It is coming to that time of year when parents and grandparents take their excited children to the pantomime.
In their blog-posts today, North The Elder (https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/eu-affairs/immigration-contradictions-and-hypocrisy/) and North The Younger (https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/front-page/net-zero-is-already-a-busted-flush/) both draw their Readers’s attention to the broken state of the UK’s politics.
North The Younger re-joined UKIP (https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/latest-stories/why-ive-re-joined-ukip/) and hopes to contribute to the desperately needed reform of UK politics and governance.
I am not going to join him. Not because I harbour any significant disagreements with his reasons for so doing, but because I deem the strategy to be ineffective.
The problem we have in the UK is that there are two major political parties running the show. Of course, one can speculate and postulate a hypothetical scenario where things get so bad a new or minor party (such as UKIP) breaks through and sweeps the Ancien Régime away!
Personally I think this unlikely as the two ugly sisters (Conservative & Labour) will adapt just in time to avoid an electoral catastrophe for them. In this they will not be alone for other political parties in other democracies are in the same predicament – albeit to a greater or lesser extent!
The collapse on the political time-scale will be long in coming – around 2030 when new petrol and diesel cars are supposed to be outlawed. Come 2030 and there will not be the infra structure or the numbers of what are now termed “EVs” to make a change-over practical. In historical terms 9 years is a very short time. But then a week is a long time in politics.
The one thing one can be sure about is that the politicians will find someone or some group of people on which to lay the blame! And it won’t be them! They will turn on the academics and the businesses that are part of what is now called “the Green Economy”!
The other thing to bear in mind is that the two parties will become increasingly sectarian. Labour will become the party of choice for politically interested Muslims. The Conservatives will become the party of choice for politically interested Hindus and Sikhs. People of Afro-Caribbean ethnicity who are not Muslim will be welcomed eagerly by both parties.
There will of course be a fundamental contradiction in trying to manage a country where you have a secular liberal minded indigenous and a BAME community who espouse the diversity causes popular in 2021 and a South Asian Muslim (and a BAME) community who are socially conservative.
There are a number of issues related to offending behaviour insofar as sexual offences are concerned and also the issue of the sex work industry that are present in certain communities.
The most likely outcome will be that laws and regulations will become selectively enforced. In other words there will be areas of the UK where “sweat-shops” employing migrant labour in poor and inadequate conditions on below minimum wages will be tolerated and other areas (such as Cornwall) where they are not.
One way of achieving this is to have regional governments. Living in Cornwall, I hope that the county will gain a special status and be allowed the same degree of devolution that the new region encompassing Devon, Dorset and Somerset (with it’s traditional borders). Failing that, a South West Region encompassing Somerset (county council borders), Devon, Dorset and Cornwall will suffice.
I am glad I am not still living in Leeds!