Timothy Garton Ash in his article “Britain dwells on its past, but has no vision for its future” (The Guardian, 22nd May 2020), sets out where we are now but fights shy of a vision of where we want to be. Asking Keir Starmer to propose a future will undoubtedly provide some useful policies but I fear it will not provide the UK with the representative structure to expedite them.
What is required is a political reformation that will deliver a federal system of government, a reformed and slimmed down House of Commons, an elected second chamber, proportional representation, the voting age lowered to 16 and all citizens resident in the UK who pay taxes – no matter what their nationality – have the right to vote; finally voting is made compulsory by law.
For years Governments of every political stripe have ignored the deindustrialisation of the UK and held themselves in thrall to the city and the service sector. The first priority should be a programme of “green” reindustrialisation including fostering, reinforcing and developing the industry that we have. Make it much harder for the City to treat companies as gambling chips, set up a seriously big industrial development bank that will lend for industrial investment rather than property speculation and require publicly financed services to buy domestic.