Dear Alistair
I didn't mean to offend you by trivialising something really important for you, and of historic importance. Believe me when I say that I am your fan, or admirer to put it in a more refined way.
You are very kind and I do not read what you write as in any way offensive or trivialising.
Now, about the core of your argument: It's democracy. Demos + cratos. Demos is the city, or in our days the people, and Cratos is the "power"... So, it's the "people" that have the "power". So they vote... like they did in Germany 1938 I think, and they elected Hitler... It was a bad choice for everyone in the world, but he was democratically elected. I never voted Tsipras/Syriza, and I critisize them every change I get, but, it's a democracy.
That voters make mistakes is a given, of course; you're quite right about that. "To err is himan", after all. However, once the voters of UK have elected a government, they pay their elected representatives in Parliament to act on their behalf as professional politicians and debate, vote on and pass and amend laws.
That's Parliamentary democracy in action.
OK, it's doesn't always work perfectly by any means (I have some specific examples of historic evidence of the fact that sometimes it doesn't, but I'll not bore you or anyone else with any of that here), but it does generally work OK otherwise the citizens of that democracy would eventually overthrow that system by means of a revolution which, so far, they've not done.
You appear to believe that throwing UK's EU continued membership to the wolves of a referendum is also democracy in action. What it is, however, is an attempted abnegation of responsibility on Parliament's part by passing the buck to those who voted its members in, as if to say to the electorate "you decide - we're passing on this one".
When due democratic Parliamentary process leads to the passing, amending or repealing of laws, that is of itself by nature and definition lawful; when Parliament instead says to the voters "we'll give you a referendum on this particular issue -
you decide for us and we'll implement what you vote for", it's not lawful because the result is advisory only, not mandatory on Parliament - and it is, after all, Parliament itself that decides that referenda results are non-mandatory! Can you not see the difference?
In a democracy the people can make a bad dessicion and then they have to pay/live with it. It's not their right as most people think, it's their obligation (according to Pericles - another ancient guy): he said that those who do not participate in the affairs of their state are not just useless for their city/nation/state etc., but harmfull to it and should be put to death!!! Now that's maybe a little too much, but in a democracy you HAVE to be informed about the matters of the state, and you have to be able to have an opinion, and you have to express your opinion, or you are not entitled/fit to have a democracy, and by Aristotele, you are born a slave and should leave others make the dessicions for you...
Good points but not quite right in terms of persent-day democratic process in UK, as I've illustrated/questioned above; yes, of course it's important for voters to be as well-informed as possible, although to be up to the mark on something of such overwhelming significance and complexity as this is a very big ask indeed, especially to the extent that it presumes the ability to distinguish truths from speculation, misinformation and the rest.
The point about voters needing and being entitled to have opinions about "matters of state" in UK is that they form and then depend upon those opinions when choosing whom to elect in order that those whom they elect may govern; non-mandatory referenda are quite different, in that the voters have to put to one side those for whom they've voted to respresent them and instead do the job themselves.
Therein lies the fundamental difference, the customary practice and process being conducted by elected professionals as against the non-mandatory referendum being conducted - or at least decided - by the amateurs. If due Parliamentary process is good enough and deemed democratic enough for almost all other lawmaking activity, for what conceivable reason should a decision on whether or not UK remains an EU member state be treated as such a glaring exception to that rule?
So, English people made that decision (and I'm really not happy about it). But it is their right. Excuses do not matter (like oh, I voted for brexit because I didn't think that brexit would really win or oh, I was missinformed/misslead...). They are adults.
That's another point;
English people voted, albeit by a very small majority, for Brexit;
Welsh ones did so by an even smaller majority,
NI didn't and
Scotland really didn't; in fact, the Scottish and NI majorities for Remain were considerably larger than England's and Wales's majorities for Brexit. What does that tell you about the extent to which UK is any longer a "united kingdom"?
Moreover, all major cities in all four countries in UK voted Remain (except Birmingham, which almost did) whereas quite a few other other areas didn't; what does that tell you about divisions between city dwellers and others?
