, without fail, want to pursue their own agendas, just in the very same way that the current political culture operates and propagates itself.
I’m not saying that these people haven’t got a role to play. Some of them, maybe all of them have key roles to play in the change that we’re seeking. However, they must become receptive to the reality that there are other great ideas, other very practical ideas, ideas that will work and actually make a difference beyond just their own.
There also needs to be an understanding and appreciation that there is a game underway and that you have to play by the rules of that game in order to win it – as I’ve said above and before.
People who want change must now come together to establish a new political party, to create a new manifesto and to begin a proper conversation with the British People about all the things that really need to happen to make a difference to everyone in this Country, so that we don’t exit the Coronavirus chapter focusing on what works best for same old few.
Adam Tugwell 