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| Advice from the 4 pot plants as PM May waits for EU decision on delaying Brexit |
As we trundle ever further into the mire of Brexitgate, I remain exasperated at the way the media conspires to breathe oxygen into the 'No Deal' or 'May Deal' activities despite their tangible lack of support. Even before the past week of parliamentary chaos, the latest YouGov survey of 19 March showed that 60% of those expressing a preference would vote to stay in the EU rather than accept PM May's deal and that 56% would support a People's Vote on the future relationship with the EU.
These figures are even higher than would be expected from some interesting research from the eminent psephologist, Peter Kelner. His calculations predicted that a majority of voters would be in favour of Remain at the start of 2019. This research assumed that there has been no change in the voting intentions of the electorate despite the government's disastrous handling of negotiations. However, in the three years since the 2016 referendum, 600,000 older people have died each year and 700,000 young people per annum have been enrolled on the electoral register. According to YouGov, 67% of older people voted for Brexit and 87% of young voters are in favour of remaining in the EU. Even allowing for the greater likelihood of older people turning out to vote, it still tips the balance in favour of remaining.
The naysayers of another referendum claim that opinion polls are not a true reflection of true voting. They also argue that a second vote with the real facts of a Brexit deal would be disrespectful to the voting public who have given their decision when true facts were hard to come by. Prime Minister May claims that a Peoples Vote on her deal against staying in the EU would be anti-democratic because they already have had their vote. Yet she is seeking a third vote for her deal because she badly lost the first two.
As I write this the UK Petition Parliament site had just over 5.1million signatures for 'Revoke Article 50 and Remain in the EU.' This has been the largest-ever e-petition to the UK Parliament. In contrast, the 'Leave the EU without a deal in March 2019' had just reached 10% of this total with 519,000 signatures.
Yesterday's demonstration for a 'Peoples Vote' attracted over a million demonstrators, the biggest demonstration since the Stop the Iraq War demonstration in 2003. PM Blair ignored this protest, which severely damaged his reputation and ultimately pushed him to resign. Meanwhile, the 'UKIP March to Leave the EU' from Sunderland to London has attracted less than a couple of hundred people and has all the appearance of a Ramblers outing. It is supposedly led by Nigel Farage, who is not marching but collecting his salary as a mainly absent member of the European Parliament. Yet both the People's Vote demonstration and the UKIP walk feature as the main items on news bulletins as if they were similar outpourings of democracy. That's typical of the 'politically balanced' reporting that we are constantly fed by the BBC. I would prefer our media to take a leaf from Jacinda Ardern's book and never utter the name of discredited purveyors of fake news. Farage would be there along with Johnson, Gove
The fundamental problem we have is that democracy is assumed by our elected representatives to be entirely a function of elections or referendums. The reality is that these are influenced by other factors such as personalities, events at the time, media coverage and assumptions rather than hard facts. The result of the Brexit referendum was heavily influenced by the lack of trust in PM Cameron, a belief that NHS spending may increase, the immigration crisis at Calais, anti-EU sentiment by the majority of newspapers, the view by the Labour leadership that the EU is a capitalist conspiracy and the BBC's determination to give equal weight to both sides in the debate. These factors all conspired to deliver Brexit.
The narrow 52% - 48% vote to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum is still being spouted by government spokespeople as the only democratic truth. Democracy is a far more subtle expression of the mood of its citizens that requires more positive and ongoing engagement with its citizens than the government and MPs from all parties have been prepared to facilitate. It is time to bring on a People's Vote as the only way that we can bring to an end this inglorious episode of political chicanery.
