‘YOU LOST, GET OVER IT’
‘SNOWFLAKES’
‘LOSERS’
‘WE NEED TO FIGHT BACK’
‘WE’VE GOT TO BE PREPARED TO REBEL’
Comments like these are not helping the country at all. We’re divided and we need leaderships to bring us together despite our differences of opinion about whether we’re better in or out of the EU.
The result of the 2016 referendum was so close. Any club, institution, board, company, society or charity looking to make such a decisive change to their constitution would not have countenanced such a change with no clear mandate.
The margin of error is polling is 3% – it is not beyond the wit of the referendum counters to have made this mistake in their counting. In every General Election, when votes are contested the recounts almost always bring up different figures. This happened in 1997 in Winchester and a re-run of the ballot was held in October that year.
Also, Farage himself pointed out before the referendum that if the result was 52-48, it would not be over and he would launch a campaign for a new referendum. Which he hasn’t because he’s claiming a victory.
But more crucially, the referendum asked if we wanted to leave the EU. It made it clear that before we actually left (triggered Article 50) we would have the deal in place, and everyone – EU and UK – would know what we were getting ourselves into.
That hasn’t happened.
Article 50 was triggered first, creating an unnecessary countdown clock. When you have David Davis turning up unprepared to negotiations expecting it to be the easiest in history because we hold all the cards, well, you’re on a hiding to nothing.
Then we had an unnecessary General Election which left the country in limbo because no one party won.
Theresa May did not win a mandate from the country to enact her manifesto (nor did Jeremy Corbyn for that matter) hence a hung Parliament.
She has carried on as if she did thanks to her ‘magic money tree’ buying a supply and confidence partner in the form of the DUP – a Brexit-backing party from Northern Ireland, a country that voted to Remain.
The Government’s own research has made it clear that No Deal would be catastrophic. May’s Deal leaves a massive problem with Northern Ireland that no one can solve without breaking up the UK or keeping the UK in the single market.
Parliament has turned down May’s Deal twice – it would have been three times had she held the original vote before Christmas as she originally promised. It’s been turned down because it’s not good enough.
With the clock nearly run out, with no agreement on any side about what would be acceptable we have a nonsense. Which is why Brexiters are often called Unicorn chasers.
Another way of looking at it is this: If you were getting a divorce, you’d try and make all the arrangements as to who gets which bit of furniture amicably and sensibly before heading to court to have the marriage annulled. You wouldn’t go to the court first and then try and figure out who gets the sofa, the cutlery or pay for the vet’s bills going forward. The deal is done and then taken to the courts.
I can’t speak for all Remainers, but I suspect that had we been leaving the EU with a clear vision, a clear and fair deal and a pathway to the future, led by leaders who have vigour, candour, wit and wisdom, people would be fine with it.
Instead we’ve got a pig’s ear which is going to impoverish our nation in so many ways and, if Jacob Rees Mogg is correct, for at least 50 years. That’s not just my children’s future but their children too. And possibly my great-grandchildren.
As a result of all this, we have a bitterly fractured and divided country.
We have no leadership looking to soothe the wounds – instead we’ve got Nigel Farage posting incendiary videos calling on people to fight back and that if the powers that be ‘betray Brexit’ ‘we will not sit idly by’ and ‘we’ve gotta be prepared to rebel’.
https://twitter.com/LeaveMnsLeave/status/1107720609625239558
Yesterday, Sir John Redwood unwisely said that Parliament was ‘at war’ with the British people (he has since tweaked the wording to say a ‘virtual war’).
The words being chosen here matter – the same as when insults such as ‘loser’ and ‘snowflake’, are banded about .
They do not soothe, they do not look to bring the country together, they do not look to unite.
They are deliberately chosen to provoke: to stir agitators into action and make those who criticise their views appear to be weak, cowardly or deceptive.
These harsh words, this calling people losers and snowflakes, demeans us all.
We’re better than this.
So please stop the vitriol, it’s not helping anyone.
