I think we are about to have the most serious constitutional crisis since the Abdication of King Edward VIII. I suppose we had better try to enjoy it.
If – as I think we will – we vote to leave the EU on June 23, a democratically elected Parliament, which wants to stay, will confront a force as great as itself – a national vote, equally democratic, which wants to quit. Are we about to find out what actually happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?
PETER HITCHENS: The British people have risen at last - and we're about to unleash chaos
By Peter Hitchens for The Mail on Sunday
12 June 2016
Daily Mail
I think we are about to have the most serious constitutional crisis since the Abdication of King Edward VIII. I suppose we had better try to enjoy it.
If – as I think we will – we vote to leave the EU on June 23, a democratically elected Parliament, which wants to stay, will confront a force as great as itself – a national vote, equally democratic, which wants to quit. Are we about to find out what actually happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?
I am genuinely unsure how this will work out. I hope it will only destroy our two dead political parties, stiffened corpses that have long propped each other up with the aid of BBC endorsement and ill-gotten money.
I overestimated the Prime Minister – a difficult thing for me to do since my opinion of him was so low, writes Peter Hitchens
I was wrong to think that the EU referendum would be so hopelessly rigged that the campaign for independence was doomed to lose. I overestimated the Prime Minister – a difficult thing for me to do since my opinion of him was so low. I did not think he could possibly have promised this vote with so little thought, preparation or skill.
I underestimated the BBC, which has, perhaps thanks to years of justified and correct criticism from people such as me, taken its duty of impartiality seriously.
Everything I hear now suggests that the votes for Leave are piling up, while the Remain cause is faltering and floundering. The betrayed supporters of both major parties now feel free to take revenge on their smug and arrogant leaders.
It has been a mystery to me that these voters stayed loyal to organisations that repeatedly spat on them from a great height. Labour doesn’t love the poor. It loves the London elite. The Tories don’t love the country. They love only money. The referendum, in which the parties are split and uncertain, has freed us all from silly tribal loyalties and allowed us to vote instead according to reason. We can all vote against the heedless, arrogant snobs who inflicted mass immigration on the poor (while making sure they lived far from its consequences themselves). And nobody can call us ‘racists’ for doing so. That’s not to say that the voters are ignoring the actual issue of EU membership as a whole. As I have known for decades, this country has gained nothing from belonging to the European Union, and lost a great deal.
If Zambia can be independent, why cannot we? If membership is so good for us, why has it been accompanied by savage industrial and commercial decline? If the Brussels system of sclerotic, centralised bureaucracy is so good, why doesn’t anyone else in the world adopt it?
I think we are about to have the most serious constitutional crisis since the Abdication of King Edward VIII
As for the clueless drivel about independence campaigners being hostile to foreigners or narrow-minded, this is mere ignorant snobbery. I’ll take on any of them in a competition as to who has travelled most widely, in Europe and beyond it. Good heavens, I’ve even read Tolstoy and like listening to Beethoven. And I still want to leave the EU.
Do these people even know what they are saying when they call us ‘Little Englanders’?
England has never been more little than it is now, a subject province of someone else’s empire.
As for the clueless drivel about independence campaigners being hostile to foreigners or narrow-minded, this is mere ignorant snobbery. I’ll take on any of them in a competition as to who has travelled most widely, in Europe and beyond it
I have to say that this isn’t the way out I would have chosen, and that I hate referendums because I love our ancient Parliament. And, as I loathe anarchy and chaos, I fear the crisis that I think is coming.
I hope we produce people capable of handling it. I wouldn’t have started from here. But despite all this, it is still rather thrilling to see the British people stirring at last after a long, long sleep.
Read more: The British people have risen at last - and we're about to unleash chaos | Daily Mail Online
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If – as I think we will – we vote to leave the EU on June 23, a democratically elected Parliament, which wants to stay, will confront a force as great as itself – a national vote, equally democratic, which wants to quit. Are we about to find out what actually happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?
PETER HITCHENS: The British people have risen at last - and we're about to unleash chaos
By Peter Hitchens for The Mail on Sunday
12 June 2016
Daily Mail
I think we are about to have the most serious constitutional crisis since the Abdication of King Edward VIII. I suppose we had better try to enjoy it.
If – as I think we will – we vote to leave the EU on June 23, a democratically elected Parliament, which wants to stay, will confront a force as great as itself – a national vote, equally democratic, which wants to quit. Are we about to find out what actually happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?
I am genuinely unsure how this will work out. I hope it will only destroy our two dead political parties, stiffened corpses that have long propped each other up with the aid of BBC endorsement and ill-gotten money.
I overestimated the Prime Minister – a difficult thing for me to do since my opinion of him was so low, writes Peter Hitchens
I was wrong to think that the EU referendum would be so hopelessly rigged that the campaign for independence was doomed to lose. I overestimated the Prime Minister – a difficult thing for me to do since my opinion of him was so low. I did not think he could possibly have promised this vote with so little thought, preparation or skill.
I underestimated the BBC, which has, perhaps thanks to years of justified and correct criticism from people such as me, taken its duty of impartiality seriously.
Everything I hear now suggests that the votes for Leave are piling up, while the Remain cause is faltering and floundering. The betrayed supporters of both major parties now feel free to take revenge on their smug and arrogant leaders.
It has been a mystery to me that these voters stayed loyal to organisations that repeatedly spat on them from a great height. Labour doesn’t love the poor. It loves the London elite. The Tories don’t love the country. They love only money. The referendum, in which the parties are split and uncertain, has freed us all from silly tribal loyalties and allowed us to vote instead according to reason. We can all vote against the heedless, arrogant snobs who inflicted mass immigration on the poor (while making sure they lived far from its consequences themselves). And nobody can call us ‘racists’ for doing so. That’s not to say that the voters are ignoring the actual issue of EU membership as a whole. As I have known for decades, this country has gained nothing from belonging to the European Union, and lost a great deal.
If Zambia can be independent, why cannot we? If membership is so good for us, why has it been accompanied by savage industrial and commercial decline? If the Brussels system of sclerotic, centralised bureaucracy is so good, why doesn’t anyone else in the world adopt it?
I think we are about to have the most serious constitutional crisis since the Abdication of King Edward VIII
As for the clueless drivel about independence campaigners being hostile to foreigners or narrow-minded, this is mere ignorant snobbery. I’ll take on any of them in a competition as to who has travelled most widely, in Europe and beyond it. Good heavens, I’ve even read Tolstoy and like listening to Beethoven. And I still want to leave the EU.
Do these people even know what they are saying when they call us ‘Little Englanders’?
England has never been more little than it is now, a subject province of someone else’s empire.
As for the clueless drivel about independence campaigners being hostile to foreigners or narrow-minded, this is mere ignorant snobbery. I’ll take on any of them in a competition as to who has travelled most widely, in Europe and beyond it
I have to say that this isn’t the way out I would have chosen, and that I hate referendums because I love our ancient Parliament. And, as I loathe anarchy and chaos, I fear the crisis that I think is coming.
I hope we produce people capable of handling it. I wouldn’t have started from here. But despite all this, it is still rather thrilling to see the British people stirring at last after a long, long sleep.
Read more: The British people have risen at last - and we're about to unleash chaos | Daily Mail Online
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