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Brexit presents us with a moment of transformational evolutionary potential.

We’re being told that Brexit is a financial and geopolitical disaster, it’s racist, it’s a reaction against globalisation, it’s unacceptably stupid in all kinds of ways. The truth is, it could indeed end up becoming those things if those in power and the media continue to think and act with a limited perspective. 1280px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg

Actually, Brexit presents us with a moment of evolutionary potential. The whole Western world has been stuck at a particular stage of development since the 1960s, and while that has done a lot of good, it is now the greatest barrier to our human potential. We are locked in a culture war between two sets of value systems. On the one side is the elite, which in fact consists of two parts: the corporate, technocratic, materialist elite and the pseudo-liberal, multicultural egalitarian elite. On the other side are those still grounded in the traditional values of patriotism, nation, tribe, ethnicity and religion. The elite has contempt for the values of the traditionalist population. At the same time, it has opened up the borders to a huge number of people with exactly the same traditionalist values but associated with other nations, other religions, other ethnicities to whom they give privileged status. This is driven by the victim-rescuer dynamic, acting out of the unhealed historical wounds of racism, Holocaust, slavery and imperialism. Brexit, UKIP, Trump, Alternative für Deutschland and all the others are the symptom of an inevitable conflict resulting from those imbalanced value systems.

Our opportunity now is to integrate the best of all value systems and step up to a new level of integrated, visionary leadership. We British are at the evolutionary edge of human development. We are a thriving node in the emerging global civilisation. Now we can be truly global, open, multiracial and fully interconnected, embracing diversity and complexity and deeply grounded in our national patriotic identity, values and culture. We can have effectively managed immigration and actively managed integration.

We are fast evolving towards an emerging global civilisation, which Britain had a large role in creating through the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution and British Empire. Britain of all countries should embrace globalisation fully and continue to lead. To do that, we must be an agile, adaptive, evolutionary organism. Our governments and elites must be held accountable and be transparent.

We are a conscious living system – social animals and spiritual beings at the same time. Every living system, whether it is the cells in your body or a human social group, must be coherent, integrated and manage its boundaries. If our cell membranes decided to stop including, excluding, filtering and enclosing then we’d be dead within a few seconds. Any club needs a healthy identity, a purpose, mission, clear values, rules and active management of its membership. Every nation is a club of sorts, or a family if you prefer, which needs to be clear about its criteria for membership. We should be open to those who want to come here and become one of us, bringing skills, energy and entrepreneurship, but we must also exclude those who do not accept the values of liberal democracy and a free, open society.

We British need to collaborate and cooperate very closely, not only with our friends, allies and partners, but also with our competitors and enemies around the world if we are to survive and thrive. The EU is not all good or all bad. But, on balance, it still has 20th-century ways of cooperating. That is to say, top-down, centralised, bureaucratic, technocratic, deeply undemocratic and unaccountable ways. Brexit does not mean that we should ‘pull up the drawbridge and become an isolated Little Britain,’ it means that we are leading the way to adaptive, effective, 21st-century ways of collaborating and cooperating. The new ways will be fluid, dynamic, flexible, accountable and truly global as well as British and European.

We’re told that Brexit means racism and fascism. Not at all. Britain is already multi-racial. But we must lead the way out of the dangerous fantasy of multiculturalism into a truly post-racial, coherent and complex set of dynamics that work for Britain. Our personal identities are already complex, not black and white. We can be many things simultaneously. Similarly, each country is a rich tapestry of diversity and complexity. But to survive and thrive we also need to be coherent, with a unifying identity to bring us together. That means shared values and clear boundaries that protect our open, liberal democratic society in a world where totalitarianism, corporate greed, nationalism and religious bigotry are all alive and well.

We’re told that Brexit will lead to financial disaster. Again, nonsense. It is an opportunity for Britain to become truly competitive. We should be leading the world towards a dynamic, globalised system of free and fair trade, not clinging to protectionist trading blocs dominated by vested interests.

Now is our chance to rejuvenate our country, to rejuvenate and transform the West and lead the emerging global civilisation. To do that, we need to integrate all our competing value systems. Above all, we need an exciting and inspiring vision of the future that allows us to focus on what we truly need and want.

Dr Nicholas Beecroft is a Consultant Psychiatrist, Member of the Royal College of Defence Studies and author of Analyze West: A Psychiatrist Takes Western Civilization on a Journey of Transformation and New Magna Carta: A Psychiatrist’s Prescription for Western Civilization.