Brexit – a deliberate ploy to avert attention from a climate of chaos?
The 3 pro-Brexit Parties – Conservatives, Labour and UKIP – got their comeuppance from voters in last week’s local elections. Anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats did remarkably well, even in Leave voting areas. And anti-Brexit bed-fellows the Green Party also did very well.
PM Theresa May concluded that voters were telling her to “just get on with Leaving the EU”. Shows she wasn’t listening. If anything, voters were demanding the opposite.
The Government has spent 3 years promoting new division – within communities and families – between warring pro and anti-Brexit factions. But why?
The chaos and arguments have cost us dear. It’s not just the ineptitude – the awarding of multi-million £ ferry contracts to companies with no ferries and the damage to our economy even before we’ve reached the cliff-edge of Brexit. Was all this really just to solve the divisions within the Conservative Party?
They set a Brexit deadline – which they missed. They promised we’d be out before the European Parliamentary elections – which we are now contesting. Now they seek to assure the country that MEPs will not need to take their seats. Let’s see…
Perhaps it’s because the Conservatives want to divert attention away from an NHS which is on its knees. More debt-ridden than ever. Struggling to recruit and retain staff. Undermined by a private sector which continues to cherry pick the easy profitable bits. A mental health service which still leaves some of the most vulnerable and young with threadbare services.
Or to avert our attention from a Government which abolished the Climate Change Department and downgraded or reversed policy to combat climate change.
Or to create so much Brexit noise people haven’t noticed the impact of the severe cuts to local Government and to schools, which are now more financially challenged than at any time in living memory; with consequential problems, especially for children with special needs.
But it’s not all bad. I have been really encouraged following visits to local schools – Cape Cornwall and Mounts Bay Academy last week and I have more to come.
Politicians should check out our students. Young people should be the conscience of decision makers. Those I met were fascinated and engaged. Well informed and raised intelligent questions.
And they were right to go on ‘School Strike’ recently. To protest that their parents’ and grandparents’ generations have let them down. Have left them a legacy which threatens their future and risks the extinction of thousands of species.
While Government supporting MPs have consistently voted against measures to combat climate change the success of our students and young people has forced them into attempts to green-wash themselves to desperately mask their embarrassment.
I look forward to more encounters. Congratulations to young people. Keep it up.