Brexit might cause a national crisis, but that could be a good thing It has long been my view that Brexit is not primarily an economic objective. It is political – and economics […]

It has long been my view that Brexit is not primarily an economic objective. It is political – and economics must be subordinate. If economics were our sole concern then we would simply phase out democracy as it carries too much risk.

But then I argue that this is precisely what we have done. Insofar as we ever had anything close to democracy, we have placed so many technocratic constraints on what can be done that the people have no meaningful power to speak of. That to me is what necessitates Brexit.

Foolishly, the Vote Leave campaign chose to focus on the economic argument – which was never going to stand the test of time. Brexit carries inherent risks and even a well-managed Brexit, maintaining the single market, would come at a short to mid-term cost. This did not deter me from voting to leave.

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Cultural aspect of Brexit

As much as I voted with sovereignty in mind, to me there is a much more fundamental cultural aspect of Brexit that is seldom ever explored. If there is one thing we can say about the EU is that it provides certainty. It has underpinned the status quo for quite a long time and would carry on doing so if we let it. I do not see that as a healthy state of affairs.

We are told that the EU is the engine of prosperity but a visit to the regions will show that there is a distinct inequality and an unhealthy atrophy in our towns and cities. London has become the centre of the universe while the regions are left to quietly die.

As far as London is concerned, itself a self-absorbed political bubble, the regions are maintained by EU funding and centrally distributed grants. That is the fullest extent of their interest and it has taken something like Brexit for our polity to finally realise that the status quo does not serve us.

Westminster has no handle on Brexit

Now you could ask how leaving the EU, thereby making us poorer, will improve the prospects of the regions. The simplistic answer is that it won’t. However, what we can see in the wake of Brexit is the entire Westminster system collapsing. It does not have a handle on Brexit and has no ability to bring any kind of coherence to the debate.

“It shows that the EU has for decades served as a life support machine for a patient you would not ordinarily bother to resuscitate. Unplugging the machine at the wall forces the politicians to confront what have previously been long settled areas of policy and finally act.”

It shows that the EU has for decades served as a life support machine for a patient you would not ordinarily bother to resuscitate. Unplugging the machine at the wall forces the politicians to confront what have previously been long settled areas of policy and finally act.

With the end of EU regional funding and a major disruption to subsidies, it will once again open up the politics of the regions and a wider debate about how we are going to substitute EU governance. That will reawaken long disregarded local politics and present new questions and challenges for us to rise to.

For as long as we remained in the EU, these funding systems would remain pretty much on autopilot giving London the opportunity to keep ignoring the issues – and in so doing deepening the divides. Brexit blows all that apart, and now, with London taking a substantial hit to the City, it will force us to reappraise how we fund things and what we expect the state to do. This precipitates a reinvention of Britain.

Londoncentric policymaking

Ultimately if we maintained the status quo we might very well be able to maintain the same GDP, however, there would be no impetus on London to break away from its own myopic fixations – and all we can expect is the same Londoncentric policymaking. It is my belief that we cannot begin to address the economic questions we face without first resolving the politics. That is what Brexit is about. We are forcing the issue.

Now that we have, we run the very real risk of a long and deep recession. Though recessions are not known for being good news they also have a cleansing effect in the same way a forest fire does. Zombie businesses are cannibalised, poorly justified government programmes are axed and services are rationalised thus eliminating inefficiencies.

For decades now we have amassed a herd of sacred cows which are beyond question – from the NHS to Trident, from education to environment – all are suffering from deeply entrenched political dogmas and withering on the vine because of it. We have social provisions that are not in any way costed and are increasingly unfair to the young. Britain is spoiled rotten.

Between the EU and our entrenched establishment we are incapable of making substantial and meaningful reforms, and that which we now call radical is meagre tinkering. I hold the view that important decisions have been deferred through political cowardice and it is holding back economic and social progress. It might well be that we do have to take a step backwards to reorder our economy to make it one more befitting a globalised world.

Much of the core arms of social welfare and state provision are the last remnants of post-war socialism. We are in denial over their effectiveness and everybody wants the cuts to happen to someone else. Since we have a political establishment incapable of taking those adult decisions, I do not mind at all if Brexit forces their hand.

Pete North is a founding member of The Leave Alliance, which is a network of pragmatic pro-single market leave campaigners and bloggers. The alliance wants to see the UK as part of the European Free Trade Association, taking a lead role in global multilateral trade.