Brexit’s denial marks death of democracy in UK
British democracy has been a dead man walking since the 1950s.
As of 11pm last Friday it became a corpse, taking with it the rule of law. Ideology-driven post-war governments of all stripes have failed to do what the people wanted and have wilfully done what the people didn’t want, pursuing the relentless imposition of the global new world order on its hapless citizens. And now Brexit...
Britons voted in favour of leaving the EU three times. The first was the 2015 election, in which the offer of a referendum on EU membership was taken. The second was the referendum itself in 2016, in which 52 per cent of the electorate (63 per cent of constituencies – a “landslide” in electoral terms) voted to leave in the biggest electoral turnout ever. The third was the 2017 election when all major parties vowed to uphold the results of the referendum. Later that year, 498 MPs confirmed the decision by Act of Parliament, setting the date and time of departure at 11pm last Friday, with or without any kind of withdrawal “deal”. Prime Minister Theresa May subsequently promised we would leave on that date 108 times, but we didn’t. Why? Because the prime minister lied, and because 75 per cent of parliament and most of the civil service are “Remainers”; they know best what is good for us, they despise us and think we’re all stupid.
What we have witnessed over the last three years is an unconscionable orgy of lies, about-turns, threats, back-stabbing, chicanery, mass resignations of ministers, abuse of the constitution and parliamentary trickery to abrogate the law of the land. The entire political establishment – government, parliament and the civil service – have conspired to betray the will of the people. In among all this, the PM refused the offer of a free-trade agreement by the EU, discarded a withdrawal deal prepared by her own ministers, and has attempted to bulldoze her own “deal” through parliament; a deal that would leave the country subject to EU laws possibly until 2099, but without representation. This egregious surrender document has been pronounced the “worst deal in history” by commentators, and attempts to refine it were famously described by Boris Johnson MP as “polishing a turd”. That turd has now been voted down in parliament twice, and the Speaker forbade the turd to be brought forward a third time without “substantive” change. Undaunted, the PM chopped it into two half-turds, and presented the less foetid half to parliament last Friday, Brexit Day, where it was turned down yet again. It beggars belief to learn that she intends to present further slices of the same turd this week.
I can’t think of a more arrogant betrayal of a democratic vote in Western history. Who now represents the British people? In August 2017, I gave reasons in this column why I was “not particularly enamoured with democracy”, and my letter incited a certain writer to vilify me as a neo-fascist ever since. Now perhaps he understands.
Nigel Pike
Phang Nga
