We the people.

Yesterday, I landed in London after travelling to New Zealand and California, staying with friends, visiting museums and galleries, and avoiding any news for three weeks. Suddenly the intensity of UK and global politics came sharply into focus and it feels like I’ve been thrust back into the middle of it all.

I wouldn’t be the first, nor the last, to state that I am so fed up of the arguments in Parliament right now. The fact that our government have failed, and that our opposition have failed too. That we’re on course for further divisions within Britain.

And yet, instead of looking ahead, all our politicians keep talking about is Brexit. But then what? What next?

Note that I’m not against politicians talking about Brexit. It is the most fundamental shift of political power for a generation.

However, we need a government of national unity right now. A government which goes above party politics and the rhetoric of whether the UK should be led by one party or other. Instead, whatever the result of tomorrow’s vote in Parliament over the governments negotiated deal, the most pressing thing is bringing a divided nation together.

What is missing from all conversation is that there is compromise needing to be found. And there is a mid-ground where we all want the UK to succeed as a nation.

I fundamentally believe that we have a greater issue not with the question of Brexit itself, but with how politics works in this country.

On the radio this morning, the government said that if the voice of the British people is ignored by MPs in tomorrow’s debate, the trust in politics will be lost. To me though, this is pandering – trust in politics was already lost.

We, the people, need to tell our politicians that trust has been lost, that we demand a better way, that we want to have a more engaging political process so that the mistakes of Brexit do not and cannot happen again. We, the people, need to take back control by ensuring that new ways of electing representatives are pushed ahead, that our views are more actively listened to by parliamentarians, that our voice matters.

It’s going to be a big, ongoing battle, and Brexit doesn’t seem likely to be settled for a generation. Though promise me that in the back of your mind you’ll think about a political Britain post-Brexit, where reform is long overdue.

Our politicians need to be brave in calling for reform, especially the Conservatives and Labour who might lose the overarching power they enjoy under our current system.

But as I wrote on a wall of Te Papa Museum in Wellington, we have a choice: to do what is easy, or to do what is right.