So many people seem baffled by why 52% of the UK electorate (on a high turn out) voted for
BREXIT, in spite of the *vast* range of powerful interests screaming for people to vote REMAIN. How powerful was PROJECT FEAR? Well it was pretty much the entire global establishment stating that the established order of things must not be upended, and snouts must be left undisturbed in the troughs to which they had become accustomed.
Of course there are many reasons why people vote for things, so I will just say why
I supported BREXIT, because it was very simple. Indeed there was only one reason, just one.
Accountable government. I do not care if it is 'representative', just as long as it is accountable. There *must* be some way to overturn what the powers-that-be have done, however they are constituted.
Yet if 100% of the sitting UK MEPs were voted out by the UK electorate in some political earthquake, the impact that would have on EU policies and regulation pertaining to the UK would be... very close to zero. The EU is a remote technocratic bureaucracy, it is not an accountable government. Personally I am in favour of open borders (but with no welfare) and completely free markets (I regard the EU's Common Agricultural Policy as nothing less that a way for politically connected First Worlders to keep farmers in the Third World poor). But the fact is, the EU does not represent accountable government, so any specific policy I object to (or indeed support, for there were policies I liked) is actually beside the point.
So I supported LEAVE.
I am one of the 52% and that is why. None of the other issues matter. Indeed left winger Tony Benn pointed this out perfectly in 1991, and I am about as far from him politically as it is possible to get. But he was correct.
www.samizdata.net/2016/06/tony…Mr. Benn : We are discussing whether the British people are to be allowed to elect those who make the laws under the which they are governed. The argument is nothing to do with whether we should get more maternity leave from Madame Papandreou than from Madame Thatcher. That is not the issue.
I recognise that, when the members of the three Front Benches agree, I am in a minority. My next job therefore is to explain to the people of Chesterfield what we have decided. I will say first, “My dear constituents, in future you will be governed by people whom you do not elect and cannot remove. I am sorry about it. They may give you better creches and shorter working hours but you cannot remove them.”
I know that it sounds negative but I have always thought it positive to say that the important thing about democracy is that we can remove without bloodshed the people who govern us. We can get rid of a Callaghan, a Wilson or even a right hon. Lady by internal processes. We can get rid of the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major). But that cannot be done in the structure that is proposed. Even if one likes the policies of the people in Europe, one cannot get rid of them.
Secondly, we say to my favourite friends, the Chartists and suffragettes, “All your struggles to get control of the ballot box were a waste of time. We shall be run in future by a few white persons, as in 1832.” The instrument, I might add, is the Royal Prerogative of treaty making. For the first time since 1649 the Crown makes the laws–advised, I admit, by the Prime Minister.
We must ask what will happen when people realise what we have done. We have had a marvellous debate about Europe, but none of us has discussed our relationship with the people who sent us here. Hon. Members have expressed views on Albania and the Baltic states. I have been dazzled by the knowledge of the continent of which we are all part. No one has spoken about how he or she got here and what we were sent here to do.
If people lose the power to sack their Government, one of several things happens. First, people may just slope off. Apathy could destroy democracy. When the turnout drops below 50 per cent., we are in danger.
Mr. Peter Hardy (Wentworth) : Like the United States.
Mr. Benn : As my hon. Friend says, in the United States turnouts are very low. That is partly caused by the scale of the country. The second thing that people can do is to riot. Riot is an old-fashioned method of drawing the attention of the Government to what is wrong. It is difficult for an elected person to admit it, but the riot at Strangeways produced some prison reforms. Riot has historically played a much larger part in British politics than we are ever allowed to know.
Thirdly, nationalism can arise. Instead of blaming the treaty of Rome, people say, “It is those Germans,” or, “It is the French.” Nationalism is built out of frustration that people feel when they cannot get their way through the ballot box. With nationalism comes repression. I hope that it is not pessimistic–in my view it is not–to say that democracy hangs by a thread in every country of the world. Unless we can offer people a peaceful route to the resolution of injustices through the ballot box, they will not listen to a House that has blocked off that route.