Sad Day

Today is a very sad day. The United Kingdom withdraws from the European peace project based on sharing economic and political institutions.

What was working to bind us together, particularly free movement of people within the European Union, will no longer be available to us. Younger and aspirational people have been undermined by the UK moving out.

In the 1970s a realisation came about that government had capacity, and to be good and effective needed to be at different levels. So much government has been good, recently, because it has had a European level (including the principle of subsidiarity). Now, all those matters that were decided and organised there must come back here. Devolution also seems threatened in regards of returned and no longer shared powers.

This is why we must let them, the victors of focusing the 'no' vote, get on with government. They wanted it and they've got it, and already we wonder if the government has the numbers and time to do the job. So much must go in place in order to function. The Scots need to be canny in going for a pro-European independence, a start to making the UK more like the EU - a family of nations with consultative sharing political institutions.

The idea that removing from the EU will solve the Conservative Party's problem with Prime Ministers falling from the Europe question is for the birds. The closeness or otherwise to Europe will be the issue that torments them: they have the obsession in their blood supply.

Pro-Europeans have not gone away. But we were defeated by the voting system and now our task is to hand over the reins and watch. I don't care about their promises: I would not hold them to their promises. If they succeed - good. If they don't, well, moments come to hand back power.

Liberal Democrats need strategies to turn their votes into seats. Simple as that. Labour may or may not fail, but Lib Dems generally do not succeed when Labour fails. What I think will likely fail is left-Labour, and Labour may then wipe out, given its condition and make-up. Then the Lib Dems must do more. The aim has to be for the Lib Dems achieving government, and ready from when the Johnson success becomes the moment of failure - when the smile goes off the joke. We will need a new political landscape, in the end: one to take us back into Europe. That will take more than a decade.

In the meantime, the Europeans can organise their confederation. I wish it the best. The Europeans will be less chained by Anglo-Saxon triumphalism and liberal economism, and see that politics and people matter most. The European Dream continues to organise.