Moving the Goalposts

To be clear, I voted Remain, and I’m genuinely gutted by the result. I think it’s wrong and stupid, but a result is a result, and we just have to accept it.

3 million people have signed an irrelevant petition, that was created a month before the vote and made demands that would require the government to ignore the actual law, and is supported by people who never knew about it before the vote.

To summarize, the petition demands that for Britain to leave the EU, the referendum would have to show a 75% turnout and the Leave would have to register at least 60% of the total electorate. If not met, then it would need to be rerun until ……. something. So, there were 46 million people eligible to vote. This petition demanded that at least 34.5 million people vote, and that 27.6 million people vote for Leave, or on those two minimums, Leave would have to poll 80% of the vote.

FUCK OFF!

Let’s examine what’s wrong with this nonsense. First of all, why 75% turnout? How is that objectively the minimum turnout to say a vote is valid? Why not 60%? Why not 90%? What is the empirical reason for 75%? That 25% remainder is worth 11.5 million people. That’s a lot of voters who could alter the result. Surely that’s too many to ignore?

Secondly, why 60% of all voters? Why not 50% plus 1? After all, 50% plus one vote equals a majority, and 50% of the total electorate is 23 million people, or 66.6% of the minimum 75% turnout demanded. Why not guarantee a two-thirds majority of all voters, which would be 30.36 million voters, or 89.29% of the minimum 75% turnout? What’s the justification?

Thirdly, how is any of this legal? I’m no legal expert, but I’ve looked through the legislation and couldn’t find any reference to minimum turnout or percentages of electorate, nor have I heard it mentioned in any of the debates on TV, or read it in any articles, so I’m going to assume that it doesn’t exist. So what is the point?

This petition was created a month before the referendum, but a year after the legislation was passed. What did the creator expect to achieve? They should have raised this issue before the legislation went through parliament, trying to influence the debate before it was decided. Now what’s it worth? Nothing, that’s what.

Even if they had, how would that have been right? Imagine if the UK government had imposed such rules in the Scottish referendum? Would any of these people have considered that democratic? Would they have been happy to see a clear majority vote for Scottish independence but not get it because they were a few thousand short of some arbitrary threshold blatantly designed to maintain the status quo with some unreasonable criteria?

The hypocrisy is sensational. They cry about the result of a democratic process that they lost and look for any arbitrary get out they can think of. They make these demands and special majorities, yet when they discuss the results, they make arguments that run counter to their own narrative.

The main one is about the youth vote. They say that the young have been screwed over and that 72% of 18–24 year olds voted Remain. Good for them. What they fail to point out is that only 43% bothered to vote, which means that 72% of 43% is actually about 30% of the total electorate in that age group. I thought they were only interested in big, absolute majorities of 60% of the total? There wasn’t even a 60% turnout.

This is pathetic and should be treated with the sneering disdain that the liberal elite have given to anyone who chose to dissent. They lost, deal with it. Young people couldn’t be bothered to go out and vote, so old people haven’t screwed them over. They did it to themselves.

The vote is over and now it’s time to move on. I don’t care how many people signed the petition, or how many of them are eligible voters anyway. They have no legal or moral basis for demanding and second go. Now we just have to get on with it.