"Once you set the wheels in motion it never stops."
That's logically impossible, or none of us would have any freedom at all.
Laws get reversed (Bush has made an art form of it), new politicians get into power, public pressure changes laws, etc. If nothing ever changed for the better, women still wouldn't be able to vote, segregation would still exist, etc.
A more true statement is that public policy is similar to sailing. Sail downwind and you'll find yourself a long way away in a hurry. If that isn't where you wanted to be, it isn't that you CAN'T get back, just that you are going to spend a lot of time tacking back and forth to do it. The UK will recover from garbage like this, but the citizenry will have to get off their a$$es to do it.