As observers in the United States digest the results of the November 2019 election, UK voters begin their own election season. Prime Minister Boris Johnson left Buckingham Palace on Wednesday morning, saying that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has agreed to a general election on December 12.
Ending the UK’s interminable Brexit negotiations will “release a pent up flood of investment,” Johnson said outside 10 Downing Street. “Uncertainty is deterring people from hiring new staff, from buying new homes, from making new investments.”
“Let’s get Brexit done and release the potential of the whole United Kingdom,” he said.
Ahead of the election, Johnson has also promised a significant increase in government spending.
What will the coming election between Johnson, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson bring?
“Like Margaret Thatcher’s campaign 40 years ago, a winning Conservative vision must articulate a passion for freedom in economics, politics, and religious expression,” writes Rev. Richard Turnbull, who is ordained in the Church of England and the director of the Oxford-based Centre for Entreprise, Morality, and Ethics (CEME).
In a new analysis for the Acton Institute’s Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website, Rev. Turnbull writes:
The real contest in the British election is freedom – political and economic. Yes, on one level it is a Brexit-centered election, with the Prime Minister seeking to deliver on the 2016 referendum result. However, underlying this issue is the desire for both political and economic freedom. People are alienated from the political establishment, taxed from birth until (after) death, taxed on income, property, inheritance, transactions, goods and services; taxed on earned income and unearned income, taxed once and sometimes taxed twice. There is a real opportunity, not only to make a success of Brexit, but to reorient the political landscape toward a vision of economic creativity and freedom, allowing individuals to retain more of their hard-earned income, reducing the size of the state and the level of government spending.
You can read his full essay here.
(Photo credit: UK Govt. Northern Ireland Office. This photo has been cropped. CC BY 2.0.)
