Image: Jacob Rees-Mogg, pub quiz - love freedom. Credit: Tom Phillips/Flickr, CC 2.0.
Of all the duplicitous slogans that helped clinch it for the “Leave” side in the Brexit referendum, one of the most effective was no doubt the conceit that “we” could “take back control” of our country. In a world in which control over the direction of our society feels as far beyond the sway of ordinary folk as the weather or the movements of the planets, the promise of greater control certainly delivered the political goods for the “Leave” campaign.
Yet the promise is already half-broken. Social and environmental laws are being ripped up before our eyes. Potential free trade deals threaten more of the same. As a result even greater power is being handed to the large corporations which already control so many aspects of our lives and our democracy, whilst the machinery of government slips ever more firmly into the grip of the Westminster elite.
