As the country prepares for its seventh prime minister in a decade, some are asking: is Britain ungovernable? I’d like to pose a parallel but meaningfully different question: is there a government that wishes to govern Britain? 

Every government since at least 1979 has practised one form or another of this politics of abdication. Andy Burnham, if he does indeed become prime minister, will not break with this approach

Every government since at least 1979 has practised one form or another of this politics of abdication. Andy Burnham, if he does indeed become prime minister, will not break with this approach

There can be no understanding of our governing crisis without a recognition that it has been in situ for more than half a century. In that time, successive governments have as a matter of policy outsourced decision-making, oftentimes in the name of better governance. 

One of the appeals of the European project to Britain’s political elites was its centralisation of decision-making on matters they considered too sensitive to be decided nationally, which is to say matters where voters refused to conform to the policy preferences of the elites. 

In the early days, Conservatives saw the European Economic Community as a backdoor hack through a political and economic order gripped by public ownership, price controls and industrial strife. If decision-making could be removed from Parliament and rerouted to Brussels, policy directives devised by Berlaymont bureaucrats could be presented to MPs as a fait accompli.

The appeal of the Common Market crossed ideological lines within the Tory party. Margaret Thatcher and Ted Heath agreed on almost nothing, but they agreed, at least initially, on Europe.

In time, the left came to see the advantages of a common market and its Eurosceptics either recanted or retreated to the fringes. A central bureaucracy that could uphold the necessary conditions for a market economy could also impose directives on workplace conditions and enforce employee rights. 

For........

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