One must remain diffident about claims being made that the UK will experience an economic and political decline in the coming future, as a result of Brexit.

It is clear that the ruling elites were caught on the wrong foot by the British referendum result, which they did not expect.

The whole machinery of government was focussed on the maintenance of the status quo. Nobody had worked out how the UK would exit from the EU, not least because those who proposed the move were outside the state apparatus.

For such a situation to be brought under control, time is needed. Clearly too, in the meantime some negative economic economic consequences will emerge.

Beyond this however, the challenge that remains is for the UK to agree a relationship with the Union that would suit both sides. I am persuaded this can be done.

In the context of such an agreement, I fail to see why the UK should go into a declineby being outside the EU. Similarly, there are no grounds for prospecting that the EU would in its turn experience a decline simply because the UK is no longer a member. All this is based on the assumption that federalist fundamentalists in Europe do not stir the pot…

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Management of change

Change, we are told, has become an integral part of the life we live. So, we need to know how to guide and manage it.

Formerly, such points used to be made mostly in discussions about business strategy. In my younger days, I attended countless doctoral seminars dealing with the challenges that arise when change takes place in the environment of marketing, finance, production, the political and other systems, and how you need to try and predict it, or be flexible enough to meet it head on as it develops.

Since then, the same ways of looking at reality have spread to the social, political and even diplomatic areas.

It seems as if we have become resigned to the fact that one must expect to experience change for it is no longer something that one launches.

Outside business management, in my younger days there also used to be lots of talk about “the revolution”.

Not any more.

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Discrimination

The rolling back of discrimination is an area where without any doubt, the Labour government has accomplished huge progress: as a result many barriers have fallen, institutional, social and in the minds of people, mine included.

The right of minorities, no matter how small, to enjoy a good life is being successfully sustained and I think, irreversibly. While this was being done, we are coming to accept a  reality that we used to hide from ourselves. The life of a person can reveal itself in a hundred thousand ways, and they are all valid so long as they are genuine and do not restrict the right of others to enjoy a free and worthwhile life.

At the same time, in ongoing efforts to wipe out discrimination, one needs to ensure that those people who fail to understand what is going on, do not feel abandoned in the face of what they consider to be the destruction of the traditional set up in which they used to lead respectful lives.