Spirit of Sunday Express readers will infuse the land
THE spirit of freedom has long pulsed through the veins of Sunday Express readers.
Now we have regained our sovereignty the same revivifying spirit will infuse Parliament, bringing new life to our legislature in this new year.
Prosperity will surely follow, for history shows that democratic accountability leads to better government. Thus the reclaimed powers will help the UK build back better.
Delivering Brexit was democracy in action and so it will be with our drive to level up the nation’s skills, infrastructure, technology and education.
Throughout the Palace of Westminster the nation’s statesmen, immortalised in stone, gaze down at our doings from their marble eyries.
This year the statues will surely approve of our statutes.
We have banned pulse fishing and removedvat from women’s sanitary products, both things the EU had stood in the way of. Much more will happen in 2021 as our ossified national fibres again become flesh and blood, vital and alive with potential.
The possibility of such a revival was never lost to Sunday Express readers. You were among the first to support Brexit and you never wavered throughout the dramas. As the constitution was put to the test, subscribers cleaved to their faith that the British people would prevail.
Their hopes were realised by the strong government delivered by the 2019 election.
In the 12 months since then, Parliament has passed the laws needed to prepare for our future outside the EU, as well as playing its part in tackling the coronavirus.
When people think about the Commons it is MPS who come to mind. But during the pandemic Parliament could not have sat safely without the real heroes.they are the cleaners, catering staff, police and others essential to the running of our parliamentary democracy behind the scenes. I am honoured to work alongside them.they have joined the serried ranks of key workers playing their part in keeping our country going. I hope they are all proud of their achievements. In 2021 the institution they serve will help serve you better. Rather than shrugging shoulders at laws imposed from Europe, MPS will be able to shape those regulations directly.take freedom of movement, for example – a policy which, unfettered, fuelled understandable anxiety for many years. Our Immigration Bill takes back control of borders and paves the way for a new points-based immigration system.
Yet there is so much more we can do. From freeports to farmers to fisheries to finance, the UK has an unparalleled chance to do things differently and better: improving lives of the people, increasing businesses’ access to new markets and boosting national prosperity.
The government will strengthen the Union by replacing the EU’S bureaucratic structural funds with a Shared Prosperity Fund that enables inequality and deprivation to be tackled in every part of the United Kingdom. Regulations will be set in ways which encourage, not stifle, innovation – and the research and the life sciences sector will surge ahead as a result.
It is notable that the UK’S medicines regulator was the first to authorise the Pfizer/ Biontech vaccine.
Liberty and prosperity go hand in hand. Both are enabled by democracy, which is why it was essential that the referendum result was honoured and why.
After the General Election, the Prime Minister made clear his main task was to secure the votes lent to him. Freedom is one thing but what one does with it is what really matters.
As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:19: “Though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.”
The government will take exactly this approach in 2021.