There is no time for our politicians, in any party, to sit back and enjoy the ride. The work began the moment they set foot in Westminster, and the time to the next General Election is ticking away; presumably 1 May 2024.
There are few unavoidable fixtures before the election.
It starts with Brexit Day, finally, on 31 January 2020. This is then followed by negotiations to reach a free trade agreement, or the essential parts of one, based on the Political Declaration, before 31 December 2020.
The next is the Budget each year;
The local elections, and in particular the London mayoral election on 7 May 2020 (in which the egregious Sadiq Khan is expected to walk home in spite of his having been worse that useless in office).
The Olympic games in Tokyo in 2020: not political, but a national morale-boost, usually.
The creation of the Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission is likely to happen in 2020.
Then the American Presidential Election on 3 November 2020 – which will determine the course of negotiations for free trade across the ocean, and by indirect influence set a tone for political debate.
First thing though: Brexit. Consummating the event must not be the end of the Brexit campaign as the following months and years will be filled with claim and counterclaim about the effect it is having on the economy, and the ‘Rejoiners’ must not be the only voice heard. The statistics must therefore be available and up front.
That same spirit of openness and demonstrable achievement must permeate through the years ahead. The new blue north is not a given in four and half years’ time, and the generation too young to know the reality of socialism will continue to fill the electorate from the bottom. A great deal of trust must be built up in spite of a cynical age.
See also
- The work begins: get Brexit done
- Boris unleashed
- Our plan for the new Prime Minister
- Mend the kingdom: roll up that map
- The last Tory government?
Books
- Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 by Linda Colley
- Empire: What Ruling the World Did to the British by Jeremy Paxman
- A History of Scotland by Neil Oliver
- The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History by Boris Johnson
- The Man Who Was Saturday: The Extraordinary Life of Airey Neave by Patrick Bishop
- Woke: A Guide to Social Justice by Titania McGrath
- The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray
- Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay (1841)
- 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, by Jordan B Peterson
- Brexit:
- All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class by Tim Shipman
- Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union by Harold D. Clarke, Matthew Goodwin and Paul Whiteley
- Brexit: How the Nobodies Beat the Somebodies by Sebastian J. Handley
- By David Cameron: