To Re-referendum or Not?

Firstly I’ll lay my cards on the table, as I have in other posts, I supported “remain”, but I was grateful of the opportunity of a referendum as it shows what a great democracy we live in.

I was critical of both campaigns when they were going on, I thought both of them strayed from the truth, “leave” more so than “remain”, with many of their biggest statements being outright lies, but I also criticised the quality of the “remain” campaign because I believed there were better truths they could have focused on when they insisted on getting drawn into cheap squabbles. I was massively disappointed when the country voted to leave the EU, but in my opinion we live in a democracy, the people voted, and you have to respect the result.

Since the vote “leave” have seriously rowed-back on some of their major points, the £350m to the NHS being the main one, a preposterous suggestion initially, but one that many people were taken in by. When the notion of a re-referendum was first mentioned by some people my initial thought was “definitely no”, the people have spoken, we must abide by the decision, but then you listen to who is suggesting it. It isn’t the “remain” voters who are saying the vote should be re-run, it’s predominantly “leave” voters who are either experiencing “buyers remorse”, or they’ve realised they were “sold a pup” by Farage, Gove, Boris and the rest of “leave”. Time and again I’m hearing soundbites from people saying “I voted leave because I was scared, now I’m petrified”, and “I voted leave because they said they’d sort out the NHS” etc etc.

The only justification for a re-referendum, as I see it, would be if the people who voted “leave” were misled, and misled in such a way that it tarnishes the result of the initial vote. The only way to decide that would be to ask everyone who voted leave, and that isn’t possible.

The whole process of the referendum engaged the public in a way that politics hasn’t managed to do in many years, sadly it has shown politicians in a light where they have lived up to the stereotypical view of them being out of touch silver-spoon establishment types who will say whatever needs to be said to get their own way.

I don’t think we can have a re-referendum, but politics in the UK needs shaking up in a massive way, and hopefully this will act as a catalyst to this beginning to happen.

Phil.