‘Self-serving politicians more interested in looking after vested interests than their own constituents’ has long been a popular view of Members of Parliament. In most circumstances, I would say that it is unfair but we are going through the most remarkable spectacle where politicians, from all sides, trying to dismiss the decision the British people made when we decided to leave the European Union.
I campaigned and voted to leave the EU and believe that leaving means we take back control of our money, our borders, our laws and our trade. However, it is not just about those matters, important as they are, it is also about having a healthy democracy.
I believe you should know who the decision makers are and you should be able to hire or fire them.
How do you fire Jean Claude Junker? Which way would you vote in EU elections to radically change its policies? If you do not know the answer to that then it is clear that the EU is not democratic in any meaningful way.
Power within the EU is unaccountable since we cannot hire or fire the people at the top. This leads to politicians becoming out of touch and dismissive of the concerns of normal people. Yet, these are the politicians and structures that some British MPs what to keep us under.
Parliament gave you the vote, in the 2016 referendum, to decide whether you wanted to remain in the EU or leave and, by a majority of over one million people, we voted to leave. This shocked the establishment.
Despite this clear instruction from the British people, politicians are seeking many ingenious ways to keep us in the EU and now even breaking long standing rules governing procedure in the House of Commons. They are busy finding mechanisms to suspend Article 50 – the process of negotiating our way out of the EU – or even cancelling it all together.
They want to delay and delay our departure from the EU in the hope that they can delegitimise the referendum result. They want to say that 2016 was so long ago that it is no longer valid so we must have a second referendum. They will then stitch up the question to keep us in the EU.
The options given in a new referendum may well be: Remain; Leave on World Trade Organisation rules; Leave with the Prime Ministers Withdrawal Agreement. This could mean that the two ‘Leave’ options receive 33 percent of the vote each but remain wins because it gets 34 percent.
This referendum, the remainers would claim, is valid because it is ‘informed’ and people have been given the ‘right information’. They would completely ignore the reality that the vast majority voted for what they believed to be a leave option. There would not be another referendum because the EU would not allow it.
David Cameron, as Prime Minister, tried and failed to get the EU to reform. When we look at the health of the democracies in the EU nation states, it is miserable viewing. Politicians in southern Europe have not yet fixed their damaged economies and youth unemployment is sky high. France has weekly riots against the government. The politics of Germany is increasingly fractious and their economy may have now dipped into recession. Even Sweden, so often regarded as having a mature and sensible political system, have substantial problems as they have not been able to form a government since their general election on the 9th Sept last year.
As with many things, the British people are ahead of the politicians. People have seen the EU and the behaviour of its politicians over many years and want no part of it. I look, with horror, at the way British politicians continually seek to serve the interests of the EU rather than obey the instruction from the electorate.
In a healthy democracy, the people are in charge and the people decided to leave the EU. The coming weeks will be the grimmest in our politics for decades but I will be resolute in doing all I can to respect democracy and take us out of the EU on 29th March this year.
If politicians can pick and choose which votes to respect, then why bother voting?
