Democracy is hanging by a thread in this country

Blackleaf

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Oct 9, 2004
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Democracy is hanging by a thread in this country. At the start of this year, if someone had told you that in eight months’ time there would be open calls for the thwarting of the people’s will, and marches demanding the crushing of public opinion, you’d probably have scoffed. ‘This isn’t some anti-democratic backwater, it’s Britain!’, you’d have said. Yet now, these things are happening, all the time. Angry Brexit-bashers, those politicos and experts and activists furious at the masses for having the temerity to reject the EU, have helped make anti-democracy fashionable again, for the first time in decades. It’s a fashion we cannot let stand...

Coffee House

Democracy is hanging by a thread in this country


Brendan O'Neill




Thousands of people take to the streets in a series of 'March for Europe' rallies in protest against the Brexit vote (Photo: Getty)


Brendan O'Neill
6 September 2016
The Spectator

Democracy is hanging by a thread in this country. At the start of this year, if someone had told you that in eight months’ time there would be open calls for the thwarting of the people’s will, and marches demanding the crushing of public opinion, you’d probably have scoffed. ‘This isn’t some anti-democratic backwater, it’s Britain!’, you’d have said. Yet now, these things are happening, all the time. Angry Brexit-bashers, those politicos and experts and activists furious at the masses for having the temerity to reject the EU, have helped make anti-democracy fashionable again, for the first time in decades. It’s a fashion we cannot let stand.

Over the past couple of weeks alone, we’ve seen loads of unabashed attempts to stymie and even destroy the 17m-strong public call to leave the EU. On Saturday, the middle-class campaigners behind March for Europe — whose shocking stated aim is to ‘ultimately defeat [Brexit] altogether’ — mournfully took to the streets again. They called on MPs to vote on Brexit, and to vote it down. That is: clever people, please override stupid people. ‘Parliamentary democracy please, not mob rule’, as one of their placards on Saturday said. Oh the irony of a mob of Guardianistas trying to overturn the say-so of 17.4m people while wailing about ‘mob rule’. Mote, beams, eyes.

Yesterday, MPs debated the possibility of a second referendum, after 4.4m people signed a petition calling for one. (That’s a quarter of the number who voted to leave the EU. And where the votes to leave the EU were all legit, a lot of the petition signatures were not.) David Lammy, who has become chief anti-democrat of the Brexit era, led yesterday’s charge for another referendum. Shortly after the referendum, he called on his fellow politicians to ‘stop this madness’, by which he meant the people’s warped will. Yesterday he said the referendum was only ‘advisory’, and its advice should be ignored. Total BS, of course, as anyone who received the government’s literature on the referendum will know: those leaflets told us ‘This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.’

Caroline Lucas (co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales) also wants a second referendum. As does Owen Smith. When a Brexit deal is finally hammered out, ‘we should give [the public] another chance’, he says. Another chance not to be so thick, another chance to tick the box their betters tell them to tick. Tim Farron says the Lib Dems will from now on run on a ticket of ‘halting’ Brexit, code for blocking the wishes of 17.4m people, the largest democratic mandate in British history. Tony Blair, meanwhile, has recovered his popularity with the chattering class by saying Brexit might not mean Brexit and people should be invited to change their minds. Then there’s Common Ground, a painfully posh outfit that describes itself as a ‘progressive, liberal movement’. Someone buy these muppets a dictionary. There’s nothing progressive or liberal about wanting to ‘reverse… June’s flawed vote’, as a founder of Common Ground outlined this week. In fact I’m pretty sure plotting to block the people’s will is the opposite of progressive and liberal.

This is the political class lined up against the demos. And much of the liberal media is joining it. ‘Five reasons why the UK must ignore vote’, said a headline to a recent piece by media darling AC Grayling. The ‘folly of Brexit’ must be ‘reversed’, says one-time liberal turned curser of democracy Grayling, because the Leave mob was driven by ‘demagoguery and sentiment’. The dumb, emotionally incontinent masses: the go-to prejudice of every anti-democrat in history. Hacks have chastised the masses for behaving as less then human: it was ‘the frightened, parochial lizard-brain of Britain’ that voted Leave, says Laurie Penny. And they have the gall to call us bigots. And then there’s my favourite headline of the whole Brexit era, and possibly of all time: it was in the Guardian and said, ‘Why elections are bad for democracy’. These people taking leave of their senses.

And the worst of it is this: they’re dolling up their loathing for the demos as democratic. The reason we want parliament to decide is because we love parliamentary democracy, they say. (Making you wonder why they’re so pro-EU, given its dilution of parliamentary democracy.) The reason we want a second referendum is to give people another say, another go, more democracy, they chirp. ‘We the people should continue to have our say’, says Caroline Lucas. Do not buy this. For a second. It’s the greatest political swindle. They’re using the language of democracy to the highly undemocratic end of smashing what the democratic majority has demanded. Making us vote against it isn’t ‘more democracy’, any more than putting someone on trial again and again for the same crime is ‘more justice’. It’s persecution.

As I say, democracy is hanging by a thread. The right of people to shape their nation is being explicitly called into question. The very capacity of people to understand political affairs and make a rational choice is being talked down as a fantasy. This is the most serious crisis of democracy I can remember. We must defend Brexit, because in defending Brexit we’re defending something far more important in the historic scheme of things: the hard fought-for principle that everyone should have an equal say in a democracy, and that the people’s will ought to be sovereign.

Democracy is hanging by a thread in this country | Coffee House

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David Lammy takes centre stage at the debate against democracy

Katy Balls






Katy Balls
5 September 2016
The Spectator

In the EU referendum, Brexit triumphed after 17 million people plumped for Leave while 16 million voted for Remain. This act of democracy was not enough to satisfy some, however, with four million people subsequently signing a petition calling for a second referendum. As a result, a number of MPs spent their first day back from recess debating the motion.

