The referendum result was roughly 52% to 48% in favour of Brexit. You couldn’t get a lot closer.
Sometimes when voting ballots are close, you get a recount.
The Prime Minister’s Brexit plan has been rejected twice, the first time she lost by the biggest parliamentary margin of defeat in history, 230 votes. At 432 votes against to 202 for The Prime Minister’s plan, that works out as 63.4% against versus 36.6% May’s plan.
The irony I want to point out is that although no political party of any substance is supporting a new referendum, the politicians are voting over and over again on a deal which wasn’t a close run the first time they voted, or the second, and which no one really seems to truly want, and which they may only end up voting for because they are literally cornered into doing so.
Why does Theresa May get to get several bites at the cherry, after further clarifications on the legal status of the “Irish Backstop” and other matters are revealed, literally forcing Politicians vote again until she gets the right result? Yet somehow, public can not be asked to vote again because what we voted for, despite the similarities to the situation of the politicians, that is, not knowing the full facts, was the final answer we could give.
Why can’t the public vote again now we are in a greater position in terms of knowledge?
All this talk by politicians about “the will of the public” and following through on the result of the referendum is misguided. The referendum was advisory, and not binding – but yes political parties made it their policy to uphold the referendum result. The crazy thing is we stand the risk of damaging a legally binding treaty, The Good Friday Agreement, which is largely responsible for the de-escalation of violence in Ireland, simply on the basis of an advisory referendum made without full knowledge of the facts.
It’s simply another case of one rule for them, and another for us. It’s the habit of the political class.
It’s true the voting turnout for the referendum was big, and politicians see this as renewed interest in politics after the political apathy that has set in over recent decades. Yet if our democracy were truly strong, we shouldn’t be afraid to let the people make another decision. The fact is this clinging to the result of a vote that was made without full knowledge of the facts, and lets face it, not even the politicians, even now, actually know what will happen, is actually undemocratic – and it is compounded further by the sheer hypocrisy, especially of The Cabinet and The Conservative Party who are dragging The United Kingdom into a situation that will dis-unite us from Europe, Ireland, and is causing social disunity already too.
Truth be told, the future of The United Kingdom is in the hands of a small group of people, The Conservative European Research Group (ERG), with other more right-wing politicians like Nigel Farage and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) playing key roles. I believe that the traditionally moderately right-wing Conservative Party has reached a point of ideological meltdown. Back in the 70’s and 80’s this country went through the excesses and extremes of “far left” ideology particularly around the time of The Miners Strike, and the media particularly has had a real distaste for left-wing ideology ever since.
What I want to assert now is that we are seeing the tide turn, and we are in the grip of a world-wide sea change in ideology, right-wing ideology. Trump, the rise in racist crime from Charlottesville in the USA to Christchurch New Zealand are instances that show that the impetus to change our society is driven by people who believe in separation. It’s not clearly evident now, because we are in the process of change, but when we look back at the effects of what right-wing politics is doing not only to our society, but to the world, I wonder if there will be the same distaste for it as there was for its left-wing equivalent?
The immaturity, impotence and ineffectiveness of our adversarial political system is evident. Politicians have such misplaced and hypocritical zeal. They think that they can recover some credibility by following through on the result of the referendum, by pushing over and over again for a deal that is damaging to our country. The whole process has been a shambles and is deteriorating into a farce the longer it goes on. Has the way this referendum been handled, going right back to David Cameron, the way politicians are trying to redeem themselves and show they are listening? If so, they must be desperate and even more detached from reality than they were before this whole sorry process started.
The crux of the matter is, right-wing power, and the meltdown of The Conservative party. The British public are merely pawns in a game to people who have nothing more than pride, conceit and an insatiable lust for power.