I find myself thinking about why 52% of those around me, voted to leave the European Union?

In some areas of course, that figure is much higher and I always ask the question of why?

We can all argue that it was because of the lies that were told, the role of social media and of the promises made by politicians. However, that is in itself a lazy analysis and doesn’t really cut to the heart of perhaps why people voted to leave.

I travel the length and breadth of the UK and can see for myself the difference between North and South. The further you travel away from London, the less affluent areas become. Consumer activity provides very stark divides in how we shop, for example, Leeds City Centre holds a glittering array of shopping arcades and brand names routinely found on Kensington High Street, but stretch out from that glitz and you enter into a less glamorous experience.

I genuinely think that people voted out of exhaustion from years of austerity, fear for their own futures, a determination to punish elites, a sense that no-one was listening to them, but with a hope that they can bring back control to what they see as rampant globalism. Irrespective of how you voted, I certainly do not believe that the vast majority of British people, either understood what the European Union is or indeed how it is constructed or its democracy works. The European Union could be seen as yet another example of the apparatus of globalisation, and whilst this may be true in the minds of half of my countrymen and women, it is in itself an inadequate conclusion.

After all the shouting, finger-jabbing and lies, the big question surely now must be this: ‘Whatever the reasons for a vote in the Referendum, are we simply replacing a perceived globalisation, with another form of globalisation, as yet to be prescribed, by another elite and if that is the case, do we as citizens really understand the consequences of doing so, will we benefit from doing so and are we as citizens going to be in control of that new form of globalisation?’

Much was stated during the Referendum about taking back control and here, I am again going to make a declaration of interest. For years, I have been engaged in in a political lobbying process on behalf of Consumers, both at Westminster and within the European Union. In the early days of this activity, both my business partner and I decided that progress on key Consumer Protections was just not going to be possible at Westminster; why? Very simply, we recognised that the system was stacked against Consumer Campaigners of every hue and witnessed on many occasions, the wheel-out of victims, to tick the box a particular Industry’s sponsored event, legitimised by politicians. We discovered that when we tried to bring about a balance to the dialogue in favour of more regulation, politicians from all sides, swiftly side-stepped sensible proposals, taking what appeared to be a political consensual route. We decided to devote the majority of our energies to promoting the Consumer agenda within Europe and were initially surprised with the ease at which we could access senior politicians and civil servants and we became stakeholders in key debates; we achieved a great deal that we could not achieve at Westminster. In short, through the Referendum and beyond, I have never been convinced by any Westminster politician that Parliament would become re-empowered; they have always had power, it is just that they chose never to practice it where it matters, for the benefit of ordinary people; in my view, nothing will change!

It was interesting to hear from the intellectual-mud-wallow that is Gove, apparently calling on his Cabinet colleagues not to engage in Project-Fear, as they define how a post-brexit Britain might look. 

Project-Fear is one phrase that I was accused of when appearing on the airwaves, but I have come to understand that the expression is used as a crude roadblock against the telling of truth. 

As Gove was apparently guiding his Cabinet colleagues, some experts at a nearby Select Committee, experienced diplomats, set out in very clear terms our fading future in the world to come; another example of Project-Fear?

We are being corralled by clever PR catch-phrases such as ‘Brexit means Brexit’, ‘This was a statement of intent’, ‘Not legally binding’, ‘Nothing is agreed until it is agreed’, ‘Deep and special’, ‘Smooth and orderly’, ’Traitors’, ‘Enemies of the People’, ‘Saboteurs’, ‘Vassal State’, ‘We are proving the doubters wrong’; Her Majesty’s Official Opposition are no better because in their stunning general silence, perhaps their ‘catch-phrase’ should be, ‘Don’t talk about the EU’!

What we currently have is the usual Westminster consensual-waltz and it should demonstrate, no matter how you voted, the world that is to come.

But wait, there is a disturbance in the Force that is brexit! Realisation is dawning that creating an absolute position around a binary choice may not be such a good idea after all? Kicking and screaming, she-who-will-not-be-derailed, was forced to provide parliament with a ‘meaningful’ vote on the final outcome of the brexit-negotiations. David Davis escaped contempt proceedings within the House of Commons but nonetheless received a Public Rebuke from the Speakers Chair and the fiasco over Northern Ireland and its ‘border’ with the Irish Republic only served to demonstrate that not only were people encouraged to vote in the Referendum on the binary issue of leave or remain, but that they, the politicians and media, failed those very same citizens by not producing a plan or failing to challenge the lack of a plan.

This debate has been made even more interesting by yet another intervention by the intellectual-mud-wallow that is Gove, when he suggested that the British people are in control and they can reject any deal achieved by the government. I would not want readers to get too excited about this, because within the comment he is then suggesting such a rejection would then empower a future government to diverge from any agreement; can you smell the hard-brexit created by the will of the people?

The key point here is that he is like any other politician; they will not want to take the blame for any mess that is created. In a recent Position Paper, I suggested that Consumers/Citizens will find themselves faced with the possibility that their approval will be requested, before a final deal is cemented in; the blame will be passed to you!

Since Gove’s comments about recognising the ‘will of the people’, again, there have been a plethora of articles outlining the need for a second Referendum and we have now even reached the point where a timetable and a date has been suggested.

This debate is not about undermining the will of the people; it is about helping to dig the politicians out of the hole that they have created for themselves and the country.

Whilst it will be interesting to see how this will progress throughout 2018, my mind is turned toward the reasons why people voted to leave; the 100m queue I saw outside the Bradford unemployment office; the fears of the taxi-drivers in Wigan; the woman who walks her dog in my local park; those Consumers pressured by Christmas and driven into debt; refugees I have met who have escaped from tyranny; the newly qualified doctors I have met working 60 hours a week in a poorly resourced service; the fourth industrial revolution; a dangerous nuclear world; a lack of justice, safety and human rights for all creeds and colour; those who are exposed to irrational racial fears; the rise of extremism; the injustices arising from Consumerism; the threat to our global environment; the Worcestershire beekeepers and their concerns; the homeless; the Grenfell victims and survivors; a globalised world, created by commerce, without regard to regulation, social provisions and protections.

Who will speak to that in the Referendum to come?