There are other divisions that the voting has revealed but I'll not go into them here; suffice it to say that the referendum's exposition of a variety of such divisions can only serve to undermine the strength of UK as a whole, even assuming that it remains constituted as it is now.
This is a really complex issue, a million things come to mind like Germany, Syriza, Britain's policy, British people's mindset that they are not really part of the continent, their memory of "past days of glory" when they ruled the globe, banking systems, financial systems, Uk's parties and their agendas, people's feelings and their biased jugment based on feelings and not on rational dessicion making, philoshophical issues, Germany's mindset (they like to rule), France and Lepain, Tsipras and Varoufakis, diplomacy, EU's treaties and legal issues (like if article 50 is activated then there is a 2 year time frame for Uk to leave the EU and Germans like they did with Greece will stall the negotiation for 1year and 11 months so that they will preassure UK to settle the way they want)...
Excellent points all - and yet UK voters are seemingly supposed by Parliament to be capable of sorting it all out in their own minds and making an educated, informed and pragmatic decision on it rather than leaving it to the elected professionals when even they'd find it immensely difficult!
It's a mess... A 1000 page book can be written about it and still it will not be enough to explain this or predict what will come of it. But, in the end, all that remains is Democracy. It's not easy to be in charge of your fate. If you want to be, you can't go voting on something like this because some guy told you "hey Turkey will be accepted in the EU and they will migrate here by the millions"... it's not gonna happen... Greece will veto this, and Germany has vetoed it in the past - noone wants them in as full members!
That's right. The referendum was included by only
one UK political party in its election manifesto so, had it lost the election, there'd have
been no referendum - is that "democracy in action"?
Well before it did so, however, another party, UKIP - never prepared merely to speak when shouting will do - made a big issue about the 26th and 27th nations to join EU - Bulgaria and Romania - by claiming that more people than even inhabit those countries would all be coming to UK. It didn't happen, of course, but it was an effective advance illustration of the kind of scaremongering and misinformaton that was later to come to infect the referendum.
The extent to which this rash claim could be regarded as "democratic" might be deduced from the fact that the party concerned had - and indeed still has - just one MP out of the 650 in Parliament.
A joke at the time was a variation on an already well-worn theme: "here they all come, taking jobs away from the Poles"...
But it's democracy. End of it!
Well, I fondly hope that it would not be - or lead to - the "end" of "democracy" - but no, what hs happened of late is illustrative at best of a kind of pick'n'mix approach to democratic process in which, in effect, Parliament says "you deal with this issue, voters - we'll deal with all the others"; that, to me, amends the spelling of the term into "de-mock-racy".
If you don't like it vote for an "enlightened" dictator to make the decisions for your county. Or migrate to another country. Or let it go...
The least that one has a right to expect of democratic practice is a degree of consistency in its application; this is what Parliament has "let go" in this instance. I take a broadly similar view of what I hope will turn out to be the only Scottish referendum on independence from UK; Scotland has a Parliament, so (never mind the result) why didn't
it decide?
As for emigrating, I might be able to do that - or rather find myself having had it done for me - should Scotland hold a second referendum and decide to leave UK; if it does that and I still live in England, I will try to apply for joint Scottish / UK citizenship in order to remain an EU citizen, but I will nevertheless become a foreigner in England as a consequence of Scotland's secession.
For all the shortcomings of referenda, if Scotland's determined to remain within EU and can achieve that by holding a referendum, becoming independent of UK and applying successfully for EU membership in its own right (OK, that's a lot of "ifs"), that would effectively answer back those who rant on about "the will of the people" in the EU referendum bu saying, "sorry, mate - it's not the will of the majority of the
Scottish people, so we're outta here!".
Many thanks for your considered and eloquently expressed thoughts here. Rather than being dogmatic about the issue, I am very interested in it and deeply concerned with what UK might look set to throw away. I'm not even saying "I support Remain and I am right"; I merely present my concerns and, at times, those of others by means of links. The most important aspect of all of this is to try to ensure that discussion remains civilised at all times rather than descending into the demi-monde of "ya-boo-sucks" argument.
Best,
Alistair