Brexit has allowed concrete issues to be “swept under the carpet” while we deal with abstract notions of sovereignty, The New European editor Matt Kelly has said.
Speaking on Media Masters podcast Kelly said we are facing many real problems in society that are being ignored because of the ongoing debate on the EU.
The Conservatives have been allowed to skirt “real” issues such as the NHS, the North/South divide, the size of classrooms and waiting times at A&E because the nation is fixated on “abstract” notions of “taking back control”.
He added that the argument that we will be better off alone is also “absolutely nuts”.
Saying: “If ever there was a time where we needed the security and the bolstering of a significant bunch of players it’s right now.
“The idea that we will be a significant, stronger player on our own in this increasingly globalised world economy seems to me to be almost deranged.”
The NHS suffered one of the worst winters on record this year with the latest figures showing record numbers of seriously-ill patients facing delays waiting for a bed.
Health leaders said hospital corridors had become the new emergency wards as more than 81,000 patients in England were forced to wait on a trolley in an A&E unit in January for more than four hours.
A record 1,043 waited more than 12 hours – more than double the previous month and an event which hospitals were told to ensure never happened this winter.
Elsewhere, class sizes are surging in thousands of schools across the country as headteachers struggle to cope with the toughest school spending cuts in decades,figures released by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers reveal.
The figures follow fresh warnings from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee that children’s futures are being put “at risk” by falling standards and “soaring class sizes”, as schools face the most extreme spending squeeze since the 1990s.
Listen to the full podcast here.
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