As a result, many of us are marching this weekend in support of a People's Vote; where we, the people, can decide on the mess that the country is currently in.
I will be there in my Tshirt and carrying my Brolly, and encourage as many people as possible to come along too.
On Wednesday night, Prime Minister Theresa May made a speech to the nation, telling us how we feel, how she is with us, and it's not her fault, but the MPS for not agreeing with the deal she repeatedly proposes that nobody wants. I've since seen descriptions of how it was an attempt to hypnotise the nation, and it certainly seems like that - I don't know what else she was trying to achieve?
One impact it has had, however, is to draw attention to a petition: Revoke Article 50. When I signed it, only about 30,000 people had signed. This has increased massively, to the point where the website crashed this morning! Every time I refresh the petition page, the number of signatories has increased, and at 14:28 today, it is now up to 972,873! I have even seen one meme suggesting that the House of Commons will take action when the petition reaches 17.4M people, - the number of people who voted Leave in the first place. I don't know how true it is, but given that it has increased to nearly a million people in one day, if Brexit is extended even a short while, it won't be long to hit that target.
As for democracy, democracy means that we have a say in politics and who governs us. It means we can change our minds. It means that just because conservatives were voted in power once, does not mean that they will stay in power forever. Just because something was voted in once, does not mean that there is never another vote. And if new information has come to light - particularly if one 'side' has been accused of electoral fraud and fined - then that vote should be either cancelled or at least redone.
And that is what the People's Vote is all about - now the general public has more information, and the Leave campaign has been shown to be full of untruths and they still don't have a plan, there should be another vote where people are more informed.
You do get a vote at a time of the General election every four years or so, and that should be enough. Meanwhile leave Brexit the way it is and honor the vote of the people who voted in the past.
ReplyDeleteThe sky won't fall if you leave the EU without a deal!
The sky won't fall, but apart from a select few, our lives will be the worse for it.
DeleteVoting at elections isn't all that is required for a vibrant, modern democracy. A single vote doesn't show the strength of feeling behind a decision for example which is why petitions, marching and lobbying of MPs is important for our representatives to fully understand our views. It isn't uncommon for countries to make important constitutional decisions over more than one referendum. For example, in New Zealand, residents were asked firstly if they wanted to change their electoral system. Secondly, if it changed, what system would they like it changed to and thirdly, after all systems had been evaluated by the government, the country was asked to pick for the most popular choices. For the Brexit referendum, we were only asked question 1. Our Prime minister, who was elected to that position unopposed in the end, decided the answer to question 2 herself. She didn't even put it to her own Cabinet. The following election resulted in a loss of seats for her party. She, however, still refused to attempt to find out what would be acceptable to either Parliament nor the people. In such a close election, where there is now known to have been criminal activity on the winning side and given that it wasn't a vote "for" something but simply a vote for "something else" it is even more important to campaign for a confirmation referendum. It isn't a rerun of the last one, though the legality of it could be reason enough to have one but a vote for a deal. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask for in the circumstances and not at all unusual. Personally, I would not allow so called "no-deal" to be an option as it was never part of the official leave campaign and it is in breach of the Belfast Agreement (commonly known as the Good Friday Agreement) and it is unacceptable for me for the UK to break an international agreement that was so far won and has managed to maintain a fragile peace. There are other personal objections to it but this is my main one and the one that I feel everyone should be primarily concerned with. We should be a country who honours its commitments.
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