What is Brexit?
On the 23rd June 2016 the UK went to the polls in the EU referendum after a two month campaign.
The question was straight forward:
“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”
The answers were simple enough:
Remain a member of the European Union
Leave the Union European
On the 24th June people awoke to the news that the country had voted to leave the European Union by a clear majority.
Since then we have had three years of the media, academia, politicians and even business leaders telling the people that the result was so close that in some way it has almost has no validity and that they didn’t know what they voted for.
Lets talks about the result.
At the time of the referendum there were 46,500,001 registered voters in the UK of which 33,577,342 voters turned out (72%) and there was a clear majority of 1.79% or over 1.2 million people who voted to leave the EU.
That is the equivalent of more than the population of Birmingham or more than 2 x Manchester’s or 5 x Newcastles. But apparently this isn’t enough to define a clear majority or that it isn’t enough to be fair.
For another comparison the last two elections have been won with less than 3% difference in the vote share between the two major parties and yet no one has suggested they had less democratic potency but apparently the referendum is different.
Now about that campaign.
The campaign if you believe many was won by a bus and an overweight politician with bad hair.
I would beg to differ.
I believe leave won as the campaign offered the possibility of a new future for millions of people who didn’t feel they were being listened to, didn’t see themselves reflected in the media, didn’t feel they had a stake in the economy and frankly didn’t feel they had control over their lives.
This was reflected clear and inspiring campaign slogan ‘Take back control’.
Genius.
Looking through the plethora of documentation that litters the internet from Vote Leave (the official leave campaign) they were very clear about taking back control of all facets of national life including law making, trade and migration to name but a few.
Seems pretty clear to me.
Now remember the government of the time sent each household in the country a leaflet pushing remain as their preferred result which said:
“This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.“
What is going on in parliament is an effort to overturn the referendum by not only failing to deliver the prospectus of Vote Leave but also to bind any later governments to the deal that the parties are attempting to cook up.
If the reports in the Sunday papers are right then the idea is to permanently give up control over our national trade policy along with our environmental, worker and other laws to the EU with no say and no veto.
Yes our politicians are that stupid.
In my view the referendum result was clear and so was the leave campaigns prospectus, what is being considered by UK politicians is the very antithesis of what people wanted from the referendum.
That is why people are angry and they have every reason to be.
The question was straight forward:
“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”
The answers were simple enough:
Remain a member of the European Union
Leave the Union European
On the 24th June people awoke to the news that the country had voted to leave the European Union by a clear majority.
Since then we have had three years of the media, academia, politicians and even business leaders telling the people that the result was so close that in some way it has almost has no validity and that they didn’t know what they voted for.
Lets talks about the result.
At the time of the referendum there were 46,500,001 registered voters in the UK of which 33,577,342 voters turned out (72%) and there was a clear majority of 1.79% or over 1.2 million people who voted to leave the EU.
That is the equivalent of more than the population of Birmingham or more than 2 x Manchester’s or 5 x Newcastles. But apparently this isn’t enough to define a clear majority or that it isn’t enough to be fair.
For another comparison the last two elections have been won with less than 3% difference in the vote share between the two major parties and yet no one has suggested they had less democratic potency but apparently the referendum is different.
Now about that campaign.
The campaign if you believe many was won by a bus and an overweight politician with bad hair.
I would beg to differ.
I believe leave won as the campaign offered the possibility of a new future for millions of people who didn’t feel they were being listened to, didn’t see themselves reflected in the media, didn’t feel they had a stake in the economy and frankly didn’t feel they had control over their lives.
This was reflected clear and inspiring campaign slogan ‘Take back control’.
Genius.
Looking through the plethora of documentation that litters the internet from Vote Leave (the official leave campaign) they were very clear about taking back control of all facets of national life including law making, trade and migration to name but a few.
Seems pretty clear to me.
Now remember the government of the time sent each household in the country a leaflet pushing remain as their preferred result which said:
“This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.“
What is going on in parliament is an effort to overturn the referendum by not only failing to deliver the prospectus of Vote Leave but also to bind any later governments to the deal that the parties are attempting to cook up.
If the reports in the Sunday papers are right then the idea is to permanently give up control over our national trade policy along with our environmental, worker and other laws to the EU with no say and no veto.
Yes our politicians are that stupid.
In my view the referendum result was clear and so was the leave campaigns prospectus, what is being considered by UK politicians is the very antithesis of what people wanted from the referendum.
That is why people are angry and they have every reason to be.
Comments
Post a Comment