On the surface this article HERE in The Guardian has nothing to do with Brexit. It's about the teaching profession and how teachers are supposed to deliver top grades to pupils regardless of how disruptive or idle they are. The anonymous writer, a teacher for 30 years, has quit and talks of the transfer of responsibility from pupil to teacher who is expected to ensure success even if the pupil puts no effort in at all.
And yet it has everything to do with Brexit. One might even say it's the cause of Brexit. That sense of British entitlement that we have grown up with and passed on to our children (not all of them, I generalise).
This belief that we should be successful without hard work runs through so many of our national shortcomings. Companies ( De La Rue was the latest example) complain when they lose an order to a foreign business because they thought they should have got it. British passports must be made in Britain, never mind the price. Johnny foreigner must have cheated. How else could they have done it?
Our exports to the EU are falling, even though we're in a single market with common rules. There is a market of 500 million people on our doorstep but they won't buy enough of our goods, so we'll show them, we'll quit the market. There's no question of trying to find out why our exports aren't increasing.
Brexit is merely the same sense of entitlement written in nationalism. We don't need to address our low educational attainment levels or the chronic under investment in industry, and national infrastructure that's the root cause of the low productivity that has bedevilled us for decades. No, we can avoid all the hard work needed to put it right. Let's blame someone else, the EU in this case, and go with Brexit.
We will somehow surge ahead simply by cutting regulations and taxes, it's a quick fix for Britain and it's bound to be successful. We're entitled to success aren't we?