While David Davis set out the agenda for Brexit in the Chamber, the SNP’s Ian Blackford opened the debate in Westminster Hall. He said that the government’s ‘irresponsible’ behaviour was evident by the fact that all the public have been told is that ‘Brexit means Brexit’. So, what should Brexit mean? Blackford appeared to imply that it means breakfast. Getting his words jumbled, he accused Theresa May of ploughing ahead with a ‘hard breakfast’ before correcting himself. In fact, very few words emitted from Blackford’s mouth had their desired effect. After he failed to talk about the petition — instead using his speech to complain that the people of Scotland had been misled — Blackford was blocked from talking by James Gray, the chairman

Next up was David Lammy who at least had more luck staying on point. Lammy said that the uncertainty following Brexit was not good for the country — arguing that MPs should decide whether to vote it through or the public be given a second vote. Discarding the result in June, the chief Remain-er said it was important to note that the referendum was a ‘non-binding advisory referendum’. Its only purpose — he argued — was to get advice from the public on the issue. Now that ‘advice’ is in, Lammy said there was no need to actually listen to it:
‘It was advice to hear what the people say, but it was not binding, it was not two thirds, it was not a quadruple lock, all nations agreeing. It was a non-binding advisory referendum.’
Adding to the chorus of Remania, Tom Brake — the Lib Dem MP — called for a second referendum after the government have a Brexit package. Labour’s Rupa Huq conceded that ‘you can’t rerun a football match’ if you don’t like the score. However, she then explained that there was no parallel between football and Brexit — adding that referendums are actually quite ‘unBritish’. It remains unclear why a vote where everyone has an equal say regardless of class or wealth is not befitting to Britain.

As the session neared its end, the debate closer resembled a group therapy session for disgruntled Remain-ers than a progressive Brexit discussion. If these MPs really care so much about the future, their time could have been better spent holding Davis to account in the Chamber rather than crying foul over the will of the public.

David Lammy takes centre stage at the debate against democracy | Coffee House
 
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Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
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This is crazy. I hope that Brexit proceeds as the will of the people. I personally support it.

Oh, it'll succeed. No doubt about that.

Theresa May may have been in the Remain camp during the referendum but that was because she thought it would help further her ambitions to become PM (ironically, she ended up becoming PM after a Leave vote). But she is, and has been for many years, a Eurosceptic. And she knows that if she delivers Brexit well, she'll be rewarded by a massive landslide victory in the next general election on Thursday 7th May 2020.
 

taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
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No surprise. There are a lot of socialists in Britain and they oppose democracy. Then there are a lot of people that have a financial interest in keeping things the way they are.
 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
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No surprise. There are a lot of socialists in Britain and they oppose democracy. Then there are a lot of people that have a financial interest in keeping things the way they are.

They oppose democracy because they know that it's likely that most people won't vote for their whacky leftie socialist policies and ideas. That's why they oppose democracy. They need to ban democracy to get their policies through.

Some Remainers are decent people - probably most of them are - but there are a hell of a lot of them (usually middle class London-types) who think only they should be able to vote in elections and that the thick, unwashed masses, the little people and those "horrid, working class Northerners" should never be allowed in a polling station.

After the vote, many Remainers took to discussion forums and social media pointing out how Remainers are "more highly educated" than Brexiteers and that they have doctors and nurses amongst their ranks whereas "thick Brexiteers" are dustbin men or unskilled labourers or cleaners, as though a doctor knows a lot more about the intricate workings of the EU than a cleaner.
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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Nobody wants a direct democracy.

That's why we have a representative one.
 

PoliticalNick

The Troll Bashing Troll
Mar 8, 2011
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Nobody wants a direct democracy.

That's why we have a representative one.

No we don't. Representative implies they represent the will of the constituents which they don't. What we have is a farce where elected officials have absolutely no obligation to do anything even close to the will of the people and in fact usually follow an agenda detrimental to the majority. I would love to have a direct democracy and in this technological age it is what we should be able to easily accomplish.
 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
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No we don't. Representative implies they represent the will of the constituents which they don't. What we have is a farce where elected officials have absolutely no obligation to do anything even close to the will of the people and in fact usually follow an agenda detrimental to the majority. I would love to have a direct democracy and in this technological age it is what we should be able to easily accomplish.

I agree.
 

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
39,817
471
83
No we don't. Representative implies they represent the will of the constituents which they don't. What we have is a farce where elected officials have absolutely no obligation to do anything even close to the will of the people and in fact usually follow an agenda detrimental to the majority. I would love to have a direct democracy and in this technological age it is what we should be able to easily accomplish.

Nope.

Bad idea.

No matter how poorly they represent us, if we had a direct democracy we wouldn't even be able to coordinate it properly unless we created some organisation or committee.

In other words, it would be self defeating.
 

PoliticalNick

The Troll Bashing Troll
Mar 8, 2011
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Edson, AB
Nope.

Bad idea.

No matter how poorly they represent us, if we had a direct democracy we wouldn't even be able to coordinate it properly unless we created some organisation or committee.

In other words, it would be self defeating.

You mean like Elections Canada. We would save so much in costs of MPs and all their support staff and expenses we could easily fund the team needed to administer such a plan. We already have Service Canada in most communities. Adding an extra body or 2 in each office would cost far less than 1 MPs pension & benefits.

Save us tens of millions a year at least and give us actual input and control. I can see how that would be bad for you but for the rest of us it would be great.