Business Leader Magazine ask me for a few words about how Brexit might be remembered by future generations as they look back on how their world have been shaped.
Er ... not contentious then.
Here's what I had to say ...
Work has intervened several times over the years to cancel, postpone, or interrupt family holidays. At the time it seemed so crucial, vital, essential. It just had to be done. The funny thing is, looking back, I have no recollection of any of the supposedly business critical issues causing the disruption. I just recall the messed-up holidays. And so, with Brexit. My suspicion is that history will characterise ‘the Brexit years’ as a classic case of mistaking the urgent for the important.
With the benefit of hindsight, I am convinced future commentators will point to more fundamental and defining agents of change that reached tipping points during the ‘Brexit years’. The Fourth Industrial Revolution in all its varied and manifest forms together with the embedding of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) principles will impact business, the economy, and our everyday lives far more globally than what is, at root, a parochial issue.
The late British PM Harold Macmillan famously noted that “events, dear boy, events” distract and determine the course of governments and therefore countries and economies. I suspect future generations will come to see Brexit as one such ‘event’. A tactic in search of a strategy. The wood obscuring the trees. Let’s also hope that the future does not look back to ‘the Brexit years’ and identify them as the moment we failed to embrace and capitalise on these more game-changing opportunities.
