By all rights we should have been where we are a lot sooner than now. Politics should have already disintegrated. The 1997-2010 regime was a freak series of events; a new experiment in political media management. New Labour was adept at it. They call Blair "Teflon Tony" because the sort of sleaze that gradually brought down the Major government didn't seem to impact Blair at all. The administration was no less incompetent or any less corrupt. They simply worked out that so long as nobody resigned they could wait out any media storm.
Conveniently for them the Tories were unable to put up anything remotely inspiring. Hardly anyone remembers that Michael Howard was Tory leader and nobody was going to vote for Iain Duncan Smith. Meanwhile the economy was doing quite well so far as the average punter cared. Cheap credit and an endless supply of cheap goods from China. There wasn't much of a reason to kick Labour out.
The only reason David Cameron took office was because Labour had simply run out of steam and even then, having buried the right wing elements of his party, he was little more than an extension of the status quo - and couldn't win outright. Had we not gone through the cycle of boom and bust our politics would have imploded long before now.
Fast forward to today though and the names are pretty much all the same. Those we laughingly call statesmen have moved into other arenas but the personalities on both benches are pretty much the same dregs we've had for the last twenty years. Now the dregs are in charge in the dying days of the old establishment. The one that would rather send people on sensitivity training than address an epidemic of Pakistani rape gangs.
Were it not for Brexit it could undoubtedly limp on for a good while longer. Government can just about cope by limping from crisis to crisis. Most of what it does is reactive and doesn't require detailed thinking. Most of the problems we have from flooding to a tower block fire are resolved by throwing money at them. That takes no particular ability.
The reason it's all going wrong is because these underwhelming individuals have been tasked with implementing a massive change - one that they never wanted, have no idea how to approach and one that involves taking responsibility - which they do not want to do.
Westminster for the last twenty or more years has been a politics theme park where the ambitious build media careers. Nobody goes to London to fix problems. Being that we have regional development agencies masquerading as local government, robbed of any semblance of democracy, the whole system has found a comfortable managerial groove where things just about hold together but is incapable of observing the more subtle long term neglect.
Regional development largely involves big ticket town centre remodelling and sticking plasters here and there but we don't see ideas to address the underlying collapse of social mobility and increasing economic exclusion. All the while we see a self-indulgent politics in London that simply doesn't reflect the values and concerns of the broader public. The politicians think we are impressed by hashtag gesturing. Turns out that after the suicide bombing of a children's pop concert "Refugees Welcome" is not a vote winner.
Now we find hand wringing from our political class who ask "what happened to my country?" when in fact nothing much at all has happened. The establishment orthodoxy is largely a self-delusion - the belief that the public shares their "progressive" attitudes. That they can be so completely absorbed by this delusion is a testament to how well the authentic voice of Britain has been frozen out of the political apparatus.
This above all explains the desperation to stock Brexit. Brexit is messy, inconvenient, expensive, but above all it shatters their self delusion and gives a voice to the political excluded. The very people our "elites" not only wish to silence, but also actively despise. Of course there's all the perks of the EU which has formed the basis of their campaign but must of the stated benefits are of little use to working class Brits - and in the absence of a justice system our rights are not worth the paper they are written on.
As it happens they have not learned a thing from the referendum and have been largely tone deaf ever since. We are told that Brexit is a distraction that stop politicians dealing with "real problems" which in their eyes always involves fire-hosing more money at the NHS. Standard fare for the Westminster bubble.
The question for us is whether we can afford for politics to carry on with business as usual. Brexit, whatever form it takes is going to cause a great deal of expense and inconvenience. Already it has done a light on the dysfunction of our politics and how badly we are served by the two party system. It also shows how tribalism and media ineptitude distorts politics. The near total takeover of Labour by Momentum is a symptom of the malaise in politics.
So we can either pull back from Brexit and leave them to it, allowing them to slip back into old habits or we can have this out now. Certainly remaining in the EU is the more convenient road. We could all do without the hassle and we can carry on gritting our teeth at the inanity of the Westminster bubble, but in so doing we send out two gravely depressing messages.
Firstly, it says that votes can't change anything. Don't bother campaigning and mobilising because even if you win it they will ignore your vote. Secondly it says we are content to abandon any hope of good governance. It says we'd rather just let things slide leaving the same band of quarterwits to run things under the same regime, and return to their insular tribal games.
Brexit of itself is no cure for anything. What it does is force a system wide audit of all the rules we've installed without public scrutiny. It will force us to ask questions as to why we do things the way we do, and if we need to change things, this time there is no excuse. Brexit creates the space and the opportunity for meaningful reform.
The point for me is that without Brexit all of the things they say we should be fixing instead won't get a look in. The referendum has not taught them any lessons nor has it shaken them out of their complacency. If we let them go back to business as usual then they will and all of the things that caused the Brexit vote will get gradually worse. Only something seismic will dislodge them.
What Britain needs before it can even begin to address the acute national issues is major political reform. There's a lot of political and philosophical questions we should be asking here. Thus far the debate is dominated by the cult of GDP when we should be asking what kind of society we want.
Recent "no deal" warnings about sandwich production in the UK (an £8bn a year industry) have put the immediate GDP question front and centre but don't we need to ask if it's right that we've created a throwaway society that lives on convenience foods sourced from afar and prepared by low wage imported labour? Why are we allowing public spaces to turn into transit camps for those same workers?
We are told that EU labourers will do the jobs that Brits won't. That's because people who aren't sharing a house with fifteen other people and have kids can't afford to take jobs with exploitative pay. British workers are far less likely to up sticks and make use of freedom of movement not least because the opportunities are asymmetrical - not least because of the language barrier.
As to trade, do we want people to buy high quality UK manufactured goods and look after and maintain or do we want people buying Chinese knock-offs that can be replaced when they break? Availability shapes attitudes to goods and their value. Over twenty years we have built a consumer society based where every whim is catered for and people are encouraged to spend frivolously - and then we have a generation who complains they can't afford a housing deposit.
Remainers tell us that Brexit will cost households £4200 each which may or may not be true but people adapt to new norms and eventually the economy will adapt to new norms just as production adapted to take advantage of frictionless trade. Brexit will change individual and business habits. Business will have to re-evaluate pay along with their abysmal recruiting practices and individuals will have to reconsider how they spend.
The point here is that different consumer choices will create new opportunities because change always does drive innovation. As to business, it will find ways to keep doing business. For all that the US has invested billions in combating narco-trade, the cartels keep finding ways to export their produce. Humans adapt.
One way or another Brexit is to shake things up. It already has. We are already seeing industry associations being more vocal than ever and as the UK takes back control of its trade policy they will keep up the pressure. So too will individuals make their voices heard. This time, though, ministers can no longer simply shrug and say that their hands are tied. Politics is making a comeback - and that above all is how we address the litany of neglected issues.
Much of our political malaise stems from the fact that we no longer bother with politics. Our political parties are burnt out husks easily captured by their extremes. They only succeed because we let them. Brexit will be a teachable moment as to why political participation is necessary and why their is a high price for turning over politics to managerialism. Ultimately it is we who have to take back control. Brexit is that window of opportunity.
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