Читать книгу Start Again: How We Can Fix Our Broken Politics - Philip Collins, Philip Collins - Страница 10

The ten condition of Britain questions fall into three categories, the first of which is the income and wealth of the nation. The distribution of wealth becomes less fair with every passing year and earnings growth has disappeared. This has broken the covenant of British housing and shut out a generation of prospective buyers. Then there is the chronic threat that automation is said to pose to the structure of developed economies. All these anxieties together conjure a fear about how Britain will earn its living. The second set of questions are political. British institutions are not working well. They do not grant the citizens a sense of agency and they are not providing services either fairly or of adequate quality. The third and final body of questions are cultural. With Britain on the cusp of breaking its relationship with the EU it will need to find a new sense of ease and a new place in the world.

Taken together, these are the fundamental facts of contemporary British politics. They help to explain Britain’s European decision, the strangely volatile aberration of the general election of 2017 and the appeal of the populism of Jeremy Corbyn. Leaving the EU in turn intensifies the problem. There is no assessment of the medium-term economic outlook that does not describe leaving as an economic loss. This simply redoubles the importance of the first pressing condition of Britain question, which is how Britain makes its way in the world.