A view from the hinterland.

I woke this morning to the sound of Caroline Lucas sounding depressed.  I wasn't sharing a bed with her, I'm sure she has far more taste, but the tone of her voice on the Today Programme told me all I needed to know.  The electorate had done the unthinkable and voted for us to leave the EU.

I have spent a lot of time on social media over the last few weeks having what I hope are civilised discussions with people from both sides of the debate.  Some of them were not so bothered about being civilised in return but it's water off a duck's back.  I am old enough and ugly enough not to worry about personal insults.  I have had instruction on the workings of the EU from people with only a nodding acquaintance with the Queen's English. I have been screamed at in BLOCK CAPITALS by those who WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK.  I have been called a leftie (quite accurate, that one), I have been told how much better things will be when we get Farage in.  At no time have I read a cogent comment or even article which has persuaded me even to consider that leaving the EU will be a good thing. By the way I refuse to use the work Brexit or to call Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson Bojo so please bear with me.  

Let me put my cards on the table.  I was born in the early fifties.  Both my parents were slightly bohemian left leaning teachers/lecturers. My father left school at 14 and went to work as an apprentice and then a fitter on the railways and my mother studied Art at Goldsmiths college. For much of my life I have been a wishy washy leftie, occasionally tactically voting Lib Dem but generally being a low level Labour supporter.  I voted to join the Common Market and I voted to stay.  The Common Market/ EEC/ EU never bothered me that much.  I was living in Ireland when the Euro was introduced and thought nothing of it.  I had no strong European feelings either way.

Two things served to radicalise me.  The first was the election of the Coalition Government and the appointment of David Cameron as PM and Gideon (Robin to his batman) as Chancellor.  The systematic destruction of the welfare state in the name of austerity made me spit feathers.  After five years of coalition they were freed from the steadying hand of the Lib Dems and really cut loose.  That was the first thing.  The second was the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.  I had always been very suspicious of 'New' Labour.  Here was a man who offered a more left-wing stance, and who promised to attempt a new kind of politics with less name calling and more persuasion.  This approach may well be doomed but it appealed to me so on the day the result of the leadership election was announced I joined the Labour Party.  I have never been a member of any political party in my life but felt that I needed to make a statement.  I cannot claim to be much of an activist and I live in one of the few remaining Lib Dem constituencies but the Party has my support.

Why then was I so depressed when I discovered the result of this latest referendum.  Well my main point is that I believe strongly that it should never have even been held in the first place.  We have a Representative Democracy in Britain. Every five years (they slipped that one in under the radar, didn't they?) the political parties in this country each produce a manifesto and we, the electorate choose which one we prefer and vote accordingly.  In doing that we mandate the party who can command a majority in the House of Commons to make decisions on our behalf.  Any law that is passed must go through many stages and will be subject to scrutiny all the way through.  There is a problem in our current ruling party, The Conservative Party, and that problem is our relationship with the rest of Europe.  What brought the problem to a head was the emergence of UKIP and more specifically Farage as a potent political force. Who remembers that UKIP was once led by Robert Kilroy Silk, a man with a Donald Trump fake tan and all the charisma of a used wet-wipe?  Farage's UKIP won the European Elections in 2014 and scared the pants off the Tories because they were seen as a Tory breakaway group who would haemorrhage Tory votes. To counter this in his manifesto pledges before the 2015 General Election Cameron offered an in/out referendum before 2017 on our continuing membership of the EU. In the end the General Election played out in a slightly different way and it was the Labour Party who haemorrhaged votes, allowing the Conservatives to win an overall majority and triggering the referendum.  I suspect that Cameron was thinking that there was every chance of a hung parliament, and he might not have to fulfil all his election promises and having successfully kept Scotland part of the UK he was fairly confident that he could win this one should it come to that.  From this I consider that the referendum was nothing to do with Europe and everything to do with the Tory Party.  Bloody hell did David Cameron get that wrong.  Firstly he promised to negotiate a better deal for the UK, something he did in a rush.  He managed to get absolutely no concessions worth talking about.  Then he unleashed on the the British Public, the nastiest, most divisive campaign I can remember, if we ignore the London Mayoral Election which was arguably nastier but ultimately less divisive.  What he did when he gave the British Public the right to vote on our continuing membership was to give them/us power without responsibility.  The electorate had the power to completely change the future of Britain, yet they were not responsible either for sorting it out, or rebuilding afterwards.  We pay our elected politicians to make decisions like these.  This time they bottled out and we are left in what I feel is a very uncertain position. That is why I believe we should never have had a referendum at all. 

That might seem a tad undemocratic, but let's just think.  The total electorate in the UK is about 44.5 million.  The winning vote was 17.4 million or just under 40%.  However it can be argued that as these decisions are permanent that we should look at the total population as those too young to vote will have to live with the consequences long after I'm dead and gone.  The total population of the UK is put at about 65 million, but let's ignore say 5 million who are not permanent residents so that means that 29% of the population, all of whom are affected by this, decided on a course which is irreversible and potentially dangerous.  It is quite likely that if a referendum were held on the return of the death penalty it would be brought back.  Referenda are a relatively new phenomenon in British politics, and not one which I can support at all.  It remains to be seen what will happen.

By the way I have been wondering who Nigel Farge reminds me of.  For those of you who have read the books of Terry Pratchett I have to say that he really reminds me of CMOT Dibbler, hanging around like a bad smell, turning up at the drop of a hat and peddling very dodgy wares.  You might gather I don't like him very much.  There is too much of the whiff of the Bierkeller about him.